Lauren Cotton's blog

YouGov, the most quoted research agency in the UK, today reveals its predictions for 2012 on people’s consumption and behaviour around Smart TV, smartphones, Facebook, digital newspapers and digital radio.

After the success of our first Social Media Week brainstorm, the second, with a consumer focus, took place last Wednesday 7th December at Ketchum PR's offices in Shoreditch.

The aim was to explore how social media is impacting our day-to-day lives from the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the music we listen to, the games we play, the sport we do and the way our families interact online.

The HSBC Business Growth Grant competition is offering funding to help grow up to four deserving businesses. 

They'll be offering up to two £50,000 Growing Business Grants to businesses using innovative ideas to grow within the UK. Two more £50,000 Overseas Trade Grants will go to businesses that have the aspiration and motivation to develop new opportunities overseas. 

Earlier this year in February, led by Chinwag, Social Media Week London included over 110 events, 12 designed by Chinwag and a whopping 95 created and delivered with love by our 54 event partners, including Dell, Dutch Embassy, British Library, BBC, Channel 4, LikeMinds, Viadeo, We Are Social, techMAP, Ogilvy and more.

44% of events were put on by digital, traditional and social media agencies, the rest were a variety of companies, organisations and individuals from all sectors.

8,500 tickets were snapped up and over 8,500 online viewers watched livestreams. Social Media Week London (#smwldn) trended every day on Twitter surfing the wave of tweets across all the events.

It's almost that time of year again - and we're back taking the lead for Social Media Week London, 13 - 17th February 2012.

Today the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) announced the nominees for its Premium Awards, with the winners to be revealed at the BIMA Awards on 10th November. 

The premium categories cannot be entered directly, rather, winners are selected from the stand out work in BIMA’s other award categories and as such represent absolute excellence in the three areas of Effectiveness, Innovation and Creativity. Nominees for Agency of The Year and the BIMA Grand Prix will be revealed at the awards ceremony at Fabric on the 10th of November.

And the nominees are...

Race For Apps is a competition, launched by Hackney Council, Digital Shoreditch and IC Tomorrow, to crowdsource mobile apps from the digital community for visitors, business leaders and journalists coming into the local area during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralymic Games.

With millions of people descending on London next year, Race for Apps invites entries in the following five categories:

Last week, the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) revealed the final shortlist for its prestigious annual award ceremony to be held on November 10th as Internet Week Europe wraps up.  

Silicon Milkroundabout, the only jobs fair specifically for UK start-ups, returns on Sunday 30th October at The Old Truman Brewery, London.

Sure to lure in graduates and tech talent from the City, the fair will bring together over 100 start-ups, offering over 500 technical positions, so if you're a developer or engineer with a passion for building real products and crafting great code, it's the perfect place to meet exciting start-ups, hear their pitches and see what opportunities are up for grabs.

Econsultany's Innovation Awards 2012 are just around the corner and the deadline for entries is this Friday, 21st October.

These global awards, now in their fourth year, aim to reward companies on the cutting edge of digital marketing and e-commerce, across categories ranging from mobile marketing and social media to multichannel marketing and optimization.

August was the last month to qualify for this year's £10,000 Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and the UK Final will take place in London on 9th November.



However, both the £1,000 and £10,000 Awards competitions, which started again on 1st September, are up and running and awaiting your entries.

The eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit (30th Nov - 1st Dec) covers the complete online marketing optimisation value proposition, attracting decision makers keen to take their organisations’ marketing to the next level.

We're delighted the organisers, Rising Media, have offered one lucky Chinwagger(s) the chance to win a free conference ticket.

The Conversion Conference (30th Nov - 1st Dec) is dedicated to anyone wanting to achieve maximum ROI from their online campaigns. The event will see internationally renowned experts explain how to improve sales and dramatically increase your site’s conversion rates.

We're delighted the organisers, Rising Media, have offered one lucky Chinwagger(s) the chance to win a free conference ticket.

As you will of course be aware, last night was our Late Summer BBQ, with Bootlaw, Kingston Smith and Great British Chefs. It was a wonderful evening of delicious food and exciting discussion.

We're so glad so many of you could make it and it was brilliant to catch-up with you all.  Judging by the Tweets we've spotted last night and this morning, everyone had a fantastic time.

The Advanced Email Conference, taking place in London on 15th November, will discuss the difficult task of creating personalised, targeted and engaging email campaigns that stand out in the sea of emails we receive on a daily basis.

The organisers, Global Insight Conferences, have offered an exclusive discount for Chinwaggers (see below). Here's what they have to say about the conference:

At SoCon 2011 (Thurs 20th October) you'll hear marketers from world leading businesses and brands discuss their journeys of discovery in social media. From building and nurturing communities to the El Dorado of monetisation and co-creation.

We're delighted the organisers have offered one lucky Chinwagger the chance to win free conference tickets for themselves and a colleague.