Uncategorized Immediate Future

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With the darker nights and Christmas programming on the horizon, TV takes a more central role in our UK media consumption. Last year, research showed that Christmas TV viewing was dominated by the TV set. But TV isn’t a channel alone anymore. Social sits hand in glove…

Is it because the vast majority of Snapchatters are between 18 and 24? Is it because their content creation processes often require going through a lengthy approval path? Or maybe it’s the lack of analytics on the platform and tools to measure a campaign’s ROI? Whatever their reasons, most travel…

I guess the obvious thing to state is that almost everyone uses social media today, and that includes a huge and ever increasing number of businesses using social media as (in some case, the main element), of their marketing activity. But for those that haven’t jumped on board with social…

Are you finding that your organic reach on Facebook isn’t quite what it used to be? You’d be right. Did you know that only 2% of your page’s fans actually see your content? Facebook’s algorithms and preferential treatments have long been something that social media marketers have…

From Snapchat’s Spectacles to the Amazon Dash Button, 2016 has seen a heavy focus from brands and advertisers on integrating digital and physical. This was also adopted in the marketing sphere, and several of the most notable campaigns this year came from ideas that found a way to use digital…

Snap Inc., the maker of Snapchat, has confidentially filed for its IPO, according to a report from Reuters and word on the grape vine is the company could go public as early as March. So what does the future look like for Snapchat once it goes public? Will it be…

Social media has long been credited for finally giving brands a voice. It also means that brands can be totally open and honest with their customers and audiences. Unfortunately, this means that brands are a lot more accessible than previously, leading to social pages often being used as a customer…

Have you noticed how the Internet always agrees with you and seems to know what you like? Eli Pariser was the first to describe the filter bubble phenomena in his book “The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You” (2011). According to him “a filter bubble is the…

Live social is an art. For some it comes naturally. Those with a flair for creating content on the fly and sharing their lives moment-by-moment will certainly have an advantage when it comes to live-posting at an event. However, without a deeper understanding of your client’s brand, the key messages…

Reaching the elusive teen demographic (defined here as those aged 16-19) can be a pretty challenging task – just ask Facebook. After having it’s $3bn bid for Snapchat declined in 2013, Zuckerberg & Co. have had to find new and innovative ways of maintaining the attention of these young networkers.

Influencers are all the rage these days – whether it’s a YouTube star, an Instagram model, or a renowned blogger, majority of brands are or would like to work with one. We have worked with a few of them and while the number on their subscription bar might be impressive,…

Social media agencies who promise viral success are not being very honest with you. And indeed, investing large sums of money in a project that you’re confident will ‘go viral’ is wishful thinking at best. Don’t get me wrong, success as a result of a viral hit is totally worth…

First things first: content creation for the sake of content creation is a waste of everyone’s time. Yours. Your audience’s. Even Google’s. Don’t do it. That being said, there are times when the content deserves to be written but the inspiration isn’t there – particularly when it comes to social,…

Chasing vanity metrics such as likes and followers is pointless (given most of the algorithms on social don’t favour organic posts). But losing followers is still bad. It’s a sign that maybe you’re turning people off your brand. Take a deep dive into your losses and you’ll uncover insight that…

2016 has been dramatic for a lot of reasons. However, in the social media industry we’ve had our own upheavals. This year has seen unprecedented change in the top social networking sites, something that a few people could have predicted. Having previously been on the consumer side of social networking,…

Everyone knows that marketing planning for the holidays should be finished long before October rolls around and be ready to roll out as soon as the Halloween decorations come down. However, for those who didn’t plan their Christmas campaigns in July as they should have here are some useful last…

1. Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential This book is one of ma favourites and I cannot recommend it enough. Whether you are just starting your career or you manage a team of 50 people, this book will make your rethink how you think about yourself and…

Today many companies are using social media tactically by posting updates to Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ or Twitter, but few have a social media strategy which helps them use social media to support their business goals. Social media works best when it’s part of an integrated E-communications strategy…

As marketers, there is nothing we like more than to sink our teeth into some meaty stats in an effort to satiate our appetite for evaluation, understanding and improvement. Also, they make us sound smart. And like we know what we are talking about which, in an industry that is…

Storytelling has been a hot topic for some time now, and rightly so. The brands (and their channels) that have the best storytelling content enjoy greater reach, engagement and conversion to spend. At IF, we’ve championed our audience-first approach for more than two years now; and we have the…

There seems to be a new form of digital marketing dying every week, according to the internet – the latest victim apparently being influencer marketing. It’s not, of course (sorry, spoilers), it’s simply running into the issue that all organic-feeling mediums face when crossing into the mainstream as a legitimate…

It’s a standout content, right?! Video that auto-plays in a customers’ social feed will draw their attention. Well, yes and yes. It goes much further than this though. Regular readers of our blog will know we advocate the ‘half scientist and half artist’ approach to marketing. Some will say: that’s…

It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and a video is basically lots of pictures, right? Every social platform has it’s own video content processes and rules, many of which are prone to change at the drop of a hat, effecting metrics and stats across the…

Facebook is testing removing “Page Likes” but before you start panicking, let’s look at the pros and cons of this possible reality. PROS: Page Likes are slightly different from what they used to be in the good old days when Facebook’s organic reach was considerably higher than current…

As a business, have you ever asked the question “Why are we struggling to make social media work for us?” or “Do we have the right social media strategy for our business?” If the answer to both questions is No, then you’re not alone as the real challenge of social…

For a lot of brands, having a YouTube channel as part of a social media strategy may seem as if it’s not worth the hassle. For one thing, making good quality long-form videos is certainly on the expensive side of the content creation spectrum. Also, there are 300 hours uploaded…

Whether you’re an X Factor fan or one of their many haters, there is a lot learn from the social media published by prime time television shows. For disclosure, I should say we’re working across X Factor this year, through one of their sponsors; but this is not a rally…

The quality of Periscope’s live streams is about to skyrocket thanks to the launch of Periscope Producer. It’s a bold leap forward for the Twitter-owned live-streaming platform which, until now, broadcast content exclusively shot on mobile devices. Periscope Producer allows content creators to stream highly polished video…

We have been banging the audience-first drum relentlessly for the last few years. Why? Because it is the best way to deliver results in social. More recently I discussed the merits of micro-targeting in social media: finely slicing your customer segments to ensure you can deliver relevancy at scale.

Every social platform supports and encourages the use of emojis, but how and when should they be used in social marketing? The entire purpose and origin of emojis was to replace words, convey an emotion and shorten a message at the same time, a relic of the SMS generation. While…

Social media has been revolutionary in not only brands giving brands a direct relationship with their current and potential customers, but for providing brands with a personality. In previous years, social media was used as simply another platform for advertising the benefits and uses of a product or service. Brands…

Planning events? Opening a pub? Going for a charity run? Then Facebook might have made your life easier with its new release: a standalone app for Facebook Events! And you are not alone. Facebook claims that over 100 million people use Facebook events every day, which is a number that…

Once upon a time, when social was still in its infancy, advertisers who were innovative enough to take the risk of plunging into the social media ‘trend’ were rewarded by establishing themselves as the first brands to truly embrace direct online relationships with their customers. Back in a simpler time,…

It’s no secret that Mark Zuckerberg is trying his hardest to tap into developing world markets. In 2015 Mark hosted a town hall, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to talk about Facebook’s ‘Internet.org’ program now named Free Basics. A year on from that meeting and India regulators banned the…

Facebook says that there are already 450 million people visiting ‘buy and sell’ groups on Facebook each month. So it’s no wonder that they’ve just launched a new feature called Facebook Marketplace. Facebook Marketplace allows people nearby to view what others are buying and selling. This new feature puts Facebook…

For years, LinkedIn stood alone as the prime channel for B2B businesses pushing Paid models to drive attributed leads in funnel. The ability to serve targeted content to specific industry, company and job function has been appealing. Understandably so. The landscape has changed and I believe it will continue to…

While it is traditionally used in the office as a way to avoid work, Facebook might be about to change all that. Many companies use an internal communication tool such as Slack, Yammer, HipChat or Asana to assist in project management and team collaboration and so…

It is quite hard to find an individual who has not heard of or does not use any of the popular social media platforms of the day, and the same thing can be said about most businesses. No matter what your company sells it needs to harness the power and…

It wasn’t too long ago that TV advertising was blasted as a dying marketing tool (tell that to the media organisers of the US Super Bowl who charged up to $5 million for a 30 second ad this year!). There are just under 700 channels on an average cable service…

Instagram ads made an appearance in 2015, the update enabled advertisers to post ads with the aim of driving clicks, mobile app installs and website conversions. Instagram’s latest update will help us advertisers turn intent into action by increasing the number of ways users can interact with ad content. Through…

Back in 2006, the quickest way to grow your audience on YouTube was to have your video make it on the home page of the site. In those early days of YouTube, an actual human was curating the content that made it on to the home page (crazy,…

Following the recent trend of all social messaging apps becoming clones of Snapchat, Whatsapp appear to have jumped on the band wagon. When Instagram launched “Stories” at the beginning of August it didn’t go unnoticed that emulating Snapchat was becoming very fashionable amongst social messaging apps, mimicking features such…

The Science Of Social Media A brand new podcast by the lovely people at Buffer. The first few episodes are packed with amazing interviews, advice, and fun content that will make your morning commute or afternoon walk a lot more enjoyable and productive. The interview with John Yembrick,…

Shouldn’t we be innovating? Shouldn’t we explore the next big thing for our industry? Shouldn’t we consider how to be first-movers in new areas? Shouldn’t we determine if new tech can help us to acquire market share? Yes. Yes. Yes, and yes. Few businesses actually have the required resources (and…

Many would argue that YouTube has been a social network of sorts from the get-go. Users have the ability to subscribe to certain channels (ie. follow), like, unlike or comment on certain videos (ie. engage) and share those videos with a wider audience. However, the channel was…

Since Snapchat’s conception in 2011, we’ve seen its meteoric rise to become one of the most used social networks in the world. The network currently boasts over 100 million daily active users along with 400 million snaps per day being sent all over the globe. For an app that only came…

According to Campaign Live, a fifth of top brands’ social media accounts are ‘fraudulent’. It seems many household brands are plagued with promotion spams, impersonators, phishing profiles, trademark violations, hacked accounts and counterfeit profiles. Ouch! And this number is on the rise. Sadly, the fakers are making…

My post-graduate degree comes to a close with a 15,000 word dissertation on influencer marketing. With the pressure of getting that word count in, I was at risk of losing sight of what I was actually trying to find out. But upon reflecting on all of the things I’ve learned…

Gone are the days of shaky videos that make you feel queasy. Facebook saves the day with its new algorithm designed to stabilise 360-degree shots. The smart technology will combine 2D motion with 3D reconstruction to fill in the gaps and reduce the unwanted effects caused by conventional…

Recently I had a baby – well not personally, but my partner did. I also had, probably, the longest period of time off in one go I have ever had since working – 17 days! It was a magical time, filled with ‘firsts’ and all kinds of wonderful, scary and…

The trouble with paid social is tracking the customer journey from click to brick. Facebook thinks it has the answer to this problem and is in the process of revamping its offers program. Core updates include: Bookmark: People can easily claim an offer on mobile or on desktop and it will…

Shortly after Facebook announced a range of changes to its Trending Topics section things started to go wrong. As this blog post describes the update – “Today, we’re making some changes to the Trending feature on Facebook that will make the product more automated and will no…

The biggest news to come out of social over the weekend has been the controversial reveal that WhatsApp will now be sharing its data on consumers with Facebook.

Marketers can now measure the success of a campaign by tracking how many people are talking and engaging with a brand’s social activity. The Twitter Ads dashboard will display the engagement metrics and the earned media metrics generated by the campaign’s success. Struggling to encourage your fans, audience or followers…

Back in the days before the internet, the main stay of audience insight beyond surveys was the focus group. A gathering of relevant demographics in order to get feedback on products, adverts etc. Now we have social data and insight. A magnificent cauldron of opinions, views, trends and sometimes plain…

Following hot on the heels of Twitter’s announcement that the platform was introducing #Stickers as “…a fun new way to add creativity to your photos and connect them to the world on Twitter”, the platform has now invited brands to join the party with “Promoted Stickers”.

Advertising can be a pain. You’re scrolling down the news feed and BLAM – an advert for dog food. When you don’t own a dog. Frustrating isn’t it? But for brands, Facebook’s ad platform is a brilliant way to serve copy and content to a specific target audiences. The problem…

As Facebooks user base ages it’s no secret that it has been trying its hardest to appeal to a younger audience. Facebook even made similar app in 2012 called Poke, with a built-in self-destruct feature that was intended to take on Snapchat. After that flopped in 2013, Mark…

Over the last few months we’ve been fortunate enough to have on-boarded several new global clients spanning lifestyle, consumer and technology markets. One of the first things we’re always asked is: “what are the quick wins we can deliver together?” Clearly I cannot reveal too much about how we…

It’s no secret that Facebook is killing it when it comes to the roll-out and monetisation of video on its platform. The platform’s second quarter earnings, which were published last month, revealed that more than 1.1 billion people are currently using the platform each day and ad…

Instagram just launched its new feature: Stories. It’s this nifty feature that lets you create streams of pictures and videos and share them with you friends or just people you have never met – whichever you fancy. Just to make it feel more unique and fleeting, this lovely…

Twitter have introduced a couple of new developments in the past month, one fairly minor interface change and one entirely new function called Stickers. If you use the Twitter iOS app you may have noticed some changes taking place with the basic layout,…

Social media marketing has come to be a popular way for brands to advertise products and services. But recently, the charitable sector has taken advantage of this growing trend for fundraising activities. Some of the most memorable social media campaigns have been extremely successful in terms of donations. The #NoMakeUpSelfie…

B2B content has the habit of falling into a mould – whitepapers, research reports, brochures etc. There are a number of reasons why this content can be problematic: it can be boring, it can be the ‘same old’ stuff and, if done well, it can be very expensive. Budgets are…

Organic vs paid social: the audience you have vs the audience you want For those who live and breathe community management, or even for those who don’t, it will have not escaped your notice that your organic engagement is only going one way… downhill. Whilst the impact will vary per…

Twitter’s new marketing campaign opens its doors to non-users clearing the misconceptions they have with the brand and its purpose. CMO Leslie Berland announces the new campaign saying that it’s content and ads will spread awareness of what Twitter has to offer and invite non-users to give…

Social might be almost a decade old, but it is still a young industry. And as more and more brands embrace social media marketing the need for skilled and experienced talent is growing at a rapid pace. Working in social media is a sophisticated business these days. You need to…

It isn’t exactly new news that content is king. Particularly on social where you have a noisy opportunity to connect with millions of people and conversations. The keywords there were ‘noisy opportunity’. If you do what the rest of your category or industry are doing, then your content isn’t going…

Despite its popularity, Instagram is a bit behind other platforms when it comes to management tools. It’s like Facebook’s little sibling that has its friends and a little community but is still trying to catch up with Facebook, not fully realising its full potential just yet. Being a younger sibling…

Facebook seems to be showering us with new features and updated API functionality every other day at the moment, so we collected the relevant nuggets of info and melted them down into this easy-to-digest erm…digest. Facebook are rolling out Instant Articles in Messenger, Android folk you already…

Avoiding online trolls is hard work for anyone. They hide in just about every corner of the internet, waiting for the perfect opportunity to harass or insult you. But its not just your average tweeter that has to deal with it… Marketers working within social media are having to find…

Sigh! My biggest frustration after 12 years in social media marketing is the view that vanity metrics are the only way to place a value social. Only measuring followers, likes, engagement and fans misses the opportunity social presents to deliver into the pipeline – to ultimately drive revenues by being…

Live-streaming has been around for a long time, but the ease and availability of numerous tools such as Meerkat and Periscope have made it possible for anyone to “go live” and broadcast to the world. Years ago, marketers used to spend huge budgets on TV advertising, billboards, print media and…

Once upon a time, there was a King and a Queen. They weren’t any ordinary King and Queen. They were special, because together, they ruled over all of Social Media land. Forgive me, I read a lot of bedtime stories to my two under three-year olds and we watch a…

Anyone who’s seen Peanuts knows the football gag. In it, Lucy challenges Charlie Brown to kick a football which she then moves just as he’s about to punt the life out if it. The joke ran yearly from 1951 to 1983 and yet every time Charlie B somehow…

Pinterest is the biggest beauty platform in the world – at least that’s what Pinterest says. But is it true? Is Pinterest really the Holy Place for beauty brands. Let’s take a closer look at this, shall we? Social Media Demographics for Marketers |…

Anyone who has worked on a project covering multiple languages will know the value of good translation, especially in the fast paced world of social media. Getting the right message across in the right tone of voice is near impossible for a non-fluent speaker of any language. However…

Almost exactly a year ago the super-clever tech folk at Pinterest launched Buyable Pins across their mobile apps in a bid to give users a simple way to buy and sell through Pinterest. For businesses this meant going through one of 5 partners to…

Since Facebook launched its video broadcast feature back in August 2015 as a feature for verified Pages, it has been made publicly available for brands and the public. The Facebook feature allows users to post live broadcasts on their News Feeds, watch real time comments on their stream,…

Rather than leading your social media traffic to the home page, why not take them on a journey via your landing page and turn visitor numbers into conversions. Creating web pages with a specific purpose is a gold mine for gathering new leads, encouraging event registration and guiding visitors to…

I’m going to delve into how you can be more effective with your brainstorming and I’m specifically going to link that to how you can better define audience-first solutions. I’m doing this for two reasons: 1) the challenge of yielding business-impacting ideas has been shared by marketers globally, since Madison…

From the adorable To the daring From the weird To the wonderful There can be no doubt that the internet loves a good GIF. And that love affair is growing stronger by the day. From 2012…

Instagram is no baby anymore. It has grown so fast. How fast? 500 million users in about 6 years. Today we have 500 million reasons to celebrate, and you’re one of them. Thank you from all of us at Instagram. ♥️ https://t.co/7QHMN4x3Kl —…

Snapchat has finally launched its advertising API, giving brands the ability to push third party video ads directly into users feeds without having to deal with Snapchat directly. The new ad portal is called Snapchat Partners and it’s really the first major push to monetise snapchat ad…

Irrespective of your audience focus – consumers or businesses, the need to adopt audience-first marketing exists. Channels are increasingly cluttered with conversations and similar content, so the need to standout is greater than ever. Without disclosing specific intellectual property, I’ve recently been looking at an industry who sees 55 million…

Snapchat means business. Literally. We have written several blog posts about how businesses can benefit from investing into a solid Snapchat strategy. However, despite the benefits Snapchat can bring to brands in terms of audience acquisition, engagement and UGC. not many brands have tapped into the world of Snapchat. One…

Influencer marketing is this year’s craze. Not just because marketers are increasingly wanting to use it, but because there is much debate on whether there is any value in doing it at all. Blogs and networks are lit up with the discussion. At immediate future we started out in activating…

It’s official – Instagram has shaved, traded its fixie for an Audi A8, suited up and launched Business Tools. Considering the platform has over 200,000 advertisers and upwards of 400 million users, many would say this move was inevitable. Credit Suisse estimates that Instagram’s ad business brought in…

My mind tends to wander at its best when on public transport, usually heading out of the city or a long underground trip. I thought about why this might be, and didn’t take me long to realise it was because I was out of signal, 3G or WiFi. However, with…

This is not going to be the ‘exercise daily’, ‘read a book’ kind of thing you can read in business magazine. Although these things are definitely helpful and it’s important to find ways how to relax, this list is a bit different. It includes various daily tips that I’ve learned…

We are coming to the end of the first 3 months of Facebook Reactions, and data is rolling in on all sides. Initially the majority of people were delighted that their ability to express their emotional range had suddenly become slightly more than that of the house hold refrigerator, but…

Like many tech start up’s, Snapchat joined the ever-expanding queue back in 2011, hoping to be the next Facebook and Twitter. In the expeditiously evolving world of social media, it seems that Snapchat is here to stay and is attracting advertisers, all of which are desperate to reach the lucrative…

So last week immediate future turned 12 years old. That’s 12 years we’ve been working with brands in social media – it doesn’t seem possible does it? Surely social media didn’t exist back then? OK, it wasn’t called ‘social media’ in 2004. It was working with…

In a blow to those championing using simple competitions to grow audiences on social, I’m going to explain why this mechanic is actually far from simple. It’s a common sight: “follow @brandx and RT to #Win, or, “LIKE our page and tag a friend to enter”. We’ve all done it…

“Let’s gamify this!” A sentence that can mean many great things and also nothing. After the rapid raise of Gamification a few years ago, it became a wide-used buzzword that some professionals dump into their proposals to make them sound more interesting. Very often, they mean ‘running a competition’ which…

2016 has seen some big changes in the world of social advertising and it seems it’s all about video ‘ads’ this year. Nielsen claims 64% of marketers expect video to dominate their strategies in the near future. It’s not difficult to see why, with advertisers being spoilt for…

It’s that time of year again that we have all (well most of us) been waiting for…You will probably have seen the billboards, the ads on TV, it’s the new, sixth season of Games of Thrones! But how is it that we are all so excited and full of anticipation?…

We speak to brands “on the reg” with a similar set of circumstances: social media has grown organically over time within the organisation, there is lots of activity (some of it really rather good) but no one really knows why they are doing it! They set out on a journey…

What! Yup. If you have just one social strategy then you may as well consign it to the dustbin. Social is now too sophisticated for one strategy with a social channel (platform) agnostic approach. Every social network now has different audiences, varying behaviours and whole swathes of content formats that…