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 …

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 …

So this week I got all legal and attended a briefing on the ASA’s extended digital remit which, if you weren’t aware of already, comes into effect on the 1st March. To date, company websites have been excluded from ASA regulations which basically means they can say what they want about their products and services without validation. This is the first thing that is being addressed. Non paid for space (ie: social media channels) which are under the control of a brand/organisation as well as ‘earned media’ (user generated content) …

A piece in today’s Observer on how leading academics in the US believe that communicating through social networking sites is isolating rather then empowering, got me thinking to my University dissertation on online consumption and identity.
Some of Sociologist, Sherry Turkle’s, points seem initially alarmist (‘Under the illusion of allowing us to communicate better, it is actually isolating us from real human interactions in cyber-reality that is poor imitation of the real world’) and show a misunderstanding of how social media is being used to enhance real world interactions but, when …

Working in both PR and digital comms I have been involved with a number of blogger relations campaigns throughout the years. The most recent one I’ve been involved with has been for one of my clients, ‘make mine Milk’, where we invited mummy (and, not to be forgotten daddy) bloggers down to the London School of Coffee for a morning of Barista training and low fat semi-skimmed milk discussion.  After chatting to many of the attendees about how they liked being approached by PRs, plus some of their worst PR …

Will I be using the new Facebook Messages – well of course (but I caveat that with the latter part of my post). To have all social comms centrally held in one place is without doubt very compelling – to be able to send SMS via Facebook could be useful, attaching external docs – yep that’s something I would use considering I’m planning a wedding. I use Facebook more than any other channel to communicate to my core group of friends so I can only see this as a positive …

I’ve noticed a few social media campaigns recently (one involving a Pizza party and an X Factor non-winner, the other a package of chips, a pop superstar and some funky augmented reality) that have left me a little perplexed, mainly because of the complexity of what they were expecting their users to do – uploading photos, creating films, throwing parities, playing fancy dress…the list is endless . Maybe I should be taking more time to appreciate some of these strategies but I have limited time, just like the next person, …

Building on my last blog post the Social Media Policy – not just for the big players I felt it was worth sharing some pointers on what should be included if you are drafting this document on behalf of your business or client.
Not one for the bottom drawer
Remember that you want your policy to empower the reader to embrace social media rather than scare them off. This means ensuring that there is no complicated, technical jargon (if this needs to be included then make sure there is a glossary …