#MarketingTitbits – social media, Anchorman, Google

socialmedia-anchorman-google-smaller1. 9 ways social media marketing will change in 2014
 Social media is one of the fastest developing industries out there today. New social networking sites can grow almost overnight and can fizzle away before you’ve even noticed them, for this reason it is essential that marketers keep up!

This week, we saw an interesting article from Mashable that outlines how 9 successful entrepreneurs plan to change their social media marketing in the coming year based on their predictions.

These predictions include “Social won’t be used for sales.” And “LinkedIn will become the most important publisher” but to have a look at the full list and the basis on which they have been predicted, click here.

 

2. What Anchorman 2 taught us about content marketing

During the run up to the release of Anchorman 2, Ron Burgundy and the Channel 4 News Team were everywhere. Not only did Ron himself feature in a series of Chrysler adverts – his presence lead a 40% increase in Durango Dodge sales. Mr Burgundy appeared on radio stations, collected an award at the MTV Movie Awards (on behalf of an absent Will Ferrell) and released an autobiography.

Clearly – there are many lessons that can be learnt from Anchorman 2’s marketing, especially for content marketing. To have a look at what these lessons are, click here.

 

3. 12 inspiring marketing campaigns from Google

It is arguable that Google doesn’t need to market itself, with 2,161,530,000,000 searches in 2013 alone. However, whether or not this is necessary, they still do. Like many things they do, Google do their marketing well. From email marketing, billboards, Google+ marketing and TV ads, we’ve found an article the showcases Google’s most inspiring marketing campaigns.

To take a look at them and read more, click here.

/0 Comments/by

#MarketingTitbits – Twitter, Alzheimer’s, advertising

twitter-alzheimers-advertising-smaller1. Tips to help your business gain more followers on Twitter
 If you’re using Twitter the chances are you will be tweeting content as often as you can – and if you’re not you really should be. With this in mind, you don’t want to be tweeting to an absent audience; no one wants their tweets to get lost somewhere in cyberspace.

But do not fret, there are a few things you can do to help your business gain new followers. Ensuring that you have some personality is a great way to entice people into following you, tweeting Christmas party images and news about the team is a great way to make things a bit more personal! Searching for people in your industry is another great way to find relevant Twitter followers – not only are they more likely to follow you, they’re more likely to retweet and favourite your posts.

To have a look at more tips for helping your business to gain new followers on Twitter, click here.

 

2. The Facebook campaign that simulated Alzheimer’s disease

 If you’ve ever had anyone close to you suffer the misfortune of Alzheimer’s disease, you might have a better understanding of how terrifying it is to lose your memory of where you’ve been, who you’ve been with or even who the people are around you.

However, it can still be hard to understand what it really is like for those suffering. For that reason Alzheimer Nederland set up a Facebook campaign to give people a taster of what it can be like for Alzheimer’s suffers. They created images of people, who hadn’t even liked their Facebook page, in places where they had never been and tagged them in the images. The image captions read “Confusing right? You’re now experiencing what it’s like to have Alzheimer’s disease” and then prompted the Facebook user to send the app to a friend.

To have a look at the heart-warming campaign, click here.

 

3. Six trends in advertising you need to know for 2014

Are you ready for the New Year ahead and the trends that have been predicted for advertising? If not, we’ve found a great article that highlights the six key trends that are likely to affect advertising this year, predicted by the Chief Executive of Econsultacy, Ashley Friedlein.

From real time bidding trends, video advertising and mobile advertising, to read the full article, click here.

/0 Comments/by

What can SMEs learn from big business – video

video-roundedThis month, we introduce the last instalment of our blog ‘What SMEs can learn from big businesses’. Part 3 focuses on viral marketing and how organisations are adopting video as a key element within their marketing mix for increased brand exposure.The high costs historically associated with video and TV has prevented many brands from adopting this form of media. However, with the rise of YouTube and mobile technology, more businesses have been given the opportunity to produce and distribute video content to the masses.

Over the past few years, video content has evolved and is now much shorter, concise and impactful. When creating videos, it’s important to focus specifically on the content your clients and target market are looking for. That means your videos should be oriented towards serving their needs and interests. A 5 minute video highlighting reasons why they should use your business is unlikely to pull on the heart strings, but an innovative campaign that showcases your humour, emotions or personality may in fact be YouTube gold.

For some inspiration, take a look at some of the top viral campaigns of 2013.

Dove, the global cosmetics brand, conducted a social experiment with the intent to teach all women “You are more beautiful than you think”. Dove used an FBI-trained forensic artist to blindly translate two different descriptions of participant’s facial features.  One in which the woman describes her own features and another in which she gets described. It’s no surprise that the self portrait the participant described of herself is less complimentary compared to the other portrait that is relayed by the other person. Dove’s message became apparent “Women are their own worst beauty critics”. As a result, the video generated over 163 million views worldwide.

They say you can’t manufacture viral videos, but to a certain extent you can. GoPro, the maker of the HD personal camera range, did exactly this by taking someone else’s viral video, in which their product played a key role. The footage entitled ‘Be a hero’ shows a fire-fighter pulling an unconscious kitten from a fire and bringing it back to life with an oxygen tank. The video was reportedly captured on a helmet-mounted camera and follows the brand’s previous viral success that featured supposedly amateur footage of a seagull’s flight, filmed when the bird picked up a GoPro camera. The ‘Be a hero’ video is just shy of its 20th million hit.

Finally, Evian’s “Baby & Me” campaign was the most popular video ad of 2013 in the UK, with more than 67 million hits. The video features men and women of various ages dancing in front of a mirror, with their reflections showing them as babies. After this successful campaign, Evian experienced viral reactivation. Viral reactivation occurs when a newly released video like “Baby & Me”, drives viewers back to older campaigns like “Live Young.” All of Evian’s previous campaigns experienced reactivation, for example, the brand’s 2011 campaign, “Baby Inside”, grew by 1.1 million views after its release.

Interestingly, none of the viral campaigns above mention why you should be drinking their water or purchasing their camera. Rather than producing a sales pitch, the innovative, thought-provoking videos speak to their target audience in a unique way. 

With YouTube now the second largest search engine after Google, it is hard to ignore the huge potential video marketing will have on an organisation’s position in the market.

Why not refresh your marketing in 2014 by integrating video into your marketing mix.

 

/0 Comments/by

#MarketingTitbits – Photoshop, WordPress, Facebook

photoshop-wordpress-facebook-smaller1. The 12 best free Photoshop plugins for designers
 Photoshop is one of the most popular pieces of software for editing images out there. Used by both designers and photo enthusiasts, the software doesn’t come cheap but once you have it the possibilities are endless.

Despite this, many plugins have been created that extend its already huge capabilities. Using plugins can help to perform tedious or complex tasks much easier. This week we found a great article from Mashable that highlights the 12 best free plugins for Photoshop. From Social Kit to CSS3Ps have a look at them here.

 

2. A blogger’s guide to setting up a WordPress site

 If your business isn’t already updating your site with regular content, then you should be. Not only is this great for SEO but it’s a way to get your audience engaged and remind them that you’re experts in your field.

One really easy way to get this content out there is to set up a blog. Today, more than 6.7million people worldwide are blogging about everything from fashion to new technology and everything in between.  Despite this, starting a blog can be daunting and seem like a task too big for some, this is why we want to share with you a blogger’s guide to setting up a WordPress site.

To have a look at all the hints and tips, click here.

 

3. 7 things you didn’t know you could do on Facebook that make it better

Facebook now has 1,310,000,000 active users monthly. This figure ensures that it is the number one social networking site in the world. As much as some of us love Facebook, they have created some hidden features that can enhance the user’s experience.

From making your Facebook pirate language to changing all baby pictures on your newsfeed to pictures of kittens, if you love Facebook then click here.

/0 Comments/by

#MarketingTitbits – Amazon, MAS#TAGS, curling

books-mashtags-curling-smaller-11. Amazon’s 100 books everyone should read in their lifetime
Amazon Book editors have recently published a “bucket list of books to create a well-read life” that “over many months, the team passionately debated and defended.” They decided that the list should be in alphabetical order “because our assumption is that no book is more important than another.”

The list encompasses books old and new, the oldest being Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice of 1813. From Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone toGreat Expectations and everything in between, look at the complete list here.

 

2. Birdseye creates Mashtags – the new social media potato snack

As we’re sure you are already aware, social media is a hot topic. Millions of people, young and old, use social networking sites all over the world and along with the use of social media, has come a change in the vocabulary we use. Last year the word “Selfie” was announced as The Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year, alongside this, “hashtag” has also become an increasingly prominent word in today’s society.

Many businesses have welcomed social media with open arms and have used it to their advantage, but Birdseye have come up with a whole new spin on it. They have released a brand new potato snack called Mashtags, essentially potato smileys in the shape of social media icons. To read more, click here. 

 

3. Sir David Attenborough provides curling’s best description yet

In recognition of British Curling Olympic success, we thought we’d point you in the direction of this. If you listen to the Radio 1 weekday drive time show you might have already heard the charming description of curling from Sir David Attenborough. The English broadcaster was a guest on Greg James’ show last week and Greg asked him to read a description of curling, the result was both hilarious and enchanting and we recommend giving it a listen here.

/0 Comments/by

#MarketingTitbits – news sites, images, clickbait

news-images-clickbait-smaller1. BBC is the most shared UK news outlet on Twitter, Mail Online is filth
A new study from PeerIndex shows the most popular news outlets in the UK compared to the number of shares they have on Twitter. Perhaps unsurprisingly, The BBC is the most shared news website, with just over 4.2 million articles shared on Twitter in January 2014. In second place was the Guardian with more than 2.4 million articles. The Telegraph and the Independent came in 3rd and 4th place respectively, with 913,000 and 616,000 shares respectively, but the most interesting figure of all is number 5 on the list.

The world’s most popular news website, which had almost 190 million unique visitors, worldwide, in January alone is none other than the Mail Online. However, whilst many people are looking at it, it seems not as many are willing to admit that they spend their lunch breaks perusing the website, with far fewer visitors sharing its content than on their less popular rival news sites. Their content may be interesting and eye-catching but is it really sharable? Only 453,000 people shared content from the Mail Online with their Twitter followers in January 2014. It suggests the Mail Online may be many people’s guilty pleasure! 

 

2. Eight free image resources for your website or blog

For all you bloggers and website owners out there, we have found a great article that highlights some of the best free image resources for you. We understand how tempting it can be to use Google images rather than searching for the perfect picture from pages of cheesy stock images. However, it is important not to breach copyright, which if challenged can come with a hefty price tag.

Changing your settings on Google images to filter out any that you can’t reuse is one way to find images, but in addition to this there are a number of free sites you can use. To read more, click here. 

 

3. The dirty secrets of clickbait

It might be that you have never heard of “clickbait” before; however the chances are you’ve probably experienced it. The term refers to an eye-catching link on a website which aims to make people read on, no matter how ridiculous, pointless or far-fetched the title seems.

To read more about the dirty secrets of clickbait, why people seem to have a love/hate relationship with it and what marketers can learn from it, click here.

/0 Comments/by

#MarketingTitbits – Facebook, Vine, YouTube

Facebook-Vine-YouTube-smaller1. This is what happens on Facebook when you die
You may have never wondered what happens to your social media profiles when you die. It is not something most people would think about. However, different social media channels treat death in different ways. Until recently, Facebook has chosen to restrict a person’s privacy settings to just friends once they have died; however this has now changed.

Now, when a person dies, their Facebook privacy settings stay the same, they say they “are respecting the choices a person made in life while giving their extended community of family and friends ongoing visibility to the same content they could always see.”

Facebook have also added an extra touch for friends and family. If you are a Facebook user you will know that recently you have been able to access your “Look back” video, showing you your life on Facebook. After a father’s plea on YouTube to be able to see his deceased son’s “Look back” video, users can now request to see their friend’s videos upon request after they die.

To read more, click here. 

 

2. 14 best branded Vines of February 2014

Today, many brands are using Vine to connect with their customers. Companies such as McDonalds, Xbox, Microsoft and General Electric are doing great things on Vine and using the relatively new social media platform in an innovative way.

If you’re in need of inspiration on how to use Vine or just want to have a look at who is doing it well, have a look at the 14 best branded Vines of February 2014here. 

 

3. YouTube’s 20 most shared ads of February

Unruly Media have put together a list of the most shared adverts on YouTube from February 2014.

Three’s “Sing It Kitty”, Coca-Cola’s “Social Media Guard” and Budweiser’s “Puppy Love” all feature on the list. To have a look at the full 20, click here.

/0 Comments/by

#MarketingTitbits – Gmail, Google, Vine

Gmail-GoogleAuthorship-Instagram-smaller1. Gmail offers unsubscribe link and the world of email marketing comes to an end
If you send emails out to your database on a regular basis, this might be one for you to read. As you may already know, if you receive what feels like millions of sales emails in your inbox each week, it can be really hard and time consuming to unsubscribe.

Many companies will hide the unsubscribe button in reams of small print at the very bottom of the email and you just don’t have the time or the energy to look through it all. However, times have changed if you use Gmail. They have now made it even easier to unsubscribe from emails that you no longer want or need in your inbox.

To read more about how you can unsubscribe or people can unsubscribe from your emails, click here. 

 

2. The value of Google authorship for your content strategy

You may never have heard of Google Authorship before, but if you’re updating your blog or website with regular content, you should be thinking about it.

In basic terms it is Google’s new way of making more credible content appear in people’s searches. Any content that you post to your website will link to your Google+ profile, giving your company a face. This boosts the click-thru rate of the post by up to 150% when it appears in search engine results.

Depending on your AuthorRank you may be eligible for Google Authorship. This looks at things such as how regularly you post, how many people are in your Google+ circles and your authority among other social media channels. To read more and to find out if you’re eligible, click here. 

3. Has Instagram killed Vine?

Instagram is one of the most widely used image based social media channels in the world. Instagram has roughly 130million users against Vine’s 13 million users.

13 million users is nothing to be sniffed at and if your target audience falls within the typical Vine demographic, it could be the place for you. However, with the strength of Instagram clear and growing by the day, as a marketer where should you spend your time Vine or Instagra? To read more about the Instagram vs. Vine debate, click here.

/0 Comments/by

How to use image-based social media channels for your business

top-imageAs the old saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words”, perhaps this is why so many companies today have adopted platforms like Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat to promote their brand.
If you are using social media channels on a regular basis, it is important to bear in mind that Facebook images receive 50% more interaction than text-based posts and Twitter images are the most shared and clicked content.

As an SME, it can be a challenge to adopt creative social media campaigns when larger companies are famously interacting online. However, there are multiple benefits to a number of sectors when adopting image-based social media platforms.

 

Instagram

Since the launch in October 2010, Instagram has grown to over 150 million monthly active users. What makes this tool unique is that it centres on the use of photographs and captions only, providing fun, alternative ways to grow your brand presence and promote your company offering. Here are a few tips for using Instagram in your business.

  • Show a more personal side to your brand. Introduce a clearly defined personality and voice.
  • Offer an exclusive view into the lifestyle that your brand makes possible.
  • Inspire movement around your brand. Encourage people to capture photos and create campaigns with a #hashtag.
  • Know your audience. Take time to learn what people love about your brand and fill their newsfeeds with photos that capture this.
  • Offer followers exclusive benefits. Introduce them to a new product or service before it goes live for the public.

Last year, Kellogg’s came up with an idea to convert Instagram photos into their own currency. The Special K store in Stockholm was turned into an Instashop that encouraged customers to upload a photo on Instagram with the hashtag #nyaspecialk (nya – meaning new) to receive a box of their new Special K cereal. The campaign follows Kellogg’s first pop up shop in London where customers could pay for a packet of Special K Cracker Crisps by tweeting a message about the new snack

 

Pinterest

Pinterest is now the fastest growing image-sharing social media channel. In 2013, Pinterest drove 41% of social media traffic to ecommerce sites. The social media site is described as the world’s biggest collection of everybody’s favourite things.

There are multiple opportunities for businesses that explore this creative platform. To set you in the right direction, here are a few top tips.

  • Create specific boards, include products, case studies and company life.
  • Relevance is key. Keep up with the times and pinning regularly is essential.
  • If your company has information buried away in dated PowerPoint presentations, create useful infographics to share with your target audience.

Petplan, the pet insurance company, created an engaging destination for pet loving parents. Their aim was to produce relevant and easy-to-digest pet health information available in a visually compelling format. After researching the trending pet topics on Pinterest, Petplan began creating boards with images from their popular pet health magazine, fetch. Over time, the company created specific educational boards like “Health Tips” and “Breed All About It”. After developing their presence on Pinterest,  Petplan saw an 87% increase in new site traffic, a 35% increase in page views and a 12.5% increase in insurance quote requests.

 

Snapchat

Snapchat allows users to take photos and record videos, which can then be sent to a controlled list of recipients. It has been reported that Facebook offered to buy Snapchat for over $3 billion, which highlights how important the app has quickly become. If you are worried that Snapchat might not be appropriate for your business, here are a few tips to help you use this platform effectively.

  • Make your snaps straight to the point. Your audience will be able to see them for a maximum of 10 seconds.
  • Keep it light-hearted, one of the main reasons for Snapchat is to make people smile, so be funny!
  • Personalise responses when possible, which reinforces the human aspect.
  • Quick competitions are a great way to engage with your audience via Snapchat.

The Co-operative is the first major UK retailer to use Snapchat for marketing. The ‘Snaptop’ campaign offers students £30 off all laptops online when they add Co-operative Electrical as a friend on Snapchat.  The Co-operative’s campaign is about targeting a specific audience using a platform they love, with something they need, at the time of year they need it.

The expectations of brands on social media are getting higher, which is leading to businesses having to turn away from traditional mediums and create more engaging and interactive experiences for followers. As images continue to generate higher engagement rates than text-based content, businesses will need to re-evaluate their marketing in 2014 to ensure that campaigns reflect the ever changing social media environment.

/0 Comments/by

#MarketingTitbits – Obama, Growth Vouchers, DHL

ferns-vouchers-DHL-smaller1. Obama goes between two ferns with Zach Galifiankis
‘Between Two Ferns’, with Zach Galifiankis, is a series of videos shown on the Funny or Die website. In each episode he conducts an interview with a celebrity between two potted ferns. His typical interview style consists of normal interview questions, random non sequiturs and some inappropriate comments and questions.

Celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Jennifer Anniston and Bradley Cooper have gone between two ferns in the past but the most recent celebrity to do so was Barack Obama. Some of the topics the pair cover include Dennis Rodman, same-sex divorce and the Affordable Care Act. To watch the video, click here. 

 

2. Growth Vouchers: month one results

This time last year, George Osborne first announced Growth Vouchers. The drive behind them is to help SMEs access the advice they need to help them grow. The businesses that participate are allocated a voucher up to the value of £2,000, matched with their own funds, to spend on advice and guidance from industry experts.

The vouchers were launched at the end of January and so far, nearly 1,500 businesses have applied, with nearly 600 vouchers allocated (over £1 million). Nearly 50% of the vouchers issued so far have been for advice in marketing, attracting and keeping customers. If you have not applied yet, it is still not too late. To read more, click here.

3. DHL’s brilliant ad

DHL claim that in many countries the company has more offices, more vehicles and more employees than there competition, which is why they are faster. To illustrate this, they came up with a brilliantly conceived guerrilla marketing campaign to get their competitors advertise for them.

To do this, large DHL packages were covered in thermo-active foil and cooled down below the freezing point, allowing the plastic wrappers to turn black. They then asked for the competitors to deliver the packages to hard-to-get-to addresses in big cities. As the plastic warmed up the message from DHL became clear… to watch for yourself, click here.

/0 Comments/by