influencers Immediate Future

5 Twitter tools you should not ignore

Twitter is a truly fascinating social platform. Launched merely 7 years ago the company is now valued at $24bn. Some argue this is an over-valuation (Twitter is yet to make a profit), however the numbers speak for themselves: 230+ million monthly active users 500…

Hummingbird, Hangouts and now Helpouts: Google takes ‘How to’ content to a new level

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_video link=”“][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Are you struggling to cook a specific dish and need urgent cooking advice? Or looking to improve your home but need guidance from someone who knows best? Or are you having computer problems and need help fixing it? Sometimes it’s helpful to speak to someone who has…

28 free social media monitoring tools

Who hasn’t been trying to monitor their online performance and hit a road block because you can’t access the proper tools? Maybe you’re up to your eyeballs in meaningless figures and graphs? All you need is a little context, some simple analysis, a general overview – but you don’t want…

Fashion Week prepares to use social media as its catwalk

Fashion labels are among some of the best brands when it comes to utilising the power of social media. The richness and constant stream of visual content makes for a great partnership. Nowadays you would be hard-pressed to find a fashion label that is devoid of any social media presence.

The arrival of the long awaited LinkedIn groups redesign

Despite the rising popularity of such LinkedIn features as the company page, the influencers section and the newsfeed, LinkedIn groups are one of the most popular features of the platform. Search for any industry, and you will find top groups with their membership in tens and even hundreds of thousands.

Exploring lesser-known social platforms – Part 2: Viadeo

Today is the second post in my 3 post attempt to look at lesser-known social networks. As you may remember, in my previous post I assessed the usefulness of Plaxo, a cloud-based contact book. Today we will explore Viadeo. What is Viadeo? Everyone is talking about LinkedIn these days,…

A toast to Tealeaf!

Social Media has become an increasingly important part of a B2B strategy, although many businesses are still finding it difficult to grasp a hold of the power in social media. Pioneering campaigns have shown that the medium plays an essential part of many organisations that want to engage with other…

How do you Develop the Quality and Value of your Business Communities?

Your business is full of experts. And people who know a lot about what they do is extremely interesting to others. Some businesses are starting to move towards being an authority in what they do, to get people to buy into their expertise, rather than just telling people they are…

Events best practice: Creating a hive of social media activity

Following on from Adam’s blog ‘From Monaco With Love’, and whilst I’m still buzzing from the excitement of managing the social media conversations around the IBM #SmarterCommerce Global Summit last week, I’d like to share some of the key learnings and insights the team garnered…

Do you like the new LinkedIn design?

LinkedIn have recently rolled out the new layout, and there is a noticeable buzz within the social media world around it! The new design has already seen a couple of phases, and each time it happens, you see people talking about it! As Em Donnely mentions, the notification toolbar has…

Live Brand Social: Recommendations are results

Word of mouth is a coveted form of marketing. There is nothing like your customers talking positively about your brand, product and services. Google suggests that the value is on the Zero Moment of Truth where consumers jump online to check out a brand before…

3 ways LinkedIn is becoming the discovery channel

With 200 million registered users and over 11 million in the UK, LinkedIn must focus on helping its user base expand their networks and engage with the platform on a deeper level. In the same way Facebook has introduced Graph Search to help it’s users to discover more within the…

3 ways Everything Everywhere uses LinkedIn to its benefit

LinkedIn has become the corporate equivalent of Facebook. It is difficult to find a major brand that still has not activated its presence on the platform. And yet, being on LinkedIn is not the same as using it to its full potential. Everything Everywhere ticked at least 3 boxes…

Pinterest pins hopes on a more profitable proposition

With the ink barely dried on Facebook’s latest announcement, you could be forgiven for thinking that the social network was feeling marginally threatened by the likes of visual counterparts such as Pinterest. Facebook’s latest redesign places a clear emphasis on visual content, sending the message to brands that text-only content…

LinkedIn continues to walk on the path of success

LinkedIn have reached a milestone 200 million users this week. An impressive stat for any social media site. Perhaps not quite in the same league as Facebook who have 1 billion active monthly users, but definitely catching up with Twitter who have around 500 million registered…

Five useful content planning tools

For years, content strategists have been hiding in the wings, quietly coordinating the show, while the social media rock stars take centre stage. Not anymore. A media frenzy surrounding the information overload debate, combined with the growing impact of social search, mean that the need for sophisticated content planning is…

Google+: how social media marketing could evolve

Google+ has really got the social media world excited. Twenty-five million users in 6 weeks, makes the growth of similar social networks like Facebook and Twitter look positively stunted in comparison. And the blogosphere is just as fired up – a quick Google blog search for Google+…

Social media marketing: what not to do

Social media marketing is not new. We’re all familiar with the basics and brands are actively engaging with their consumers on a daily basis. So, why are people still doing it incorrectly? Here, we share what to do and, more importantly, what not to do when it comes to the…

The rise of online influence: Part II

In the second part of our series on online influence, we round up the three best tools for measuring social media influence; along with a look at their advocates and sceptics. In my last post I paraphrased Brian Solis and Vocus in defining an online influencer as someone who has…

The rise of online influence: Part I

This is a two-part series exploring online influencers and their role in social media marketing. Part I looks at the reasons why a brand should focus on wooing influencers over journalists; Part II defines ways of identifying and measuring their influence. Traditional PR vs social media marketing Traditional…

Harness the power of online communities – IF at the IDM

The institute of direct marketing (IDM) has just uploaded a lovely video of Adam as the course tutor of a very practical workshop on social media. The social media training course demonstrates how to: identify where social media…

No such thing as bad press?

Search is a hot topic at the moment. With innovations in mobile and local search and the impact of real time mentions and social media, the competition for the much sought over front page position is hotting up. For some, the temptation may be to take advantage…

Social media monitoring, the questions to ask

As a social media agency, monitoring tools have become a valuable component in our toolkit. With a plethora of new tools hitting the market, staying on top of the latest technology and understanding their differentiating factors is a challenge – so here are a few of the…

Keep fit with Your Shape Fitness Evolved!

It’s always a busy start to the year at IF Towers with our client presence at CES and related activity (if you read Mark’s CES post you’ll know!). None more so this year as exciting projects begin with another client, Ubisoft. We started working with Ubisoft just before…

What does Quora mean for brands?

There’s been a flurry of activity and attention around the rapidly growing question and answer site, Quora, and this week it hit the mainstream media. For anyone who’s missed the news, here’s a brief introduction, and some of the opportunities and risks that we have identified: What…

Should we reward customers for social media recommendations?

Developing brand loyalty and encouraging repeat sales is a challenge for online retailers, particularly in an increasingly competitive and crowded marketplace. With the ability to move between retailers at the click of a mouse and with a multitude of comparison sites for the savvy shopper, encouraging brand loyalty can…

Classic networking skills still valid in the age of social media – top tips

Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend a great event, hosted by the London Press Club and Women in Journalism, with Carole Stone, the Queen of Networking herself, as a guest speaker. Having heard so much about Carole Stone, her…

New ASA digital remit leaves too many questions unanswered

The extension of the ASA’s CAP code to cover digital marketing communications – both on brand’s own websites, but also through social media, has been driven by a need to close the gap related to companies’ claims online, in particular to regulate marketing to children. There is…

How many people does it take to…decide Government policy?

Is it just me or is everyone talking about crowdsourcing at the moment? Every meeting or event I go to, it comes up. Crowdsourcing advertising (see T-Mobile, Berocca, Hyundai etc.) has been around for a while, providing ad agencies and brands with a new…

It’s good to talk!

In this day and age of social networking, many PRs are now beginning to rely too heavily on email and instant messenger to sell-in their stories to the media. Gone are the days of the telephone and the hour long lunch briefing. Now it seems, we are becoming guilty of…

Understanding the difference between online PR and SEO

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the purpose of online PR these days. Too many people think that the sole job of online PR is improve the client’s search engine optimisation and help drive traffic to their website. Granted, SEO and online PR do go hand in…

PR will embrace the social media change- I hope

Sadly I missed being on Ian's NMK panel for 'Clients in the Wild' as I just had over 200 staples taken out after an op. But it seems the discussion and subsequent blog by Will McInnes has created a stir - causing several blogging PRs some deeper introspection. Antony Mayfield summarises the issues up rather eloquently. Like Antony , I too am an optimist. I also lived through the similar, if not so public, growing pains of the digital ad agency industry. Back in the 90s these start-ups and specialists departments were dismissed by the powerful TV ad world. And we all know how that has changed now. We now have a very different marketing landscape with digital taking the lead and the more handsome budgets.

Speaking at the IAB: engage for branding

I am speaking with the fantastic Ruth Speakman from [tag]Sony Europe[/tag] (declare: client) at the [tag]IAB conference[/tag] on the 26th July. Together we are going to take a look at how Sony BRAVIA fuelled the conversation online by engaging with influencers. Often when I speak with marketers and PRs, they…

Will branded wikis be enough to inspire conversation

A rather clever idea by our friends over at Picture Production Company has just launched: a [tag]wiki[/tag] for Fox’s Fantastic Four film release. The idea is simple, viewers can change, edit and submit to the website in…

We’re all searching for authenticity

Anthony Lilly of Magic Lantern has a column in today’s Guardian looking at the explosion in online video. He suggests that the amount of content now online has resulted in us viewers not being able to find the balanced view: the facts. And that with no editorial…

Traditional Media will have to become social media relations experts

Emily Bell has run an article in today’s Media Guardian commenting on the Guardian’s new look homepage that grabbed my attention. Most interesting is a point referenced to Jeff Jarvis, highlighting the recent drop in importance for the homepage. Visitors to…

Search results for "influencers"

5 Twitter tools you should not ignore

Hummingbird, Hangouts and now Helpouts: Google takes ‘How to’ content to a new level

28 free social media monitoring tools

Fashion Week prepares to use social media as its catwalk

The arrival of the long awaited LinkedIn groups redesign

Exploring lesser-known social platforms – Part 2: Viadeo

A toast to Tealeaf!

How do you Develop the Quality and Value of your Business Communities?

Events best practice: Creating a hive of social media activity

Do you like the new LinkedIn design?

Live Brand Social: Recommendations are results

3 ways LinkedIn is becoming the discovery channel

3 ways Everything Everywhere uses LinkedIn to its benefit

Pinterest pins hopes on a more profitable proposition

LinkedIn continues to walk on the path of success

Five useful content planning tools

Google+: how social media marketing could evolve

Social media marketing: what not to do

The rise of online influence: Part II

The rise of online influence: Part I

Harness the power of online communities – IF at the IDM

No such thing as bad press?

Social media monitoring, the questions to ask

Keep fit with Your Shape Fitness Evolved!

What does Quora mean for brands?

Should we reward customers for social media recommendations?

Classic networking skills still valid in the age of social media – top tips

New ASA digital remit leaves too many questions unanswered

How many people does it take to…decide Government policy?

It’s good to talk!

Understanding the difference between online PR and SEO

PR will embrace the social media change- I hope

Speaking at the IAB: engage for branding

Will branded wikis be enough to inspire conversation

We’re all searching for authenticity

Traditional Media will have to become social media relations experts