The research compiled by Figaro Digital and Lightspeed Research threw up some interesting insights into community engagement. Although not groundbreaking in depicting how you would expect a user to behave, it did raise some important questions around evaluating the depth of engagement and the relationship this has with building long term loyalty.
According to the research, 20.6% of respondents stated that the reason they’d engaged (liking, following, commenting) with a brand was because of specific discounts and offers. This was followed by the appeal of competitions (19.6%) and to a lesser …

Unless you’re a Coca-Cola of this world, if you want to launch an online community, your user acquisition strategy will be key. No one will accidently stumble across your page, like it and become a lifelong fan.  You need to work, and work hard to get people to commit to you – and even that commitment can be transient if not managed correctly.
The problem is, gone are the days of social media novelty. As consumers, we are now inundated with brands in social media slowly pushing themselves further and further …

I was surprised to read blogger Mina Zaher’s piece for The Huffington Post in which she documents her bad experiences with PR’s. This is an example of the basics of PR clearly not being adhered to, and a lack of appreciation of how much this could ultimately destroy an influential relationship, not just for the individual but for the wider agency and brand it is representing. The reason I’m surprised is by now, blogger outreach should no longer be seen as a separate piece of activity that sits outside other …

So as to not replicate the plethora of blog posts covering social media predictions for 2012, I thought it would be worth listing the ten areas I’d like to see develop within the social media and digital comms industry over the next twelve months. In no particular order….
1. Twitter to be able to offer UK case studies for their advertising packages. To date the offering looks unsophisticated with limited results for brands outside of the entertainment industry
2. Brands to get a lot smarter with integrating their above-the-line and social strategies. What really …

Having been a little negative in the past about Facebook’s platform developments (some publicised, others, of course not), I have to say, things have really been hotting up over the past few week with a raft of new changes being introduced. Some of these changes have been in reaction (never a great place to be) to Google +’s introduction a few months back –  easier filtering of friends into specific categories (called ‘lists’) and targeting of messages.  Others, however are really starting to show the integral nature of Facebook’s ‘open …

Interesting stories in the papers earlier this week stating that 100,000 Britons are leaving Facebook every day. Is this something that will concern the social networking site with 600 million users worldwide? Possibly not, but it would be interesting to see what the drop off figures were, say six months ago before the press really started focusing on the issues of privacy (something they haven’t, to my mind really exploited yet).
What I did take notice of however was a teenage girl saying that she didn’t deem Facebook as relevant or …

I’ve been doing some work recently with The Times, helping them out on a feature about the issue of unemployment amongst the over 50’s. I was called upon to offer my expertise on how job seekers can use social networking to help them find work. The feature was based on a number of case studies, two of which I spent the afternoon with, coaching them through the different sites they could use and tactics they could implement. The piece is now live online (behind pay-wall I’m afraid):
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/career/article3039242.ece
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/career/article3039002.ece
It also featured in …

So, finally I tied the knot last week- and no, there were no wedding day tweets of my cake, or dress, or anything! There are certain days of your life that really should be about your close friends and family- those that have shared the experience first-hand with you. I even was a little uncomfortable when the barrage of friends’ photos of the wedding went up on Facebook. Having no control over the images put ‘out there’ (even though I have lovely friends and they were all fine) was a …

I was slightly concerned this week when listening to a crisis comms ‘expert’ talk about digital crisis planning. Why? Because there seems to be a misunderstanding when dealing with a crisis in social media all you need to do is simply adapt your crisis procedures so that responses are more ‘timely’? Yes of course speed is of the essence but to think this is the only thing we need to raise as a consideration to clients is an underestimation of how much due diligence needs to go into online crisis …

Having been recruiting for various social media roles over the past couple of months I find it incredible the CV is still considered a credible descriptor of a person’s employment history. No more! I refuse to look at these pieces of paper which are crying out for a role in digital comms and yet show no passion for the medium these candidates want to work in day in, day out. No URL’s – nothing, just an email address.  So, to the humble Google search, then LinkedIn…Twitter. Ok obvious but it …