The Guardian has reported that mobile spending in the UK tripled between 2011 and 2012, going from £203m to £526m. This is an incredible increase of 148 percent in just one year. Marketers are recognizing the opportunity mobile devices bring and have found that mobile advertising is an effective way to reach a large portion of the population.
Interestingly, in 2009 only 1 percent of the total amount spent on advertising in the UK was spent on mobile ads. That number went up to 10 percent in 2012. Social media advertising has increased by 24 percent in the past three years, and In general, Internet advertising is also steadily increasing.
What’s all the Fuss About?
So why are marketers increasing their mobile advertising budgets so quickly and by so much? Because a growing portion of the population is spending more time on mobile devices. According to the Westminster eForum in 2012, there are now more mobile phones in the UK than there are people.
Since Internet-ready mobile gadgets are more affordable and common than ever before, people are spending more time browsing the Internet, using apps, reading blogs and connecting through social media while on the go.
A few statistics, all from the Westminster eForum, illustrate the growing trend of mobile Internet use:
28 percent of UK citizens have bought something with their smartphone.
12 percent of the population has a tablet, and tablet sales are growing by about 378 percent each year.
38 percent of people who have tablets spend more time using it than watching television.
53 percent of people in the UK use two screens at once (both a smartphone and the television, for example).
There is no doubt that mobile Internet use is on the rise, and advertisers are wise to begin using this channel to reach their markets.
How Your Business Can Use Mobile Advertising
If you’re interested in taking your advertising to the next level by implementing mobile advertising, there are several ways you can do it. First, making your website mobile friendly and using mobile ads on your site is an excellent way to reach your smartphone-using market. You can also use advertising on apps or even release your own company app.
Social media advertising is extremely popular and can be very effective. Social media users are turning to mobile devices more and more as they connect with their friends and follow brands. You can leverage your current social media campaign so it will target mobile users.
As markets become more reliant on mobile Internet use, brands need to follow with mobile advertising campaigns. If you analyze your market and find that it is likely to consist of smartphone users, your brand would be wise to begin advertising through mobile websites, apps and social media.
The best video marketing campaign of the week – Coke’s “Unlock the 007 in You” campaign, which featured commuters tackling a series of obstacles to win tickets to the latest Bond movie. No doubt they were actors, as getting people to take part without signing a legal waiver would be madness, but the campaign was still very entertaining.
Even after the many updates and improvements to the UI, many are still wondering how much clout Klout even has. That’s why two new start-ups are on the scene and promising to deliver the big data results that Klout can’t. We’ve already reported on one start-up to watch, Telagence, which promises to build a social graph of connections and communities, making it easier to see the links. We can also add Little Bird to the list, which promises to show you how to connect with the biggest influences on social media, and how to become one yourself. This article by Bloomsberg Business Week explains how the two could blow Klout out of the water.
We all anxiously waited for the iPad mini to be unveiled and see if Apple can still reign supreme in the tablet market as they compete directly with the low-priced Android Nexus 7. Already questions have been raised about the high pricing, and it has been revealed by Mashable that 45% of iPad owners are unhappy with the timing of this release, which is so close to the iPad 4. However, the iPad mini could also spark up some interesting advertising activity, as advertisers are forecasting a boom in mobile ads around the holiday season.
Facebook has started to show increases in mobile ad revenue, an area they were previously stumped by. But just as something good happens to them, they launched yet another unpopular feature. Personal users can now promote their posts, which will ensure their updates are seen by all of their friends…otherwise, around 80% of your friends list will miss out. Likewise for pages, you won’t see updates from all of the pages your like, unless you manually opt in by adding pages to your interest lists. If users can no longer use the network to reach their friends, this could spark the end of the growth of Facebook.
Is social media making us more whiney, or is it just giving us a better platform to voice our concerns? This article by the Financial Post suggests that social media is making companies handle complaints very differently. As customer grievances are very often played out in public view, companies are working harder than ever to ensure their customers are satisfied.
Before you left the office on Friday, I can pretty much guarantee that someone in the vicinitywas watching this video on YouTube. And if you didn’t see it in the office, then a friend probably forwarded it to you on Facebook. And if you didn’t catch it there, then you probably read about it in one of the various tech publications you read over the weekend.
What am I talking about?
The Bodyform Facebook response video of course.
If you managed to avoid the Internet between the time it was released and now, well here it is, just for you. And no doubt if you’ve already seen it, you’re going to want to watch it again.
The video has already gained over 2 million hits, and it’s only been circulating for 1 week. This is viral marketing at its best. So how did they do it?
Timing
The video was created in response to a post on their Facebook fan page; a disgruntled Richard confronted Bodyform about their false portrayal of “that time of the month”. The post was no more interesting than any other amusing post on Facebook, and yet this one captivated the social networking community and lead to a flurry of likes and shares. Mashable covered the story, calling it a ‘comedic rant’, and it looked like Richard had experienced his brief moment of glory in the limelight.
One week later Bodyform released the video. One week. That’s timing. They could have let the story die down in its own time, but instead they decided to strike while interest was still high, and as a result brought themselves a decent amount of positive publicity.
Getting Personal
Bodyform took a risk in singling out Richard. While there are some YouTube comments that suggest “picking on” Richard was a harsh move, on the whole, their audience found it amusing. By getting personal they employed a similar tactic to Smart Car’s Bird Poo infographic and demonstrated that they do indeed read and respond to their social community.
Being Genuinely Funny
“Bodyform doesn’t have a CEO. But if it did she’d be called Caroline Williams. And she’d say this.” They took the tongue-in-cheek British sense of humour to the maximum and removed any possibility of the video being brand damaging if it backfired. Everything about the video – from the script, to the blue water, to the well-timed ring-tone – was absolutely hilarious. And all of this happened in only one short week. They created a video that couldn’t not go viral. Kudos.
Facebook already offered the opportunity for marketers to target their promotional messages by geo-targeting specific areas, but they’ve taken this one step further by offering global brands the opportunity to build globally targeted pages. Previously, brands would have to set up individual pages for each region and manage each page separately, but now they’ll be able to house it all under one page, and centralise the management process to create a unified brand experience.
What does this all mean? Global brands will now be able to manage and maintain several different globally targeted pages under one URL, and they’ll be able to customise everything, from the cover photo to the content. At the moment this option is only available to the big name brands, so even if your small e-commerce business is showing signs of booming in Europe and you want to start marketing to them directly using Facebook, your only option will be to set up individual pages. But as with all new features it’s only a matter of time before they’ll be available to more users.
Why is this good news?
Giving brands the opportunity to manage their global brand in one place offers huge opportunities of advertising, which could see Facebook pulling in some serious money. Brands will have the opportunity to foster more local communities, where people can share their experiences with those who can identify with them. On a very basic level, it’s the difference between sharing a recipe with the measurements in cups or grams, which can easily alienate both US and UK audiences.
It will also hugely improve the social search function, as users will no longer have to look through lots of irrelevant regional pages to find the brand page they’re looking for. They’ll simply click on one page, and be directed to the local branch of that brand.
For users, it also means more relevant content, and better targeting. So rather than hearing about a L’Oreal offer in the US which is of little use to you, you’ll only see the content that is relevant to you, such as a money off L’Oreal voucher you can use at Boots.
How could it backfire?
As identified by Jordan Stone of We Are Social, these changes could have a negative impact on brands. Brands will have to be cautious about only setting up regional brand pages where there is sufficient demand to support the page, as they risk losing out on the benefits of ‘global updates’. By sending out global updates, brands reach more people and will also benefit from an improved EdgeRank. If they over-target, they’ll either miss people, or create more work for their content creators.
What do you think of these changes? Will the create more or less work for global brands?
If you’ve been on LinkedIn recently you may have noticed that you have a fresh look profile. CEO Jeff Weiner described the revamp as “one of the biggest changes to a LinkedIn pillar product in the company’s history.” Users will also have access to a wealth of new features and tools to help make your networking experience more like a social sharing network.
The Internet was buzzing this week with the excitement of a new meme, as Mitt Romney’s ill-worded gaffe about “binders full of women” went viral. In the 12 hours after the debate was broadcast there was already a tumblr page, a twitter account, and countless memes circulating.
Social Media Marketing
According to the big guns, luxury brands should be embracing social media and seeking out brand advocates. We’ve already seen how successful brands like Burberry and Prada have been in the content marketing strategy; remember “Prada: A Therapy”, the short film directed by Roman Polanski? The social media lead for Mercedes said that luxury brands should leverage their unique position to make the most of social platforms.
In a survey, 62.82% of digital marketers said that they don’t incorporate paid advertising into their social media efforts. It’s been a long-standing opinion that social media marketing should be a free outlet; but how much longer can this be sustained?
In this article, Yuchun Lee argues that not all Facebook fans are created equal, and brands should not be looking at the quantity, but at the quality of their fans. Social media marketing efforts will be best spent in identifying and cultivating brand advocates, rather than engaging in shallow interaction with the masses.
SEO: How To
Here are 10 very simple ways you can make Google+ work for you and your SEO efforts. So even if you use Facebook and Twitter more often, Google+ is equipped with so many SEO enabled features that you’d be a fool to ignore them.
For this weeks Whiteboard Friday, SEOMoz talk about the future of SEO, and how to get it right in the rest of 2012 and beyond. They’ll take you through thr process of re-learning the rules of SEO, and ‘un-learning’ old school habits.
Staring at your analytics dashboard and wondering how to make head or tail of it? You’re not alone; which is why Search Engine Land have come up with these 1- ways you can make your data from analytics more insightful.
SEO: News
Here’s another round-up of the weekly SEO news, including an overview of a recent interview with Google’s Matt Cutts on the future of authorship, +1 reports, and SEO. Well worth a read if you’e looking for a very quick recap.
While most people may be holding off on sharing their predictions for how social media will change, develop and shape our lives in 2013, Matt Goddard of r2integrated is jumping the gun to get his predictions across now. We’ve got a few months left in 2012, and we’ll be moving into the Christmas season which is vital for many retailers. Just like we expect to hear Christmas carols in high street shops once the Halloween decorations have cleared, we also expect to see early Christmas promotions arriving on our Facebook timelines.
Goddard put together 5 predictions of key social media trends for the next six months, his reasoning:
“We’re entering the most critical six months in the history of the social web. What I see coming has opportunities – and pitfalls – that must be addressed now, for the general good of brands, consumers and the social web as a whole.” via PRWeb
Here’s the key take-away from his predictions for small businesses…
1. The social web pyramid is about to get flipped on its head, and it will be the most agile and genuine brands who fare the best following this revolution. We’re going to have to stop seeing brands as the top of the pyramid, passing cute pictures of cats down to the consumers and calling it interaction. Communities are emerging within social media that marketers will have to work harder to interact with.
2. Display advertising will be a thing of the past as more businesses move budgets to social media. Marketing will no longer be about marketing your product to the consumer, you’ll have to market alongside them. For small businesses this will place the emphasis on the people within your organisation, as they’ll be the ones interacting with your customers.
3. You’ll have to embrace what you can’t control and learn to handle the consequences. As the “unowned web” takes shape and replaces traditional websites, conversations that take place about your brand will suddenly become paramount to your success. Learn to foster good relationships with your customers and you’ll come out on top.
4. Tech and communication will become vital for social media marketing – it will no longer be a “5 minutes spent tweeting in the morning” job. Hiring web developers and those with natural communication skills isn’t in everyones budget – but as a small business, you can embrace the freelance workforce and build good relationships with the best in tech now.
5. The 2 things you’ll need to start asking yourself are: how do I make this cost effective, and how do I adhere to the fast-changing ethical rules of engagement? Again, smaller companies have the advantage of agility, but lack the budget. Small business owners will have to use this to their advantage over the next 6 months.
Here’s a quick curated list of the social media and search engine optimisation news and articles you may have missed this week.
Social Media
The JQuery masonry style is still reigning supreme in the web design world, and it’s still being incorrectly dubbed the property of Pinterest. eBay is the latest to hop aboard the bandwagon and announce the launch of “feed”. Feed is intended to provide a curated list of items that may interest the visitor based on browsing history, and present them in a pinterest-style layout. This isn’t the only revamp they’ve undergone recently, as they launched a new logo in the not too distant past.
New studies suggest that the increased use of mobile could topple some of the big players in social networking. The big players of today could be outpaced by some of the more agile and mobile friendly networks, as more and more consumers switch to tablet and mobile usage for social media consumption.
Social Media Marketing
If you’re running a competition on social media to get the ball rolling, one of the biggest challenges you’ll face is keeping the conversation alive after you’ve announced the winners. Follow these 5 steps to making sure you reach the right people, and that you’re saying the right things to make them stick around, even if they don’t win.
Since buffer and tweetcaster joined forces, life has been remarkably easier for marketing managers, check out these top tips for making it work for your business.
SEOMoz shared these 5 Facebook marketing resources that you may have missed. Make sure you check out the section about Facebook Studio, as this really is a resource that all marketers need to know about.
SEO News
If you’ve ever wondered why you’ve always just used Google instead of any other search engine, this article looks at how Google has managed to capture the hearts and minds of the UK’s population. Looking at the past successes is a good indicator way to predict their future
SEO – How To
Once again, people are back to mulling over the theory that SEO might die some day soon – and this time it’s in infographic form. By looking at all the reasons people are claiming it’s the end of SEO as we know it (which the article claims is usually a bid to boost their reputation), this infographic dispels any myths that SEO is on its way out.
What’s the link between SEO content and feather boas? Read this great article about common mistakes made in SEO content to find out!
And if you’re thinking local at the moment, why not check out these 5 link building tactics to improve your local search standing in light of the Venice update.
After the fake, duplicate and hacked account cull of last week, those marketing managers who saw their Fan counters fall on Facebook have been left nursing their egos and wondering how they’ll boost the numbers. But word on the street at the IABMIXX conference is that Likes aren’t everything and marketers should be chasing interaction over clicks. While advertising is a great way to grow your audience on Facebook, you should be focussing on striking up a conversation of those people who buy your products without clicking your ads. Looking at Nestle as an example, Brad Smallwood explains how brands can maximise ROI in this brilliant article.
This week we finally said goodbye to Ping, as Apple finally pulled the plug. It would be a stretch to say that Apple’s misguided attempt at social networking would be missed, as so few were keen to mix their music collection with their social networking. Onward to better things, we hope!
As one relic dies, another rises from the ashes, as the new look Myspace was launched. All dressed up like Pinterest and with nowhere to go. In this article Brandy Martin looks at where Myspace went wrong the first time round.
FourSquare is being tapped as the one to beat when it comes to ‘local’ interaction. Since they’ve hired a new chief revenue officer, FourSquare is on a mission to start making some serious money. By partnering with big brands, such as American Express, FourSquare plans to tap in to the discount and savings field that makes the social site so popular.
Google is “winding down” a few of their features in an attempt to spruce up the place and focus their energy on new technology. Check out this blog post to see if any of the changes will affect you.
And finally, some essential SEO and SMM marketing reading for the weekend. Bookmark now and read later!
Is Twitter giving you a headache? Managing all of those conversations and interactions can be a nightmare. Thankfully, the Social Media Examiner has come up with this spiffy little guide for better managing your Twiter relationships.
And if you’re struggling to be heard on Facebook, they also have some great tips for increasing your EdgeRank and improve your Facebook exposure. If you feel like you’re in a Catch 22 situation where interaction is the only way to boost interaction, then this article should be able to offer some solutions.
We’re heard of influence marketing, but what about persuasion optimisation? This is the act of optimising your pages to reduce bounce rates and encourage users to stay on your site and respond to your call to action.
And finally, this article is worth a read every now and then, just to make sure you’re not missing anything vital. Genuine SEO looks at overlooked areas of SEO and how you can address them.
When start-ups come along and tell me that they’re planning to make my job easier, I can’t help but sit up straight and give them my full attention. Social media marketing is a huge part of my day, and contrary to popular belief, it’s about more than just posting cute pictures of cats on my company Facebook page and replying “LOL” to all the comments we receive. A huge part of this job involves getting elbow deep in data and statistics and tying to establish the best way to reach the most people, with the smallest budget.
The biggest challenge in social media marketing today is reaching the right people in the right way. Small businesses will often get down on themselves because their follower count is low, or not many people “Like” them on Facebook. The problem is not that people don’t like your product, the problem is that they don’t know you’re using the network. They aren’t going to come looking for you, you have to find them! Even if you shell out money for Facebook advertising, you still aren’t guaranteed that your message will reach the people who care.
That’s where Tellagence comes into play; they claim they can predict social information flow, meaning they can tell you where your message will go once you release it on Twitter. There are plenty of analytics services available that offer to tell you where your message has been, or even some that will predict where your message will end up based on past experience. But Tellagence points out that this doesn’t account for one very important factor: change.
The element of change is very important; just because a user once retweeted you, it doesn’t mean they’ll always do the same in future. What’s more important is how the content you’re publishing will be received by your audience, and who will find it most interesting. With the Tellagence technology, which is all very hush hush and referred to as “a combination of sciences”, they claim they can predict which relationships you need to be cultivating with your fans.
From what we can see in previews, the deliverable is a visualisation of your network and the relationships you need to cultivate. This could be the ideal tool for sifting through the noise and the uninterested followers to reach those who are really interested in what you have to say. Fingers crossed the team can deliver!
We WON! Bigfoot Digital were awarded in the Best Digital Communications category sponsored by Digital Region at last Thursday’s Sheffield Star Business Awards, and what a fantastic night it was!
This year’s Star Business Awards which was hosted at Pond’s Forge International Sports Venue in Sheffield was the biggest and best yet! Bigfoot were more than delighted when we found out that we were shortlisted alongside some other digital companies from around South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire.
We arrived at the venue and we were met with a string quartet and a few glasses of champagne, we took our seats alongside our friends at the Chamber of Commerce and we anxiously waited until our category was up! The nominees were announced and we could hardly contain our excitement, we thought that being shortlisted was an achievement in its own right but winning would truly be amazing! We sat there and the suspense was painful… “The winner of the Digital Communication Award goes…. to………….BIGFOOT DIGITAL” We jumped out of our seats with arms flailing and smiles as big as the Cheshire cat’s, we headed straight for the stage with our big feet trying not to wobble out of our high heels as we tried to focus on keeping balanced (not counting Mark of course! )
It was OUR Digital Communications Award and it was presented to us by Hon Norman Lamont, the judges were more than impressed with our use of next generation broadband technology in order to gain advantage in the marketplace and how we have achieved measured success for clients through social marketing channels including Facebook and Twitter.
We collected our fabulous award and posed for the flashing cameras. We felt like celebs!
We celebrated in style after collecting our award, and the champagne was well and truly flowing. We didn’t even mind our sore head’s in the morning because we were still in awe of our beautiful award.
We’re delighted to be an AWARD WINNING AGENCY and fingers crossed for many more in the near future!
Here a just a few snaps from the evening.
Steph, Lindsey & Mark – All smiles after winning our award
Bigfoot Digital – Winners of the Digital Communications Award
Champagne & Our Award
The morning after….
The Bigfoot team collecting our award!
Here’s the highlights from The Star Business Awards, Bigfoot make an appearance at 02:39
and fingers crossed for many more in the near future!
