Search results for "brands"

There are more ways to screw up on social than a #fail

There are more ways to screw up on social than a #fail

Everyone has heard about the spectacular fails on social media. But this isn’t a post poking at those brands that make mistakes. This is about raising the bar on the quality of social communication. Which right now, isn’t always that great. Social media marketing is on pretty much every brand’s…
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Millennial Schmillennial – the pitfalls of lazy marketing jargon

Millennial Schmillennial – the pitfalls of lazy marketing jargon

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, if you are consuming content online hardly a day goes by without someone somewhere dropping the “M” word. Millennial. “How millennial are you?”; “The Millennials Are Coming”; “10 Surprising Habits of Millennial Art Collectors”;…
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How to target gamers – the easy way

How to target gamers – the easy way

YouTube has launched a new service designed specifically for gamers, YouTube Gaming, in a brazened attempt to compete with Twitch – a company that it lost out to Amazon in trying to buy last year – in the live streaming arena. While it may…
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How ‘always-on’ can your marketing strategy really be?

How ‘always-on’ can your marketing strategy really be?

As brands become comfortable with social customer service, crisis response, in-house community management and even some command centre style executions, the thirst for an ‘always-on’ approach to marketing only gets more intense. Let’s face it, it’s sexy stuff, some would say a necessity but it ain’t that easy! Here are…
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Thought leaders and Bloggers of the World Unite!

Thought leaders and Bloggers of the World Unite!

When people think of paid advertising in social media they usually think of platforms like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Nothing wrong with that. They have hundreds of millions of users. But how about blog sites? Already blog sites offer thought-provoking and…
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Smartphones driving conversion and shopping cart values down

Smartphones driving conversion and shopping cart values down

We all know that more often than not mobile beats desktop when it comes to online traffic and social media usage. Browsing on the go, or second-screening, are topics discussed at length. However, what isn’t discussed in much detail is how on-the-go browsing and double screening is having an effect…
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Video in demand

Video in demand

Video is racing ahead of any other medium on the web. It’s capability to lead on engagement and shareability is undeniable. Web consumers are eating up video at a rate that is literally shifting mainstream provision from larger production channels. On demand services like Netflix are clearly challenging the convention…
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Twitter hatches messenger platform

Twitter hatches messenger platform

The micro-blogging site Twitter recently dropped its 140-character limit from direct messages, in what less-is-more puritan fans saw as infidelity to its one-liner ethos. Already struggling as a loss-making social media platform, with fears for its sustainability, Twitter has braved the raised eyebrows and thinks it is onto a crucial…
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10 steps to avoid a Tinder style meltdown

10 steps to avoid a Tinder style meltdown

In the unlikely event you missed Tinder’s social meltdown last week, here’s a recap of what happened: Journalist Nancy Jo Sales published an article titled Tinder and the Dawn of the ‘Dating Apocalypse’ in this months’ Vanity Fair. Tinder reacted poorly to the article, publishing a barrage…
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What should your brand be tweeting?

What should your brand be tweeting?

Do you wake up in the morning and look forward to tweets from brands? Me neither. If someone decides to follow your company, it’s a massive deal. They’re allowing you to enter a news feed most likely to be populated by family, friends and colleagues. The opportunity to deliver the…
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Facebook fights dirty in video showdown

Facebook fights dirty in video showdown

It’s no secret that Facebook has its eyes fixed firmly on the prize when it comes to being the internet’s biggest video platform. In April Facebook reported that it is getting 4 billion video views per day. Besides being extremely attractive for advertisers, numbers like that would…
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Time to re-think: balancing content creation & content distribution

Time to re-think: balancing content creation & content distribution

As serious marketers we are all well versed on the benefits of social media and content marketing. In reality as marketers, we have always produced ‘content’ anyway, albeit now the channels and types of assets have changed. We moved from print to website, brochures to PDFs & micro sites, seminars…
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AppleMusic – A Multichannel Narrative

AppleMusic – A Multichannel Narrative

The quality of today’s brand engagement is seeing owned content and publishing flourish at rates and volumes almost unseen before. Out of all the most current HD, Hi-Res, 3V, native-video, animated gif and micro-moment storytelling the most creative, responsive, quality-consistent and to-the-second content is winning. Some of the worlds hottest…
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How To Find Your Customers On Instagram

How To Find Your Customers On Instagram

So, you’re using Instagram to engage with your audience and share valuable content? Whilst this is a great use of the tool, there will be many customers who have not seen your marketing efforts and are not aware of your account. How can they be found amongst the millions of…
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Christmas in July

Christmas in July

No, this isn’t another blog about Amazon’s Prime Day. Nor is it a battle-cry for us all to dress in red suits and feast on plates of Turkey during the height of summer. I’m exploring why the brands who have Christmas ‘locked down’ in July, thrive in H2. The banking…
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Navigating The Chinese Social Media Landscape

Navigating The Chinese Social Media Landscape

On the 14th September 1987, the first email was sent from China to an international academic network. “Across the Great Wall,” the email proudly proclaimed, “we can reach every corner in the world.” Ironic, considering that the Chinese government has since blocked over 2,700 websites including Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,…
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Is LinkedIn’s company engagement key for growth?

Is LinkedIn’s company engagement key for growth?

LinkedIn has just made a major change to the way brands can interact on the channel. They have just enabled company pages to respond as brand (as opposed to individual company members). Why is this significant you ask? Because it’s totally out of character for LinkedIn to…
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Is social customer service overtaking traditional channels?

Is social customer service overtaking traditional channels?

Customer service – a bugbear of many consumers, and the source of much frustration. Social customer service has long been seen as the much-maligned poorer cousin of traditional channels (call centre and email). But has the tide started to turn? According to Dimension Data, 35% of all customer…
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5 ways to measure Snapchat marketing success

5 ways to measure Snapchat marketing success

With more than 100 million daily users, and 71% of those falling into the 18-34 age bracket, many brands chasing younger demographics are now looking towards Snapchat as a way to engage with and market to their customers. Other than fear of the unknown,…
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How paid is cannibalising ATL advertising

How paid is cannibalising ATL advertising

If you’re not already ‘paying to play’, you should be. Get your targeting right, and your customer engagement rates can be as high as 20%. It is compelling data like this that is helping to evidence the success of paid social versus above the line (ATL) advertising. Being able to…
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How going psycho with social content drives conversions

How going psycho with social content drives conversions

There’s endless bloomin’ rhetoric on how you make content relevant in social media and beyond. It is after all, the hottest topic in marketing. It’s proven that the greater the relevancy and context, the more content resonates with audiences. The more it resonates, the more likely the…
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Tinder Marketing: Intrusive or Creative?

Tinder Marketing: Intrusive or Creative?

According to Tinder’s website the total number of user swipes is around 1.6billion, with around 26million matches being made daily. It is also one of the most popular applications on both iOS and Android devices, making it a lucrative channel for any brand that wants to try this controversial guerrilla…
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Context, not content, is king

Context, not content, is king

It’s been 20 years since Bill Gates uttered the famous words “content is king” – and for the last two decades, it has been a mantra by which marketers have lived. But mobile and smart technologies have changed the way that people interact with brands and their content, which, in…
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The emoji: a digital communication revolution

The emoji: a digital communication revolution

As hieroglyphics proved an effective form of communication for the ancient Egyptians, has the emoji, the digital hieroglyphic, revolutionised modern day communication in the same way? According to research conducted by TalkTalk Mobile, a phenomenal 80% of Brits are using emojis to communicate, there is even an…
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4 starter tips for effective real-time content optimisation

4 starter tips for effective real-time content optimisation

We all know the old cliché that content is king, and it is hard to argue. However, kings have a long and often bloody history of being toppled, so always need to be on their toes. They should be seen to be learning from and listening to their peers and…
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It’s not a crisis, it’s an opportunity

It’s not a crisis, it’s an opportunity

More often than not, when customers are frustrated about a bad service or bad product experience, they will take to social to vent their experience. In doing so, this allows others to jump on the bandwagon and start chiming in with their equally awful experience. In many cases a quick,…
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Keep a tight hold of those purse strings as Pinterest unleashes its buy button

Keep a tight hold of those purse strings as Pinterest unleashes its buy button

Searching for outfit inspiration on Pinterest? Like what you see? The new ‘Buy button’ will make it yours! Pinterest has announced some very exciting news that in a few short weeks, US consumers will be able to purchase directly from the platform through its ‘buyable’ Pin, without ever having to…
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5 Tips to Help Manage Crises on Social

5 Tips to Help Manage Crises on Social

Before the early noughties launches of Facebook, Twitter et al, news cycles were longer and managing crises was a whole lot easier. Why? Broadly speaking, you only had to worry about the media backlash. Today (as we all know), social has added another layer of complexity. The slightest error can…
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3 Top Tips to Ace Brand Storytelling in Social

3 Top Tips to Ace Brand Storytelling in Social

“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the minds stays up all night, telling itself stories.” – Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal American author and journalist, Ernest Hemingway once made a $10 bet with some writer friends that he…
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Digital Transformation in the Age of Social Magpies – the Museum of London at Social Speakeasy

Digital Transformation in the Age of Social Magpies – the Museum of London at Social Speakeasy

Antony Robbins, the Director of Communication at the Museum of London, began his address at our last Social Speakeasy by saying the following: “This evening I’m going to let you in on a little secret, I’m going to tell you an inappropriate story, if you’re good I might sing and…
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Join the ‘Social Media Day’ Revolution

Join the ‘Social Media Day’ Revolution

It’s no secret that social media connects millions of people worldwide and has irreversibly changed the way we interact. The abundance of social media platforms has necessitated a change in the way brands engage with customers, how we consume news, our communications with friends…
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9 realities of real-time marketing

9 realities of real-time marketing

In a world where the average consumer expects a response within the hour (42%, Edison Research), and has the attention span less than that of a goldfish (8 seconds for humans, the goldfishes’ is 9 seconds), constantly connected from wherever they are – the prospect of ‘real-time marketing’ seems like…
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Understanding the social journey from screen to holiday selfie

Understanding the social journey from screen to holiday selfie

The days of visiting actual travel agents and waiting on faux leather couches to be served whilst being visually accosted by A1 posters of smiling families splashing in the waves and creatively bankrupt taglines (“New Zealand! Bring Your Mum!”) are long gone. A holidaymaker’s entire journey from skiving off work…
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Just how social was the #socialmarathon?

Just how social was the #socialmarathon?

On Sunday 26 April, alongside around 38,000 other intrepid runners, I ran the 2015 Virgin Money London Marathon (I promise this will be the last time I mention it). To make it harder for myself, I decided to live tweet my way around the course. Along…
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Is Klout any good for finding influencers? And how should we measure influence?

Is Klout any good for finding influencers? And how should we measure influence?

In the event of Klout’s new feature to identify expertise, and the fact that I seem to be increasingly talking more and more to clients around this subject, I thought it seemed timely to discuss influencers. Firstly, what is Klout’s new feature? Well, in a nutshell, it shows you what…
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Why personalisation could be turning off your customers

Why personalisation could be turning off your customers

We are all aware of the latest marketing buzzword – personalisation – and the notion that brands now have the ability to follow users every “internet” step to ensure they get a 360 degree understanding of their customers. This, in theory, allows brands to personalise messaging, offers, new product announcements,…
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Top 3 places travel consumers are hanging out on social

Top 3 places travel consumers are hanging out on social

From asking followers for hidden-gem holiday destinations to posting the ubiquitous sunset selfie (framed by palm trees for added effect) and bragging about how amazing and life-affirming their holiday was afterward, travellers are a noisy bunch in social media. So much so that a recent study shows that social sharers,…
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Facebook Topic Data – A new age of ‘Human Data’

Facebook Topic Data – A new age of ‘Human Data’

A huge change in readily accessible data on social media is about to occur. On 10 March Facebook announced it would be closing off third party API access to its user activity data to make way for something a lot more exciting. Facebook Topic Data. What does…
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Becoming The UK’s Most Social Beverage Brand – Pepsi Max at Social Speakeasy

Becoming The UK’s Most Social Beverage Brand – Pepsi Max at Social Speakeasy

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]With Pepsi Max’s new “Genius” campaign officially kicking off this week, the timing of Aman Matharu, Digital Marketing Manager at PepsiCo’s, address at our most recent Social Speakeasy couldn’t have been better. Aman addressed an eager crowd of Social Speakeasy attendees on a balmy spring evening to share the secrets…
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27 Free Digital Tools to get you started (on Digital Transformation)

27 Free Digital Tools to get you started (on Digital Transformation)

The hot topic of the moment is Digital Transformation. As you would expect of any agency principle, I regularly attend and speak at events on this very topic. Whilst I applaud the information that is being shared to help inspire and evidence the increasing importance of digital, all too often…
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3 ways to uncover the best times to post on social media

3 ways to uncover the best times to post on social media

Every 6 months or so another infographic appears informing us of the best times to post on each social media platform. Well I can tell you that most of these timings are unworkable. Useless insight that is meaningless. Why? Because the best times to post depends on a number of…
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Mobile optimisation now mandatory

Mobile optimisation now mandatory

From 21st April mobile optimisation became mandatory, but we’ve all been doing this anyway right? Well, it appears now, and rightly so, we don’t have a choice as the almighty Google are now favouring mobile optimised and friendly websites over those that aren’t. What does this mean…
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5 do’s that will help embed a data driven culture

5 do’s that will help embed a data driven culture

I recently spoke on the panel at a wonderful Social Media Leadership forum event hosted by Founder Justin Hunt, on the theme of how to embed a data driven culture. Whilst by title, the focus was on social media, it was inevitable that we leaked into all…
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Finding your influencers through link listening

Finding your influencers through link listening

Knowing your influencers is a key goal for most companies. However, there is no straight forward formula, or right or wrong way to identify these evangelists. Repeated engagements and metrics such as Klout will help in assessing how engaged and how influential they are in their own merit, but without…
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Not-So-Private Messaging Delivers Brand

Not-So-Private Messaging Delivers Brand

Are private messenger platforms due an overhaul? The latest trends suggest that brands are looking to leverage their customer interaction with product information, advice and sheer selling. Is private no longer private, as the messages get commercial? Private messaging has been around for yonks. In the late 1980s the arrival…
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Elevate your employees on LinkedIn

Elevate your employees on LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s latest product utilises the connections of employees in order to publish and curate content with up to ten times the reach of the average company page. “Did you know the average employee has 10 times as many connections as a company has followers?” – LinkedIn LinkedIn Elevate offers your…
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Three reasons to stop throwing [content] mud at social media walls

Three reasons to stop throwing [content] mud at social media walls

Oh no! Yet another bloomin’ blog post about content marketing. Well not quite. I won’t be suggesting you produce more. Please, let’s create less. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 92% of B2B companies say social media is a key content marketing tactic. And weirdly, slightly less,…
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eSports – a new way to reach the 18-24 male audience?

eSports – a new way to reach the 18-24 male audience?

It is often assumed that football is the key to targeting the 18-24 year male audience, but data speaks for itself – only 9.9% of the average audience for a Premier League game is in fact aged between the ages of 16 to 24 and male. However,…
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Writing “opinions are my own” won’t save your job: 2 social regulations you must know

Writing “opinions are my own” won’t save your job: 2 social regulations you must know

Yesterday I spent the day with one of our global clients getting into the nitty-gritty of social compliance. As a business operating globally, they sensibly wanted to understand the latest social regulations, ensuring their social media policy was updated – sage advice indeed, I would urge any business to…
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3 social insights that move the needle on ROI for travel

3 social insights that move the needle on ROI for travel

There is a lot of social noise when it comes to travel. From flights and holidays to hotels and destinations; brands and consumers alike are chatting, posting and broadcasting on social media. In all that noise though, there is insight that can change the game for travel brands. Get it…
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When does social become anti-social?

When does social become anti-social?

Being in the business of social media, we like to believe that it helps bring people together, incites communication and debate amongst large groups of people, and simplifies access to that communication. These remain true, and can be backed up with a plethora of hair-raising facts and figures like…
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Let your interests speak for yourself

Let your interests speak for yourself

When it comes to customer segmentation, customers tend to be pushed into pre-fabricated segments driven by criteria such as demographic, age, and income. And as we become more sophisticated, transaction details, online usage and CRMs have allowed for more specific segments. Focus groups and surveys provide even more data. However,…
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5 vital tips for social (and by the way, some marketing directors are idiots!)

5 vital tips for social (and by the way, some marketing directors are idiots!)

Yes that’s right. There are (unfortunately) far too many senior marketing professionals, even boardroom directors, who are to blame for consumer brands failing on social. Simply put, whoever signs off their approval for junior marketers running social are idiots; whoever hasn’t bothered to understand the critical role social plays for…
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The 3 P’s of Social Media – People, Process and People

The 3 P’s of Social Media – People, Process and People

Yeah that’s right – especially to those of you working at one of hundreds of social media marketing tools and platforms – I forgot technology! Firstly, it isn’t a ‘p’ so then I would have had to change the title of my blog post. Secondly, I left it out on…
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The topsy turvy relationship between news and social media

The topsy turvy relationship between news and social media

When news broke earlier this month that a former news executive on whose watch Britain’s phone hacking scandal occurred was joining the ranks of the social media universe, it raised a few eyebrows but also thrust attention on a nascent, high-risk but intriguing area: social media dictating the news. Rebekah…
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What’s turning your followers off… and what you can do to keep them!

What’s turning your followers off… and what you can do to keep them!

Your audience on social media can be a fickle, and tricky one to crack. But it’s a quest worth fighting for! Did you know an astonishing 47% of people who follow brands on social are more likely to visit the company’s website? Precisely why it’s important to…
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6 Things NOT to do on social (infographic)

6 Things NOT to do on social (infographic)

Occasionally we all need to brush up on our social etiquette, so immediate future have produced this useful infographic of some of the worst things a brand can do on social media. There are plenty of lists of what you should be doing on social media to further your…
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What has Instagram got up its sleeve?

What has Instagram got up its sleeve?

The big social media giants, mainly Twitter and Facebook, have been making quite some noise lately announcing constant functionality and advert changes in the last few months. If you need a refresher you can find out more from our previous blogs: Facebook’s Product Ads target specific products to those…
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Facebook’s Product Ads target specific products to those most likely to buy them

Facebook’s Product Ads target specific products to those most likely to buy them

A potentially game-changing development from Facebook Ads means that any brand with multiple products to sell can now upload their entire catalogue into the platform, and the automated system will target specific products to those people most likely to buy them across the devices that they use most often. Sound…
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Is social media real-time making traditional media no time?

Is social media real-time making traditional media no time?

Did anyone hear about Madonna’s fall last week? Well, yes I think the whole world did and they heard about it in the precise moment even if they weren’t watching the Brits. #BRITs2015 anyone? The power of social. By the time the newspapers had printed…
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Retailers are still not capitalising on social commerce boom… and it’s insane!

Retailers are still not capitalising on social commerce boom… and it’s insane!

Yahoo first coined the phrase social commerce back in November 2005. Since then, many platforms and brands have tried to harness the concept. As happens with innovation, some early efforts were unsuccessful. Things are wholly different now. At a time when retailers are fighting tooth and nail to gain an…
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Influence is not equal – there are three types for starters

Influence is not equal – there are three types for starters

So Facebook has at last, after 4 years, got its patent to identify influencers and experts in a social network. And so influencer marketing comes back centre stage. I say it comes back, because when immediate future started 11 years ago, influencer marketing was a hot tactic.
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4 ways to make your brand’s social voice sing

4 ways to make your brand’s social voice sing

Voice is a big thing for me this week, partly because I have a cold and appear to be losing mine, but mostly because so many brands on social, need one. There is just no excuse for posts and tweets that are vanilla, samey and predictable? After all, most brands…
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5 (of many) reasons that social should be the heart of your digital transformation initiatives

5 (of many) reasons that social should be the heart of your digital transformation initiatives

It is very exciting to be at immediate future at the moment! Everyday we are having conversations with intelligent people at brands who are embarking on a digital transformation journey. Within the first few slides in our presentation documents we share a common immediate future belief “social is not the…
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The swinging sixties has all the answers to digital innovation

The swinging sixties has all the answers to digital innovation

Most people, when they think of the 1960s, will probably recall the ‘swinging sixties’ or the relaxation of social taboos (clothing, music, drugs, sexuality, formalities and schooling). You may even bring to mind the conflict that raged in Vietnam, the Kennedy assassination or the Apollo 11 mission placing Neil Armstrong…
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Internet ASBOs – how effective could they be?

Internet ASBOs – how effective could they be?

People who spread racial hatred on social media could soon be issued with ‘Internet ASBOs’ under new proposals from a group of UK MPs. The proposals seek to ban users who persistently spread racial hatred online by extending existing legislation that prevents convicted sex offenders accessing the Internet,…
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Enough with the vanity social media metrics!

Enough with the vanity social media metrics!

Brands are demanding results from social media. They want ROI. Quite rightly too. Social has matured and now investment is required for paid and organic (and the content to go with it all). Yet 52% of marketers say they still struggle to prove the worth of social…
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Bowing to social pressure

Bowing to social pressure

Sometimes brands make mistakes. Sometimes they are huge, glaring, thousand foot high mistakes in neon pink and people usually have something to say about it on social media. In the ramp up to Super Bowl XLIX last night (the most social superbowl ever!) many brands released their…
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Is Twitter going through an identity crisis?

Is Twitter going through an identity crisis?

Over the past few days, a number of announcements have come out of Twitter HQ about new features – both for users and marketers. The option to privately message more than one user at once has been a glaring omission from Twitter for years. But with the announcement yesterday that…
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If the social s#@t hit’s the fan, don’t be an ostrich!

If the social s#@t hit’s the fan, don’t be an ostrich!

Even ostriches don’t bury their heads in sand; it’s a myth that probably originates from the birds defensive behaviour of lying low and pressing their long necks to the ground in an effort to be less visible. I’m no longer shocked by the volume of brands who are yet to…
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New Year, new you, new campaigns

New Year, new you, new campaigns

What can we learn from the health and fitness industry when it comes to engaging customers? Every January marketers spend thousands of pounds on health and fitness campaigns, targeting Brits who are trying to shed their Christmas pounds and fulfil their New Year resolutions of being fitter and healthier.
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6 brand damaging social media profile hacking incidents

6 brand damaging social media profile hacking incidents

Unless you have been living under a rock recently, I am sure you will be well aware of an increasing cyber security risk facing brands, organisations and public figures in today’s hyper connected world. The likes of Sony, for example, have been hounded with a series of attempted and successful…
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5 ways to take your advertising on LinkedIn to the next level

5 ways to take your advertising on LinkedIn to the next level

We use the LinkedIn paid platform for clients on a daily basis. Despite its rather dated layout and reasonably thin set of features (when compared with the big boys like Google and Facebook), there is no doubt, for me, that LinkedIn still very much has the edge…
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New software can predict personality traits – What does your Facebook profile say about you?

New software can predict personality traits – What does your Facebook profile say about you?

Research and software released this week suggests that computers can predict our personality traits with a higher accuracy rate than our friends, family or spouse. Should we be scared or excited by the prospect of computers using the data we share online to make informed decisions? We’ve…
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6 uses for Bing Translate in Tweetdeck

6 uses for Bing Translate in Tweetdeck

Bing, the Microsoft owned, ever-growing search and data resource has returned its translation feature to Twitter-owned monitoring suite Tweetdeck. Originally introduced in July 2013 the service offered users a two click option to get quick and dirty translation of any none-native language tweet in…
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What is the future of the social media department?

What is the future of the social media department?

As we move through social media maturity, with some organizations already focusing on optimizing activity and performance based models, the question is – when does social media just become part of everything else? And what is the future of the social media department or even team?…
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Customer social service – what’s the standard?

Customer social service – what’s the standard?

At the back end of last year myself and a colleague delivered a social media training session to a customer service team – slightly different audience to the marketing bods that we are used to. And what was the purpose of the session? It’s actually something that we as social…
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The best of short-form video in 2014 – Vine or Instagram?

The best of short-form video in 2014 – Vine or Instagram?

With the news over the last few weeks that Instagram now has more active users and at $350m is worth more than Twitter, audiences clearly have a huge appetite for rich content. Short-form video is something that brands are already doing really well, but…
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Facebook to roll out call to action buttons for Pages in 2015

Facebook to roll out call to action buttons for Pages in 2015

It has been a very busy year for Facebook, from the re-launch of Facebook Atlas; which has opened up up new opportunities for re-marketing without cookies and linking online ad engagement to offline purchases; to Facebook’s rooms, a new way to discover and explore interests with like-minded individuals. It’s clear…
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Content Marketing and Social Media in 2015 – the predictions

Content Marketing and Social Media in 2015 – the predictions

As we near the end of yet another jam-packed year we take a look at a selection of content and in social media predictions as forecasted by leading industry experts. Here are some our favourite predictions from the clever folk over at Strategy Digital: Content will continue…
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Engagement, Demographics and Age trends: The Essential Social Stats of 2014

Engagement, Demographics and Age trends: The Essential Social Stats of 2014

2014 has been something of a segmentation process for the top social media channels. Revealing the true age, genuine activity and fluctuating engagement levels of some of the most active social groups. Despite attempts by Twitter to take action to re-engage dormant users with features like custom news feeds during the World Cup and similar…
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Sony Pictures Crisis and Social Media

Sony Pictures Crisis and Social Media

The debate that has erupted after Sony’s David Boies’ “cease and desist” letter to media outlets was published invokes the paradoxical nature of trying to control and predict the media a la; have you ever walked into a crowded bar and demanded everyone stop talking?…
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Is it a yay or nay for the Facebook “Dislike” button?

Is it a yay or nay for the Facebook “Dislike” button?

You’re scrolling through your newsfeed when a friend shares some unfortunate news, and naturally you want to express your sympathy. Do you click “Like”? It just doesn’t seem appropriate! So how about “Dislike”? It’s a question Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg has recently been mulling over. The suggested addition of the…
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YouTube most viral videos of 2014 – what can be learnt?

YouTube most viral videos of 2014 – what can be learnt?

Earlier this week YouTube announced its Top 10 most viewed videos of 2014. Coming up in tenth place was the 10 Hours of walking in NYC as a woman showed the multiple harassments she undergoes in one day despite being very…
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Search gets social: From Facebook to Twitter, search is trending

Search gets social: From Facebook to Twitter, search is trending

This week it seems social is all about search. Led of course by Facebook’s news that it is rolling out its graph search on iOS as a keyword search. Well it is launching in America for now, but coming soon to other countries both on mobile and desktop (and android…
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#Skeletakeover and #SecretScanta The Top Social Campaigns of Winter so far

#Skeletakeover and #SecretScanta The Top Social Campaigns of Winter so far

Last Christmas they gave us #hareandbear but the very next month they took them away. This year instead of a deer they gave us a penguin, special. This time of year we annually see some of the most engaging social campaigns and as the holidays rapidly approach.
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App Install Ads on Tumblr

App Install Ads on Tumblr

You’re on your phone, in an app, an ad pops up, what are you more likely to spend your money on? • A Jacket • A Meal • An App SPOILER ALERT; It’s an app. Everyone and their mum wants you to download their app these days, from…
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The propriety of hashtags, and the power of appropriate content (and a brief lesson in cricket)

The propriety of hashtags, and the power of appropriate content (and a brief lesson in cricket)

This week, Twitter came out in force to remember the tragic death of Australian cricketer Phil Hughes, with a range of poignant hashtags. The first of the Phil Hughes hashtags was #63notout – a reference to the score he was on when he was hit on the neck…
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Black Friday is upon us

Black Friday is upon us

It has been predicted that this year’s Black Friday will be the fastest growing online sales day of the year, with an estimated 28% year-on-year growth in sales (Social Bro) in the US. Over here in the UK Black Friday has also been taking retailers by storm, thanks mainly to…
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It’s not just Vloggers that need to know ASA rules

It’s not just Vloggers that need to know ASA rules

Today the BBC reported a crackdown on paid promotions via vlogging (video blogs). The example was given of Mondelez brand, Oreo, paying well-known vloggers to promote their biscuits (not a new or particularly unethical practice in itself). However, the vloggers did not declare that this was a…
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What is Dark Social and What You Should be Doing About It

What is Dark Social and What You Should be Doing About It

New research undertaken by RadiumOne has revealed that of all online sharing activity in the UK, only 26% is visible and traceable by marketers. A staggering 74% of all online sharing takes place in Dark Social, the term for one line content sharing that denies…
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From real-time to data driven personalisation, how Coral tackle social

From real-time to data driven personalisation, how Coral tackle social

Sharing content that is relevant to your audience at the right time is one of the main facets to success on social channels, but as we heard from Tania Seif at the most recent Social Speakeasy, it is especially important for betting firm Coral. Learning fast and playing catch up…
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Uber partners with Spotify: A Great Partnership with a Bad Rep

Uber partners with Spotify: A Great Partnership with a Bad Rep

Following a mutually evolving development towards an increasingly more convenient and on-demand service, one focusing on music the other on cabs, it was surely inevitable that the music streaming platform Spotify would partner with taxi-cab booking app Uber for a service that would culturally tie the brands…
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Facebook updates its privacy policy, but who really benefits?

Facebook updates its privacy policy, but who really benefits?

Last week, Facebook updated its privacy policy alongside the terms and conditions, with the intention of making them more appealing and comprehensible to users. By launching a new Privacy Basics microsite alongside the changes, it is, on the surface at least, handing more control back to the…
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Breaking traditional marketing models – reactvertising, real-time, agile, social command centres and other such buzz terms

Breaking traditional marketing models – reactvertising, real-time, agile, social command centres and other such buzz terms

This post has been inspired this week by a hell of a lot of model drawing, inter-brand and agency conversations – scoping the models that will shape our clients in 2015 based on sterling work during this year so far in the real-time social arena. Then this video came up,…
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Social swarms are forcing businesses to change – 3 threats you need to know

Social swarms are forcing businesses to change – 3 threats you need to know

When the social world swarms around an issue or to protest, change happens (most of the time). In many instances this is for a greater good – for injustice, to correct a wrong, or defend a situation. From the world changing Arab Spring; to the recent, and heart-warming, search for…
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Cleaning out the internet cobwebs here comes: Facebook Rooms

Cleaning out the internet cobwebs here comes: Facebook Rooms

Last week the guys over at Facebook Creative Labs launched a new app ‘Facebook Rooms’ – the app seems to take inspiration from the 90’s style chat room where users can create ‘rooms’ based on a specific topic of interest. Rooms can be created around themes ranging from skateboarding and…
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Why Twitter data is so much more than real-time trend spotting

Why Twitter data is so much more than real-time trend spotting

Moves are afoot, and money is being spent, to dig a whole lot deeper into the Twitter conversations. Earlier this year Twitter gave researchers data grants to back-test hypotheses with large quantities of historical data. It is also funding (to the tune of $10m) an MIT programme to analyse social…
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‘Please retweet’, ‘Follow’, ‘Free’: What are the top buzzwords you need to use in your social media activity?

‘Please retweet’, ‘Follow’, ‘Free’: What are the top buzzwords you need to use in your social media activity?

Content is king, we all know that. But when it comes to social media, particularly when you have so few characters to get your message across, the words you use become incredibly important. We all want to seem intelligent, witty and eloquent when we post on social, but in the…
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