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Stop staring, start listening – 5 top podcasts on social, tech and culture

Most of the consumption of digital media is now very much based on image, text or video via our mobile handsets. Countless mornings see the commute of the working masses, heads down, staring deeply into their handsets narrowly avoiding road accidents and lamp post encounters. For those…

Managing the real-time challenge: where are brands struggling?

What is real-time marketing about? Responding to customers, following trends and ultimately creating a strong, relevant relationship with your audience. It doesn’t sound so bad when you sum it up like that. But real-time marketing is easier said than done. Our research report ‘In the Social…

LinkedIn: The lean, mean content marketing machine!

LinkedIn is running ‘full steam ahead’ in its content marketing efforts as it announces the release of two new content analytics tools, dubbed as the “Dynamic Duo” for businesses. Read on to discover why the news should come as music to the ears of B2B brands marketing…

Why over 50% of brands struggle to get real-time data and insights

Brands know that they need to be monitoring conversations if they are to make the most of real-time social engagement. Our survey, ‘In The Moment’ benchmarks real-time social amongst leading brands. It shows 62% of marketers think the most important best practice is monitoring trends, headlines and…

Do you know the branded content possibilities?

Best of Branded Content Marketing: 10th Anniversary Edition from Justin Kirby I know everyone is talking about content. But I urge you to take time to read the eBook, Branded Content Marketing. For a start…

Is Tumblr mature enough for advertising?

The simple and versatile platform that combines a coherent interface with simple functionality. With an endless variety of customisable templates the platform has been a vast canvas for the more visually driven blogger to be truly creative. At face value Tumblr has the reputation of being mostly populated with junk…

Being a recruiter, means being a marketer

To be an excellent recruiter, you must be an excellent marketer. Although the stereotypes in personal attributes to these two careers seem poles apart, the link between them is getting stronger. It is no longer about job boards or who you know (although that does play a part). It is…

#LFW #BAFTAS and #BRITs2014 – A week of social media furore

Furore in the capital this week has been combined across several major awards and industry events. The Baftas, The Brit Awards and as you may have noticed on your Twitter trends or Pinterest boards; London Fashion week. Brands, labels and designers galore compete for their annual chance to set…

Understand how to code and understand the mechanics of innovation

Coding has always been that skill that was either honed by those of a more technical nature or of those that are forced into having to use code to develop something that simply wasn’t there before, or even adapt current code to fit another bit of code – phew. If,…

Real-time marketing: Which brands excelled at Super Bowl XLVIII?

Real-time marketing is a hot topic right now. Gone are the days when it was acceptable to schedule tweets and Facebook posts to go live during an event, it’s now all about real-time social media marketing and the ability to display near-instant creativity. Social media itself is a perfect fit…

6 social media 2014 predictions from some of the most influential industry authorities

As usual predictions for 2014 abound. Rather than add to the melee with only our voice, we asked some of the most influential movers and shakers in digital to tell us what they thought would be big this year. Interestingly, even though we asked for opinions individually, the feedback revealed…

2014: The social media battle continues

There’s no use denying it. We are well and truly in the social media age. An amazing 89% of all web users are on social media networks, and active internet users tend to spend around 16 minutes of every hour they’re online using social media. Despite the unquestionable prevalence…

2014: The year of Google+?

It’s that time of year when we dust off the crystal ball and try to predict and prepare for what 2014 holds for some of our favourite social networks. And here’s what Bakti expects to see this coming year! Facebook: I’ve seen A LOT of articles peppered around the net claiming…

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…

10 must know stats that are shaping B2B social media

After our recent accolade claiming a top 10 spot in the Cision’s best UK social media blogs, I thought it would only be right to give you a little top 10 of my own. At our B2B breakfast event last week, and…

Want your content to succeed on LinkedIn? Go visual

LinkedIn has gone visual. With the introduction of the feature a few months ago to allow companies to post presentations, images and videos on company page, LinkedIn is clearly embracing the shift towards visual content. We all know that LinkedIn is an effective social media network for B2B…

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.

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,…

3 ways to break the glass ceiling to reach true social innovation – event wrap-up

If you have anything to do with social media, then you know that you are always innovating. If it isn’t the constant evolution of the platforms, the new tools sprouting like weeds across the internet, or the ever-changing trends of users – you need to stay on your toes in…

Need a reason to Hangout? We have 9!

It was revealed last week that Google+ has overtaken Twitter in the US as the second biggest social network. Whilst the prominence of Google+ is growing it is becoming more apparent that companies can no longer afford to neglect the platform from their social media marketing strategy. Brands should look…

How to use hashtags on Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn

Hashtags have become the standard way to label social media posts, not only on Twitter but also on Google+ and increasingly on LinkedIn. Monitoring hashtags is an easy way to spot a social media trend and to respond accordingly. However, it is rather unclear what kind of hashtags tend to…

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…

Who needs a crystal ball when you have social media?

Social media is becoming an ever growing part of culture, because it’s an instant way of viewing news and public opinion. Data miners are constantly looking at ways to use this information to turn social networks into digital crystal balls. So can trends predict things such as awards for example…

3 tips from viral Slideshare presentations

Slideshare is a great and often overlooked platform. Claiming 60 million monthly visitors, it allows users to upload visual presentations and easily share them. Over time Slideshare has evolved into a thriving social media site in itself. Users are keen to ‘like’, download and share presentations and, similarly to YouTube,…

Your Weekly Social Media Snapshot

Search for your old tweets on Twitter This week Twitter has made some important changes to its search options. Users are now able to search for old tweets via hashtag or keyword. Previously, search results could only be seen from one week ago, so this news will…

UK Newspapers in Social Media: winners and losers

As yesterday’s blog post shows, social media continues to radically transform the ways traditional journalism operates across the world. We learnt that some of year’s biggest stories broke via Twitter, not printed press. And traditional journalism will either transform, or die. An unanswered question remains though…

Get social, watch some TV…

One of the biggest trends in social media this year has been its integration with television. Not only are broadcasters using social media to encourage viewers to discuss their programmes but brands are increasingly getting in on the action. The fact that many people now watch television with 2 screens…

What do CEOs think of social media? (infographic)

There were some really interesting insights from IBM’s 2012 global CEO study which were released this week… When CEOs were asked for their predictions for the next 3-5 years they foresee a 61% decrease in traditional media being used as a customer interaction method, whilst collectively predicting a 256% increase…

Social Media in 2012: The Top of the tops

As we’re nearing the end of 2012, it is vital to review the year behind us before we can start planning ahead. What have been the most significant trends, brands and developments in social media and content marketing? Here’s a few highlights from the best of the best – enjoy!…

Politics, Democracy and Social Media

Social media is a great tool for engagement; it enables the target audience to set the agenda and puts the customer in the driving seat of communication. It is both an opportunity and a challenge to any organisation, including political parties. In fact, one may even recognise core democratic elements…

Do dormant social users add brand value?

Findings from BT’s study earlier this year may have pointed towards females being the social media obsessives; but the latest data from Global Web Index into social platforms indicates it’s more of a man’s game. Almost every platform skews male, with the highest male ratio on LinkedIn…

B2Bs take note – social media needs to empower staff, says global study

There is a perception in the industry that B2B “doesn’t do social”. I have often been asked if B2Bs “should use Social Media?” as part of their marketing mix and if “B2Bs can utilise Facebook?”…

A model for social business monitoring

Social media knows no boundaries. Understanding what customers are saying in the social web has value for multiple parts of a business – not just marketing. Breaking down internal silos and sharing social insight is still a challenge for many. A recent piece of research from Dell/Forrester…

What is Online Reputation Management: Part I

This is the first in a three-part series of posts exploring what is online reputation management? Part I looks at crisis management in the age of social media. The crisis management model is under threat. Robust plans that once cut the mustard with traditional media are struggling to control and…

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…

The Social Shopping Explosion. By Gender.

In October, we unveiled the findings of our social shopping research. We’ve therefore had a few months to turn the data over and tease out any interesting trends … “If you’d like to reach more women, you might like to consider incentivisation; but if you’re looking for…

Social engagement is not just for Christmas

This year, it seems Christmas is truly social. And for many brands social media marketing is definitely playing a big role in the festive push to consumers. M&S and John Lewis are integrating TV with their social media efforts, whilst Argos is pushing out…

immediate Insights – Are customers the new product experts?

One of the most intriguing trends emerging from the social shopping explosion is the re-positioning of the consumer as product expert; the level of trust we now place on strangers. A recent post on ReadWriteWeb provided some further statistical evidence of this movement with specific reference…

Social Media Training – Just do it…

As brands adopt and implement more social media marketing in house, so the demand for enhancing social skills and capabilities is growing. But building social capabilities takes more than a one day training course. Perfecting your social media…

What women want. The fashion shopper.

There’s a bit of a quirk emerging in the retail research report detail that, as a social media agency, we’re interested in exploring. It involves fashion. And women. And how we can’t get enough of talking about our clothing – yet we seem to have quite a clear idea…

The secrets to social media ROI

There is much debate about whether social media can generate a return on investment. It is certainly a hot topic given the increasing investment in social media activity. As a social media agency we work with…

The Social Shopping Explosion

Today we are launching our report on social shopping and its impact on consumer behaviour. Online retail has traditionally been characterised by price-driven sales and purchase-driven consumers. The focus, for retailers, has been on engaging the…

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…

Social Media Lens uncovers the truth about social media

Taking a look at the evolution of social media as a communications tool over the past year, it is clear that one thing in particular has changed, businesses now take it seriously and include in their communications strategy. Brands now automatically lose their shine with customers if they do not…

What’s the hottest trend in fashion this season? Social media of course!

It’s taken a while but the fashion industry has finally woken up to the wonders of the World Wide Web! Online stores such as ASOS are booming, fashion designers are tweeting like there’s no tomorrow and the majority of high-street retailers now have some form of blog…

The libraries of the future

The British Library has recently launched the UK Web Archive, offering access to a huge range of web content that otherwise might have disappeared into a ‘digital black hole.’ Despite being plagued by legal issues currently hindering them from recording much more than 1% of the 8…

Social networks in the UK – Twitter climbing, Facebook leading but stagnant

Just for fun I thought I’d use Google Trends to compare the leading social networks in terms of how much traffic they’re getting from UK web users. This first chart shows that Bebo and MySpace both declined at a fairly similar rate over the past 12 months, while Twitter has…

Is your online PR strategy ready for real-time search?

You might have heard a lot of chatter about real-time search recently, with Facebook buying Friendfeed (a microblogging service with some strong real-time search technology) and Google unveiling Caffeine, a more real-time focused version of its own search technology. Although real-time search is currently…

What does the new Facebook @ reply feature mean for brands and PR?

You may have read that Facebook recently added a new feature which allows you to ‘tag’ other users in updates, which works in the same way as Twitter’s @ reply feature. We think this will have a significant impact on brands which are active on Facebook. How does the new…

How bit.ly will change the world

On the surface, URL shortening services such as https://bit.ly are a great idea, because they can turn long, messy web addresses like this: https://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/support_services/article6788774.ece Into nice tidy addresses like this: https://bit.ly/g4ol9 This is especially useful for posting to Twitter, since it…

Search results for "trends"

Stop staring, start listening – 5 top podcasts on social, tech and culture

Managing the real-time challenge: where are brands struggling?

LinkedIn: The lean, mean content marketing machine!

Why over 50% of brands struggle to get real-time data and insights

Do you know the branded content possibilities?

Is Tumblr mature enough for advertising?

Being a recruiter, means being a marketer

#LFW #BAFTAS and #BRITs2014 – A week of social media furore

Understand how to code and understand the mechanics of innovation

Real-time marketing: Which brands excelled at Super Bowl XLVIII?

6 social media 2014 predictions from some of the most influential industry authorities

2014: The social media battle continues

2014: The year of Google+?

28 free social media monitoring tools

10 must know stats that are shaping B2B social media

Want your content to succeed on LinkedIn? Go visual

Fashion Week prepares to use social media as its catwalk

Exploring lesser-known social platforms – Part 2: Viadeo

3 ways to break the glass ceiling to reach true social innovation – event wrap-up

Need a reason to Hangout? We have 9!

How to use hashtags on Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn

Pinterest pins hopes on a more profitable proposition

Who needs a crystal ball when you have social media?

3 tips from viral Slideshare presentations

Your Weekly Social Media Snapshot

UK Newspapers in Social Media: winners and losers

Get social, watch some TV…

What do CEOs think of social media? (infographic)

Social Media in 2012: The Top of the tops

Politics, Democracy and Social Media

Do dormant social users add brand value?

B2Bs take note – social media needs to empower staff, says global study

A model for social business monitoring

What is Online Reputation Management: Part I

Social media monitoring, the questions to ask

The Social Shopping Explosion. By Gender.

Social engagement is not just for Christmas

immediate Insights – Are customers the new product experts?

Social Media Training – Just do it…

What women want. The fashion shopper.

The secrets to social media ROI

The Social Shopping Explosion

New ASA digital remit leaves too many questions unanswered

Social Media Lens uncovers the truth about social media

What’s the hottest trend in fashion this season? Social media of course!

The libraries of the future

Social networks in the UK – Twitter climbing, Facebook leading but stagnant

Is your online PR strategy ready for real-time search?

What does the new Facebook @ reply feature mean for brands and PR?

How bit.ly will change the world