We're very excited to announce our latest event in the USA, working with our friends at the amazing SXSW Interactive festival, we're announcing a one-day masterclass, "Doing Business in the USA", designed for international digital firms expanding into the US taking place on Fri 8th March 2013 in Austin, Texas.
Backed by SXSW and building on Chinwag's experience within the Digital Mission series, helping UK firms expand internationally this official SXSW event provides the essential guide for Founders, CEOs and C-level executives planning to enter or expand their business in North America.
Consumer confidence in mobile shopping is at an all-time high, with the majority of shoppers planning to buy Christmas gifts on their phones - 73% of whom have not done so before. Is this global phenomenon here to stay and what are the opportunities for forward-thinking advertisers?
As well as consumer trust in mobile shopping growing, around one in three customers are planning on spending over half of their festive budget via mobile, avoiding the traditional Christmas crush in favour of shopping on their own terms.
In the latest social media battle, Instagram has switched off their integration with 'Twitter Cards', the app used to display multimedia within tweets - meaning we're no longer treated to twitterfeeds enhanced by beautiful photography (albeit mostly of cats and food).
So why the move back to 140 characters, a link and strangely cropped images? Speaking at Le Web '12 last week, Kevin Systrom, Instagram's founder and CEO, said the decision was "an evolution of where we want links to our content to go."
"Snow is falling all around me.
Children playing having fun.
Trains are cancelled. Shops are heaving.
It's the season of MacBooks and shiny iPads.
Merry Christmas everyone."
I'm in a musical mood, so sue me ;-) And those Applistas everywhere are struggling to resist the urge to splurge on a shiny new metallic toys from the wizards in Cupertino.
But, I hear you cry, who put the "i" in iMac, iPhone, iPad? And did you know that Steve Jobs hated the name originally? And had an alternative...
Ken Segall (@ksegall), the ad-man Apple turned to, talks about his naming fame and his book, Insanely Simple about the principles that guides the company and makes it stand out from its competitors, in this video from Thinking Digital 2012.
It’s complex. It’s personal. It’s the modern customer journey.
We’ve taken huge steps forward in understanding how ‘they’ interact with ‘us’, and a few things are clear:
- The journey is complex
- It involves multiple touch points
- It is driven by unique influences and behaviour
- To engage, we must get personal
We recently announced the exciting news that the Digital Mission will be returning with its fourth expedition to New York next Spring, from 18th - 22nd February 2013. The trip is coinciding with Social Media Week New York in order to allow companies to explore the 150+ events, covering extensive topics along the vein of social media throughout the week.
We are very thrilled to announce that the first set of companies have been chosen for the mission and are all set to venture out to NYC in Feb. See below for information on the companies as well as their contact details in case you want to get in touch prior to the trip.
HTML5 is big news - and it's not surprising. It's a major step forward in web design, bringing unprecedented capabilities and flexibility to the way sites are put together. It's set to make a significant difference to the way brands develop their digital strategies and marketing plans - one which has the potential to enhance digital commerce and engagement, at a time when ecommerce and online retail is going from strength to strength.
We've put together an infographic which takes a
look at the facts and figures behind HTML5 and why it's important for digital
strategists and marketers.
OK, so let’s imagine that you or your client have a Facebook brand page with a healthy 50,000 likes.
You’re posting an entertaining mix of links back to your site, photos and the occasional piece of video.
So the question is, what kind of interaction levels should you expect to be getting?
To get to an answer, I’m mashing together a couple of recent pieces of research. The first, from an article by Robin Grant in Techcrunch looks at EdgeRank – which is the algorithm Facebook uses to work out which updates make it into your news feed. It’s pretty clear that distribution of content by brands has dropped by some 40% in just three months – and that the drop is fairly uniform across even the most popular Facebook pages.
A couple of weeks ago, we posted about the Making it Mobile Awards - and having received a record number of entries, The BLN have announced the 15 finalists due to present this week on the 28th November.
With some fantastic entries, it's been a tough competition and to quote one of the judges, Nick Lansley, Head of R&D at Tesco:
“Goodness, you know how to make life difficult! I had a challenge even choosing a top 20 (with many others 'bubbling under') and it has been a formidable job narrowing my votes down... Every company who entered this competition should know that they really have created some incredibly innovative mobile products & services, and I wish them every success. British innovation in mobile rocks!”
Many brands continue to treat their Facebook strategy as if
marketing has moved no further as an art since the days of glamour models on
car bonnets. I’m struck dumb by the lack of meaningful engagement so many
moderators offer in their schedule of posts. Whether it be the ubiquitous “win
this if you press like” or the “it’s funny because it’s true” sharing of the
everyday-odd, I wonder if there is a goal behind the effort.
Of course, in the run up to Christmas, every other brand will
be launching a competition in order to extend their fan-base. There’s nothing
wrong with that, everyone likes a chance at winning something for themselves in
the season of spending. Come January however, when the big bucks have been
spent, I think it unlikely that the new fans will represent an increase in
engagement in line with the inflated fan figures. I’ve written about the
complexity of competition positioning before on this blog, however it’s the
lack of ‘engagement strategy’ that worries me more today.
