brands Immediate Future

One year on – Still think Periscope is just another passing fad?

A few days ago, Periscope passed its first birthday! And what a year of fireworks it has been for the live streaming mobile platform. Twitter recently announced that in a single year, the app has streamed 200 million broadcasts, and 50% of which were created in just…

Pro tips for powerful B2B Social Content – PART ONE

It’s 7pm and you’re still at the office. A posting plan for your company’s social channels stares mournfully back at you. You’ve read phone books that are more exciting. It’s okay, you reason, we’re a B2B brand. Our audience is time-strapped. Professional. They want facts, not fluff. “Out there” content…

The Latest News, Updates and Gossip around Facebook

The Social Media industry is constantly evolving, and March 2016 has been no exception. It’s been a busy month for all the top social media sites but no more so than Facebook. Here’s a breakdown of the latest news, updates and gossip around Facebook. Video Metrics Update: New Daily Video…

What Does Social Media Say About You?

In the last decade or so, social media has evolved into a data mining, user generated information goldmine, which is drawing ever more attention from those who can interpret the data and put it to good use. This is a…

Top Visual Trends for 2016 Pt.2

Welcome to part two of the Getty Images 2016 Visual Trends highlights! We covered the first top three visual trends here, and we have just three more to go! But before we get to it, let’s answer one of the top questions we got on the previous blog: How…

3 useful content calendar tools

In the age of moment-driven marketing and with brands creating more content than ever before, you need a plan. Borrowing from the “original” publisher world, we have adopted the use of content calendars as the lifeblood and centre piece of our marketing planning. But on the whole, this really means…

Everyone is talking about moments…literally

Everywhere you go right now the digital marketing world is talking about ‘moments’… Google have their ‘micro-moments’ story, brands are high-jacking moments everywhere to meet their marketing objectives and reach relevant audiences, heck, Twitter even added a new section to the platform called moments – and let’s face it: if…

New tool makes it easier to publish through Facebook’s Instant Articles

From 12th April, Facebook gears up to expand its Instant Articles offering to all publishers in the world, no matter how small or large. To simplify the process, the social networking giant unveils a WordPress plugin, that’s free for all to use. Even more, advanced coding skills aren’t required! So…

7 steps to a Joe Wicks style content work out!

After Christmas, in a bid to get fit, I (like many thousands of others) bought the Joe Wicks book ‘Lean in 15’ and have been avidly testing out his healthy 15 minute recipes ever since! (I’ve even done the odd work out or two). But what interests me the most…

Social customer service doesn’t increase complaint volume

It’s true! Social doesn’t increase your volume stack. Businesses who are yet to embrace social are still being complained to. The consumer picks up the phone and gifts you their feedback. They may also share an email with senior management AND then, they will go onto social to bemoan your…

Survival of the curious

E-volution Working in an ever developing industry that requires a balanced knowledge of data management, strategy and creative flare is a never ending challenge. A wonderfully colourful challenge that demands any given media agent (of any typical agency that works with technology) to submit to a never ending practice of constant wit sharpening.

Top 3 Visual Trends for 2016

Our team had the pleasure of going to a seminar by Getty Images talking about the visual trends for 2016. The event took place at their new exhibition offices in London, and it was organized by the lovely folks at The Drum Network (shout-out…

Facebook Canvas

On February 25th Facebook launched what they are calling Canvas, a full-screen ad experience. Originally announced at Cannes Lions way back in June 2015, Facebook’s chief product officer Chris Cox demonstrated mock-ups of a new mobile format that takes over the mobile screen after a user clicks on it from…

Where to find social content that will humanise your brand

How should we humanise our social presence? How should we show the people behind our brand? How should we display the softer side of our company? These are common questions from organisations who (quite rightly) invest much of their social media resource into gaining hard, tangible results. After the campaigns…

Break habits, break out, but don’t break bad on social media

It struck me this week that social media is not really a new thing anymore. I know it sounds obvious. We have been doing it for 12 years. But this year it feels like social media got serious. Serious enough that it is…

Snapchat gearing up to open the advertising flood gates?

With over 100 million daily active users on the platform and well reputed penetration into the ‘millennial’ audience, Snapchat is on the rise… However, once platforms are well established as “cool” they have to make some moves that will render themselves seriously uncool to their user base, to appease the…

It really is the year of video

Everywhere that you look right now there is video. Everyone is talking about video, every platform is competing to own video, new video formats are being created and developed for social channels and brands are all trying to use video in new and innovative ways. Basically, if video is not…

Snapchat debuts On-demand Geofilters

Snapchat keeps growing and attracting more and more interest amongst brands. It has steadily grown its offering to advertisers via sponsored filters and Snapchat Discover. But the millennial-favourite, little ghost has unveiled yet another new revenue stream that’s open not just to businesses but to the public too! For as little…

Facebook’s monetisation of Messenger

Last Spring, in a bid to increase the number of users, Facebook announced its plans to start letting brands and businesses use its Messenger app to handle customer service issues. Then, having reached over 700 million monthly active users last summer, they went public with their…

9 Ways to target on social you may not know about

As the minefields of social advertising get ever more complex and essentially a very far cry from simple tweet or post boosting we must move toward to putting audience first, defining your objectives and monitoring closely to optimising your targeting as you go. All very good practice, yes, but what other,…

How to ace your content calendars

A reoccurring question we’re asked is: what should go into my content calendar? Followed by: is there advice you can share with us? Or: what rules do you work to? So here it is. 15 steps that will help you to ace your content calendar: For example, if revenue growth…

Using social media to generate online reviews

For many brands using social media to generate sales, the priority list often consists of lead generation, brand awareness, content creation, campaign management and customer service. Whilst all of these can play a major role in creating sales, one important item is missing from that list – online reviews. A…

How long will it be until we see an ‘ad block blocker blocker blocker’?

These days there are more ad blockers than most people have had hot dinners. The most popular ad blocking companies now hold all the power, and have completely changed the landscape of digital advertising. In an aim to monetise their service, some ad blocking providers are essentially blackmailing companies into…

The unfortunate impact of the new Twitter timeline

You may or may not have noticed, but your Twitter timeline has changed – it will no longer automatically show Tweets in chronological order. We know Twitter users don’t like change, and with a raft of changes announced in the past few months and weeks, including the furore around…

9 principles of truly “social-first” marketing

Recently Guinness launched a new advert but instead of the ad creating a perfect storm stemming from TV it was actually Instagram as the medium of choice. Guinness opted for the new 60 second ad placement in a bid to engage a younger audience, branded content has the most impact…

3 Ways How To Make Your Content Strategy Evergreen

Don’t you love when you finally have a grasp on something only for it to change instantly? Both Twitter and Facebook have announced major changes coming to their platform. Both of them have one thing in common: the focus on bringing value to their…

Safer Internet Day

The internet has drastically transformed our lives and there is no question that it’s an incredible tool, but as with every rose, there comes a few thorns! The negative issues it has brought to the fore range from cyber-bullying and trolling, through to increasing concerns over data privacy. And it’s…

Why tenuous link marketing won’t own a moment

Regular readers of our blog will know that for well over a year we’ve been advocating the importance of micro-moments and owning them – “owning the moment” is lorded in every brainstorm we have at the agency. Our philosophy is built around identifying the many micro-moments relevant to a brand…

Get the inside scoop on Twitter’s plans for 2016

A colleague and I recently had the pleasure of joining the fab team at Twitter HQ for their ‘Plan for 2016’ agency talk. It was an informative session, involving a large handful of top UK social media agencies revealing extensive insight into how 2015 played out, and upcoming plans and features for the platform in 2016 (follow all the highlights on Twitter via #planfor2016). immediate future usually…

Content for your community

The idea behind curation is to link and/or excerpt the work of others. Therefore, social has always been about content curation, but most businesses don’t have the time, staff, skill set or budget to regularly publish great content and that’s where content curation comes in. Why curate content? Audiences do not…

Is Twitter doomed?

Firstly, I want to start by saying….I hope this is not the beginning of the end! I, for one, love Twitter and hope it is here to stay. However, it is hard to ignore the ongoing share drops, negative news coverage and acquisition rumours. As the mainstream press reported Twitter’s…

Keeping customers happy when implementing a social media strategy

The brakes are off, the lights are green and 2016 is well underway. 10 years after Twitter was founded and Facebook became a mainstream platform, another batch of social media strategies are being rolled out by marketers. Objectives will include lead generation, reach and awareness, community growth and improving sentiment.

Join the POTUS on Snapchat

Gone are the days when you would receive updates from politicians through a press conference or televised announcement. Instead, more and more state officials are opting to voice their policies and connect with their constituents through popular networks like Twitter and Facebook. According to Pew Research, 61%…

Social content is not all about the content

The folk over at Smart Insights reminded me last week about the deluge of content churning through every social media platform. Much has been written about getting the content right. Investing more time, resource and money in storytelling and crafting visuals that resonate. But this is only…

Twitter’s ‘brand enthusiast gallery’ is cause for enthusiasm

Of all of the consumer tech and social media news coming out of #CES2016 last week, I wasn’t expecting news of a new Twitter ad product to be one of the most talked about. But with its ‘brand enthusiast gallery’ (purely a working title, I hope),…

5 things businesses need to know about Generation Z

When I was writing this I did think to myself ‘aren’t we all sick of talking about post-millennials?’ But upon a bit of pre-Xmas digging and realising that these tech-savvy go-getters were going to save Christmas by vowing to spend more than ever before and…

Are you ready for VR?

Back in Q1, 2014, Mark Zuckerburg announced Facebook’s $2.5 billion acquisition of Oculus VR, signalling his intention to bring virtual reality into mainstream digital life. Two years on and Facebook have finally begun taking pre-orders for Oculus Rift. That’s right you can now place…

New Year, New Tech, New Content Opportunities

With the new year come new trends…yada yada yada yes. But there’s no denying, as we try to keep up with the cascading popularity of the annual Consumer Electronics Show or #CES2016, that there are some highlights of this year’s show that hold clear opportunities for the…

Nailing your social in 2016

And now to hammer home the message (see what I did there?!). Many businesses are still figuring out how to go about exploiting the many benefits of social. The start of a calendar year is usually the time companies discuss needing a social strategy, but are unsure…

28 things guaranteed to happen in social in 2016

There have been many predictions for how social media will play out in 2016. But enough of the speculation…here are 28 things that are guaranteed to happen. Do you agree with them? Have I missed any? Shiny new platform labelled the ‘next big thing’ will emerge. Digital professionals…

A big hello to Twitter Moments UK

After an initial roll-out in the US, Twitter finally launches Moments in Europe, starting with the UK… yippee! One aim of Twitter’s curated news tab is to make the platform an easier place to navigate; to catch up on breaking news and hot topics within your region – a key…

A review of the Immediate Future’s 2015 blog content

At IF we pride ourselves on leading innovation and helping to shape the next industry standard. Our recent award win evidences we’ve checked that box for another year. To many, our blog is their source of digital insight into what is about to happen within industry. With this in mind,…

Reviewing 2015 in a list of lists

Everyone loves a list. Which is just as well considering it’s that time of year when people publish the most lists. Whether it’s lists of the best music or books from the year; lists of predictions for the coming year; or lists of Christmas gift ideas for your partner’s uncle’s…

8 fundamentals to an award winning paid social campaign

We were very proud to win Best Use of Social Advertising at the recent Social Media Buzz Awards recently. Fist pump. We did so on a modest budget, pipping big agencies (Ketchum, Starcom, Havas, Manning Gottlieb OMD) and big brands (Starbucks, KFC, Phillips, Unilever, Heineken) with our work for Southbank…

The rewards of blending online and offline personalisation

When it comes to digital, personalisation is nothing new, and throughout the year we have talked about it extensively in many blogs – whether it’s for your audience or adverts, personalising the way you reach your audience via their platform of choice and so on. The advance in CRM systems…

Open letter: Let’s stop the neglect of social media professionals

This is an open letter to brands and agencies (and a call for support from industry associations) to stop the neglect of those working in social media. This issue came to a head for me when last week I had a conversation with a young social media professional. She asked…

Pinterest launches new visual search tool

Ever been on your friend’s profile, wondered where they had bought an item of clothing and how best to describe it so you can buy it for yourself? Or have you been stuck for words when browsing through interiors and wanted to know more about a specific item? Well if…

What does Brandwatch’s $33 million investment mean for the future of social data?

One of the industry’s earliest and longest standing social data start-ups Brandwatch has raised $33 million series C funding last week, this after raising $22 million series B in 2014. There has been a great deal activity this year in the social intelligence space. Twitter revealed its preferred partner…

Spotting the patterns, puzzles and predictions in social data

Social data is unstructured data. It needs a framework to corral the noise into making sense. Beyond the structuring of the numbers though, lies the real value in social data: The insights. Last week I found myself in a room full of data geeks (my idea of heaven) listening to…

Why storytelling is important when presenting social media insights

When thinking of research, data and insights, it’s easy to assume it’s all numbers and data crunching and not much else. However, the role of a good insights consultant is to be able to translate this data into tangible and meaningful information that can then be easily presented to senior…

O2’s Rachel Kneen shares content ROI insights

On 22nd of October, we welcomed back Rachel Kneen, O2’s social media manager, to our monthly Speakeasy to speak about the importance of content. Rachel has been working in social since 2009 – to put that into context, at that time, people spent more time on average on Myspace…

Spectre infiltration: A Bond guide to social media

Mission from ‘M’, just in. You must infiltrate popular social media networks with highly dynamic content, and engage your targets where possible, as the Spectre network makes a worldwide offensive. You’ll have ‘paid’ support from Q branch in the form of cutting edge channel technology and the…

With 60 shopping days to Christmas, how will spend be influenced by social?

The end of October brings pumpkins and other Halloween paraphernalia to the fore of our local supermarkets. In a matter of weeks, if not days, these will be replaced with Christmas products, displays and information on how to make catering for the big day easier. Some people (like my lovely…

Social media tone of voice: 6 things you may not have considered

Tone of voice is no longer simply a case of using your corporate brand tone on social – you now need specific guidelines (or the opposite, depending on your brand!) for social channels. Now, I’m not necessarily talking about the marketing messages, the sales posts or the brand broadcast-style posts…

The battle for real-time – Facebook vs Twitter

Facebook announced its latest move to try out manoeuvre Twitter in the battle for real-time conversation. The range of second screen tools launched to engage TV viewers as they tune into live shows. Hashtag voting, polling for live events, photo and video submissions as well as custom icons (Facebook’s answer…

Market research doesn’t have to be costly

All brands, big or small, can benefit from market research. And it can feed into an organisation at any level – whether that is for something as big as a re-brand; a change in strategy; a product launch; or something as ‘simple’ as a seasonal campaign. However, market research can…

Don’t Gaff My Gif, Man

With the very recent developments in GIF posting on both Facebook and Twitter becoming somewhat relaxed the temptation to get involved in what seems like the most irresistible comedy action on social seems inevitable. When one can express themselves through the most iconic subtitled short…

The evolving infographic: here comes the GIFographic

Did you know that there are almost 78 million search results for the term ‘infographic’? Content in the form of an infographic hit the mainstream in 2012 and its popularity with brands continues to rise steadily. Snack, share and stand-out There are plenty of reasons…

Should social be owned by PR or marketing (and how important is sponsored content)?

IF have been working in social for more than eleven years, and this question has consistently been asked throughout. “PRs will shape your narrative and manage your reputation – as we’ve been doing for years with your media relations”, some might say. Marketers will challenge: “now social is the most…

7 elements to building a brand for the social-age

Social media levels the playing fields to building a brand in the modern age. The ability to be able to connect with the world at the click of a button means that with the right message/product/offering anyone can build a brand. As an individual, talented musician using YouTube to get…

Demystifying the role of the Community Manager

Following recent conversations with various clients, marketers and other agency peers there seems to be an element of obscurity and misconception on the actual role of the ‘community manager’. The term commonly adopted for someone who sits on communication channels for followers, fans and audiences of brands, companies and networks around organisations or…

How does BBC Worldwide and Universal Music TV drive their digital agendas? (Part Two)

Welcome to part two of our Q & A with two of the industry’s leading digital marketers: Alex Ayling, Head of BBC Worldwide Digital Studios and Nick Moxham, Head of Digital, Universal Music TV. In case you missed part one which focussed on Alex, you can view that here:…

London Fashion Week’s digital makeover

London Fashion Week 2015 witnessed brands lighting up the digital world, from Burberry’s use of Snapchat, Hunter Original’s use of Periscope, and Topshop’s use of Pinterest. The digital world has introduced brands to a limitless audience. The use of Pinterest and Instagram in London Fashion Week enabled brands to show…

Planning for the unplannable

If you work in social media, you’ll be used to hearing the term ‘real-time’. It’s been one of the hottest industry talking points since Oreo’s ‘dunk in the dark’ tweet. In reality, using social media to communicate at speed has been on brands’ radars for far longer than 2 years.

IF Blog Best of… August ‘15

August is gone with the wind. With it go Notting Hill Festival, Reading 2015, V Fest, National Burger Day and summer. Relive the glory days of balmy summer evenings, sizzling barbeques and 30+ degree weather (sort of) by having a read through our top five IF blogs for August.

What does the #adpocalypse mean for paid social?

Apple’s recent announcement that it was going to be embracing ad blocking software has sparked some serious social debate and birth of the hashtag #adpocalypse. The move by Apple has brought into spotlight the morals and ethics behind the media industry and am sure will bring about another shift because…

Twitch gaming Final

Psst! Would you like to join a team of select brands – Old Spice, Pokemon and the BBC among others — who have led growth in a form of digital marketing gaining traction? The online gaming industry is rife with user-led content, with one of the biggest platforms making use…

What is the key to unlocking successful real-time engagement?

Real-time engagement has been a real buzzword in 2015, but is it easier said than done? And how far are brands pushing the concept of real-time engagement? How realistic is it for brands to be ‘always on’? These are all questions that have been bandied around the industry this year,…

3 things we learned from Zuckerburg’s last Townhall Q&A

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage yesterday for the latest Facebook Townhall Q&A. He spent the better part of an hour fielding a mix of serious and silly questions about everything from virtual reality and artificial intelligence to why he doesn’t wear a different coloured shirt (he does,…

Achieve all your event objectives by creating a “social cyclone”

What are your main objectives when your company attends an event? Leads? Awareness of new products and service? Positive brand interactions? Whatever your ultimate end goal is, more often than not, the marketing activities that I see, especially across digital and social, do not tie together with a clear ‘line-of-sight’…

Don’t forget your demographics!

Marketers around the world are pronouncing the death of demographic segmentation, and behavioural segmentation has swept in to pick up the pieces. Thanks to the digital invasion, marketers are armed with the tools to analyse consumers’ behaviour. And as we all know, this is called behavioural segmentation. This has allowed…

Behind the Curtain at Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg will be hosting his 7th Town Hall Q&A session on Tuesday the 15th of September. This much anticipated event will provide the Facebook community, and a live audience at Facebook HQ, with yet another opportunity to quiz Zuckerberg on a range of (mostly) Facebook-related topics.

How crazy golf can unlock the power of your connected network

We call it ‘the power of a connected network’; uniting your workforce to harness the potential influence available on social. “Well that’s just social media tosh”, you might say. I assure you it is not. And here’s why: The most overlooked use of social is internal communications and it’s staggering.

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…

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”;…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

Search results for "brands"

One year on – Still think Periscope is just another passing fad?

Pro tips for powerful B2B Social Content – PART ONE

The Latest News, Updates and Gossip around Facebook

What Does Social Media Say About You?

Top Visual Trends for 2016 Pt.2

3 useful content calendar tools

Everyone is talking about moments…literally

New tool makes it easier to publish through Facebook’s Instant Articles

7 steps to a Joe Wicks style content work out!

Social customer service doesn’t increase complaint volume

Survival of the curious

Top 3 Visual Trends for 2016

Facebook Canvas

Where to find social content that will humanise your brand

Break habits, break out, but don’t break bad on social media

Snapchat gearing up to open the advertising flood gates?

It really is the year of video

Snapchat debuts On-demand Geofilters

Facebook’s monetisation of Messenger

9 Ways to target on social you may not know about

How to ace your content calendars

Using social media to generate online reviews

How long will it be until we see an ‘ad block blocker blocker blocker’?

The unfortunate impact of the new Twitter timeline

9 principles of truly “social-first” marketing

3 Ways How To Make Your Content Strategy Evergreen

Safer Internet Day

Why tenuous link marketing won’t own a moment

Get the inside scoop on Twitter’s plans for 2016

Content for your community

Is Twitter doomed?

Keeping customers happy when implementing a social media strategy

Join the POTUS on Snapchat

Social content is not all about the content

Twitter’s ‘brand enthusiast gallery’ is cause for enthusiasm

5 things businesses need to know about Generation Z

Are you ready for VR?

New Year, New Tech, New Content Opportunities

Nailing your social in 2016

28 things guaranteed to happen in social in 2016

A big hello to Twitter Moments UK

A review of the Immediate Future’s 2015 blog content

Reviewing 2015 in a list of lists

8 fundamentals to an award winning paid social campaign

The rewards of blending online and offline personalisation

Open letter: Let’s stop the neglect of social media professionals

Pinterest launches new visual search tool

What does Brandwatch’s $33 million investment mean for the future of social data?

Spotting the patterns, puzzles and predictions in social data

Why storytelling is important when presenting social media insights

O2’s Rachel Kneen shares content ROI insights

Spectre infiltration: A Bond guide to social media

With 60 shopping days to Christmas, how will spend be influenced by social?

Social media tone of voice: 6 things you may not have considered

The battle for real-time – Facebook vs Twitter

Market research doesn’t have to be costly

Don’t Gaff My Gif, Man

The evolving infographic: here comes the GIFographic

Should social be owned by PR or marketing (and how important is sponsored content)?

7 elements to building a brand for the social-age

Demystifying the role of the Community Manager

How does BBC Worldwide and Universal Music TV drive their digital agendas? (Part Two)

London Fashion Week’s digital makeover

Planning for the unplannable

IF Blog Best of… August ‘15

What does the #adpocalypse mean for paid social?

Twitch gaming Final

What is the key to unlocking successful real-time engagement?

3 things we learned from Zuckerburg’s last Townhall Q&A

Achieve all your event objectives by creating a “social cyclone”

Don’t forget your demographics!

Behind the Curtain at Facebook

How crazy golf can unlock the power of your connected network

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

Millennial Schmillennial – the pitfalls of lazy marketing jargon

How to target gamers – the easy way

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

Thought leaders and Bloggers of the World Unite!

Smartphones driving conversion and shopping cart values down