Filed under: Brands & Marketing, Hot List Clients, News, Social Networking/ Word Of Mouth | Tags: £1m, cost effective, Dell, dollar, integrated, million, pound, reasonable, sales, social media, Sony, topman, Twitter, vaio
After being selected as the Twitter logo, Kevin the bird piled on the pounds (dollars)
Yeah, I know. That title is pretty cool huh? Twitter is catching up as a sales channel but I switch the ‘catching’ with ‘ka-ching’ (the sound of money ringing the tills). I’m certain my talent as a newspaper headline writer is lost in this job. Anyway, the twittering right now is about Sony Vaio generating £1m in sales from their Twitter channel.
Quite a few people have picked up on this and response seems to be quite mixed. Many figures are taking it with a pinch of salt but it’s not that much of a stretch. This is a global channel and part of their integrated marketing and PR. From our own experience with clients we’ve delivered social campaigns with a crazy high sales ROI, that if you scaled up to the Vaio activity would be substantially higher. A good example would be our work for Topman… but Sir Phil Green would likely slap me if said any more than that. Needless to say that the main costs are in the set up and once you have a critical mass, directing traffic, response and importantly sales becomes easier and increasingly more effective.
Filed under: Social Networking/ Word Of Mouth, research | Tags: billion, buzz, consumer, Facebook, Google, impact, members, million, Networking, numbers, people, posts, power, pull, push, reach, social media, sucks, Twitter, viral, volume, word of mouth
interaction vs proximity graph
Brands are no longer able pitch the credentials of their products to the current social media generation. Push is almost out, but pull is sky rocketing in. Buyers and consumers want trusted and real information from people like themselves and know where to go, to get it. They need it stamped as trustworthy and good for usage (with extra features) not by any company that dreamed up the slogan at a coffee shop meeting, but by the members of a social network that they can see, interact with, and most importantly something that they chose to join. They all have an appetite for the real interaction that generate buzz in which they are a part of. Facebook’s 350 million user posts and its shared 3.5 Billion different content per week, is what these consumers want.
Talk about a lot of possible brand awareness and brand management. People know the members of their social media networks and trust what they have to say. They can access all this information quickly and easily to help them learn about the product, and step into a shop knowing more about the goods compared to the shopkeeper himself.
Social media is about investing in relationships that create more economic value than they cost. It is about engaging with the people who decide whether to buy or not buy what you are selling, like it or dislike it, recommend it or trash it, and even to mould it or to throw it out the window.
A great (and very fun) way to show the power of social media marketing is to enter “(BRAND NAME) sucks” into Google. Put into consideration the fact that around 80% of the information read on the Internet today is not read on the site that it was originally published, but through social media, the word is spread to different websites, blogs, forums and networks. It is no longer just a fad for kids or a way to spread the word about your fart app; social media is evolving as a powerful and a fast paced low-cost, high-reward tool for making the sales, turning profits and taking home the big prize. The price tag is appealing and it is no holds barred.
Filed under: Hot List Clients, Social Networking/ Word Of Mouth, research | Tags: 2010, art of the trench, burberry, chanel, charlotte russe, community, dolce & gabbana, Facebook, fashion, gilt groupe, louis vuitton, luxury, marketing, prizes, social media, topman, Twitter, you tube
Channel Chanel
User-generated content is key to social media and fashion. From blogs to Facebook photo contributions to product reviews, the user-generated content is at its apex. One of the most notable and consistent campaigns that are built around user-generated content and social media has been from the brand Charlotte Russe, The brand’s weekly trivia contest on it’s Twitter channel or virals from their YouTube channel, drives the consumers to their website with the high hopes of snagging some great prizes.
Another great example of user-generated content used is Burberry’s Art of the Trench site. The people are encouraged to upload photos of themselves wearing Burberry’s signature style, the trench coat. Burberry is on a roll when it comes to online advertising to showcase their goods.
Moving into 2010, brands and retailers will be delving deeper into social media to reach online audiences. Digital and e-commerce launches of new products have also been a popular way for brands to keep costs low in a tough economy for luxury products. A variety of mobile platforms have taken off as brands, magazines, and web sites to develop apps with the goal of extending their online presence and widening the distribution channels.
When it comes to developing apps, fashion brands are some of the fastest out of the blocks. Chanel shows its runway collections via iPhone app, and the Gilt Groupe app allows users to shop sample sales and receive alerts as to when sales are starting. Guilt free apps to download for the stylish brand hunter! We’re currently developing iPhone and Blackberry apps for fashion brands around London Fashion Week.
The future of fashion is in digital marketing, not only have these brands started to win over the consumers through social media campaigns, but are starting to create their own niche groups. Louis Vuitton, Dolce & Gabbana and other major league heavy hitters in the fashion industry have launched their own social networks or added social components to their existing web sites. Or in the case of TOPMAN, we’ve worked to build their community over existing social networks and channels to lighten the load on the brand and keep things relevant to their audience.
It’s been a tough education, but we start to see less one-way discount promotions, and more genuine interaction between the brand and the people, it makes everyone happier and allows sales to boost, with satisfaction of personally acquainting yourself with who you are purchasing your new outfit from.
Filed under: Social Networking/ Word Of Mouth | Tags: ivy bean, marketing to, mature, old, silver surfer, Twitter
Grandma loves Tweet(y)
Some still struggle to see the point of being on Twitter. Because how could a simple 140 character platform bring any sort of value whether for your personal social life or for an multinational organisation? Yet many others will say that their Twitter account is their claim to fame, others again will show how the platform has developed their brand, introduced them to their clients and now function as their main port of contact with the surrounding world.
There is no doubt that lies great value in identifying what types of people use different social media channels, how they use them, when and why. Reports from 2008 (PEW Internet and American Life Project) presented a picture of how the younger Internet users, 18-24-year-olds, were more likely than any other age group to be found on Twitter. Back then, users aged 50+ accounted for somewhere in the region of 4% of the total usage.
But as Twitter continues to see an incredible growth rate we see tendencies for more mature users turning to the site. Recent research issued by Nielsen Online confirms that twice as many 50-64-year-olds than 18-24-year-olds in the UK are now using the platform. This shift is visible throughout the whole user population. Today, the 50+’s account for over 22% of the entire Twitter audience, making them the second most frequent user group after the 35-49-year-olds (33%).
Check out Ivy Bean who is 105 years old and tweeting away – to 50,000+ followers!
So what is it with Twitter that attracts the 50+’s? Are the younger users loosing interest? What are the implications for organisations? Is this an opportunity for new types of businesses and industries to join? These and many more questions answered by getting in touch with us at Neoco towers. We are helping brands communicate and engage this audience already.
Filed under: Technology | Tags: captcha, cyberdine, hal, human, Robot, script, skynet, spam, spammers, truetwit, Twitter
Everyone hates spammers. I hate them not because of the spam but because of the measures they force people implement to prevent spam, which in turn forces me to go through aforementioned measures. Pretty much every blog I try and comment on now makes me go through a Captcha word association game but now that’s even extended to Twitter via TrueTwit. It’s not enough that you could just decide not to accept the request, no, people have to put a TrueTwit response on their account which means:
- You follow them
- TrueTwit sends you a direct message
- You click link to confirm you are real
- You complete irritating Captcha
- They then allow you to follow them
Such a pain in the arse as I’m getting TrueTwit come up on about 1 in 6 follows now – which means soon it will be one in 5… 4… 3… then everyone will have it. Soon, there will be a script/ robot/ platform to respond to TrueTwit to prove you are a human (or a spammer). Soon there will be something new. Soon we will have robots talking to scripts, talking to robots to prove we are human. Until then, join me in Beloved Raping… sorry, I mean the joy of robots throwing out random words.
Filed under: Brands & Marketing, News, Social Networking/ Word Of Mouth | Tags: bad for brand, cheap sales technique, habitat, i'd never use the tags iphone apple iran to promote our brand, Iran, NMA, sale, social media, Twitter
habitat look to Iran to help boost sales!
Furniture retailer Habitat has come under fire after it spammed Twitter users through the use of hash tags.
The retailer had been using hash tags, which help users track conversations on the microblogging site, to promote marketing messages that had no relevance to the topics used.
The company’s Twitter feed, HabitatUK, was putting out marketing messages such as ‘Our totally desirable Spring collection now has 20% off!’ on Friday, using tags such as #mms, #Apple, #iPhone and even used an Iranian election hashtag #Mousavi.
The brand pulled all the messages the next day and replaced them with standard marketing and sales tweets, but many members of Twitter had already seen the messages and publicly spoke of their annoyance.
A spokeswoman at Habitat said, “This was a mistake which we’re looking into. What’s important to us is that we always listen, take on board observations and welcome constructive criticism. We will do our utmost to ensure any mistakes are never repeated.”
Rhys Willians, managing partner at Agenda21, said it was another example of a big brand poorly executing a social media idea.
“In its response it has also gone for corporate behaviour, which doesn’t really work,” he said. “It made a mistake. There’s a general acceptance from Twitter users that it won’t operate for free and that there are going to be ads, but brands need to know what they’re doing and execute it correctly.”
Antony Mayfield, head of social media at digital agency iCrossing, said brands need to understand social networks before using them for marketing.
“You need to understand your networks and Habitat understood on a technical level but not on a social level,” he said. “Brands also have to understand that just because it happened on a social network doesn’t mean people outside it won’t know about it too.”
This has just been picked up by the news sites and featured on NMA,
Filed under: Cool & Online, Events, News | Tags: delay, fight the power, Iran, Iran Election, protests, social networking, social networking revolution, Twitter, twitter maintenance
A search for #iranelection right now will give you a pretty long list of results, in fact in the time I wrote this about 2000 new tweets have appeared. Twitter seems to be the only way that Iranians can communicate at the moment as the government clamps down on most forms of communication.
Twitter is so important there right now that Biz Stone announced that they are moving the planned maintenance to tomorrow to allow citizens in Iran to communicate with one another. It’s a pretty big step from the social networking site, and also follows on from the #cnnfail hash tag, criticising the broadcasters lack of coverage of the elections.
It’s all pretty exciting stuff and following on from our last post, highlights the power of social networking sites can have in the real world.
Filed under: Coffee Break, Events, News, Social Networking/ Word Of Mouth | Tags: Beat the traffic, Motorbike, Paul Clarke, social networking, Strike, tube, Tube Strike, Tweet in shining armour gets you to your meeting on time!, tweetbike, Twitter, Union
Now, for those of you working in London, no doubt you will have had a nightmare getting to work for the last 2 days, but one cheeky chappy, with a passion for tweeting, decided to bring some cheer into people’s journeys by offering a ride on the back of his motorbike.
Another satisfied tweeter!
But Paul’s real motivation behind it was to get people thinking. What he has done is show how social media can react in a very short space of time to real word events and how social networking tools aren’t just about small bits of information that are bound to remain digital. Tiny tweets can make real things happen! If you want more info on how Neoco can help your brand react to whatever you may be facing, please get in touch with Neoco!
Read the whole article here
Follow paul @Paul_Clarke
Filed under: Brands & Marketing, Cool & Online, Events, Hot List Clients | Tags: alternative, blog, Bowie, cool event, digital agency, jazz, london, Meltdown, music, sold out, Southbank Centre, Spotify, tickets, Twitter, we loved Massive Attack last year
Meltdown headliner
Tickets now on sale for the AWESOME Meltdown event.
This has been an absolute stormer over recent years with previous guest directors including Massive Attack, David Bowie, Morrissey and more. this year, free jazz legend and icon of the avant-garde Ornette Coleman will take over Southbank Centre’s riverside venues and spaces as the 16th director of Meltdown. Reflecting the restless, unfettered spirit of this year’s director, Meltdown in 2009 will provide a platform for avantrockers, jazz and world music artists alike – giving free reign to reinvention, improvisation and the collaborative concerts Meltdown is renowned for.
As the Southbank Centre digital agency it was our task to put together all the comms for this year’s event including the dynamic website that draws on several social feeds, including Twitter, Blog and a Spotify playlist.
Meltdown homepage
There has been a great response from the community – the Twitter feed already has nearly 700 followers and newsletter subscriptions are high. So don’t sit here reading any more – go and check it out and why not treat yourself to some tickets too!
Filed under: Cool & Online, Design, Hot List Clients | Tags: automated, feed, i love, i love cheeseburgers, i love design, quark, Twitter, updates, XPress
I Love Design twitter page
The I Love Design Twitter feed has gone live and now promotes activity on the community site for designers – showing when new work is added, comments are made, etc. This is a great automated feature that will drive a lot more traffic and create exposure for the already successful website by promoting the work through a selection of activity.
Start following I Love Design today!
