The Yomego Blog Yomego http://www.yomego.com Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 Douglas Wilson http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/may/09/the-community-management-sandwich/ It’s no secret around Yomego towers that I’m the owner of an overtly hyperbolic sandwich blog documenting my path to sandwich enlightenment (shameless plug, I know; URL on request). But to my fellow Yomegons, the similarities between my sandwich-crafting hobby and the day-to-day tasks associated with maintaining and nourishing our clients’ online communities may not be immediately obvious. To me there are more than just similarities: Managing a community is the same as making a sandwich: there must be a strong foundation, fresh content and the employment of meticulous attention to detail to ensure everything is just right. Don’t believe me? Here’s how I see it... A Strong Foundation The bread and butter of your community is getting to know the demographics and psychographics of those you are hoping to engage. Who are you targeting? Males? Females? How old are they? What language do they speak? And where are they located? Once you’ve learned these details, figuring out the online and offline behaviour and the lifestyles of your community members is essential. What do your community members do for fun? What values do they hold and what is important to them? And on behaviour, how do your targets normally interact with brands’ online updates? If a link is posted, will your audience click on it? Or are they most likely to ignore it, share it with their peers or feel the need to contribute a comment? What is the best type of update for your community?  A picture, video or poll? To build up further knowledge of your community members’ behaviours, likes, dislikes and demographics and get the answers to the questions posed: listen! Read every mention, comment and discussion submission on your online community pages to get to know your audience inside and out. After these questions have been answered, it’s time for the good stuff... Fresh Content The pastrami. The roast turkey. The freshly washed lettuce. The mustard and mayo garnish. Sourcing the freshest, meatiest and tastiest discussion topics, pictures, links and video content to fill your community page is the next step towards creating your perfect community sandwich. Like the contents of a well crafted ‘wich, your community fillings are not just there just to bulk out your brand’s offering and fill up pages, forums and timelines. Like the playful pickle in the New York Deli, your daily content is there to evoke opinions, incite feelings, provoke reactions and rouse interaction. And it’s always important to mix up your fillings. Sure, I like egg mayo but I don’t want to eat it every day. And your community doesn’t want to see the same link posted daily either.  If you’re having trouble finding some new fillings, ask around. Or even better ask your community. They know what they want to eat and featuring their opinions is just a good way to give back and acknowledge their expertise on the subject at hand.   Attention to Detail Feeding Time: Want your sandwich to really hit the lunchtime spot? Timing is everything; too early, you’ll be famished way before dinner. Too late; dinner’s ruined. Based on your learning of your target audience, when is the best time to post some of that delicious content to your community page? Best Before: Unlike pizza or curry, a sandwich is best eaten fresh. Invoke a 24 hour engagement rule on you community to ensure all customers are engaged in a timely manner. If you don’t know the answer, and another community member hasn’t chimed in, make a point of responding. This might just be to say that you’ll find out, or to try and prompt prominent community members to give their opinion; e.g. “Interesting point, Mike. What do you think about this, Alfie?” Fixing Things: If there’s something wrong with a sandwich you’re not gonna’ hang about and leave it be. The same applies to an online community. If something goes wrong, act quickly, responsibly and directly to resolve problems and complaints. It’s amazing how quickly a couple of unanswered complaints can multiply and turn into a lynch mob. Sympathise with your audience; let them know you are listening to their feedback. Commit to sorting out any problems contributors encounter and provide quick responses and solutions to issues to ensure the longevity of the community member’s tenure. If a disgruntled community can trust you during the bad times: they’ll support you during the good and you’ll be well on your way to the satisfaction only a well-crafted sandwich can bring. Can you think of any fillings I’ve missed in my community management sandwich? Want to know the URL of my actual sanwich blog? Leave a comment below or tweet me. By Community Exec. Doug Wilson @dougw_yomego   @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/may/09/the-community-management-sandwich/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/may/09/the-community-management-sandwich/ Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 Laura Blackhurst http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/may/08/were-all-squares-here/ Foursqaure’s prognosis was not looking good at the beginning of 2013. Dire predictions such as “ Foursquare will fail by the end of 2013 ” to the even less healthy “ Foursquare- 12 Months to Live ?” suggested that the geo-location app’s life expectancy was dramatically dwindling. If you aren’t one of the 33 million users out there, it may be difficult to understand the irresistible hook of the social network. Checking in at your favourite roundabout  for example may seem as pointless as a bald hedgehog, but on the other hand receiving cmayorship of the best restaurant in town brings with it a certain sense of delicious smugness. These nuggets lure users into checking-in and compete to rule virtually any location on the face of the planet. Those who have developed an obsession for the tool can be frequently spotted hurriedly loading up their app upon entering pubs, restaurants and beyond instead of greeting their real human friends. For my own sanity, I am not ready to accept that Foursquare will be going anywhere soon. So how long do we have to check-in before Foursqaure checks out?  Foursquare's forte is the ability to flaunt your ‘fabulous’ life in front of your chums’ faces, letting them know exactly where you are and when it’s best to burgle your house. And it’s fair to say that the brand has been receiving a certain amount of flak this year, with no-one seeming to be listening to CEO Dennis Crowley’s protestations that March 2013 was in fact the biggest revenue month to date for the company. Tunes are finally changing  as Forbes’ post: “Why Foursquare’s Growth Story is Better than you think” demonstrates a slight U-turn from early January which forecasted dire predictions. So what’s changing? The gamification aspect of the app provides incentives to keep users checking into even the most boring old dumps time and time again. Totalling up points to eventually knock friends from the top of the leader board provides an added sense of achievement. Have you returned so many times to that stale old haunt of yours that you feel like you deserve at least some sort of recognition? How about if you were made the mayor? Check in more than any Foursquarer in the land and you will swell with pride at receiving that tiny little crown icon to signal your mightiness. Oh, and don't forget to leave a tip before you go for those who follow in your footsteps, you'll even get a few bonus points to make it worthwhile. Make them as serious or sarcastic as you like such as these handy guidelines for taking the Glasgow subway. This is a unique opportunity for businesses to provide rewards to those crowned for spending their hard earned dough repeatedly. Existing incentives range from free coffee, money off meals or even special seating reserved for your mayorship. Encouraging returning custom is great news for businesses and even better news for eager customers searching for free swag. Crowley further encouraged this by stating: “We’re building tools for local businesses to connect with their customers. We’re making search better every single day.” If a multitude of venues make use of these two-way incentives, Foursquare could finally flourish. Changes to its business model are also fuelling hope. Check-in re-targeting will kick in this month, meaning that Foursquare will follow their millions of users once they leave the app, giving advertisers’ further incentives to use the platform to capture consumer’s behaviour. As a result, $50,000 - $75000 will be charged to advertisers for re-targeting and performance reporting campaigns. To follow in June, “post check-in units” on a cost-per-click basis will be offered, meaning that Foursquare will show relevant ads to consumers as soon as they check-in. The recent $41 funding from investors will also undoubtedly lead to a more streamlined user experience. 2013 has further seen new venue listings in the U.S. declining which suggests that near full coverage has been achieved across the States. Other corners around the globe are looking promising as the rapid explosion of new venues added in locations such as Brazil and Turkey flags growth. Foursquare will need to provide consistent, rich venue data in these growing regions to keep user experiences up to scratch with the U.S. Its API has also become widely used by developers, with more than 40,000 using it for location and venue data. Taking consideration these imminent changes, new business model and a wad of cash, it really looks like the team have popped on their thinking caps, and it is indeed tempting to predict that Foursquare might just be swinging around its fortunes after all. It’s comforting to know that we’re not even halfway through 2013 and Foursquare is already looking a little less peaky. Revenue is up, new users are continuing to check in and a whole load of mayorship battles have resulted in feuds between friends - not least the current battle for Yomego Towers which has been raging in the office (an almighty eight of us have returned to Foursquare in the impressive space of a week). The compelling and competitive nature is what I believe will be key to its longevity. What’s more, the sky is literally the limit (trust me, I tried checking in), providing an almost infinite user journey. So watch out Boris, I only need 145 check-ins before I steal London’s mayorship. By Community Executive Laura Blackhurst @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/may/08/were-all-squares-here/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/may/08/were-all-squares-here/ Wed, 08 May 2013 00:00:00 Jasmine Jaume http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/may/03/is-there-such-thing-as-the-perfect-tweet/ Is there such thing as the Perfect Tweet? You’ve probably seen plenty of articles about the ‘perfect‘ tweet: when to post it, the number of characters, the perfect place for the link, when you should tweet it yadda yadda yadda. But is there actually such thing as the perfect tweet? When you see a tweet do you mentally breakdown its content, perhaps subconsciously, making you more likely to click or more likely to retweet? A ‘ blueprint for the perfect tweet ’ published last month stated a set of rather strict rules about what the most retweeted tweet would or should look like. This included having a call to action, the message being less than 100 characters, putting hashtags within the main text and so on. Then, there’s the ‘ magic retweet number ’ (i.e. leaving 20 characters spare so people can add their own message to RTs). But wouldn’t Twitter be a dull place if all tweets looked the same? The beauty of Twitter is that you can read thoughts from anyone you wish, and everyone can express themselves in their own way. The variety of tweets and styles is what makes it interesting. I can look at my timeline and see the usual mixture - some tweets with links, some personal text-only tweets, some pictures of food and the likes, some retweets of people I don’t follow and so on. That’s much more interesting that a stream of tweets that all look the same. As this blog post very rightly points out, the perfect tweet may well work for large corporations, such as SAP, who employ the author of the blueprint mentioned above, but is probably less successful for smaller brands without such a huge customer base and long history. We at Brandwatch don’t subscribe to a certain ‘format’ or formula for perfect tweets. Most of the time it’s just two of us managing our Twitter account in UK hours. We both tweet links we find interesting, alongside the odd tweet linking to our own content. We write what we feel like in the tweets – whatever seems to fit the content we’re sharing. We rarely tweet without links, as our main aim is to share interesting content with our followers. Sometimes, that’s links to articles about our industry – social media – by us or others, but it is equally likely to be a picture of some cool houses or a funny video . The variety of stuff we tweet makes our feed interesting (or so we hope). It’s always surprising which things do get retweeted most. Sometimes, people retweet articles to make themselves look ‘in the know’, and yet haven’t even read the article (we’ve seen articles that we have just published with more retweets than views!) There seems to be no rhyme or reason to which of our tweets gets the most retweets. We once spent a day tweeting cheesy life-affirming quotes, as a sort of game to see who could tweet the most retweeted quote. We got many more retweets that day than normal (and my colleague Joel won, sadly). Looking back at all our tweets in March, the one that was retweeted most didn’t even have a link – it was just a fact we’d found, by someone else (we credited them, of course). Our most read article of the month on our blog only had a moderate number of retweets, suggesting that it was shared elsewhere; the share numbers certainly don’t match up with the views, and search traffic doesn’t always account for the difference. Of the top ten most retweeted tweets of ours that month, 3 were links to our own content with a description, 2 were statements or facts, and 5 were links to other content. Only 2 included a hashtag. 4 mentioned other Twitter users. Of those 10, 2 were posted before 10am, 3 between 10am and midday, 3 in the early afternoon and 2 late afternoon (GMT time). The only vague similarity they did have was that 8 out of 10 were posted early in the week – Monday to Wednesday, but spread evenly across those days. But what does it all mean? Well, nothing really. This may be a small sample, but it shows that there is no real formula that works best, at least for us. At the end of the day, if the content you’re tweeting is interesting to your audience – and you can compile a description that sells it – then it will get shared. Not to mention the fact that retweets aren’t the be-all and end-all. Yes, they help you spread content, but you should also be hankering after engagement, followers, visitors to your own content, and for your followers to, well, enjoy your tweets. Nearly half of the tweets we posted in that month were @replies to other people. That’s because we like talking to our followers, and those interactions are important to us. Plus, that conversation is much more likely to lead to a deeper relationship than a retweets is. Also, there is no one-size-fits-all. Every brand (or even individual) will have their own audience, who will respond differently to different tweets. Not everyone is the same, and that is what makes Twitter such an interesting hub of information. Of course, there are general guidelines to follow – we’ve all heard them – regarding not being too promotional, don’t overuse hashtags, etc. So, is there such thing as the perfect tweet? We don’t think so. Do you? By Jasmine Jaume, Community Manager, Brandwatch @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/may/03/is-there-such-thing-as-the-perfect-tweet/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/may/03/is-there-such-thing-as-the-perfect-tweet/ Fri, 03 May 2013 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/19/twitter-music/ Twitter #music My second Twitter blog of the day covers the newly launched Twitter #music, something which has been generating rather positive reviews over the last few days. Within this I’ll talk through my personal experience with Twitter’s latest offering, as well as giving a little background on #music for those who have yet to give it a shot. Exactly a week before its launch, Ryan Seacrest tweeted about Twitter’s new music app. This was then followed up with tweets from musicians across all genres, including Ne-Yo, The Glitch Mob, Jason Mraz and Moby. Each and every one of them shared their love for the new app, which the average user was yet to feast their eyes on.  On 18 th April, Twitter started rolling out #music to users across the world. I tweeted about it coming soon, and just moments later I was actually able to access it. I had read the reviews and viewed the screenshots, so I already had an idea of what to expect, but how does it perform? Twitter’s #music is currently pulled from three sources; iTunes, Spotify and Rdio. I’ve tried to sync my Spotify account with #music, yet I was greeted with the message below. This means I’m only able to listen to the 30 second samples from iTunes, which is far from ideal. But Twitter has stated it is looking to add new platforms going forward. Safe to say, this niggle has put me off a little, although Twitter’s offering certainly looks exciting. Everyone can see the ‘popular’ and ‘emerging’ charts, as you don’t have to be a member for these features. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the top artist is currently Psy, whose Gentleman track has been setting records on YouTube. The best news: One Direction are down in 52 nd place, and the Bieber doesn’t appear until 74 th place. The tabs which will interest most users are those personalised ones, tailored around the users you follow, and the tracks mentioned by those you follow. The ‘Suggested’ tab recommends users who you don’t follow, recommending artists you might like based on those you already follow. My top picks aren’t too bad, although there are a couple in there I’ll most certainly be avoiding. #NowPlaying is currently very limited, with just five songs appearing within this playlist. Interestingly, I would listen to all of these tracks, so I’ve clearly chosen a good follower base. Each user also has a ‘Me’ tab, containing tracks from all the musicians you follow. This of course is one of the best tabs, as I’ve actively followed these users through an interest in their music. The only interesting addition to that list, Dynamo, a Bradford magician, is apparently also a musician…they say you learn something new every day. It’s early to be judging the new offering, particularly as my functionality is limited due to unknown issues on Twitter/Spotify’s side, but it certainly looks to have potential. I have to admit though, as a regular user of Hype Machine, and someone who traipses through blogs to find new music, I currently can’t see myself switching over just yet. The undiscovered tab features some potentially interesting music, but the popular tab features some artists who I deem far too poppy to listen to, those who would never appear on Hype Machine or in one of my Spotify playlists. Although with so many Beliebers and the likes out there, this is the demographic which will inevitably drive the platform. I do like the option to follow musicians without leaving the app, which will certainly drive engagement and increase follower numbers. #music also looks great, and you can’t help but think that advertising on it will come soon too. Having now managed to connect my Spotify, I’m slightly disappointed at the need for a premium account to listen to full tracks. Surely this is a missed trick, or simply a clever way for Spotify to entice new users?  I’ll certainly keep an eye on Twitter #music, but for now I’m happy to risk going out on a limb by stating that I’m far more drawn to the new MySpace. Sorry, Twitter.  By Insight Executive Mark Stuart @MisterMumble   @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/19/twitter-music/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/19/twitter-music/ Fri, 19 April 2013 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/19/twitter-keyword-targeting/ Twitter is certainly a vibrant hub at the moment. It’s seven years old, has over 500 million users, of which 200m are regular users, and sees more than 500 million tweets posted every day. Yet it isn’t planning on slowing any time soon. Gone are the days when the 140 character limit was a concern. Twitter has really developed itself in to one of the most useful and truly social networks, the go-to source for breaking news, live coverage of events, or just a place to find out what is happening around the world or in your circle of friends. TV programmes aren’t social if they don’t feature a hashtag to drive discussion, heck; even television adverts are beginning to feature hashtags. Twitter’s developments across the years have been interesting, with the addition of Vine being one of the most recent big talking points. It created an opportunity for brands to creatively showcase products, or just have some fun, with the likes of General Electric , ASOS , Animate & Create and Manchester City leading the way with some great examples. In the first of my two Twitter blog posts , I’ve taken a look at Twitter’s new approach to advertising: keyword targeting. Introducing keyword targeting in timelines While many complain about Facebook’s advertising (I’ve got one friend who has disabled his profile as he was fed-up of being bombarded with ads), Twitter’s advertising doesn’t seem to bother many. Its promoted tweets come and go in a flash, and its promoted trends sit in the sidebar of Twitter, in amongst the other trends, which if you’re curious about enough, you’ll click through to see what the fuss is about. Twitter’s newest addition to its ad platform is keyword targeting in timelines. Twitter’s interest graph initially took information from public signals such as who users follow, where they are based etc. to present advertising content. Its latest venture goes so much further than this, allowing advertisers to reach users based on the keywords in their recent tweets, or tweets they have recently engaged with.  With Twitter confirming that ads won’t appear more frequently, which I’m sure will have concerned quite a few users, I’m rather curious to see how the new advertising will evolve. Twitter gave a music example on its blog post , suggesting that a music venue could target fans of an upcoming concert through a geotargeted campaign. Everything Everywhere, Walgreens and GoPro have all tested the new format, with the last seeing close to two million impressions, and engagement rates as high as 11%. As the GoPro example highlights, there is a great potential for advertisers to catch the eye of a potential customer at exactly the right moment…I’ll just need to make sure I don’t tweet about Justin Bieber or One Direction. By Insight Executive Mark Stuart @MisterMumble   @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/19/twitter-keyword-targeting/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/19/twitter-keyword-targeting/ Fri, 19 April 2013 00:00:00 Laura Blackhurst http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/17/going-viral-the-yays-and-neighs/ You may have noticed, unless you’ve been forced into hiding in the past few months that the social realm is becoming increasingly crowded with the cacophony of noisy brand campaigns. Moonwalking ponies, Gangnam styling and a hell of a lot of Harlem shaking seem to be shimmying to the forefront of just about every social platform on the go.   It may be hard to believe that ideas from the crazy frog to the Cadbury’s drumming gorilla that became a national treasure, took time, planning, and (even more worryingly in some examples) a boardroom of people who nodded and agreed that the idea was destined to succeed. The competition is aggressive and brands are striving to place themselves a few moves ahead when it comes to battling for top shareability. But woe betide whatever unsuspecting brand gets it wrong as we have all seen how unforgiving a social audience can be, *cough mcdonalds cough* So is there such a thing as flawless formula or a golden key to creating the not-so elusive viral video of today? Or is it just a concoction of mistakes and dumb-luck? Virool claims to have the equation all figured out and have created a pay-pre-view website which takes you though the processes of making your video go viral. So with this in mind, take a look at the following brands to see if you stand in the love or hate camp. I’ll start with a rather under-the-radar campaign which has come from Three’s new multichannel attempt. I jest of course; the nation has been so overexposed to the silly campaign that I refused to switch on the TV. What’s more, we are all already sick of horse-related news anyway. The campaign, featuring the dancing pony #DancyPonyDance, follows the golden locked creature as it dances its way across various backdrops of farm scenery before ‘hilariously’ceasing as soon as the farmer drives past in his tractor. The horsing around doesn’t stop after the video ends; simply go to The Pony Mixer to create your very own dancing pony mash-up. On the other hand, you may have wished the Pony Mixer allowed you to choose from a variety of scenes and push the annoying thing off a cliff, or make it into delicious burger #DiePonyDie. What’s more, ponies are on their way out anyway, it’s all about Glasgow goats now. Loving or loathing this doesn’t really matter: the viral nature and the result of Facebook’s news feed, television screens, YouTube videos and heck, even a banner appearing on Skype’s home page, Three have come up with a crafty and simply daft idea which was able to catch on overnight. The longevity of the campaign was also credit to clever uses of the hashtag which appeared at the end of advertisements, further driving traffic to social channels and its interactive Pony Mixer. And that’s a real sign of a successful viral campaign. You also might have had something to say about Andrex’s important question: ‘Scrunch or Fold?’ You may have rolled your eyes, laughed, sighed or even been disgusted, but every single one of us had an answer – Andrex weirdly achieved its desired effect. What’s more, the brand still insists on rolling out the advert today. Scrunch or fold = ewww, cute puppy = awww.   Not all were so enamoured, and a certain amount of backlash followed the campaign around like a bad smell (sorry). However, this achieved more exposure of the campaign itself. A particular favourite article of mine was titled: “ Is this the worst advertising campaign ever? ” We also provided insights of this high profile campaign in our Social Brand Tracker. Andrex also seemed to have tapped into a somewhat, ‘niche’ community who are in fact very interested in the concept as a whole. The blog ‘Fold or Scrunch’, founded in 2010, way before the Andrex debate, is dedicated to the topic. The makers describe the site as “ dedicated to the debate about how people wipe their bottoms ”. If you really want to know more, go give it a visit. No judgement. Surprise, surprise, the latest post features the Andrex advertisement itself. What about the results of the nation’s vote? Are we a nation who predominantly scrunch or fold? Well, 14,728 people voted and the results show that the majority are ‘folders’ at 65%, while 35% enjoy a good scrunch. Still not had enough? Have a look at some ‘exciting’ insights  to the results such as how students are more likely to fold, whereas scrunchers are apparently more likely to have blue eyes. Unfortunately for poor Waitrose however, they found out first-hand how some campaigns can go viral without intention. The high-end supermarket innocently asked Twitter users to ask why people like to shop there using the hashtag #waitrosereasons. The problem was that the majority of answers were maybe not quite what the brand envisioned. A few of my favourites include: “I shop at Waitrose because Tesco doesn’t stock unicorn food”, “I shop at Waitrose because Clarissa’s pony just WILL NOT eat ASDA value straw” and this belter: “I shop at Waitrose because when the economy finally breaks down and dies, those little green tokens will serve as currency”.   However, Waitrose’s PR team did report back saying they enjoyed most of the tweets, showing that a bashtag can still benefit a brand, and provoke a few titters too. It shed a good light on the team behind the brand, showing that they have the ability to laugh at themselves. Dealing with the mishap humorously may even have changed people’s opinions of the brand. Although the outcome was not predicted, it goes to show how even unintentional faux pas can have their benefits if played out wisely. Despite the occasional debris of the absolutely naff campaign which lie on the bottom of the barrel, the rare gems that do exist are well worth sifting through to find. The age old ‘love it or hate it’ argument can be an effective marketing tool. Dividing opinion will ensure that vehement opinion will never be lacking, encouraging longevity of a campaign. Divisive campaigns such as these are a brilliant way to capture the attention of a readily waiting audience who are eager to share something new, or alternatively rip it to shreds. And after all, even if things do go a bit belly-up, no publicity is bad publicity…right? By Community Executive Laura @YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/17/going-viral-the-yays-and-neighs/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/17/going-viral-the-yays-and-neighs/ Wed, 17 April 2013 00:00:00 http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/11/yomego-makes-the-shortlist-for-the-2013-rev-awards/ It’s that time of year again, when we all dust off our tuxedos, get the teeth whitening strips out and dig out our lucky underwear. No it’s not The Oscars or The Grammys, it’s industry award time!  We at Yomego are delighted to announce that we have been shortlisted as a finalist in the website category of this year’s Rev Awards.  The nomination is for our work with Morrison Bowmore Distillers on the website for whisky brand Bowmore.        Wish us luck! About the RevAwards The UK is a hotbed for digital innovation, and each year The Revs recognise those at the forefront of the world's most dynamic and fast moving communications industry. Representing today's all-encompassing digital landscape, The Revs celebrate the ingenuity and imaginative use of technology in the UK's digital marcoms space. In such an intensely competitive environment, creativity, effectiveness and innovation are essential when pushing the boundaries of digital excellence and The Revs will champion the agencies and brands which have fully embraced all elements involved in producing a stand-out successful digital campaign. http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/11/yomego-makes-the-shortlist-for-the-2013-rev-awards/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/11/yomego-makes-the-shortlist-for-the-2013-rev-awards/ Thu, 11 April 2013 00:00:00 http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/4/real-time-marketing-buzzword-du-jour/ Buzzwords, buzzwords, buzzwords.  From ideate to SOLOMO (that’s social, local, mobile to you and I), boardrooms across the globe are inundated with marketers striving to achieve support for their campaign ideas with terms of remarkable vagueness.  I myself am guilty, often taking great pride in showcasing how my campaign ideas relate to the latest buzzword du jour.  But as Helen Edwards correctly put it in her latest opinion piece in Marketing, if we are to be successful in convincing brands to become transparent and promote clarity, we must ditch the buzzwords and jargon and start speaking in plain English. On that note, I have decided to write a piece on a buzzword.  This isn’t just any buzzword, though, but THE buzzword that many are claiming is the cause of the latest paradigm shift in the way we should be strategising our marketing communications.  Real time marketing.     Real time marketing isn’t a new concept. The proliferation and ubiquity of social media, however, has secured this agile approach to content planning and development pride of place at the top of our constantly evolving marketing arsenal.  Perhaps the most recent 'case study worthy' implementation of this strategy was Oreo’s timely Superbowl tweet. The image, which contained the copy “You can still dunk in the dark”, generated more than 16K retweets and was referenced in a multitude of tabloids, blogs and social profiles. So does that mean that we should stop spending time crafting extensive content planners? Should we just spend time live monitoring topical themes and tailor related creative towards our target audience? In short, No. Much to the vexation of conspiracy theorists, Oreo certainly did plan to engage during this monolithic event. The brand put the framework and infrastructure in place to ensure that it could monitor trends and create engaging, real time content that could be published in a timely manner.  As The Verge so nicely puts it, the disseminative power of social media and the appeal of rapidly-created, context-sensitive, creative content ensured that this ad was well received by its target market.  However, the success of this campaign ensured that a host of brands jumped on the bandwagon and began posting ‘dunk in the dark’-esque content during the Oscars.  The majority of this didn’t work, and reactions to much of the content posted were negative.  With that in mind, here are my tips on factoring real-time marketing into your content planner. Don’t stop planning – Well-crafted content planners are NOT a thing of the past.  Continue to schedule content in advance, but factor gaps in the planner for real-time ad creation.  For example, keep an eye out for events that would work with your brand and set aside time to loosely plan to think about how they could work for you.  However, be reactive, when you know it’s right (Oreo didn’t switch off the lights at The Superbowl). Framework and Infrastructure - Establish a strong framework and ensure that infrastructure is in place to monitor, create relevant content and get it approved in a timely manner.  With real-time marketing, there is no room for lengthy sign off processes. Senior executives must learn to empower and trust teams and agencies. On-going campaign management – We can no longer live like Don Draper and celebrate with a whisky when we launch a campaign.  On-going campaign management is now more important than ever, we must constantly monitor trends and insights and react accordingly. Establish guidelines – Ensure that stringent guidelines are in place to assist the newly empowered marketing team/agency to create engaging on-brand ad creative in real time.   Relevance – Ensure that your real time marketing efforts are relevant.  Many brands tried to ‘newsjack’ Hurricane Sandy in poor tact and seriously damaged brand equity (looking at you American Apparel!). Oh, and don’t spam, or you might end up here: http://rtmsucks.tumblr.com/ Prepare to talk – Like comedians, when a brand posts an ad related to a topical issue, it must be prepared to engage and respond to those who interact.  Make sure you understand the topic you are posting about and are capable of engaging with those who interact.   Experiment - Experiment with content types to find out which resonate best with your target audience – vine, infographics, tweets, images, videos; the list is endless.  Evolve your approach to real time marketing based on audience insight (think of consumers as beta testers). Change your mindset - For some, this means accelerating from "brand as publisher" to "brand as newsroom." As Janet Balis highlights , the word "newsroom" conveys the commitment to high-quality storytelling and the urgency required to keep pace with the social landscape. Be flexible, not rigid – Traditional ad campaigns are rigid and don’t tend to evolve based on current trends and themes.  Be flexible and create campaigns that allow current themes to be factored in. When appropriate, keep it playful and fun - Social media presents a real opportunity to humanise brands.  Humans interact - so why can’t brands.  What’s my favourite example of real time marketing I hear you ask? It’s a tough one, but Kit Kat challenging Oreo to a game of tic tac toe for a Twitter fan’s affection was particularly innovative and, above all, made me smile.     By account manager John Paul @johnpaulfox @YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/4/real-time-marketing-buzzword-du-jour/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/4/real-time-marketing-buzzword-du-jour/ Thu, 04 April 2013 00:00:00 Jasmine @ Brandwatch http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/4/how-do-you-find-your-target-audience-online-4-tips/ [Brandwatch guest post] It’s all very well and good knowing how to create the perfect tweet or which kind of content works best on Facebook, but all that knowledge is completely pointless if you are pushing your content out to the wrong people or, worse, no one. The same goes for social campaigns; there’s no point in spending your precious budget on a Facebook campaign when all your audience are on Twitter, for example. It’s important to understand where your target audience is, and go there. Don’t try and force them to the platform you want to use. It’s highly unlikely they will come to you, so go to them. Don’t listen to Kevin ; ‘Build it and they will come’ doesn’t cut it in this situation. Plus, few of us have the time or resources to cover all the possible platforms there are out there, especially when it seems a hot new one pops up every other month. Therefore an understanding of which ones are going to give the best ROI is essential. So how can you find where your target audience are? Well, there are several ways – we’ve highlighted 4 here. 1] Do some research You need to first research and decide who your target audience are.  It’s highly likely you already have a good idea; after all, you will have had a target audience in mind when developing your product or service. But, assumptions are rarely good, and it may be that you find an unlikely group are also a possible audience for your business. For example, Avon experienced an unexpected source of sales when it was rumoured that their So Soft moisturiser was a good insect repellent, attracting buyers outside of the female demographic it was originally intended for. That doesn’t mean you have to start marketing to niche groups who use your product in unexpected ways, but it’s always good to be aware of who might be talking about your product and why. Research might take the form of traditional methods, such as focus groups and surveys, but can also be supplemented with new methods such as using monitoring tools for market research . 2] Look at your competitors First stop after research might be looking at where your competitors are online. Chances are, if they’re all on a particular platform, it’s because the audience is there. Plus, you want to be present if all your competitors are, as otherwise you may be overlooked as an option. But do a bit of research; look at how many followers or fans they have, and how much engagement they get on their posts. This should give you a good idea of whether they’ve chosen the right place (after all, they aren’t necessarily doing the right thing either). 3] Use a monitoring tool Chances are, many of your target audience will be found on one or more of the major social networking sites. However, there may be forums and blogs, or other sites, that you don’t even know exist where your industry is discussed at length. There are many niche or specialist platforms away from the main social networks that are hotbeds of activity. You might also find that people you didn’t necessarily expect to be your target audience are discussing your products or industry. Using a monitoring tool, you can search for conversation across the web about your industry, by looking for phrases and terms unique to your area. For example, when searching for conversation about parenting and baby products you could search for relevant terms such as ‘bottle warmer’ and ‘Bugaboo’. You can also look at where relevant content, such as articles or videos, is being shared. Most good monitoring tools will then allow you to find the top sites and authors for conversation. You can then look into these and see if a presence on the site would be beneficial. But approach carefully; some online communities can be wary of brands ‘interfering’ in their conversations, so make sure you understand the dynamics and etiquette of the community before you get involved. 4] Look for relevant hashtags or groups/pages On each platform, take a look at relevant hashtags/groups/pages to see if they exist and how active they are. For example, is there a thriving group on LinkedIn related to your industry? Is there a well-used hashtag on Twitter that unites many people interested in your type of business? Facebook fan pages with huge levels of engagement? This will be a good indication of whether there are people on those platforms interested in your industry. So what to done once you’ve found your audience? Well, that’s a whole other post in itself, but some tips: Understand your audience – listen to them to see what they enjoy, interact with, share and create content that will appeal to them. This might vary from platform to platform. Don’t be pushy, and give them something of value. Unless you’re Apple, they probably don’t just want to know about your great new product endlessly (no matter how great it is!). Don’t expect to gain a huge following overnight. Building a community and fanbase takes time, so be patient. If you’re listening to them and giving them what they want, it’ll get there. By Jasmine Jaume, community manager, Brandwatch @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/4/how-do-you-find-your-target-audience-online-4-tips/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/april/4/how-do-you-find-your-target-audience-online-4-tips/ Thu, 04 April 2013 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/28/google-glass/ Project Glass There has been discussion about Google Glass since early 2012, when Google posted a brief introduction to Project Glass and a concept video on Google+. It was fitting that it unveiled its concept video on its own social network, which it looks to seamlessly integrate with Google Glass when it is fully launched to the market. But its journey along the way has been an interesting one. The introductory video ‘Project Glass: One day…’ was posted almost a year ago on 4 th April 2012. Since then, the 2m30s video has been viewed more than 20m times, and the post on +ProjectGlass has been +1’d more than 28,000 times. Clearly there’s an interest, right? In the year since the announcement, Google has been testing its features in its own surroundings, keeping the product to itself, mostly. A live demo appeared in June, with Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, handing his friends a working pair to jump out of a plane . This might not be what a normal person does on their day off, but it did highlight its pairing with Google Hangouts nicely.   Out In The Wild Things then went relatively quiet for a while, until Sergey was spotted riding the New York subway wearing a pair of the glasses in January. Shortly after, Project Glass was everywhere. Our designer Chris emailed round a link to Google Glass’s website , where you can view “how it feels and what it does”, simply with the title line “drool”. Many thought likewise, as the internet became flooded with positive thoughts on the early preview. From a personal perspective, the directions feature was something which caught my eye (excuse the pun) as it could bring a whole new dimension to travelling by foot or bike. The social coverage around the project has been HUGE, with The Verge hosting one of the most comprehensive reviews of Google Glass, which has been shared more than 59k times, and one which you should read if you’ve slept through all the Glass chatter. We’ve also seen some outstanding examples of benefits the glasses would bring , skeptics , fashionistas and parody videos . Of course SXSW presented a fantastic opportunity for fans to get a closer look at the device, as well as a sneak peek at some apps for it. The device has also been captured on the head of Jeff Staple , with camera crews following his every move, something I’m particularly keen to see the outputs of.  8,000 pairs were on offer for winners of a contest to be an early tester , which came with a $1,500 price tag. The product was supported by the hashtag #IfIHadGlass , which of course also became a bashtag.   “Normal Testing” Fast forward another month and Google has just selected its first group of what it’s calling “normal users”. These were individuals who had entered the early application contest, and now will be used to help fine-tune the product. Google unveiled the following users and their pitches on Tuesday.These included: Sarah Hill, a Missouri woman who wants to take Glass to a Veterans Affairs hospital to let veterans see war memorials from afar. Herschel Taghap of Seattle, who wants to show the rest of the world what life is like as a restaurant line cook. Shannon Rooney, who wants to travel to Japan so her grandmother can revisit her home country without leaving her new one. Anthony Brown, a San Francisco zookeeper who wants to use glass to show penguin feedings up close. Max Wood of Georgia, who wants to use Glass to implement pre-fire planning maps for enhanced safety. These five chosen users certainly have diverse interests, and we’ll no doubt get a glimpse at some of their content. We should probably search for them on Google+ now and follow them to make sure we stay up to date with their trial.   Hold On A Second… Although there has been widespread acclaim over the project and many, including me, would happily state that wearable tech is the next big thing, there are many concerns. I myself am a fuel point addict, wearing Nike’s Fuelband every day and syncing it with Path, even though it means essentially my every move is tracked. But how far is too far? West Virginia is already seeking to ban drivers using Google Glass, with safety concerns raised. Time Magazine asks if the ban is a move too far, as the glasses essentially remove the distractions which would take your eyes off the road, such as a mobile on your lap. Seattle’s 5 Point Café has already banned Google Glasses , stating “ass kickings will be encouraged for violators”. Over the last few days, leading news sites in the UK have published similar articles about privacy concerns . Stop the Cyborgs, a campaign group, is calling for limits on when Google Glasses can be used. This echoes 5 Point Café’s decision to ban the device, calling for venues around the world to warn wearers that they are banned from certain locations. It’s a thought-provoking campaign, as essentially wearers of Google Glass will have the functionality to record their every moment, which yes, could be great for things like accidents, police incidents, events and trips. But on the other hand, your privacy is thrown out of the window and your every move could be traced, right down to your exact location at an exact time. Pretty scary! Although Glass is now a fully tangible product, it remains relatively early days for the project. We’ll need to sit tight and watch how the early trials pan-out and how the influencers who have already got their hands on the Glasses respond to them. There’s no denying it is a truly innovative development, but concerns are building and it is how Google deals with these which could determine the overall success and mainstream launch of the product. By Insight Executive Mark Stuart @MisterMumble @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/28/google-glass/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/28/google-glass/ Thu, 28 March 2013 00:00:00 Neil Major http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/22/is-facebook-still-fun/ Stories declaring the death of Facebook are as common as those declaring the death of Apple and if you work with the social web, you certainly learn to take the former with a large pinch of salt. For a site with well over a billion users, a burgeoning mobile usage , increasing levels of monetisation per user and even an innovative talent attraction strategy ; talk of crisis or decline may seem odd. But something has fundamentally changed and pundits are beginning to digest what it means. The fundamental problem that Facebook needs to crack was articulated by Microsoft Research academic Danah Boyd a couple of years ago in a white paper looking at how kids use social media, and Facebook in particular. In short, it was becoming a chore. In a world where they were expected by peers to be part of the network(and often connected to their parents – worried about what was happening online), what had started as a fun, participative space, away from peer pressure and parental surveillance, had become something expected of them. Clearly enforced fun is an oxymoron. This wasn’t something though that was going to lead to a mass exodus. The cost of not participating was too high. Social ostracism would be the penalty for being the first to leave – it meant not being ‘in the loop’ when it comes to the gossip of any school. However this change in experience does help explain the rise of alternatives. In addition to the fact that the likes of Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat etc provide different ways of networking online – each having particular culture and experience; more fundamentally they brought back the original fun, participatory, space for self-expression that Facebook once had before it became policed by parents, terrorized by classmates and ruled over by advertisers.                                      Does all this mean that Facebook is ultimately on the decline though? One model of marketing states that what is adopted by teens quickly spreads through society. However when it comes to the adoption of social networks, that hasn’t been true to date. The early adopters of lots of networks have come from outside of that demographic – for example Twitter (early 30-something techie men), Foursquare (late 20-something urban women), Pinterest (mid-30s Mid-Western housewives). Facebook itself was pioneered by a university crowd who then continued its use beyond the campus into the workplace. The key question though is what this tween and teenage demographic will do as they get older. My gut feel is that they’ll use Facebook more and it’ll change how the platform is used in the future- and how it will fit into people’s lives as they mature. Simply put, the ‘boring’ nature of the network makes it perfect for people’s key life events. So while sharing every aspect of your life with friends within a semi-closed space is part of what Tumblr et al will continue to excel at, where Facebook’s strength really lies is in broadcasting those life events to your social graph – your Dunbar number in a informative, yet not-intrusive way. Those wedding pics, your holiday snaps, maybe getting those brand updates from the few firms you want to connect with – even your relationship status changing from engaged to married for instance. Facebook thus becomes the record of note for this aspect of our lives – and as teens grow older, leave education, meet their partners and eventually settle down, these events become more of their lives – and so they share more on Facebook. The only thing that becomes a risk for Facebook is if someone can package up this aspect of our online lives in a more pleasing, entertaining experience. Companies like Path are trying, and Facebook remains vulnerable to the privacy charges leveled against it. But unless there is a mass exodus, it’s unlikely that people will leave for any length of time – there’s always going to be a relative’s baby pics, a funny link that they just have to see, or even just an idle need to keep up with far flung friends and acquaintances they don’t see so much as they get older, that will keep them coming back. By Strategy Director Neil Major @Neilmajor @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/22/is-facebook-still-fun/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/22/is-facebook-still-fun/ Fri, 22 March 2013 00:00:00 Dougie Pender http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/20/uk-government-declares-war-on-native-apps/ An interesting announcement on the Government Digital Service's blog this week from Tom Loosemore, clarifying the GDS’s position on the development of native apps for Government services. The GDS has been earning some significant plaudits over the last year for the high quality of their work and downright common sense approach – compliments rarely offered to public sector IT projects. This latest clarification of GDS policy - that native/hybrid apps will only be provided by Government in very rare circumstances which can’t be satisfied by mobile web sites or third-party apps based on Government-provided data – has ruffled a few feathers (mainly among those with vested interests in native app development). GDS are confident that development of mobile-friendly responsive interfaces on Government web presences should satisfy the vast majority of user requirements. Should there be an overwhelming need for native apps, third-party app developers will be able to fill that void using data provided via . gov.uk services – at no cost to the taxpayer. A couple of key statistics from Loosemore’s presentation sprang out: gov.uk mobile traffic has increased by 150% in less than 6 months since implementing responsive layouts with approx 25% of all traffic arriving on mobile devices. More than 50% of users downloading an app will use it less than 4 times in total. I’m of the opinion that this is another good example of common-sense policy-making from the GDS, with strong statistical evidence to back up their position. There are far too many examples of ill-conceived apps produced to satisfy internal egos rather than user needs. There’s definitely a place for native apps, but with the current groundswell of support for responsive web development (backed by very promising user stats) and the acknowledged difficulties in developing for such a fragmented native app ecosystem, we’ll side with the government on this one and bet on the web to win this particular skirmish. From Studio Manager Dougie @YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/20/uk-government-declares-war-on-native-apps/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/20/uk-government-declares-war-on-native-apps/ Wed, 20 March 2013 00:00:00 http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/08/yomego-announce-sponsorship-of-scotland-team-for-the-2013-copa-internacional-brasil/ Yomego are delighted to announce that we, along with our good friends at Supporters Direct Scotland , are sponsoring the Scotland Homeless World Cup winning team as they represent Europe in the 2013 COPA INTERNACIONAL BRASIL tournament. The team, which won the Homeless World Cup in Paris in 2011, has been invited to represent the whole of Europe by tournament organisers Futebol Social, in partnership with the State of São Paulo and the City of São Roque and will face the hosts, Argentina, Mexico, Namibia and South Africa. Three of the team with Tom Boyd, Scotland’s 5 th  most capped player and a member of the team that played against Brazil in the France 98 World Cup. Picture courtesy of Edinburgh Photographic The tournament will kick off on the 14 th of March and will be held in the centre of São Paulo in a custom built Street Soccer Arena which will seat one thousand fans. The team was brought together by Street Soccer Scotland , an award winning social enterprise which uses the power of football to promote positive change in the lives of socially disadvantaged adults and young people across Scotland.  Street Soccer Scotland’s work with young people and adults has an enviable reputation and has visible, positive impacts on the physical and mental health and employability of those who participate throughout the year.  We at Yomego are delighted to support this great cause and wish the team all the best on their journey as they represent Scotland, again, on the international stage. The team have promised to provide us with daily updates throughout the tournament and we will be sure to share their progress with you via our social feeds.  In the meantime, here is a picture of our lovely community executive Laura modelling the team shirt. From everyone at Yomego, best of luck lads! By Account Manager John Paul @johnpaulfox @YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/08/yomego-announce-sponsorship-of-scotland-team-for-the-2013-copa-internacional-brasil/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/08/yomego-announce-sponsorship-of-scotland-team-for-the-2013-copa-internacional-brasil/ Fri, 08 March 2013 00:00:00 Laura http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/05/social-and-the-comeback-kings/ Many of us may be teetering on the edge of our seats in anticipation of new super-cool-awesome products such as the iPhone 5S or Playstation 4. However, who exactly fist-pumped the air at the release of the new, improved bottle of Fairy Liquid? That would be no one. Ever. In terms of social, brands and their online presence can easily wane. Even a strong brand will find themselves with a thick layer of virtual dust pretty quickly if they fail to innovate or keep up with the times. Boring brands have an even tougher time of it. Although it is easy to see why upcoming innovations such as Google Glass need very little pushing to get people drooling, liking, sharing and tweeting all over the shop, how do you achieve online glamorisation of a stationery line, loo roll or even a brand of milk? But quite spectacularly, there are examples of dull, stagnant or near-forgotten brands that have achieved just that. From quirky humour and hilarious viral videos to the downright bizarre; the following innovative brands have said no to online boredom, went back to the drawing board and ran with the craziest idea to come out of the boardroom meeting. These are the reinvention stories of some of today’s most powerful brands. Old Spice   This old favourite’s reinvention is arguably the most notable comeback story of them all. From its introduction in 1938, the brand quickly became known for its aftershave and cologne. Silver fish hand catch!   However, by the 1980s its identity had become stale, and its products were only associated with older men. In stepped Procter & Gamble with a timely purchase of the brand and, more importantly, welcomed its saviour in the form of Isaiah Mustafa aka, ‘The Old Spice Guy’. Relaunching with the bold statement – “If your grandfather hadn’t worn it, you wouldn’t exist”, its tongue-in-cheek humour was effortlessly persuasive and transformed the brand into a symbol of masculinity. In 2010, Old Spice posted a whopping 180 YouTube  videos from Isaiah (who describes himself as a ‘ one ridiculously handsome man’ ), responding to fans’ questions. The videos attracted over 40m views and sales doubled as a result of the hilarious responses. With quotes such as; ‘I’m on a horse’ and “anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady”, they ensured that choruses of Old Spice anecdotes have become a fixture of pop-culture. Tippex Nothing spells ‘YAWN’ more than the sentence ‘have you heard about the latest correction fluid?’ Tippex must have been scratching their heads for a while before it came up with the hugely successful ‘ Hunter Shoots a Bear ’ campaign. The video, featured on YouTube displays a hunter caught in the dilemma of whether to shoot an approaching bear or not. Once the hunter overcomes this moral dilemma, he decides not to shoot the bear. The hunter then unexpectedly turns round and addresses the viewer directly, before reaching outside the confines of his video, grabbing the new ‘Pocket Mouse’ Tippex from one of the adverts at the side of the page. He amends the video to ‘A hunter ____ a bear’ therefore inviting users to ‘white’ and rewrite the story – a simple, but simply genius idea. Once we suggest the action, the hunter is back, starring in a plethora of new videos with the bear where we see them unbelievably carrying out our command. The compelling campaign did wonders for the brand. The video generated over 35 million views and sales increased 35% in 2011. We were encouraged to forage the recesses of our drawers to find an old bottle, then go and pick one up at the supermarket as that one had inevitably dried out. The addictiveness to try and guess every possible variation of the video meant that before we were even aware, it was already lunch, and all we’d done that day is watch videos of a dancing, singing, hugging and even moonwalking bear. Tippex reigns supreme for taking user engagement literally outside the box with this interactive gem.   Wispa Upon removing one of the nation’s favourite chocolate bars from the shelves in 2003, Cadbury spurred a vehement Facebook campaign ‘Bring Back Wispa’. It gained so much backing that the brand was ‘persuaded’ to sharply restock their shelves. The clever campaign seemed to bring out the undying love of the chocolatey goodness from just about everyone in the country. Most impressively, Iggy Pop was upstaged by the chocolate bar in front of the 100,000 strong Glastonbury crowd as two chocolate fans stormed the stage with a ‘Bring Back Wispa’ sign = Iggy Flop.   Brands are no-doubt becoming savvy to these kinds of strategies, therefore meaning the market for crazy ideas is even more crowded. This time next year I’m sure we will have seen campaigns even more, well, odd. Whatever the outcomes, whether it is dancing space pirates or create your own angry cat mash-up, we’ll all certainly be talking about them.   From Community Executive Laura @YomegoSocial  http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/05/social-and-the-comeback-kings/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/05/social-and-the-comeback-kings/ Wed, 06 March 2013 00:00:00 Neil Major http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/01/the-measure-of-man/ The amount of stuff that people publish about themselves online has exploded exponentially in recent years as we’ve shared far more of ourselves with the web through the many social sites we all frequent. In the process we’ve found it’s not always good to overshare but at the same time we’ve learnt that sometimes, who we think we are, and who we actually are, are not the same thing. That is to say, when we look at what we’ve posted over time ( for instance , what our music taste actually is , as revealed by Spotify’s social sharing or Last.fm’s scrobbling); we might be surprised by what is revealed. Even the opinions we held a couple of years ago can be eye-opening, something that Twitter’s recently released personal archives can attest. Seeing ourselves in the clear light of the data can be sobering. As multiple books have told us recently we’re not as smart as we think we are about knowing ourselves. But the value we gain by logging our lives is most clearly shown within Nike’s wildly successful tech innovations Nike+ and now Fuel . Both of these pieces of tech help track physical activity so that you can effortlessly monitor your physical fitness. The success has led to a burgeoning explosion of similar services with the approach spreading far beyond fitness to track sleep , nutrition , financial data and even public utilities through the government’s MiData initiative. All of them, as with the insights provided by the social web, reveal whole aspects of your life in a simple, smart, measurable way, clearly revealing what was only suspected and broadly invisible. So, while not everything in these apps is something that you’d necessarily want to share socially, the approach is remarkably similar to that which has grown up with the social web. Clearly there is a ‘big brother’ element to all of these, so once the necessary security concerns have been put in place, what has made these products such a success? Good user experience and an open service are, above all, what make consumers here so willing to give up their data. In a time where huge amounts of information are held on all of us in big corporate databases, releasing this information in a simple, yet powerful form is key. So whether it’s the ability to check out your friends’ latest news (Facebook), providing a realtime news service (Twitter) or working out how much exercise you’re really getting (Fuel), to even working out if you should switch electricity supplier (MiData); the reason why they’re successful is the same : they give customers value from the data they’re collecting and do so in a rich, almost entertaining, certainly straightforward format. As with social, it’ll be this value exchange that will make these new personal data services popular with the public. There is a whole series of opportunities to come, from loyalty cards through to bank accounts, where providing consumers with more of the insightful data on how they use your services will allow organisations to access even more. So while security will always be a high priority, we at Yomego are interested to see what exactly we’ll be able to provide that makes the most for all parties of these new developments. Because after all, as you’d expect from our heritage in social, we’re well used to dealing with and making the most of user feedback. From Strategy Director Neil @Neilmajor @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/01/the-measure-of-man/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/01/the-measure-of-man/ Fri, 01 March 2013 00:00:00 Douglas Wilson http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/01/scream-and-shout-and-let-it-all-out/ Sorry Britney. Sorry Will.I.Am, this one ain’t about you. It’s about online communities. And an online community’s uncanny ability to... well, scream and shout. The stories of community managers feeling the wrath of their angry communities have been well documented over the last few weeks. Applebees , Makers Mark , FTD Flowers, Belvedere Vodka , and DKNY have all suffered at the keyboards of angry social media users ( @brittanyshaw_ posted a roundup here ). In some examples, the steps taken by the community managers led to the fury subsiding quickly. Other community managers have suffered unnecessarily, displaying baffling behaviour (*cough*, Applebees). However, it’s the behaviour of the community members in each case that posed the biggest questions for me. Why all the noise? And what have we learned from these incidents we can apply to our own communities?   On the first question, I don’t mean that the original issues which spurred community members to broadcast their disdain were insignificant. I’ve simply been surprised by the sheer volume of duplicate and almost verbatim posts aimed at these brands by community members. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised. In my own experience, a community member who has made the transition from lurker to contributor will often ask a similar question, or echo the sentiments of a previous contributor. It doesn’t matter if the issue has been addressed and resolved by the community manager already. It’s common, identifiable behaviour. But where there’s a complaint, what’s the community member’s motivation to behave in this way? A desire to feel part of something bigger? A blatant disregard for anything the community manager says when not directly mentioned? A selfless display to improve the overall customer experience for their peers? (Yeah, right!) Here’s my best guess: A community member with a complaint doesn’t care about another community member and their problems. Even if their queries are identical and if the first has already been addressed by the community manager. They simply want to know they are being listened to and to be responded to with within a reasonable amount of time. And most have a point. Besides content updates and occasional off topic discussion, why should interacting with a brand’s Facebook or Twitter be different to calling the contact centre? Some brands are already using their community pages in this way. Some empowered community managers have been given powerful tools to resolve issues and avert social media disasters such as those of Applebee’s et al. ( @gingeranderson outlines the strategy of Southwest Airlines ). But what has the behaviour taught us that we can use when contingency planning for a Twitter storm or Facebook backlash? Firstly, of a press release apologising for an error is no longer an acceptable response. Those days are long gone. Nowadays, a general response to multiple queries is often not the best approach; however, it can be effective if used in three ways: An initial statement of apology. An acknowledgment of the issue. A request to those aggrieved to contact an emergency inbox for further assistance. In these ways, a general response can reassure the community they are being listened to and that action is being taken. But what’s the alternative? A personal response to every community member asking them for information and to contact you directly? Although this approach may be repetitive, time consuming and not always possible, in my experience it’s worth the effort. A friendly response in the right tone of voice to even the unhappiest community member can turn complaints into endorsements. An ignored community member will never be a happy community member. And afterwards, don’t forget the community members who had your back! Taking time to thank advocates for their interactions is essential. It'll undoubtedly help to prolong the health of the community. A prominent community member who feels valued and acts as an authority is indispensable. They will answer queries, reinforce your brand’s values and deal with complaints before they escalate into social disasters. And my golden rule: never, ever delete posts. As soon as the community gets a hint of censorship, things will go from bad to worse. And besides, you can’t reply to comments that no longer exist. From Community Executive Douglas @dougw_yomego @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/01/scream-and-shout-and-let-it-all-out/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/march/01/scream-and-shout-and-let-it-all-out/ Fri, 01 March 2013 00:00:00 Jasmine Jaume http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/28/social-media-and-online-security-who-cares/ [Brandwatch Guest Post] A string of hacking attacks on someof the world’s biggest sites recently has prompted discussions about hacking and privacy on the social web. Most recently, Apple has had to admit that some its employees’ computers had been hacked. This was one of a spate of attacks taking advantage of a security hole in JavaScript. No one knows where these attacks are coming from – some attribute them to groups in China, others to Eastern Europe In a similar case, at the start of February a quarter of a million Twitter users had their accounts hacked and their passwords stolen, along with other details including their email addresses. Similar attacks were carried out on The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. It’s not just full on attacks like these; the recent case of the Burger King Twitter account being hacked was a grave lesson to us all about the importance of password security. Jeep’s account was also hacked in a similar fashion the following day, prompting calls for two-step authentication to be introduced to Twitter. Although the hackings were a source of amusement for many of us on the outside, in reality hacks like these can have dire effects. This incredible article by tech journalist Mat Honan describes how hackers destroyed his entire digital identity – just by getting into one of his accounts through taking advantage of lax security measures. It is certainly food for thought for the many, many of us who are nonchalant about our online security. There are many more examples – we could be here all day listing them. But how are these recent events affecting concerns over privacy and social media? ‘Privacy’ is a difficult concept to define; it will mean different things to different people. It also has a difficult relationship with the right to freedom of expression. But it is by no means a new debate; as early as 1890, when newspapers first started printing photographs of people, a seminal paper named ’The Right to Privacy’ was drafted by Warren and Brandeis to discuss these issues. But, clearly, new technologies mean that new types and increasing amounts of data can be collected than were ever possible before, along with less transparency or control over how it is stored and shared. Several of the big technology companies have dropped from Ponemon’s ‘ Most Trusted Companies for Privacy ’ list in 2012, with Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo! failing to make the list despite having done so in previous years. Almost half of the people surveyed for the study said they had had one or more notifications of a privacy breach from a social site, and 59% of them said they felt that their privacy rights were undermined or diminished by social media, smart mobile devices and geotracking tools. But whilst there is plenty of media hype and discourse about social media privacy, it seems the masses are not so bothered, or, at least, not enough to do anything about it. It’s safe to say that many people seem willing to give up an element of privacy for convenience, or for a tool they think is worthy of it. Take Facebook – there have been plenty of uproars about Facebook privacy settings, and yet it still has over a billion users. Many people also do not realise how much information they are giving out – and how many people can see it. And if they do, they might not realise how easy it is for criminals to use that information to do all manner of things. We all know of the cases where houses have been burgled after people posting that they’re on holiday, or arrested for a dodgy tweet , and so on, so the general advice is: be careful about what you post. Seems – well, obvious, doesn’t it? But it’s amazing how many people still ignore this ‘common sense’ approach. It’s never too late to start cleaning up your online presence though. As well as paying attention to what private information you might be giving away online, make sure your passwords are strong and secure, don’t daisy-chain your accounts and follow advice such as in this simple video by Google or this checklist from lifehacker. It will be interesting to see how the next generation approaches privacy and social media. Will there be a backlash against ever-increasing amounts of our personal information being used? Fear after the growing number of hacks? Or will people become more and more lax about what they are sharing online, in the name of convenience and possibly, ignorance? By Jasmine Jaume, community manager,  Brandwatch @YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/28/social-media-and-online-security-who-cares/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/28/social-media-and-online-security-who-cares/ Thu, 28 February 2013 00:00:00 Laura Blackhurst http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/25/discover-the-story-behind-online-pictures/ The human race is an impatient and lazy lot. It’s not fair when we pick up something shiny in the shops and there’s no price tag on it, or when we press the remote control button extra hard when the batteries die instead of walking three paces to the TV, and especially when we pop the toast up from the toaster even although we know it isn’t anywhere near ready. We want all our information plonked right in front of our faces, right now. So it seems only logical in an increasingly visual social realm that new online tools are emerging to respond to this demand and are combining pictures and content, without ever needing to click away from the page. Welcome tools such as Stipple and Hovr.it are allowing this online wizardry to materialise and are propelling social commerce.  Stipple Stipple boldly claims to ‘Bring Photos to life’. Firstly, its tagging aspect allows tags to appear everywhere that the photo appears on the web. Everywhere. It’s even better than an expert stalker. The tool is excellent for brands to encourage consumer to ‘click and buy’. In essence, whilst browsing aimlessly and you come across that must-have-right-this-very-second-dress, you would normally refer to your favourite search engine, or go to the brand’s website to try and track down your sought-after product. Imagine cutting out your online middle man (most likely that Google guy) and being able to hover over images and find outexactlywhat the product is, where to buy it, how much it costs and who made it? Even more ingenious; if we decide we must have it immediately – there is no need to get down to the shop and grumble noisily in the queue – just buy it now! Not sure? Click ‘want it’ on your Stipple want list to save it for later (your virtual shopping basket) or ‘Shop’ to just waltz on straight to the retailer’s cash desk. This is all great news for brands; by being able to effectively attach online sales labels provides an on convenient and no-fuss experience, all resulting in a lovely meshing of images and information in the same place.    Even good old Justin Timberlake picked some ripe cash from his money tree and invested in the new tool in 2011. Arguably the new poster boy for social media – it’s clear to see that JT has got a keen eye for social innovation, or maybe just an annoying habit of hitching a ride on every social bandwagon of the moment. Hovr.It If you love tiny little handbags that you can’t fit anything bigger than a 50-pence coin in, designer specs even although you have 20/20 vision or heck, anything your greedy little heart desires – hovr.it makes it oh-so simple to help you find retailers for the products you desire. With the tagline ‘Window Shop Online’; it’s every shopper’s dream – from the obsessive ‘shop ‘til you drop’ shopaholic to your reluctant ‘that’ll do’ buyer. Its easy-to-use interface is welcoming and also suggests that the tool is like our very own personal shopping companion – but probably much less annoying than your Mum picking out very big pants for you in every shop.  Its simplicity makes it so worth avoiding the shops. I recommend a chocolate hobnob and a bathtub sized mug of tea for the experience. Browse Pinterest to find the item you fancy, ‘hover’ over the winning item and when you strike gold the tool will provides you with a plethora of similar items in its catalogue, allowing you to peruse until you find a price to suit your modest budget or even for when you feel the need to needlessly splash out. One you have hummed and hawed over what on earth to choose; click to buy the item from the retailer’s website and voila, there’s a new snappy way to compare a million different versions of checked shirts in one place. If photo recognition technology can be of a high standard, a wide database of similar recommendations is consistently available and photos use tools efficiently to display the right information, the scope for hovr.it and Stipple to be the next hits in online shopping trends is promising.  Interactive images on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr are providing the opportunity to really drive e-commerce whilst also adding a bonus ‘well that’s cool!’ novelty to shopping online. It’s far less high maintenance and rather nice to be kindly given all the facts we need, without even pestering anyone to find out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve just seen the perfect pair of heels for my new ensemble but really can’t decide between midnight, periwinkle or royal blue; it’s really going to take some serious hovering and stippling. From Community Executive Laura   @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/25/discover-the-story-behind-online-pictures/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/25/discover-the-story-behind-online-pictures/ Mon, 25 February 2013 00:00:00 Chris Casey http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/21/top-3-web-design-trends-for-2013/ 2012 was a pretty big year in terms of web design trends. Responsive design really came in to play due to an increasing demand for mobile sites. HTML5 and CSS3 standards were also cemented and are now practically everywhere. These trends are set to mature this year so let’s see how and see what else is could be in store for 2013.   User centric design approach Increasingly, sites are opting to concentrate their focus on a story page rather than a homepage. With increasing mobile use, intuitive scrolling is becoming more widely accepted. This can be a great approach, as it can subliminally make the user feel like they are being educated through an entertaining method. It can also develop a greater level of trust between the brand and the individual. A great example can be seen below, titled 'Every Last Drop '.   Focus on cross device supply Responsive web design is big, really big. It is by no means just a trend, it is here to stay. O’Neill Clothing deployed a responsive design to their online store and monitored transactions. The results were staggering , with a 112% increase in transactions from iPhone/iPad and a 333% increase from Android devices. More sites will start to cotton on to the benefits of responsive builds, but where does it go next? I believe sites will become more adaptive to the device and therefore show content which is more relevant. The hierarchy of content will change to make the flow of the user experience even more pleasant.   Gesture driven Seeing as the finger is the new mouse and a whole multitude of actions can be communicated to a device through pinching, swiping, dragging, spreading, tapping and so on, it makes sense that more gesture driven commands will surface. Devices should be able to detect a users action and respond accordingly. Google Maps is doing this through their Frustration Shake . When a user shakes their iPhone with Maps open, this triggers a dialog box where they can record  any feedback if the app is not performing as expected.   From Designer, Chris @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/21/top-3-web-design-trends-for-2013/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/21/top-3-web-design-trends-for-2013/ Thu, 21 February 2013 00:00:00 Tala Byrne http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/13/applebees-social-media-fail/ With social media as a still relatively new concept, it’s not surprising that occasionally brands slip up when faced with an awkward situation. Customer complaints and the responses to them have never been so exposed before, and often brands are crippled by the effects. One such case is that of food chain Applebee’s , whose handling of the PR disaster that exploded last week proved somewhat lacking. The note on Reddit that started it all But first, some background. It all started when a pastor on a visit to a St. Louis Applebee’s wrote on their bill (which has a recommended 18% tip) “I give God 10%, why do you get 18%?” A waitress then took a snapshot of this with the customer’s name clearly visible and uploaded it to Reddit. The waitress – Chelsea Welch – was subsequently fired for violating a customer’s privacy, resulting in various “Boycott Applebee’s” and “Hire Back Chelsea Welch” communities appearing on Facebook and Twitter – and on top of that, things escalate even further. Applebee’s handling of the situation provides us with five, very neat examples of what not to do when a crisis hits.    Applebee's homepage, with no apparent sense of irony...   1. DON’T be inconsistent Applebee’s posted a status update on Facebook in response to its decision to fire Chelsea, stating that a customer’s information is private and that was why it took disciplinary action. Over 10,000 comments then appeared on this status, most of them pointing out that Applebee’s had done this itself two weeks previously, when it posted a thank you note from a customer to Facebook with the customer’s name clearly visible, thus violating privacy in the same way. This highlights the importance of a well-understood social media policy for brands. Make sure it’s clear, concise and most importantly that all employees that will be using social channels are aware of it.   2. DON’T explain the situation in comments In response to what was by then more than 17,000 comments, Applebee’s posted a monstrous comment on the status update – and at almost 3am no less – which appeared to be partly content from an employee handbook and partly detailed explanation of what happened with Chelsea Welch. Angry users immediately responded to this pointing out that it a) should have been a status update and b) is too “contrite” and hard-nosed. Tone in these situations is particularly important, and customers tend to react badly to a response which is overly “professional” or “corporate”. But more importantly, explanations (if you decide it wise to make them) need to be visible to users, not hidden away in comments.   3. DON’T delete negative comments Comments and wall posts began to appear claiming that Applebee’s had deleted negative comments or even blocked/reported Facebook profiles. Though some might think that having the negative comments visible on the page is bad for brand image, the one thing arguably worse than that is censoring said comments. Users want to feel that they are being listened to, not ignored and deleted.   4. DON’T give recycled responses Still in the middle of the night, Applebee’s decided to change tactics, and began to tag users in comments and respond to them individually. This is a good idea in theory, but copying and pasting the exact same response beginning with a slightly grating “we can understand why you’re upset...” is most definitely not. By posting the same comment to each user, the point of responding to their concerns individually is completely negated, and the resulting approach appears half-done and patronising to boot.   5. DON’T lie  After deleting numerous comments, posts and even entire status updates with thousands of negative comments attached, Applebee’s then claimed that “no comments have been deleted” and then later that they had only hidden them. From the customer’s perspective, deleting and hiding their comments are examples of censorship. Not only this, but denying something which has already been pointed out by several thousand users makes the brand look inconsistent and untrustworthy- both traits which are likely to stop them from buying your product/service again. In short, what we can learn from the Applebee’s disaster is that though the unfolding of a PR crisis can be intimidating to say the least, it’s important to keep calm, think carefully about responding and above all listen to what customers are saying.   By Tala Byrne, intern at Yomego @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/13/applebees-social-media-fail/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/13/applebees-social-media-fail/ Wed, 13 February 2013 13:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/6/2012-review/ 2013 is already shaping up nicely; we’re only a month in but have already seen the launch of Vine and the public opening of the new MySpace . We’ve also got some fantastic blogs covering each of these, pairing up with Brandwatch to share our insights and Econsultancy to assess whether brands need Vine . But what about last year? It’s only right we look back at some notable campaigns from the year gone by. It gives us an opportunity to assess what worked, and what didn’t, who led the way, and who needs a little helping hand. We saw fantastic creative efforts from big brand names like Nike (surely you knew they’d appear here), Red Bull and Absolut, but it wasn’t just the big brands that came out to play. Social provides a fantastic opportunity for creativity to shine through and bring smaller brands to the fore. 2012 saw some outstanding campaigns from Dollar Shave Club, Grey Poupon, and Melbourne Metro. Israel was quick to make the most of Facebook’s Timeline to highlight the dangers of drugs, while Sweden gave control of its official Twitter account to its residents, a controversial move at times, yet it spawned many imitators. I’ve limited my favourites to nine, although I’ve included a slide outlining some other notable campaigns, which are definitely worth taking a look at. It includes the likes of Sephora, Honda on Pinterest, Old Spice and a dramatic surprise on a quiet street for Belgian TV channel TNT. I’ve of course made a nod to the likes of Instagram and Pinterest, both which saw significant growth in 2012, and I had to make reference to Psy’s Gangnam Style and the most popular tweet and Facebook upload from President Obama. I’ve also named and shamed a few brands. Some of these are personal taste, some are just downright terrible and have been criticised universally. These include Chick-fil-A, after its chief operating officer publicly opposed same-sex marriage; American Apparel and Gap who shamelessly used Hurricane Sandy to try and drive online sales, and McDonald’s #McDStories. I’ve also listed Twitter mishaps from Chrysler, American Rifleman and KitchenAid; Snicker’s poor use of sponsored stories (some will argue with me here, but I wasn’t a fan of Katie Price’s approach). Donald Trump also features. Why? Need I really explain? His endless tirades bored me, even if his Twitter arguments with other ‘celebs’ were rather amusing. So that’s my quick 2012 summary, which can be seen in full in the presentation below. Please feel free to share your thoughts on my choices, and of course let me know if I’ve missed anything. Here’s to another great year in social. As I finish this, Oreo is currently leading the pack after its quick thinking Super Bowl blackout tweet . From Insight Executive Mark @MisterMumble @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/6/2012-review/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/february/6/2012-review/ Wed, 06 February 2013 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/january/31/hmv-tweets/ It’s been a hard year for HMV so far. First it went into administration, and now its Twitter account has gone into meltdown. Those who were watching the @HMVtweets account, at around 2.20pm on 31st January, managed to catch some very unofficial commentary on the company’s shaky position. Live from HR “where we’re all being fired” was the first tweet to appear since 14th January. Staff on their way out used the hashtag #hmvXFactorFiring to update the official, verified account’s 63,328 followers of the latest from inside HMV. It appears the staff were previously under contract to remain quiet. Sure enough, with word spreading at a ridiculous rate (my Tweetdeck was filled with HMV mentions and retweets), the powers that be managed to take control - sort of. HMV's marketing director reportedly asked “How do I shut down Twitter?” shortly before all of the tweets were removed. The fun wasn’t over entirely: the culprit posted another three tweets, bringing a real human element of emotion to the story, seen below. All mentions have now been removed, with HMV’s Twitter page showing the tweet from 14th January as its latest. Sky News also confirmed shortly after that 190 people were made redundant at HMV’s head office and distribution centres. Interestingly, HMV’s head of press & PR has remained silent throughout the matter, last tweeting on 27th January. While I remain hopeful that HMV’s demise will give independent music stores a much-needed boost, this controversy on Twitter shows the true pain involved for those losing their jobs. The final tweet said it all: an intern began HMV’s social media presences and unfortunately also appears to have lost their job. It’s a sad matter. We’ll wait to see how HMV responds, if it does.  From Insight Executive Mark @MisterMumble @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/january/31/hmv-tweets/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/january/31/hmv-tweets/ Thu, 31 January 2013 00:00:00 Claire Foss http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/january/25/how-to-choose-which-social-networks-to-use/ [Brandwatch guest post] Everyone knows by now that social media can’t be ignored. And we have repeatedly read the ‘golden rules’ of being human, two-way conversation and so on. But let’s take a step back and review the place from where it all begins: the platforms. Which social media sites are you currently using for your business? None? The ‘main ones’? Just Facebook? ‘All’ of them? It seems not a month goes by without a new social site popping up on our radar. Many of those come and pass without much fanfare, and fail to pique the public and media’s interest. However, over the past year or so, the market has somewhat settled – the ‘ big players ’ are now clear, with Facebook and Twitter leading the pack. But Pinterest’s phenomenal rise to ‘internet darling’ status in such a short space of time just goes to show that we can’t rest on our laurels – anything could happen and nothing is certain. So it can be tempting to sign up to every new site going to try it out, and to ‘not be left behind’. But, let’s face it; most brands do not have the time or resources to spread themselves over an ever-expanding list of social networks, especially when the team is one or two people strong or those in charge of social media are doing so on top of their normal duties. And we all know that a shoddy presence can sometimes be more damaging than no presence at all. Therefore, it’s best to choose the sites that are best suited to your brand and will have a measurable effect. Don’t just be present on a site because ‘everyone is’ or because you feel youshould. Chances are it won’t be worth your time. I am one of the Community Managers at Brandwatch and as part of a community team I help manage our online presence. Brandwatch is a social media monitoring company, so we are operating in the B2B space. This affects which social sites we focus on – B2C brands have a different set of needs, a different audience and therefore a different approach to us; an important consideration for all brands. Facebook For example, let’s take Facebook. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you will be aware that Facebook is a huge social network offering the potential for content to be seen by millions of people. Most large brands, and many smaller ones, now have a fan page on the site. The effectiveness of their presence varies, but that is a discussion for another day. Facebook is generally less useful for B2B brands than B2C brands, purely as the site is more geared towards people rather than businesses. However, we felt at Brandwatch that it would be beneficial to increase our presence on the site – we already had an old page that was not really being used, and yet people were still ‘liking’ it, proving that there was an audience for us on the site. Therefore we revamped our page , working with an agency to improve our content and design. We now post interesting articles on the page, as well as giving access to our other content, and respond to customer queries. Yet, we still don’t dedicate as much time to the site as we do to, say, Twitter. Twitter Ah, Twitter: every social media marketer’s dream. Twitter is our largest social source for site referrals and leads (both direct and indirect), therefore this is where we spend the largest proportion of our time spent on social sites. Three members of our team man Twitter throughout the day across time zones – tweeting interesting links, responding and engaging with people and sometimes also looking for sales opportunities, such as when people are asking for SMM tool recommendations. Some of our sales people also utilise Twitter in this way. It makes sense for us to make use of this site – it’s where lots of people in our industry and target market hang out. But that doesn’t mean it is for everyone. Look at whether there is conversation about your market and brand on the site. Look at whether your competitors have a presence, and how they are engaging with others. If there is enough of an audience, then try it out. It can take time to build a community on Twitter but, if your content and activity is good, it will happen - and will be worth it. Pinterest Pinterest is well suited to brands that can provide lots of visual content . For example, clothing and home brands have found the platform very effective, as people pin images of products they like. For other brands, the platform is slightly more tricky. We ourselves have a profile and run some boards on the site. As social media monitoring is a very text-based industry, it’s difficult for us to produce much visual content to pin. Therefore, we have different boards with different themes, from videos to events, to a page showing our main competitors. We also have boards that aren’t focused on our own content, such as gadgets or organised desks. Again, it gets less attention from the community team than some other networks. Our presence on the site is light-hearted and is more about brand visibility than specifically for lead generation. Slideshare The same goes for Slideshare. Slideshare has, so far, not proven to be a huge source of site referrals or leads for us. However, our time spent on the site is still proving its worth, as our presentations get hundreds of views, meaning lots of eyeballs on our content and increased brand visibility. Lots of our competitors also have a presence on the site, and we’ve found that after each of the many events we attend, people look for those presentations on Slideshare. So we deliver what they want, as well as uploading other content such as infographics and reports. LinkedIn LinkedIn has changed recently, and its new company and profile pages make the site even better for brands to utilise. LinkedIn is the number one site for professional networking, therefore it makes sense for a B2B company like us to have a presence. Hence, when our community team grew in size back in Q3 of last year, we ramped up our time spent on the site. By ensuring we have an inviting and on-brand company page and by posting links to our posts, in keeping with the tone of the site, we have increased site referrals from the site. Smaller B2C companies, and those targeted at younger markets, may find that LinkedIn does not work for them as well, as other social sites are more likely to be the first port of call for consumers. Other sites These are the main sites we use, but of course there are many more out there that could be suited to your brand. For example, Instagram again suits visual brands and business such as photographers. The revamped Myspace works well for musicians. Google+ has proved very popular among tech and gadget fans, even if it hasn’t quite made it to Facebook status. If you can create interesting, regular video content, use YouTube. Quora is a great network for providing thought leadership and answering questions about your industry. We monitor the network and provide answers where appropriate – less of a sales tool, more of an opportunity to display our expertise. Think about different regions too. For example, as we have several German offices and a large market share in Germany, our German community team also make use of Xing, the German sister to LinkedIn. And, of course, there are the more niche networks to get involved in that are specific to your brand. If you are in the car industry, for example, it may be worth looking at the communities on forums such as Pistonheads. Or, if you are selling a product targeted at parents, take a look at Mumsnet and Netmums. However, any activity on these kind of communities should be carefully handled – often, members are very sensitive about brands promoting themselves in what is considered a more ‘personal’ and closed network. The same goes for sites such as Quora, Reddit, Digg etc – approach with caution and don’t just spam those sites with marketing messages without offering any value to the community. The general rule, although it may sound obvious, is to identify where your audience is, and then make sure you are there too. Monitor your goals – whether that be lead targets, site referrals or other metrics – to see if a site is proving its ROI . And if not, reconsider your approach or even your presence.   By Jasmine Jaume, community manager, Brandwatch @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/january/25/how-to-choose-which-social-networks-to-use/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/january/25/how-to-choose-which-social-networks-to-use/ Fri, 25 January 2013 15:00:00 Claire Foss, clairefoss@gmail.com http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/january/14/five-wishes-for-social-media-in-2013/ Yes, six candles - the best I could find... Photo Credit: Aih. via Compfight cc So as I turned 30 this year, I won’t be doing any 2013 predictions or reviews of the year . Instead, I’m blowing out the candles on my metaphorical cake to make some wishes about the world of creative and social media. And as I’m 30, and making up my own rules, I get a whole five wishes to spend. Wish 1: For more apps and sites to start charging from day one People like free stuff and dislike advertising. But sites and apps need to make money. And the now famous adage that ‘if you’re not paying, you’re the product being sold’ is creeping into every other article about social advertising. The Instagram T&Cs furore before Christmas really brought this home – as does the ongoing debate about Facebook’s advertising strategy. If you haven’t already paid for something you use, then – at the risk of sounding like a dodgy mafia boss – you will have to pay somehow. It's just business. It’s a conundrum for brands: if you’re free and well-designed, you’ll get a larger user base than a competitor that charges. But then comes the problem: monetisation. It’s not just about making ‘some’ money, but about covering costs, recompense for the work you’ve put in – and repaying investors. I really hope that in 2013, there’s a realisation that paying for good services is a good thing. It allows you to repay the inventors, whose brilliant brains keep coming up with this stuff – and creates a healthier innovation environment – where great apps and sites don’t get sold within six months just to recoup costs. Wish 2: I wish for the term #fail – especially when used about a brand – to die. Brand fails are boring now. Really, if the biggest brands in the UK – and the world (see: McDonalds, Waitrose, Snickers and dozens more) can all #fail, then where’s the story? The childish glee with which these stories – normally a relatively small error, quickly rectified – are  reported and re-reported by social media ‘experts’ is ridiculous. Millions on Twitter and fall over themselves to point out how stupid the brand is and what they should have done differently – as if it wasn’t patently obvious. Ninety nine percent of the comments on any #fail are finger-pointing trolling. I really wish people would say something interesting or move the debate on. Wish 3: Stop thinking Facebook is social media Facebook is one social medium. More than one channel makes up socialmedia. So you can’t have a social media strategy that’s just about Facebook. It’s really matter of being grammatically accurate as well as being – well, good at social n’that. It's never a good idea to put all your eggs (aka, customers and customer comms) in one basket. Wish 4: Spellcheck in Tweetdeck. Wish 5: For everyone in social media to remember that they are still learning.   Social media is still new. And even those bits that aren’t new are changing all the time – there’s always something fresh to understand. But it’s not the duty of the whole world to understand.  Being a real expert (maven, ninja, guru, if you must) means taking others with you rather than alienating them. The greatest thing about social is the same as it’s always been: it’s open to everyone. By Claire Foss, PR and marketing manager at Yomego @claire_foss | @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/january/14/five-wishes-for-social-media-in-2013/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/january/14/five-wishes-for-social-media-in-2013/ Mon, 21 January 2013 14:00:00 Laura Blackhurst http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/january/11/six-new-social-networks-to-watch-in-2013/ 2012 was an interesting year all round. The Queen had a pop concert in her garden, Team GB turned up to the Olympics and took all the medals; Kate Middleton put a royal bun in the oven. Oh, and the world didn’t end. Hooray. And by our side for such a monumental year were our faithful pals Facebook , Twitter , Youtube , Tumblr and the rest of the sociable gang. 2013 has a lot to live up to, and the world of social must keep evolving. So: here are six social media networks to keep an eye on for this year. Who knows, by this time next year they may have made some monumental news of their own. 1.     Pheed Always thought your photography was too good for the likes of Instagram and should hanging in a swanky gallery and selling for millions? Well, why don’t you do just that: put a price tag on your snaps and sell them on Pheed ? This social networking site allows users to choose to share either for free or by using a pay-per-view system. Users can choose their own pricing and earn directly. So essentially you can stuff those millions straight into your pocket. Well, maybe not millions... Will consumers care enough to part with their pennies in order to access content? Well – perhaps. If users are expected to pay to view content, in turn, a higher quality of content will be produced with the hope of creating a demand for prestigious imagery. Combining a bit of Twitter, a touch of Facebook and a sprinkle of just about every other social platform on the go, Pheed may be spreading itself a tad too thin. But with Miley Cyrus and Paris Hilton already launching their own Pheeds, perhaps this new player will be able to compete with the big Daddies of the social world in 2013 after all.     2.     Thumb This mobile app allows us to pose deep and meaningful questions and share opinions such as the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Alternatively it can be used to ask a community of users if you look good in that beret (no), or if you should paint your walls eggshell or nude beige, amongst other enlightening ponderings. Originally set up with the concept for providing consumers with immediate advice before purchasing a product, Thumb has already impressively shown to have established an average user engagement of more than four hours a month. But wait, can we ‘like’ stuff? Of course! It had to include our favourite social feature. Questions can include visual responses, and ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs’ down are encouraged on posts and comments. So with a raft of useful features such as instant messaging and being able to respond to posts using pictures, Tumblr and Pinterest have a new shiny kid on the block catching up with them. 3.    Chirpify With the tagline ‘buy with one click’, shopping for favourite brand has been made tantalisingly easy by Chirpify , and all through using your Twitter or Instagram account. It not only enables businesses and to buy and sell, but also to raise donations and even competitions and giveaways. Sellers offer up items for sale through their Twitter or Instagram accounts and all consumers have to do is merely reply or comment with ‘buy’ to snatch it up. What intrigued me most of all is the feature to actually pay chums and disgruntled family back for things such as that round of drinks you surreptitiously missed out last weekend, or for lending you money for that new dress you just had to have. With Tweets and Chirps now rife in the social realm, it’s only a matter of time until Twitter-based start-ups think up of a new onomatopoeia to add to the growing collection. 4.     Flayvr If you are sick of trawling through thousands of pictures on Facebook to find the one you actually want, or have too many pictures on your mobile phone camera roll then maybe Flayvr could help you out. The app creates eye-catching and artistic albums; with a good degree of professional flair. Once the final touches have been added, say hello to your personal online album. Whilse looking as professional as can be, you can share the creation with the world via a webpage, e-mail and Facebook etc. Teenagers’ albums from last weekend partying are about to look real classy and professional. Get ready for it. 5.     Chirp Chirp and Chirpify – surely just an annoying coincidence? What is sure is that Chirp is showcasing a truly original concept this year which just might catch on like yoyos, Pokemon cards or Tamagotchis. Chirp allows you to instantly share a link or picture from your mobile with anyone in the vicinity. Even more impressive is that this is not confined to a boardroom meeting or your front room. How about a bustling train station, or even a fully-packed stadium? The marketing possibilities using this app could produce some remarkable events. Imagine a flash-mob started in the middle of a shopping centre, signalled by a chirp? It could participate efficiently in a boardroom meeting by instantly sharing a link with everyone present. Try broadcasting at a football game over loudspeakers where mass audiences can be reached. Your phone literally sings to any others in range bu emitting a high pitched ‘chirp’ – which signals any phone in range to instantly download the photo, video or message. Be sure to look out; or rather listen out for the cacophony of Chirps this year.  6.     New Myspace The future isn’t certain, even for the new sparkly Myspace, publicly endorsed by the beaming face of investor Justin Timberlake. However, the varieties of new features brought with the revamp are surprisingly noteworthy, and would be unwise for brands to ignore. The aesthetically pleasing new layout, along with the added ‘discover’ button allows users to track down news, stories, music, people and video content. Browse the website like turning pages of a beautifully illustrated book, without the fear of blemishing the pages. The new make-over alone makes the Myspace experience that bit more enjoyable. With the fresh look and main focus on emphasizing music, brands should take note that the 18-24 demographic may be quick to migrate to see what the whole thing is all about. Best of all, you can still give pride and place to your most loved and put them straight into your Top 8 friends. What’s that? So-and-so didn’t invite you to the party last weekend? Shunt them out your prestigious list faster than JT can say he’sBringing Sexy Back. So it looks cool, sounds cool and even has cool new features – but is itactuallycool? For the time being, yes it is. But the new website needs to be careful to maintain its apparently effortless coolness in order to last. So that should be enough to keep us occupied for another year anyway. I wonder who will lay claim to the breaking news stories of the year. Who will get the first snaps of the Royal baby? Which brands will wow us with the most innovative social campaigns of the year? It’s going to be a goodie, I can tell. 2013; it’s your move. By Laura Blackhurst, PR and marketing intern at Yomego @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/january/11/six-new-social-networks-to-watch-in-2013/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2013/january/11/six-new-social-networks-to-watch-in-2013/ Fri, 11 January 2013 18:00:00 Tala Byrne http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/december/19/three-great-christmas-social-media-campaigns/ Another year, another Christmas, and another set of festively themed social campaigns to mark the occasion. With most brands aiming to get their yearly sales to an almighty peak around Christmas, it’s no surprise that many retailers invest heavily in apps, competitions and games for their social platforms in the festive season. So which campaigns have come out on top this year? An old favourite, OfficeMax’s Elf Yourself first went live for Christmas 2006 and has reappeared every year since. For those who have been in hibernation/living in the desert, this app allows users to upload photos of others and turn them into elves that are hilariously bad at dancing. This year, they’ve added a new touch by developing an iPhone version, and have been running competitions where users can win an Elf Yourself calendar of friends and family. Since its debut, people have “elfed” themselves in 196 countries across seven continents to create over 480 million customised videos. This has done great things for OfficeMax – with more than 338k likes on Facebook, Elf Yourself is a great example of a brand with a relatively mundane offering (sorry to all stationery fans) using a fun campaign to create a more lively image. M&S’ Pass the Parcel Facebook app takes a more interactive approach for the second year running, allowing users to send parcels to 40 Facebook friends per day in the hope of unwrapping one of 3000 M&S prize –a clever way of getting users to share the page with their friends. As a result, Pass the Parcel has led M&S over the 1 million likes mark this year. To celebrate this, M&S donated a million pennies to charity and made an Art Attack style video of using the pennies to create a giant “thanks a million” message to Facebook users- a nice touch, and an original way to show customers that their “like” is indeed worth something. This one doesn’t involve any shiny apps and is therefore a little easier on the brand’s purse strings. GettheLabel.com is another good example of a company which is maybe lesser known using a Christmas campaign on Facebook to reward loyal customers. The campaign is also all about prize-giving and rewards, with customers being given the opportunity to win every Friday by answering Christmas themed questions. On top of that, the brand has hidden ‘lucky stars’ in the packaging of random orders placed on the site which entitle the finder to prizes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory golden ticket style, but for big name brands. Customers can also use the hashtag #DearSanta to tweet their Christmas Party outfit wishlist in order to get the chance to win it, and can take part in a ‘12 days of Christmas’ giveaway as December draws to a close. Response to the campaign has been good, with Facebook likes and Twitter followers moving up to 20k and 7k respectively, but the important thing to note here is the reward-themed prize-giving which adds a personal touch. The long and short of it- Christmas campaigns on social platforms can be a great way to boost reach quickly through exciting games and competitions, but they are also an opportunity for a brand to make their existing relationship with customers more personal and ensure ongoing brand loyalty – a technique which can boost sales any time of year – not just Christmas. By Tala Byrne, intern at Yomego @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/december/19/three-great-christmas-social-media-campaigns/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/december/19/three-great-christmas-social-media-campaigns/ Wed, 19 December 2012 17:45:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/december/10/the-new-myspace/ It has been quite a journey since the Vanderhook brothers purchased Myspace in July 2011. The flailing social network had been bought by Chris and Tim through their ad network, Specific Media, for just $35m – quite a saving on the $580m News Corp. paid in 2005. Since then we have seen and heard very little. Myspace, once a launch platform for budding musicians, was overtaken in the Alexa rankings by Facebook on 19 th April 2008. Since then, it has almost disappeared in to the wilderness. Its first demise came as YouTube and Facebook quickly became the voice in social, launching the likes of, dare I say it, Justin Bieber.   Bringing Myspace back Fast forward to September 2012, when a little known musician by the name of Justin Timberlake suddenly became one of Twitter’s top trending topics.  No, it wasn’t an announcement for a new studio album (unfortunately), but rather the re-launch of something we thought had gone forever: Myspace. Having played Facebook investor Sean Parker in the 2010 hit, The Social Network, Justin Timberlake isn’t a stranger to social media. The singer-turned-actor, has 17m Facebook fans, and ironically used his Facebook page to share the video for the new Myspace on 24 th September. His involvement in Myspace could be pivotal, bringing some of his industry friends along for the ride. Dubbed “a social network for the creative community to connect to their fans”, Myspace needs to understand its niche in order to fit in to an already packed social networking environment. But does it fulfill this aim?   Meet the New Myspace Having signed up on the day it was announced, I was fortunate to receive an invite to thenewMyspace last weekend. A few others around the Yomego office have received their invites too, so it appears Myspace is slowly rolling the new site out. This approach delivers an element of exclusivity, and I must admit, I was more than amazed at being able to snap up the user name ‘markstuart’ – the first time I’ve managed that on any social channel. But what about the site itself? Signing up is simple, much the same as any social network – though you can sign up using your Facebook or Twitter ID – showing that Myspace perhaps sees itself as complementary, rather than competitive at this stage. There is one curious addition. Myspace asks how you describe yourself. Are you a musician? Photographer? Filmaker? Curator? Designer/Creative, or a number of other options. Once this step is complete, you’re in. The above image shows your welcome screen, providing a few examples of users you can connect to. These, in my case, included Lana Del Ray, Kenna, Scott Vener and JJAMZ. To look for others, simply click search or begin typing anywhere in the site and you’re graced with a beautiful full-screen search functionality that uncovers songs, artists, albums, people, mixes and videos. With songs coming first, we can see a clear focus on music. Once you build up your network, the stream acts as your hub to view social activity. Scrolling down (which brings content from right to left – a key feature of the site), lets you see what your friends have been doing. Currently my feed is filled with music content, showing what my ‘connections’ have been listening to. Be careful here, all tracks/mixes are listed, so don’t go listening to anything too strange, I’ve already caught one co-worker listening to Snoopy’s Christmas.   Profiles Although pretty plain and boring on sign-up, once you find your ideal image for a background, your profile becomes transformed in to a beautiful space, listing your bio, connections, location and website.  You can also listen to and create mixes, which is perhaps my favourite feature of the site. Although some tracks are snippets, Myspace’s music catalogue is extensive and you can create your very own playlist. As someone who spends the majority of the day listening to music across numerous sites, I’ve found myself settling on Myspace mixes since Thursday. If you find a favourite mix, you can connect to this, saving it within the mixes tab. Below is a screen grab of an artist profile, showing Jay-Z’s discography, top fans, similar artists and ‘inspired by’. I love this approach, because once I’ve finished listening to some of these tracks, I can discover similar artists or those who inspired certain artists. A beautiful touch. Discover ‘Discover’ can be found in the bottom bar of Myspace and is perhaps at the heart of new site. It acts as a portal for users to, unsurprisingly, discover news, stories, people, music, videos, mixes and radio channels. The presentation is beautiful, with a large story image at the left of the page, complimented by a scrolling-story in a newspaper-esque style. Although some stories are complimented by embedded YouTube videos, almost all have some sort of imagery throughout. Out with the old? I have a few friends who still use the old Myspace. I know, right?! And when the new Myspace was announced some of us looked at our old profiles to see what we had on there. Areas such as the bulletin board and blogs have gone and instead the new Myspace focuses on Twitter-style updates. This is a shame as the discover area of the site, which unveils the stunning stories, could present a fun and quirky way for users to create blogs, stories or even just curate a collection of images. Perhaps this is something yet to come as the site is still experiencing difficulties, and I’ve came across the ‘Back Soon - technical difficulties’ page a few times now. One other thing, not so much a complaint, but more of a flashback, is that I’ve got 14 connections. Of these 14, I know just 3, and 1 is a connect-back (if that’s the term?). So I’ve got 10 interesting folk who have connected to me, presumably with the hope that I listen to their music, watch their videos or read the spam mail they’ll send me in due course. This feels a little bit like ‘old Myspace’. Am I being cynical here? One thing remains though, the famous ‘Top 8’, the creator of many playground arguments. Mine is empty for the moment, but who’ll make the cut?   My Space? I know it’s very 2005 of me, but I genuinely love the new Myspace. The design, the mixes and the ‘discover’ stories, are all visually stunning. Yes, my cover image is akin to a huge desktop wallpaper, but I like that. The streaming playlists at the bottom of the profile don’t cut off when I move around the site, which is how it should be. Sure there is room for development, but it’s early days and the tour area of the site, which I recommend you start out on, outlines that more tours are coming soon. Surely this hints at progress, as Myspace looks for feedback from its early users (you’re welcome Myspace) and then develops on this. If, as they say, a picture paints a thousand words, then Myspace nails it. It won’t replace my Facebook, but as a music platform, it certainly has great potential. From Insight Executive Mark @MisterMumble @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/december/10/the-new-myspace/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/december/10/the-new-myspace/ Mon, 10 December 2012 00:00:00 Claire Foss, clairefoss@gmail.com http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/december/7/why-having-a-social-media-minder-isnt-such-a-dumb-idea/ News that a New York Times reporter now has her own “social media minder” provoked significant discussion online this week. The reporter in question, Jodi Rudoren, will apparently now be working with an editor to ensure that what she tweets is balanced and as uncontroversial as possible. Ms Rudoren has, to be fair, one of the most sensitive jobs in journalism. As Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the New York Times, her every word will already be scrutinised for any evidence of bias. So it’s no surprise that after some tweets upset a lot of people, a solution has been put in place to reduce the risk of that happening again.   Much of the coverage seems to have adopted a surprised tone, with the inherent suggestion that Ms Rudoren should be able to moderate her own tweets – and that only the irresponsible should require their own ‘minder’. But the surprise should be that anyone in such a high-pressure job, with so many people sensitive to the nature of your writing should be tweeting without a failsafe in the first place. Newspapers, especially, should be the one place where such systems should be second nature. Journalism has a system evolved over decades to make sure the news it produces is, on the whole, unlikely to cause major upset. When a reporter produces copy, it runs through a hierarchy of divisional editors, sub-editors, lawyers and more. This is to ensure inconsistencies, inaccuracies, offensive phrasings and the rest have been excised by the time it’s on the page. Yes, sometimes it doesn’t quite work. But given the volume of news written every day, it largely does OK. Obviously this is not a process suitable for Twitter. But it also pays to remember that many of our best journalists – the finest, most senior, most experienced writers – began their careers when your desktop contained a phone and typewriter, with computers still years away. That’s not to say most of these people haven’t adapted and grasped digital with both hands. But jobs have changed, and what is expected of journalists has changed. These same journalists now find themselves running bureaux, writing copy for both press and online and managing multi-disciplinary teams. And on top of this, they are expected to be a broadcast journalist (with no support) too – for that’s what Twitter is in a news organisation. This idea that every person can be expected to be perfect on social media all the time is insane. Failsafes are not an extreme measure for the irresponsible; they are a necessity. Last month I covered the same issue for the Drum but it is worth saying again: businesses need to recognise that mistakes happen when humans write things. Then they need to plan for them with a system that works for the media channel in question. That could be as simple as training, or someone with impeccable grammar on hand to check things. Not everything might need checking – but there needs to be help there, at varying levels, for those that need it. If you’ve got someone reporting in the Middle East – then, yes, give them an editor for social media. Make sure they are always available to double check anything that needs it. Giving them an editor versus the potential for a total, and potentially violent #fail = no contest. If you’re a business and you’ve got junior staff in charge of your Twitter account, make sure you’ve discussed the strategy and that they know who to talk to for a second pair of eyes when they need it. Putting reasonable, workable safeguards in place against human error doesn’t mean you don’t trust your staff. It means you value them. http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/december/7/why-having-a-social-media-minder-isnt-such-a-dumb-idea/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/december/7/why-having-a-social-media-minder-isnt-such-a-dumb-idea/ Fri, 07 December 2012 14:50:00 http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/27/f-commerce-–-was-it-a-f-lop-or-did-retailers-jump-the-gun/ F-commerce. It’s a term that we’ve see thrown about a lot over the last couple of years.  At the start of 2011 it was hailed as the next big thing, with the likes of ASOS, Gap, JC Penney and Nordstrom all rushing to the platform to open fully-transactional store-fronts.   Fast forward 12 months and the F-commerce landscape is eerily similar to that of our small town high streets, with many of these storefronts now gone, and brands concentrating their commerce efforts elsewhere. So, is F-commerce a flop? Tracy Yaverbaun, director of retail, luxury and fashion partnerships at Facebook, thinks not . What she does think however is that brands were too quick to jump in as Facebook’s tools “weren’t as developed” as they are now.  Despite explaining that the social network has now developed a “robust payments platform”, what she thinks will really ensure the success of the platform for e-commerce is the introduction of the ‘want’ button next year. Is that the only reason why it didn’t work previously? Definitely not.  Facebook is a social network, and brands need to be creative and wait for it - social - in their approach to selling on the platform.  Early adopters simply treated their Facebook store-fronts as extensions of their website.  In fact, the majority were simply recreations of websites in a Facebook tab.  This was never going to work!  Why would a consumer want to go to a less-aesthetically pleasing version of a brand’s website - and one that could perhaps also be less secure - to buy a product?! The more creative the selling strategy on Facebook, the better..  However, when expanding your sales strategy into a completely new realm, some brands may prefer to use a tried and tested approach, which is perhaps why we saw these early failures. Thankfully, there are a number of really great tools and platforms out there, such as Soldsie , Payvment and Facebook’s own ‘Facebook Gifts’ , that tick the box of being creative in their approach to selling, and have the case studies to prove to decision-makers  that they have worked in the past.  With brands now having more robust tools and platforms to allow them to undertake F-commerce in a more creative and social way, and technology continuing to evolve, I think F-commerce will definitely be revitalised  and given a second chance to prove itself as an excellent sales channel.  If brands can reach us more creatively and relevantly on a platform where we are already active –surely that's marketing nirvana?   By client insight manager John Paul @johnpaulfox @Yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/27/f-commerce-–-was-it-a-f-lop-or-did-retailers-jump-the-gun/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/27/f-commerce-–-was-it-a-f-lop-or-did-retailers-jump-the-gun/ Wed, 28 November 2012 00:00:00 Jasmine Jaume http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/27/why-lurkers-can-be-valuable-community-management-brandwatch/ [Brandwatch guest post] Recently, a discussion in an online community I am part of turned to the somewhat controversial topic of ‘lurkers’. Even in the most active and seemingly busy online communities, the vast majority of community members will be lurkers; those that read, yet never post. Some people will do everything they can to avoid being tagged a lurker, especially on sites like Mumsnet where the phrase ‘Didn’t want to read and run’ is commonly used, often preceded by the phrase ‘I don’t have any advice but...’ But, the fact is, studies have shown that it’s only a very small percentage of community members who actually post ( some studies have claimed it is as low as 2%). These are the members who are engaging with, and providing the reading material for, others in the community, so of course their value cannot be refuted. But what about the silent majority that are lurkers? Can they be of value to the community too? 'Lurk Bridge' picture by Flickr user dovertaylor The discussion threw up some interesting points (and also drew out some of the longtime lurkers – seems the best way to get them participating is to talk about them!) Some consider lurkers to be ‘free riders’ or parasitic in some way but the vast majority of people in the discussion argued that lurkers were a welcome and valuable part of a community. Reasons for this ranged from practicalities, such as the fact that if every member posted, most communities would be so overwhelmed with posts that no one could possibly read all of them, to the financial benefits – i.e. lurkers count as visitors, which in turn influences the amount of advertising revenue and pay-per-clicks. One thing that people were keen to point out was that just because lurkers don’t post doesn’t mean they’re not ‘active’ members. Lurkers could be reading the discussions, and sharing the information – both online and in ‘real life’. They could be recommending your community, inviting new members, or using what they have read in their everyday lives. Besides, what exactly counts as a lurker? What if someone participates often in one topic, but lurks in another? Many community managers are themselves lurkers in the communities they manage – a sort of omnipresent entity, usually only dipping in when it is necessary to help, thank or advise members. Besides the obvious benefit of not scaring off members by being too interfering, there are many advantages to lurking as a CM. A major one of these is the ability to learn about and understand your members. By reading and listening to your community members, you can understand their likes, their dislikes, what they respond well to, what they think about certain topics, what the group dynamic is, and so on. You can use this later when promoting other content and when dealing with members. Plus, as someone in the discussion pointed out, being somewhat distant from the community does give you an air of authority. Whilst it’s good to be ‘human’ and engaged with your community, keeping a distance could prove useful when having to deal with misbehaving members. Anyway, back to lurkers. Some in the discussion said that they felt that lurkers could be considered very valuable to the community, as they may eventually – after a length of time – become more involved members, and will often contribute something more considered and valuable, having listened for long enough to understand the community (and not just contributing ‘for the sake of it’). They may then go back to being lurkers until the next time they think they can add value, or this might be the start of a much more involved membership. Some felt that although lurkers could be beneficial to theorganisationrunning the community (by being eyes for ads, increasing view stats and so on), they are less so for the community members. As one person pointed out, if you lurk, no one in the community even knows you exist, so how can you be of value? But one could argue that lurkers also serve members of the community by being the audience. No one wants to write something that no one is reading, so those visitor/view stats are encouragement that even if no one is interacting with you, there are people out there reading it (and, it follows, possibly sharing it). So why do people lurk? A study by Michel Muller for IBM Research explored the idea that lurking was a ‘trait’ – that some people would be the type of people, by nature, to lurk, whilst others were more likely to be engaged members. Another research study asked lurkers directly their reasons for lurking. Nearly 54% of respondents said that ‘just reading/browsing is enough’ to fulfil their needs, whilst just under 30% said that they were ‘still learning about the group’. Some also said they were shy, or wanted to be anonymous, or felt they had nothing to offer. Very few (7.8%) respondents said that it was because they felt that messages or information in the group had little value. Others have suggested that perhaps lurkers do not want to make themselves known – especially in communities where they may be embarrassed, such as health communities. But they may still have received some value from the community, and those who are contributing might feel good about sharing some knowledge and comfort with those people. So how best to deal with lurkers in your community? Leave them be – but don’t underestimate their value. They are the majority of your audience in that community, so don’t alienate them. And should they come out of the shadows, be sure to encourage them.   By Jasmine Jaume, community manager, Brandwatch @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/27/why-lurkers-can-be-valuable-community-management-brandwatch/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/27/why-lurkers-can-be-valuable-community-management-brandwatch/ Tue, 27 November 2012 13:15:00 Doug W http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/22/share-and-share-alike-how-batman,-iron-man-and-assassins-creed-use-‘fan-power’/ What do Batman, Iron Man and Assassin’s Creed have in common? No, it’s not that I’ve included them all to make the ultimate fanboy joke (sorry!). It’s that all three have used the ‘fan power’ of their communities to spread the word of their latest releases. The premise is so simple: fans are asked to work together and share a particular page in a collaborative effort to unlock exclusive content relating to an upcoming release. It’s a pretty cool trend. And an effective method to increase community size, engage fans and create excitement for a new release. Here’s how the Dark Knight Rises , Iron Man 3 and Assassin’s Creed 3 grabbed my attention with their fan power campaigns:   The Dark Knight Rises DVD Release At the time of writing, this one is still going with the unlock progress bar at 58%. DC and Warner have asked fans to share a page counting down to the release of The Dark Knight Rises on DVD and Blu-Ray. The page can be shared directly to Pinterest, Facebook or Twitter. When the bar reaches 100%, fans will be rewarded for their collaborative efforts with an exclusive clip of the upcoming Superman movie ‘Man of Steel’.     Another reward fans can gain is to have their Pinterest, Twitter or Facebook profile picture included in the background image of the page. Currently, the picture is a collage of Batman silhouettes. When the objective is complete, the silhouettes will change to the profile pictures of those who have shared the countdown page: an interesting way to remind fans of the collaborative effort and community aspect of their sharing ‘work’.     Iron Man 3 Before the release of the latest Iron Man 3 trailer, Facebook users were given the task of ‘recharging’ the suit of Iron Man Tony Stark. To recharge the suit, users were simple asked to “Like” the “ Iron Man 3: Fan Power ” Facebook app.     To speed up the charging process progress, fans were given the opportunity to share the app directly to their Facebook and Twitter timelines.     When the app had gained enough likes and Iron Man’s suit had been fully recharged, fans were rewarded with an exclusive unlock: a teaser trailer of the upcoming Iron Man 3 movie trailer. Although just a sneak peek of a trailer for trailer, the app allowed Iron Man to enhance the size of its community while allowing fans to share their interest with their online peers.   Assassin’s Creed 3 To promote the release of their latest title, the Assassin’s Creed series asked fans to work together to complete the objective of a webgame. In keeping with the theme of the series, “ Hacked History ” encouraged fans to work together to spot anomalies in 3 different images relating to the upcoming release.  Assassin’s Creed issued a ‘call to arms’ across their social platforms, asking fans to spread the word and work together to complete the webgame. As each ‘Assassin’ discovered the imperfections in the images, an individual pixel in an exclusive screen shot from the upcoming release was revealed. Enhancing the community aspect even further, each revealed pixel linked back to the contributor’s Facebook or Twitter profile. When completely revealed, fans were able to download the image to use as desktop wallpaper.     I find the notion of an online community working together to achieve a common goal intriguing. The creators of all three of these titles have effectively engaged their communities and unlocked their ‘fan power’ using the age old trick of a carrot dangle. But as a fan, do I really want to ‘work’ to see exclusive content?  Well, it seems that I don’t mind really. In fact, I’ve joined in and shared each of these examples. I find the community aspect exciting and knowing I’ve contributed to the unlocking of content I and likeminded fans can enjoy is indeed, powerful. By Doug Wilson, Community Exec. @dougw_yomego @YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/22/share-and-share-alike-how-batman,-iron-man-and-assassins-creed-use-‘fan-power’/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/22/share-and-share-alike-how-batman,-iron-man-and-assassins-creed-use-‘fan-power’/ Thu, 22 November 2012 15:55:00 Laura Blackhurst http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/15/will-the-social-media-bullies-please-stand-up/ From the dawn of time (and perhaps even a bit before that), human beings have loved to complain. And in recent times arguments have been rife that the world of social media is to blame for consumers behaving badly, giving the masses a free pass to say what they want, whenever they want, without the fear of consequences or guilt. However, I believe that the beauty of social media is that it actually allows platforms to be built to actively help these complainers and encourage engagement. Social media is increasingly becoming the first port-of-call for unhappy customers. Through its 24/7 environment and accessibility, problems can be resolved at their quickest, when operated efficiently, above all other mediums. Yet in the cacophony of voices shouting over one another in the social media realm there is very little bullying and abuse, and the cases that you may see picked on in the media are in the minority. Social media bashing seems to be the new classroom dunce. Is social media the one that’s being bullied? These platforms provide a place for brands to be able to manage complaints more effectively, follow trends and discover common problems. It gives others the voice and courage to complain in the first place, in a safe environment. Individuals who would otherwise be put off by the confrontation of speaking to someone directly are aided by social media, helping organisations answer unresolved problems, finding the quickest and most apt route to resolution. Social media is used with respect by the majority, creating a wonderful environment to voice opinions and interaction. I believe (call me a glass half-full kind of girl) that the majority of people are inherently good, and bullying is not tolerated when these situations arise online. Companies can even turn bullying to their advantage as was the case when Taco Bell responded to social outrage and abuse about their products. A little witty humour and amusing content can turn negative opinion into a positive one, leaving the bullies red-faced, and looking over their shoulder pretending that they didn’t even say anything in the first place. Social media makes customers better by giving them the outlet to stand up for themselves, become more involved in a beneficial way to the brand, product or company that they are interacting with. And even when a few go too far and branch into aggressive territory, we can see that this can even be played to the brand’s advantage. Companies that disregard social media aren’t avoiding risk, they are avoiding reward. This is quite plainly a risky tactic in itself.  Ron Blake CEO of Rewards Network astutely puts it as: “Engaging in an authentic, meaningful conversation with consumers will be the key to marketing success and growth, even if that means acknowledging negative feedback; transparency is paramount.” . Negative feedback is paramount, we shouldn’t try to ignore it, nonchalantly kick in under the carpet and smile as if nothing happened. Whether online of offline, we all love to have a good bitch about when things go a bit topsy-turvy. Like the time your phone operator went down for three days and you broke your phone by throwing it at the wall, or the time your brand new laptop broke you had a good cry, or even the day you realized that your favourite crisps only total 4 crisps per bag now. Social media is great for bettering customers by making them feel more empowered. Ultimately, that’s going be great for business.   By Laura Blackhurst, intern at Yomego http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/15/will-the-social-media-bullies-please-stand-up/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/15/will-the-social-media-bullies-please-stand-up/ Thu, 15 November 2012 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/14/the-hm-effect/ H&M, the Swedish fashion house renowned for making fashion affordable, recently announced the latest in its long line of designer collaborations. Avant-garde label Maison Martin Margiela is the next brand to receive the H&M treatment, launching to the general public on 15 th November 2012. Such is the popularity of the collaborations that fans have been known to queue for hours to get their hands on the pieces, including Will Cubberley who waited twelve hours for a pair of £80 H&M x Jimmy Choos. Versace’s collaboration took it a step further, selling out in thirty minutes , with shoppers queuing for as long as twenty-four hours. Tomorrow marks the launch of the Maison Martin Margiela collection, and I wanted to look in to the conversation taking place on social around the launch. To do this, I have used data from a carefully refined search in Brandwatch.This should help to shine some light on  the impact of the partnership for both brands.   Throughout October, a string of carefully planned communications created spikes, each almost a week apart. The first of these was on 2 nd October. This followed H&M’s announcement on Twitter that Sam Taylor Wood was to direct the MMM campaign. Retweeted 45 times, it caught the attention of fashionistas, most notably @womensweardaily , @TimesFashion and @BritishVogue , three leading fashion accounts with a combined following of more than four million users. This was just the start of things to come. Tuesday 9 th October, the second spike, appeared as an exclusive first look at the collection previewed online. The news showcased four images from the collection and was featured on leading fashion sites including Vogue , Grazia , Elle and The Telegraph’s fashion blog . What is interesting with this spike, is that it was the fashion blogs that drove conversation. Twitter acted as an aggregator for this conversation, linking to these posts in the days after the release. Next up was Wednesday 17 th October, when a slightly smaller spike appeared as the collection lookbook arrived. The fashion blogging world was quick to showcase this to their followers, before pushing the content to Twitter, where the top ten influential users reached a combined total of 1.68m followers. Positive conversation outweighed negative, with most of the early discussion around the shaping of the jackets. Negative conversation came from those with lesser influence and lower standing in the fashion world. Those perhaps more conservative bodie, weren’t sure on the styling, questioning the fit of the partnership. @Closet4Causes was one to outline how the collaboration excelled their initial thoughts.     What’s that jacket, Margiela? The fourth and greatest spike of the month, took place on Wednesday 24 th October. This was the day of the official launch party, an event which contributed more than 2300 comments across social. Having name dropped MMM in a number of previous hits, it seemed only fitting that Kanye West was invited to attend the launch party. The rapper, who has previously collaborated with Nike , brought the greatest volume in discussion on the night, accounting for 20% of mentions. Other celebrity attendees included Sarah Jessica Parker and Mena Suvari, with the two being referenced in 18% of the discussion taking place around the event. But did H&M miss a trick here? Despite being referenced in almost 40% of conversation, only one of these influencers tweeted their attendance. As Kanye seldom tweets to his 8.8m followers, and Sarah Jessica Parker’s @SJP account has yet to tweet to her 387k followers, neither extended H&M’s reach. In the past our research has highlighted the popularity of celebrity tweets, and looking at Kanye’s six tweets on his profile, he averages 8,866 retweets per post. Had H&M agreed for Kanye to tweet, it would have had the potential to greatly extend the awareness of the collaboration, which reached 10.5m people on Twitter. The celebrity discussion was left to Mena Suvari who was an ideal ambassador constantly tweeting  throughout the evening to her 76k followers. The range is due to hit the stores tomorrow (and you might just find me in the queue). As the launch nears, we’ve seen a 199% increase in conversation over the past month. Perhaps stating the obvious, we can also see that H&M’s partnership has truly increased the reach of MMM on social. Twitter acts as the main conversation driver, reaching over 35m users and hosting 73% of all discussion. Currently, positive conversation outweighs negative by a scale of 3 to 1, and if that’s anything to go by, tomorrow will no doubt be a resounding success. From insight executive Mark Stuart  @MisterMumble   @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/14/the-hm-effect/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/14/the-hm-effect/ Wed, 14 November 2012 00:00:00 http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/14/social-soup/ It’s another cold, wet and dreary November afternoon up here in Glasgow.  What better way to warm up than sit back and help yourself to a hearty serving of social soup – our weekly roundup of the top stories in social media over the last 7 days. Shhhh – Pinterest announces new ‘Secret boards’ feature Back in February this year, Pinterest became not only the fastest growing social networking site ever, but the fastest standalone site in the history of the internet to hit 10M unique visits.  Despite an avid fanbase and a number of really innovative attempts by brands to engage with users, the jury is still out with regards to the impact that Pinterest has on converting traffic into sales.  It comes as no surprise then that the social network has decided to launch its newest feature just in time for the year’s biggest buying season.  ‘Secret boards’, as unveiled on the Pinterest blog on Thursday, allows users to privately pin posts that are only visible to them and any others that they choose to invite.  Highlighting that the feature is great for users who want to keep track of holiday gifts, it’s apparent that it is trying to find a way to correlate sales with traffic. What about the benefits to marketers? I think there are plenty.  Firstly, marketers can now develop and plan campaigns on-site before sharing fully populated boards with their fans. Brands can now also use the site to build strong relationships with its advocates, inviting them to view and collaborate on boards before they are shared with a wider audience.   NM Incite acquires Social Guide to try and quantify the value of social TV A recent survey by eDigitalResearch found that 80% of smartphone owners, 81% of tablet owners and 73% of laptop owners use their devices whilst in front of the TV.  As a huge fan of the social tv phenomena, I believe that it’s definitely here to stay.  Whether brands and networks are innovatively interacting with viewers through apps like Zeebox, or simply asking them to contribute via a hashtag, the opportunities that social TV present are endless.  But can it be measured? NM Incite, a social media analytics and research joint venture between Nielsen and McKinsey, believe that it can, and have acquired social TV startup SocialGuide to try and do just that. From the press release : “Together, Nielsen, NM Incite and SocialGuide will focus on efforts to quantify the relationship between social TV and TV ratings to enable advertisers to maximize the impact of their spend, and provide new research metrics to understand social TV’s impact on consumer behavior and viewing habits.” I look forward to seeing the outputs.   Red Bull has more likes on Facebook than the top 100 brands combined on G+ Research by social media analytics firm Simply Measured has found that the top 100 brands on Google+ have a combined total of 23.2 million fans.  Based on the Interbrand top 100, the study found that although Google+ is seeing improvements, there is serious cause for concern around the longevity of the platform.  2013 will be a defining year for Google+ and it really must evolve and innovate if it wants to differentiate itself from rival platforms and entice advertisers to spend time and budget engaging with its user base.   Facebook false likes The FT reported on Sunday that Facebook users are complaining that products and causes are appearing in the “Likes” category of their accounts even though they have no memory of clicking on the Like button for those brands or campaigns.  With the majority of us now treating our social profile as an online extension of ourselves, and employers now actively monitoring the social media profiles of applicants, affiliating ourselves with certain corporations or political groups on Facebook has the potential to cause serious problems.  The article highlights that these false likes caused particular concern around the US presidential election, and in some cases online fights among friends, when the profiles of ardent Obama supporters showed Likes for Mitt Romney. The recent launch of Facebook promoted posts takes this to the next level, with many users being shown to be associated with brands in their friends’ news feeds without any prior knowledge of having liked them in the first place.  I tested this theory with one of my Facebook friends when a promoted post appeared in my news feed highlighting that he liked the money-loan company ‘Pounds to Pocket’.  He had absolutely no memory of liking the page and was suitably embarrassed with the association.   The cause of the problem is still unclear, yet experts say the likely explanation could be users accidently clicking ‘like’ while swiping through their news feed on their mobile or being fooled into clicking ‘like’ as part of an advertising campaign.   And finally I’m sure you’ve seen at least one of the ‘overly attached girlfriend’ memes that are being shared across the web.  Samsung definitely has, and Laina Walker, who plays the character (so she says..), now becomes the latest social media celebrity to be snapped up and used in an advertising campaign for a multi-national brand.  The electronics giant teamed up with her to help sell its SSD products. I think the advert is absolutely terrifying.  Check it out below.     By client insight manager John Paul Fox @johnpaulfox @Yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/14/social-soup/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/14/social-soup/ Wed, 14 November 2012 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/9/instagram-gets-personal/ As you’re all probably aware, Facebook acquired Instagram back in April this year for a figure which, at the time, was worth $1bn. The deal consisted of $300m in cash, along with 23 million shares, a nice idea at the time. From then to September when the acquisition was completed, the value of the deal had lowered to $730m due to the falling price of Facebook’s shares. The deal was a huge talking point at the time, with many gulping at the price – which was higher than the market cap of The New York Times. It clearly outlined Mark Zuckerburg’s belief in the company, and the need for its strong userbase and expertise in its field. In April, Instagram was only available on Apple’s iOS App Store, with more than five million photos being uploaded every day. By August its number of daily active mobile users had grown so fast it had surpassed Twitter, with 7.3m users on Instagram, compared to 6.9 Twitter users. Pinterest is another platform which has been quickly emerging, as photo sharing becomes as a sure-fire method to attract more engagement on social. It is with this in mind that Instagram had to do something to differentiate itself. While Facebook has integrated Instagram-like filters to Facebook’s iOS most recent update, Instagram had remained the same since its acquisition…until now. ‘Profiles on the Web!’ Instagram announced its update on Monday 5 th November, introducing profiles for each of its users to showcase their images to the world. Whereas in the past, users’ images would appear on a standalone page, with very little web functionality, each user now has their own profile containing all their uploaded images. It was a bit of a no brainer to widen Instagram’s usage to web alongside mobile, and it’s a  move which has numerous touches of ‘Facebook’ to it. For a start, as can be seen in Nike’s profile above , it bears great resemblance to that of Facebook’s cover photo – though this showcases seven rotating images. Opening an image also bears a striking resemblance. The move was a gradual process, with Nike acting as the brand of choice to launch the platform. Now all users can view their own profiles by navigating to instagram.com/[username]. Although Nike is perhaps one of my favourite brands on social, I thought it would be great to showcase some great examples of other notable profiles on Instagram.   Burberry (surely it was obvious I would include this) Red Bull Go Pro Eye Mediaa Billboard Victoria's Secret Sharpie Those are just a few of my favourites, or certainly accounts which look brilliant on the new layout. Of course there'll be designers, photographers and artists that will no doubt showcasing their talents on Instagram. It'd be great to hear about any users which catch your eye, I'm always looking for someone new to follow. From Insight Executive Mark @MisterMumble @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/9/instagram-gets-personal/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/9/instagram-gets-personal/ Fri, 09 November 2012 00:00:00 Claire Foss, clairefoss@gmail.com http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/7/the-10-big-issues-around-social-media-engagement-whitepaper/ Download Yomego's new whitepaper on measuring social enagement here It’s no secret that at Yomego, we are looking to find a solution to the questions around social media engagement. We are in the middle of developing a metric for measuring engagement that stands up both academically, and with major clients. But before we began our project, we took a long hard look at the social media measurement landscape. We even invited others, prominent in the field, along to a discussion of the topic at a round table this summer. At the event, we had top thinkers from the likes of British Airways, Mediacom Worldwide, the CIPR Measurement and Evaluation Group, an academic and more. All experts in understanding social influence. What did we find? In essence, there are several issues that the industry is grappling with – and that these are barriers to being able to really tackle the impact that social media has on a business. These findings are detailed in our whitepaper, which you can find full details of here . We’ll also be releasing details of our metric soon. http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/7/the-10-big-issues-around-social-media-engagement-whitepaper/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/7/the-10-big-issues-around-social-media-engagement-whitepaper/ Thu, 08 November 2012 10:00:00 http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/7/social-soup-your-favourite-weekly-roundup-returns/ I was sitting on the train this morning making this wonderful spider diagram (see below) to help decide what to write my weekly blog post on when I was struck down with a severe case of nostalgia. With so many important and exciting things happening in social media over the last 7 days, I began to realise that I could bring these together to make a wonderful concoction known as social soup - harking back to our weekly social soup blog posts in the early days of the Yomego blog. Ahh...   So, with that in my mind, I stepped back into the kitchen to cook up a special edition of this old culinary treat. Here's my run down of the top stories in social over the last 7 days.   Your nearest polling station is Queens….But you live in Florida As the US election race draws to a close, it’s certainly fair to say that social media has played a massive role in the respective campaigns of both candidates. From excellent Facebook apps to emotionally captivating images on Pinterest, the candidates have been active on all the major platforms.  The Obama campaigns final flurry involved taking over the front page of YouTube this morning with an interactive banner ad that helps voters locate nearby polling stations.  Great concept in theory, however in practice, the ad was full of glitches and directed users towards polling stations miles from home.  Google confirmed that the ad has now been fixed and is in full working order, but some rigorous testing might have been in order! It will be interesting to look back and see the impact that perceptions on social media had on the actual outcome.   Instagram launch web profiles Instagram took to its blog on Monday to announce the imminent launch of Instagram web profiles, an online companion for its photo sharing app.  Over the course of the next few days users will be able to view their profile, as well as that of their favourite brand or friends, simply by navigating to instagram.com/[username]. Unsurprisingly, the profiles are strikingly similar to that of its parent company Facebook.  Our Insight executive Mark is going to post a blog looking at some of the best examples of the new profile tomorrow, so please do come back to find out his favourites. [sneak peek, he loves the instagram.com/nike example below]     With Tumblr CEO and founder David Karp yesterday highlighting that his site is now surpassing 20 billion page views a month and Twitter announcing plans to add photo filters to its mobile apps, image-led content really is now king.   Check-in for free Wi-Fi Having just checked my phone bill and realised that the £30 excess to my standard direct debit was due to going over my data allowance, a new service currently being trialled by Facebook really got my attention. This new service lets local businesses offer free wifi to their customers after they’ve checked in on the social network. When visitors check in, they are redirected to the business’ Facebook page and can continue to browse the web for free. Page owners will be able to track how many new Likes they received from people who took advantage of this service – adding an extra layer of data to the already comprehensive Facebook insights. From a personal perspective, I have my fingers crossed that this service gets rolled out! Professionally however, users taking advantage and liking a page purely for free wifi further is likely to further diminish the already low value of a like.    When will the law catch up? I was both upset and confused to read yesterday that the nine people who illegally named a woman on Twitter and Facebook who was raped by footballer, Ched Evans, were told to pay her just £624 each in compensation. This is another example of a completely inconsistent ruling by a judge in a case which involves trolling on social media.  At one end of the spectrum, Liam Stacey was jailed for 56 days after he posted inappropriate and racist tweets about the Bolton Wanders player Fabrice Muamba, which is completely warranted in my opinion.  At the other end however, a teenage rape victim was insulted, demeaned and named (which is illegal in itself) – and the perpetrators are fined just a few hundred quid. The law really does need to catch up and evolve in-line with technology.  First steps - Consistent, and most importantly, sensible, laws and sentencing guidelines must really be introduced.   For sale – Facebook shares If you’re still holding out hope that those Facebook shares that you purchased when the company was first floated will regain their value, the offloading of $7.4M of shares by Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg may unsettle you. With the share price now sitting at almost half of what it climbed to on the first day of trading, and the company last week reporting a $59m loss, it will be interesting to keep an eye on the approach that it takes to convince investors that it can turn its online dominance into profits.   And finally Erik Qualman of Socialnomics has just released an updated version of his infamous video 'The Social Media Revolution' .  It's jam-packed with new and exciting social media stats, and has even been given a new soundtrack (although this may upset a few people who love the FatBoy Slim track used in the original.  Don't worry, Erik has also created a version here with that track to keep you happy :) )   Check it out below   From client insight manager John Paul @johnpaulfox @Yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/7/social-soup-your-favourite-weekly-roundup-returns/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/7/social-soup-your-favourite-weekly-roundup-returns/ Thu, 08 November 2012 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/7/when-the-president-tweets/ First off, congratulations to Barack Obama, who has been re-elected as President of the United States . As I write-this, we currently await the results from Florida’s 29 electoral votes, with Barack securing 303 votes, to Mitt Romney’s 206. This year's US election, as our last blog post highlighted, had social at its core, with an estimated $54m spent on digital advertising. And now, with the results in, Obama hasn’t just achieved another four years in the White House, he’s smashed Twitter records. Over the last 24 hours, Barack’s Twitter account has been tweeting various messages to voters. As his triumph was announced, @BarackObama tweeted “This happened because of you. Thank You” .The tweet has currently been retweeted more than 224k times. This however seems minuscule compared to the tweet which followed. “Four more years” , with Barack embracing Michelle , has attracted more than 561k retweets, by far surpassing the previous record which is beliebed to held by Justin Bieber, who’s condolence tweet has 223k retweets. The popstar’s tweet looks like it is set to fall from the most popular tweet, to the fourth most popular tweet, in just a matter of hours. In a campaign which brought 31 million tweets, Twitter’s blog has uncovered some truly fascinating stats: 327,452 TPM - 11:19pm ET - Networks call Obama's reelection 85,273 TPM -11:12pm ET - IA (Iowa) presidential race called 69,031 TPM - 9:33pm ET - PA ( Pennsylvania) and WI (Wisconsin) presidential races called 65,106 TPM - 8:03pm ET - Polls close in various states; AP calls races for IL (Illinois), CT (Connecticut), ME (Maine), DC (Washington), DE (Delaware), RI (Rhode Islane), MD (Maryland), MA (Massachusetts) Source: Twitter blog One point remains to be said, in amongst all this research, including our own work with Marketing magazine, the New York Times Five Thirty Eight blog has been on the pulse throughout the whole journey. Measuring the social conversation throughout the US provided the blog with some key insights from each state, as it successfully predicted the outcome of the election. So not only is it a win for Obama and his social media team, New York Times did a pretty awesome job with its analysing and prediction too. So here’s to another four years with the most popular Twitter user in the world. From Insight Executive Mark @MisterMumble @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/7/when-the-president-tweets/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/7/when-the-president-tweets/ Wed, 07 November 2012 00:00:00 Tala Byrne http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/2/the-us-election-social-media-stats-post/ With the US Presidential election happening on Tuesday 6 th November and the last of the televised presidential debates over, the Obama vs. Romney tension is higher than ever before. The buzz around the candidates has been huge, leading Jordan Bitterman of Digitas to suggest that “[This] year’s victor may well be determined by the impact of Facebook and Twitter.” And where there are great social stats, there’s a great story. This is at least partly down to both candidates upping their social game in the run up to this election. Both posted more content via a wider variety of channels than before. And of the estimated $1bn spent this election by both Republicans and Democrats, an estimated $54 million has been spent on various forms of digital advertising. This isn’t so surprising when you consider that 88% of adult social media users are registered voters and that 94% of voting-age users who see a political ad online watch the full thing. In fact political messages online are now more likely to reach voters online than through TV. President Barack Obama and Alyssa Mastromonaco, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, listen during a conversation with other members of the staff aboard Air Force One en route to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sept. 9, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza). Image taken from The White House's Flickr Stream , some rights reserved. (We wanted one of Mitt too, but all his Flickr photos are off-limits.. .) While both Obama and Romney have clocked the difference that social could make to the election, their strategies have been quite different, as shown by an infographic on Inc.com .  Obama has put out the majority of messages (for example 404 Twitter messages as opposed to Romney’s feeble 16 at the time this graphic was produced), and has gained more of a response from the public as a result, with his content getting around 1.12 million Facebook likes and 150k retweets. Romney meanwhile gained 633k Facebook likes and 8k retweets. But a large part of this is down to the fact that Obama has been active online for a lot longer than Romney, having used social well since the last election in 2008. However, the strategy used by Romney to catch up has been well thought-out. The Romney campaign posted content mostly in the form of images (43% of overall content) and video (24%) extending his reach through catching the visual attention of users who may not be interested by posts in plain text form. By contrast, Obama’s content was mostly made up of text with links (34%) or even just plain text (29%) with a much lower proportion of pictures/videos. However, those who did engage with Obama’s content reacted positively. Many said that they felt like Obama’s online efforts were more “personal,” with the text-heavy posts making users feel more like the president was addressing them directly.  In line with the trash-talk style of US politics, 34% of Romney’s posts were about Obama, including links to statistics about Obama’s administration which were shared heavily by Romney supporters. The three presidential debates were also revolutionary in terms of social, with the Denver, Colorado debate breaking records at 10.3 million tweets, making it the most tweeted event in political history. We undertook some research last week, which appears in this week’s issue of Marketing magazine. Tracking the sentiment around the debates was particularly interesting, as it shows social media very closely tracking the ‘official’ verdicts that Romney won the first debate, Obama the second, and that the third was a tie.   Gone are the days when the public had to write letters to their local representatives to make their political views heard. November’s election shows a huge development in the use of social media in politics and paves the way for new levels of political engagement between the public and their politicians. By Tala Byrne, intern at Yomego, with additional research and graph production by senior designer Chris Casey and insight exec Mark Stuart @mistermumble @yomegosocial Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/2/the-us-election-social-media-stats-post/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/november/2/the-us-election-social-media-stats-post/ Thu, 01 November 2012 14:00:00 http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/26/how-windows-8-could-change-computing/ With the ‘big grey box’ all but a distant memory, computers have gotten smaller, faster and most importantly, more portable. With this shift in not only where people are using their tech, but also what they use it for, it seemed only logical that the software powering it would also adapt to reflect this new role. And so it did – only it did so everywhere except for the desktop PC, where, with few exceptions, nothing ever changed. Enter Windows 8. Love it or loathe it, Windows 8 is unleashed upon the world today in a flurry of monotone tiles and overlapping Calibri text. This is Microsoft’s coup d’état, their big chance to bring users into a single coherent ecosystem that spans desktop, tablet and phone. Obviously, their intentions are to make money – lots of it, I imagine. However the byproduct is a positive move in the right direction for consumers. Before I talk a bit more about Windows 8, I should mention for full disclosure that I use a mac and as a result, OS X. However the sheer ubiquity of Windows as a platform has always ensured I watch its movements with a keen, quizzical eye. OS X has already been making small strides towards the kind of environment Windows 8 is attempting to create. When Mountain Lion was released earlier this year, Apple tried to take the best parts of their operating system darling, the mobile iOS, and make them desktop friendly. The result was an OS that had quick sharing links oozing from every possible window and better ways to manage your social media life from the desktop, but it still felt familiar enough that you could disregard the changes and plod on like you always did.   What about Windows 8 then? If you’ve ever used Windows before (which I’m guessing includes pretty much ever person, ever) be prepared to disregard everything you’ve ever learned. The traditional desktop environment has been completely replaced by a live-tile system that instantly makes you feel as if you’re on a mobile device. The desktop is still there, for legacy and compatibility reasons, but Microsoft have deemed it as so unimportant that it’s treated in much the same way as every other app, in that it’s merely assigned a small tile to let you know it’s there. It’s this relentless pace of motion that permeates the entire operating system. In fact, Microsoft initially wanted to call this new design language “Metro”, to imply movement, but due to a legal challenge from a German company they chose to settle with the much less snappy “Microsoft design language”. Every single app includes a set of options, which Microsoft have christened “charms” which allow sharing everything and anything to your social platform du jour. Facebook and Twitter still have their own apps. However the consistent design philosophy means that accessing them is no longer a detour – it’s part of how the user was always intended to operate within the platform. Additionally, acknowledging the fact that the traditional role of the PC is evolving, so too have the platform opportunities for the OS. For the first time ever Windows is available on an ARM processor, basically the same type of processor that powers every smartphone/tablet. Speaking of which, today also marks the launch of “Surface”- Microsoft’s first foray in creating their own mobile devices. Reviews are middling , with the ARM version of Windows 8, known as Windows RT, offering a relatively confusing experience for consumers due to the inability to install and run legacy apps. So if you didn’t ask the question in the first place, is the move to Windows 8 worthwhile?  To put it bluntly, Windows 8 is going to be the Marmite of operating systems. It’s loud, it requires a large learning curve, and its efforts to add legacy support feel like they were implemented merely to ‘tick off’ a box. There’s definitely a lot to be apprehensive about. But despite all that, there are also some genuine slivers of real forward thinking ingenuity. The sharing feels natural, the “people hub” brings all of your contacts together in a single unified location, the feel is modern and the ecosystem, while still in its infancy, already has a massive pool of development talent ready to begin creating beautiful apps. It takes a massive amount of faith in a product to effectively trash something that’s been selling just fine for over 20 years, but as a result it’s probably the most revolutionary piece of technology Microsoft has produced in years. It might not change the way people connect with each other, but it will make it easier. We may have not asked the question, but Microsoft has definitely provided an answer, and for that they are to be applauded. By Sam Macleod, account manager @cooltweetbro @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/26/how-windows-8-could-change-computing/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/26/how-windows-8-could-change-computing/ Fri, 26 October 2012 16:00:00 Claire Foss, clairefoss@gmail.com http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/24/how-social-media-can-change-your-life/ During Yomego’s sports event at SMW Glasgow , there was one amazing moment that couldn’t fail to both move you and show you the amazing possibilities of reaching people through social media. Towards the end of the week, we ran an event looking at how sport and social interact. We had three digital and sports experts presenting, one of which was Sue Gyford, from Scottish Athletics and Jog Scotland . This story concerns Sue, and how her work in social media really helped one woman to change her life. During Sue’s presentation, she told us about her work with both Scottish Athletics, and grassroots jogging club Jog Scotland. In this, she explained the interaction you see above – where an anonymous tweeter had reached out to ask for advice on getting fit. The tweeter (now much less anonymous) was Elaine aka @therace4mylife – not a member of Jog Scotland, but a (in her own words) “very overweight 40-year-old” looking for help to turn her health around. With Sue’s help via Twitter, she did just this. During the presentation, Sue was clearly moved by Elaine’s story. And when Elaine turned up at the event to finally meet Sue and thank her in person, the story was complete. Here are Elaine and Sue’s stories of the encounter. First up; Elaine:   "I’m a geek.  I’ve always been a geek.  I love technology, gadgets and computers and I need to know all about, if not have, the latest “must have” thing.  So when I say twitter’s been around for six years now, you’ll not be surprised to hear I’ve been part of most of it, I’ve built a wee following, and I’ve even made new friends in real world 1.0 through it. However, I’m also very overweight and I wanted to get fitter.  But I was embarrassed about starting it given my size and really didn’t want anyone to know what I was about to attempt, in case I was mocked, ridiculed or as would be most likely…. I failed.  Why wouldn’t I fail?  I’ve failed at every other keep fit “fad” I’ve tried.  This latest attempt at weight loss began with training to walk the race for life in June, which I eventually did in 63 minutes.  This gave me a huge boost and I wanted to keep it going.  So I set up a separate twitter account (@therace4mylife) and set about following fitness type tweeters.  I knew about @jogscotland through work, so I followed them too.  Little did I know, that was about to be the most important step. Living in Scotland means….well, let’s be kind and say “rotten” weather a lot of the year, and dark nights from around mid-October.  I didn’t want to let the progress slip, by allowing the weather and dark nights to become an excuse not to exercise, so I started tweeting folk asking advice.  I tweeted @jogscotland, who appeared to be a six foot brown dog, asking about maybe joining early 2013 as I felt I wasn’t anywhere near ready to run yet.  Thankfully I didn’t get barked at, I instead got a lovely reply from the person I now know as Sue.  Sue convinced me that they would be delighted to see me at my local club at Chryston.  Despite this positive reply however, my complete lack of confidence meant that it would be another week before I finally worked up the courage to walk along.  I spoke to the group leader, who was lovely also, and discovered that the next 10 week block started in three weeks I made up my mind; I joined up, and can now say it was totally the correct decision.  jogscotland have been absolutely brilliant.  I’m not at a stage where I can follow their suggested starter plan yet, so they have very kindly created one especially for me.  I’m loving every minute of it, yes even in the rain, and I’m now in the second week of theSECONDblock of 10 weeks. None of this, however, would have happened without the anonymity the twitter contact gave me.  I was able to contact @jogscotland without revealing who I was, what I looked like, what size I was.  Never in a million years would I have walked along to the gym on spec and asked in person. Sue continued her brilliant and very welcome encouragement, through the very tough first few weeks, and I was honoured when she said she’d been asked by @yomego to take part in #SMWGlasgow and was considering using my story as an example of how Social Media can help.  I had been going along to one or two events myself, and arranged to get along for the end of the session Sue was speaking at. Despite conversing online for weeks, we’d never met until #SMWGlasgow and it was really lovely to put a face and a personality to the username.  It’s genuinely not hyperbole to say that I wouldn’t be where I am in my fitness journey without her, jogscotland, and of course… twitter!   And here’s Sue’s story: Our @jogscotland tweets are informal, friendly and encouraging. I chat with people about where they’ve been exercising, give them shout-outs and cheers for their runs and share relevant links and articles. One day in July I fell into a Twitter chat with someone called @TheRace4MyLife. She wasn’t a jogscotlandmember – though she hinted that she’d like a bit of help with her running. When I looked at her profile, I saw she was, in her own words, a “very overweight 40-year-old”, who had decided she needed to get fitter and lose some weight. She was blogging and tweeting about it all anonymously, as she jog/walked on her own. I gave her some gentle encouragement to join her local group, but she replied: “I'd really just be keeping them back at this stage & embarrassing myself, but thank you for the offer, I will defo be in touch.” It was a big message in a little tweet - those of us who sit in the office atscottishathletics all day surrounded by sporty people tend to think of jogscotlandas being very open and accessible for beginners, away from the world of competitive athletics. It was so important to be reminded that there were some people who felt that even jogscotlandwas too much for them. I wasn’t sure I’d hear from her again, but a week later @TheRace4MyLife tweeted back to say she’d signed up with her nearest jogscotlandgroup. I was amazed and delighted. Since then, she’s kept in touch, amazing and inspiring me with her commitment and enthusiasm. When Yomego invited me to speak at their sportandsocial session during Social Media Week in Glasgow, the first thing that sprang to mind was our ongoing chat. It’s a great example of how the relative anonymity – the “ambient intimacy” - of Twitter allows people to connect meaningfully without feeling too vulnerable. It’s really easy when you work in social to get caught up on big numbers - how many followers do you have? How many Likes did your latest facebook post get? How many hits on your website this month? But our little exchange showed me that just one interaction can have huge value - it can help someone completely change their life for the better. @ARaceForMyLife – or Elaine, as I discovered she was called - was happy for me to use her Tweets in my talk. By this time she was well into her jogscotlandprogramme and friends and family had started to notice her weight loss, so she thought there was no point in trying to remain anonymous. Best of all, she nipped out of work and popped along to the end of the Yomego session so we could meet for the first time. It was brilliant to see her – I felt like I knew her already, and bounded over to gave her a big hug. We chatted away and I introduced her to some of the session’s organisers and audience, who were all chuffed to meet the “anonymous tweeter” I’d been talking about. We still talk a lot now on Twitter and email, where I’ve launched my next campaign of gentle persuasion - to convince her how much fun it is to run right through the Scottish winter. I’m not there yet, but I think I’ll win her over.   If you're interested in joining Sue and Elaine, then here's the blurb: Jogscotland provides sociable, supportive jogging groups across the country, aimed at people of all levels. More than 400 groups are run by volunteer Jog Leaders, with participants ranging from people who have never run a step to marathon runners. http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/24/how-social-media-can-change-your-life/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/24/how-social-media-can-change-your-life/ Wed, 24 October 2012 18:00:00 Claire Foss, clairefoss@gmail.com http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/24/sport-and-social-the-stats-and-slideshare/ For anyone that missed the event – or for anyone interested in sport and social media – you’re in for a treat with our latest Slideshare. It’s a roundup of all the presentations from our Sport & Social event during Social Media Week 2012, and it’s even already been featured in a guest blog on The UK Sport Network . There are presentations here from… Yomego’s insight analyst Mark Stuart, Sue Gyford, the social media and digital communications officer at Scottish Athletics and the grassroots recreational running programme Jog Scotland Kayleigh Grieve, digital media manager for the Scottish FA ...and Andrew Jenkin, support network manager at Supporters Direct and part of the newly launched Scottish Fans site We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed hosting the event.   SMW 2012 #SportAndSocial from Yomego http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/24/sport-and-social-the-stats-and-slideshare/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/24/sport-and-social-the-stats-and-slideshare/ Wed, 24 October 2012 00:00:00 Claire Foss http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/19/somecomms-award-win-best-use-of-youtube-yomego/ Great news for Yomego and our client Morrison Bowmore Distillers last night, as we took home the ‘Best use of YouTube’ gong at the SomeComms awards! The award was for our Auchentoshan Switch campaign, which promoted the whisky brand to Britain and America's trendiest bartenders. These 'mixologists' created YouTube tutorials to enter and win a chance to 'switch' for a fortnight at either the best bar in New York (for the UK's bartenders) or the best bar in London (for the Americans). The campaign achieved some great results and we're so pleased that it's been recognised by these fantastic awards.   Needless to say, we’re pretty chuffed. Thanks SomeComms! http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/19/somecomms-award-win-best-use-of-youtube-yomego/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/19/somecomms-award-win-best-use-of-youtube-yomego/ Fri, 19 October 2012 18:40:00 Doug Wilson http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/18/homeless-world-cup/ Last week saw the Homeless World Cup take place in Mexico City, with Chile emerging as victors in the men’s tournament after a hard-fought victory over the host nation. The buzz on social streams was as exhilarating as the action on the pitch – with the tournament’s cheeky and endearing mascot, Amigol, rousing fans even before a ball was kicked.                                                                 Photo by Oz Dror ~  www.photozzy.com  The competition is now in its 10 th year and aims to help homeless people build and develop transferable skills through communication, trust, team building and responsibility. The ultimate aim is to help those who have experienced homelessness realise they already have the skills needed to change their own lives. Attracting a number of global partners , the charity provides education and support for participants long after the tournament has ended. With the event being held for such a good cause and aiming to change the lives of homeless people everywhere, social media was always going to play a major role in spreading the charity’s ethos, building up worldwide interest and conveying the emotions of participants, fans and organisers present in Mexico City to social users across the world. Lewis Willing, communications assistant for the Homeless World Cup, gave me this insight into the charity’s social media strategy for the event: “During the event we wanted to inform about what was going on, but more importantly capture the emotion and show just what the tournament can do to help people who have experienced homelessness. We also aim to change perceptions about homeless people and the use of social media is an important factor in achieving this.” So here’s a snippet on how they did it: The Homeless World Cup homepage provided daily blog-style updates on all the excitement and drama on the pitch. The posts reminded us of the real reason for the tournament taking place, and each post offered a comment matrix directly linked to Facebook allowing users to discuss the action or offer their support for the article’s subject. This year’s event placed a major focus on its YouTube channel , broadcasting full matches, highlights videos and ‘best of’ montages allowing for fans thousands of miles away to enjoy the gritty action and comment on the drama. Through the use of YouTube Nonprofits and Google Wallet , viewers could donate instantly from the HWC’s channel and share the news of each donation on their preferred social site.     Having drilled up nearly 1 million views since its inception, the Homeless World Cup channel combined the coverage of crunch matches such as those between the Auld Enemies (Scotland and England, in case you didn’t know), with interviews and thoughts from some of the participants. This was another subtle way of reminding viewers of the skills it hopes for homeless people to gain. The number of videos available provided fans with infinite talking points to take to Twitter and discuss using the #HWCMexico hashtag ; the charity never failing to interact from its own account .    For photo lovers, both the Homeless World Cup Facebook and Flickr accounts showcase beautifully colourful images displaying the community spirit, joy and positivity of the event. These snaps remind us of the aim of charity, the struggles of the participants visible in the faces. What’s that old adage? “A picture is worth a thousand words”?                                                                 Image taken by Oz Dror:  www.photozzy.com Well done HWC and well done social, you’ve only gone and pulled on my heart strings again. The next Homeless World Cup takes place in Poznan, Poland in 2013: see you there (or on Twitter).  By Doug Wilson, community exec, @dougw_yomego http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/18/homeless-world-cup/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/18/homeless-world-cup/ Thu, 18 October 2012 17:30:00 Claire Foss http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/17/yomego-award-nominations/ Good news for the team here at Yomego – we’ve been shortlisted for not one but two awards! Yomego has made it down to the final few for both the Social Buzz Awards (for ‘Best B2B sector social media campaign’) and the Some Comms awards (aka 'The UK's social media communication') awards. In fact we might even be up for three awards, as we entered two categories in Some Comms – best use of YouTube and Best Low Budget campaign – and we’re not sure whether it’s one or both that we’re finalists for. Both awards are for the Auchentoshan Switch campaign that we launched with our brilliant client Morrison Bowmore Distillers . Auchentoshan is a wonderful whisky distillery based on the outskirts of Glasgow, and is one of MBD’s biggest brands. Last year it launched a ‘Switch’ campaign that used YouTube and other social channels to engage bartenders and educate them about the whisky and its use in cocktails. The prize was a chance to ‘switch’ for a trip to work in one of the US’s best bars (and for the US winners to come to the equivalent in London). It was a storming success – and it’s brilliant news for us that the judges have seen fit put us on the shortlist. So huge thanks to both the Social Buzz Awards and the SomeComms teams – we can’t wait to hear the result! http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/17/yomego-award-nominations/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/17/yomego-award-nominations/ Wed, 17 October 2012 16:10:00 Brandwatch http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/17/what-does-influence-really-mean/ It’s time again for our guest post from our social data partners Brandwatch. This time, community manager Jasmine talks about how social media has changed definitions of influence. Take it away Jasmine…   What do you consider the word ‘influential’ to mean? In the past, those considered influential might have been, say, celebrities or politicians. The majority of ‘normal’ people would rarely be considered ‘influential’ in the grand scheme of things. In actuality, we all have some form of influence - be it over our friends, family, colleagues or partner. But social media gives us the power to be influential in ways we never dreamed, and over a much wider group of people. Now that social media has become such a huge part of our everyday life, everyone has the potential to be considered influential, regardless of their standing in the ‘real world’. When it comes to the world of social media, being influential is dependent on your online credentials – how many Twitter followers you have, how many people visit your blog each month, how many connections you have on LinkedIn and so on. We use these metrics to determine a person’s influence in the absence of other, real world clues, but there really is no perfect measurement. For example, having a large number of followers could indicate that someone is trusted and knowledgeable in their area. But, you could just have lots of followers because you had randomly followed a large number of other accounts in the hope that they would follow back. Therefore, your followers are not necessarily going to be interested in what you are tweeting about, making your influence less useful. Other measures of influence have been developed which, in part, combat this by taking into account a wide range of metrics including actual interactions rather than just follower numbers, with users being given a score for their ‘influence’ online. The most well-respected of these are Kred, Peerindex and Klout. Within Brandwatch, authors can be sorted by the number of mentions they have made of a specific brand, or by other various metrics, such as the number of Twitter followers, or their Kred Influence or Outreach score. The Kred Influence score is based on ‘the ability to inspire action’ and is scored on a scale of 1-1,000. It is calculated based on how often an author is retweeted, replied, mentioned or followed on Twitter, and interactions on Facebook such as posts, mentions, likes, shares and invitations. The Outreach score ‘reflects generosity in engaging with others’. This score is cumulative – as of June 2012, the highest outreach score anyone has achieved is 12. It is based on the number retweets, replies and mentions you make of others. With Facebook content, points are gained through interactions on your own wall and on others’ walls. Let’s take a recent example to demonstrate different ways of identifying influencers: Using Brandwatch, we tracked conversation about the recent Spring/Summer London Fashion Week. During just the opening day of LFW, we found over 23,000 relevant tweets. Upon looking at the authors of those tweets (figure 1), we can see that, if we order the tweeters list by the number of mentions, @itsastylefix is the ‘top’ author’, with 93 mentions.   However, just because someone tweets a lot does not necessarily mean that they are influential. What you may be more concerned with is potential reach. Therefore, ordering authors by the number of followers may be more applicable. If we do that for this query (figure 2), we see that the news and internet blog @mashable is ‘top’. Although the site only tweeted one relevant mention, they have nearly 3 million followers, making their influence or reach much greater than @itsastylefix, who has less than 700 followers (even with the 93 tweets by this account, that only makes the potential reach 64,821 – much less than the one tweet by @mashable). The number of followers is not always akin to influence though, as mentioned above and as proven by the fact that the spoof ‘Essex Lion’ account (@essexlion) has over 30,000 follows but is, arguably, not that influential due to the nature of the account. Therefore ordering by Kred Influence score might be more worthwhile. In doing this (figure 3), we see that @mashable is still ‘top’, with a Kred score of 999, but the next 9 top accounts differ from those ordered by followers. We can see from the list of authors that these are clearly influential brands/people, as they are well known in the ‘real world’ too. Social media also means that we now have access to ‘traditionally’ influential people. For example, we can now directly tweet celebrities, politicians and CEOs with relative ease (though of course this does not mean that they will always read it/reply). Bear in mind that what people are influenced by will differ according to the person. For example, some might be more trusting of, and more swayed by, their favourite celebrity, whilst others may prefer to trust established news sources or review sites. Others might just trust an ‘unknown’ Twitter user who frequently posts knowledgeable and useful information. So, as you can see, ‘influence’ is not so black and white anymore. Social media has made influence a grey area – where anyone or anything can be influential, if they engage enough on social sites. It’s finding the influencers that are important to you that matters.   By Jasmine Jaume, community manager, Brandwatch http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/17/what-does-influence-really-mean/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/17/what-does-influence-really-mean/ Wed, 17 October 2012 13:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/11/rocket-man/ Apologies if you came here expecting a story about Elton John. Instead I’m going to look into the story behind Felix Baumgartner’s soon to be record breaking jump from the edge of space, along with the benefits social media brings for his fans and sponsors. With an estimated one million people tuning in to watch the aborted mission on Tuesday, Felix’s quest to become the first man to break the sound barrier is one of the most talked about topics this week. Jumping from a staggering 120,000 feet (23 miles), the Austrian is aiming to break the 105,000km record set by Joe Kittinger some 52 years ago. Not only that but he’ll shatter the records for the highest and largest manned balloon flight, longest free-fall, highest free-fall altitude and, as mentioned earlier, the first man to break the speed of sound in free-fall. The task at hand isn’t something which has come together overnight. The mission is the accumulation of seven years planning, not five years, as some sites are stating. Joe Kittinger, the current record holder, is also on-board, despite refusing to help any previous record attempts by other individuals. This is reportedly down to Felix’s ambition and dedication, something outlined in his previous jumps around the world. Perhaps this is what made him so appealing to sponsors… Although a number of sponsors are involved, Red Bull is at the forefront of the mission, and we couldn’t think of a better partner. Synonymous with sponsorship of extreme sports, Red Bull’s strapline ‘Gives You Wings’ couldn’t be more fitting for the jump. Red Bull claims it wants to have a part in “building better space suits and parachutes, to the development of protocols for exposure to high altitude/high acceleration”. When the jump goes ahead, which is now scheduled for Sunday at the earliest, Felix will have brought invaluable results which could be used in space travel for years to come.  Not only that, but the media attention is has attracted is huge. Pairing with our data provider Brandwatch , strategic account manager Jim Reynolds reported that in the hour leading up to the launch 21.5k tweets were posted . Since then we’ve received some fascinating stats to show that this was in fact 31k during the hour he was set to launch, with just short of 80k references on Tuesday 9 th October. That’s a lot of chatter for an aborted mission, something which Red Bull will no doubt already be benefiting from.   Already a leader on social, Red Bull has been making use of all possible channels to promote the mission. Aside from the Red Bull Facebook page , which has over 32m fans, its Red Bull Stratos page grew from 210k fans to 350k fans over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday. As well as containing a live streaming tab , it does what Red Bull does best, taking users on a visual journey to bring fans closer to the action. This is replicated on Instagram, a platform where Red Bull has attracted more than 416k followers. The brand has asked fans to provide their own content around the mission, using the #stratos hashtag . The search already contains more than 4000 photos. Its standalone site, Red Bull Stratos , has social at its core, with a Facebook event set-up for the mission, alongside social links and a blog. Its ‘How to Watch Live’ section outlines the numerous platforms broadcasting the mission, including YouTube channels and regional news sites. Twitter has also been key to the process, with @RedBullStratos updating more than 132k followers in real time.   What does Red Bull’s involvement really mean beyond the mission though? Of course Red Bull has a large interest in the mission and air travel, but the coverage from Felix’s jump could be pivotal to the brand's growth over the next few years. On Monday 8 th October, coinciding with the week Felix was set to jump, Red Bull announced its latest venture: flavours. This isn’t something new in the market - competitors Monster and Rock Star have sold flavoured energy drinks for a while now - but it is a step that Red Bull must take to remain the industry leader. As USA Today reported , Mintel projects that the energy drink category will grow 86% to nearly $12bn within five years. In the US, Red Bull leads Monster by just 7% (42% share to 35% share), with a 16% growth in the market in the last year alone. The market is huge, and although it has been seven years in the making, this is one sponsorship which could pay massive dividends for Red Bull’s marketing team. I’m already a fan of the Red Bull Stratos Facebook page, and a follower on Twitter, so when the day comes, I know I’ll be glued to my screen watching Felix Baumgartner make history, backed by an energy drink brand which will truly be able to claim it gives you wings. From Insight Executive Mark @MisterMumble @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/11/rocket-man/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/11/rocket-man/ Thu, 11 October 2012 00:00:00 http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/10/worldcam/ February 2012 –Pinterest becomes not only the fastest growing social networking site ever, but the fastest standalone site in the history of the internet to hit 10M unique visits March 2012 –Facebook rolls out Timeline for all brand pages, placing greater emphasis on visual storytelling April 2012 -Facebook buys Instagram for $1bn April 2012 –Instagram user base grows by more than 10M in 10 days as it launches its Android app I could bombard you with mountains of stats, but from the four milestones above, it’s apparent that image-led communication is the breakthrough social trend of 2012. A recent study by ROI Research found that when users engage with friends on social media sites, it's the pictures that they enjoy the most. Forty-four per cent of respondents are more likely to engage with brands if they post pictures, rather than any other media. The old cliché ‘a picture tells a thousand words’ has never been more apt, as new social networks are formed and the old heavyweights such as Facebook and Twitter adopt strategies that highlight that visual communication is here to stay. Both sites have changed their design and implemented new features to place greater emphasis on visual storytelling. Facebook last week tested one such feature which is testament to the success smart marketers are having with visual content. A key influencer of this trend has been the shifting habits of technology users, with mobile now becoming one of the main ways that we consume media and access social networks.  This proliferation of visual content, when coupled with the content already out there, has led to data overload, and has created a gap in the market for innovators to come up with ways to curate this mountain of content. Here at Yomego, we are always on the lookout for innovation, and I just came across a new site that is tackling both of the above trends. Worldcam , which launched in September, aggregates Instagram photos based on specific locations around the world. It gets better. Worldcam aggregates at an extremely granular level, so you can actually search for the locations of buildings or public addresses in any city, and it will show you a list of all the Instagram photos tagged there.  People take Instagram photos everywhere, and we all love a nosey, so this kind of platform seems natural to me (if with a fairly high stalker potential). Let’s test it out.  I wonder what it’s like inside the Edinburgh Dungeon….. Scary. Hmm, I wonder if they have started putting up the Christmas decorations in George Square….. We're looking to pimp our boardroom, I wonder how one of our competitors has kitted out theirs…?   All in all – a nice tool for aggregating visual content.  At present, only Instagram photos are pulled into the site.  It will be interesting to see whether photos posted directly to sites such as Facebook and Twitter will be implemented as the site matures. While there are already images of some public locations within the Google Maps/Panoramio link up, these tend to be of public places; outdoors; linked only to Panaramio profiles, and not regularly updated. Worldcam provides a constantly updating, location-based personal/private view of the world through images. By client insight manager John Paul @johnpaulfox @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/10/worldcam/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/10/worldcam/ Wed, 10 October 2012 00:00:00 Claire Foss http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/2/social-media-week/ So, after much planning, recruiting of speakers, inviting, writing, Powerpoint-slide-making – Social Media Week Glasgow is over for another year. You may already know that Yomego ran five events – but how did they go? As one of the organisers of the events, I’d clearly be biased if I said “very well indeed” – so I thought I’d do a round up of how the events went down, and what other people said about them. First up was the inaugural event of SMW for Yomego: our talk by David Payne, dad of Martha Payne, the Never Seconds school meals blogger who hit the news last year when Argyll & Bute Council tried to ban her from taking photos for her blog. The talk was organised by Community Manager Annie Macfarlane @anniefiddle and she introduced a talk by David that gave the inside track on the whole story – and how the family coped with the very sudden, very intense media attention. We learned that the first picture posted on Martha’s blog has been downloaded an incredible 51 million times (that’s 51 million and one, there). One of the most interesting revelations was about how Twitter mitigated the intrusion of journalists, allowing direct access and communication between them and the family. Here’s what others had to say about the event: Our second event was on Social in the Community, organised by Account Manager Sam Macleod @cooltweetbro . This was a panel discussion featuring speakers from Glasgow Subway ( @Glasgowsubway ), Glasgow City Council ( @GlasgowCC ), Kiltr ( @KILTR ) and STV ( @STVNews ). For anyone (and I definitely include myself in this) that loves the Glasgow Subway social presences, it was fascinating to hear the story behind how it got going – and compare its activities with Glasgow Council. Both similar businesses, but both very different in their approaches to social. Here’s what others had to say about it too: Our third event was on Tuesday evening – the Social Media Pub Quiz! Though bad weather hit the numbers a little, it was a great evening – and you could play along at home by following the hashtag #socialpubquiz On Wednesday, we had our biggest event of the week: the SMW Pecha Kucha, in association with The Lighthouse. Each of our line up of speakers had just 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide to tell us about how social had worked for them, and where they predicted it would go in the future. The event was followed by an Auchentoshan whisky tasting, arranged by one of our speakers – Joe Hughes, digital marketing manager at Morrison Bowmore Distillers – which meant the event carried on with networking and whisky – and with artist Yan Wang, another of the speakers, recruiting people to photograph jumping for her ‘Leap Year’ social art project. You can even read what another of our speakers, Walking Heads, had to say about the event here , and follow most of our speakers on their own personal Twitter accounts for more interesting morsels about their life, work and social media. Steve Richards, MD, Yomego: @chips11 Paul McGarry, politican activist @PaulMcGarryUK Walking Heads, Glasgow and Edinburgh Walking Tours @walkingheads Dr Jillian Ney, Doctor of Social Media @jillney Brian Inkster, Solicitor, Founder of Inksters @brianinkster Yan Wang, artist @moricayan Jelly + Gin /Aoife Behan, pop up food and art projects @jellyandgin Hamish Brown, digital editor, The List @hamishbrown Our final event took place on Friday, organised by Insight Executive Mark Stuart ( @MisterMumble ) and Client Insight Manager John Paul Fox ( @johnpaulfox ). Speaking here were Sue Gyford from ( @scottishathletics ) and ( @jogscotland ), Kayleigh Grieve ( @kayleigh_cc ) from the Scottish FA ( @scottishFA ) and Andrew Jenkin ( @andrewjenkin ) from Supporters Direct. This session went down a storm and generated possibly our biggest Twitter buzz of the week, with lots of people following the hashtag #sportandsocial. One highlight for many people was the story that Sue Gyford told of a follower that she’d been chatting to on the grassroots sports account @jogscotland . The follower was a lady tweeting and blogging anonymously as @therace4mylife as she secretly began a plan to lose weight and get fit. With Sue’s gentle encouragement, the lady joined her local Jog Scotland running group – she was initially worried about being too slow or not able to run, but Sue’s personal contact helped her overcome her worries. To Sue’s delight, her biggest fan made it down to the event to meet her, and we’re hoping to feature a guest post from both Sue and @therace4mylife soon. So that’s it from us for Social Media Week Glasgow for another year. If you made it along to any of the events, we’d love you to get in touch with feedback or pictures. And if you couldn’t make it along, you can still find discussion on line under the hashtags #kidsandsocial #communitysocial #SMWpechakucha #socialpubquiz and #sportandsocial – see you next year! From PR and Marketing Manager Claire Foss @claire_foss #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/2/social-media-week/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/october/2/social-media-week/ Tue, 02 October 2012 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/21/twitter-updates/ From @LadyGaga to @BarackObama , @DrunkHulk to @Jesus , Twitter has attracted more than 140 million users since it was founded by Jack Dorsey in 2006. Its 140 character limit may be short, but its widespread appeal has led to it being one of the most influential platforms for monitoring brand discussion. It is estimated that 340 million tweets are sent every day, giving it a valuation of $8bn. Unlike Facebook, its data is far more open and its API more friendly, leading to apps galore. As a result, an estimated 60% of Twitter users access the site via mobile, through a mix of third party apps and Twitter’s mobile site/app. (Although - changes are ahead, with Twitter looking to bring its users back to its own apps/website, restricting API access, therefore reducing the number of third party sites with full Twitter functionality). This was further outlined this week, as Twitter unveiled a “mobile first” strategy, as CNET is calling it. On Tuesday, the Twitter blog was populated with a string of posts about design changes, with the news resonating throughout social. The new profile design beautifully merges together Twitter’s web and mobile apps, providing users with a more visual experience throughout. The most notable upgrade is the introduction of a background header image, which is designed to complement a user’s profile picture. Ryan Seacrest’s early adoption underlines the ability to merge the two. We’ve already seen some great examples from others, with my personal favourites including @garrettgee and @Rosen . No doubt the majority of profiles will be covered with personal images and icons, although I’ve yet to come across anyone with a Justin Bieber header.   The Changes The iPad app now claims to be faster, with tweets expanding with a single touch, along with a full history of mentions/retweets and follows. Users can also discover accounts they might like to follow, along with seeing tweets and accounts favourited and followed by friends, something bound to please marketers around the world. The iPhone and Android app , (notice no mention of Blackberry), features the new profiles, with the ability to update your header image on your phone (which will appear on all platforms). It also includes a photo stream, so users can swipe through thumbnails, clicking to view the full size image. Nice move by the Twitter team. How do I update? We thought you’d never ask. Twitter has rolled out the feature to all users, so it’s time to dig out your favourite image and get creative. We’ll start with the web version of Twitter. Simply head on over to https://twitter.com/settings/design . Here you’ll see the design background settings, which is followed by ‘Customize your own’. The recommended size of image is 1200 x 600, and the maximum size of upload is 5mb. You want to make sure you don’t upload a small image, or it’ll look stretched, and images should ideally be in landscape. It’s really as simple as that. The app version is just as simple: Go to the ‘Me’ tab, from which your settings will be displayed below the header. Within this, choose the header using an existing photo or ‘take a photo’, which can then be scaled to fit the dimensions of the header. It couldn’t be simpler.   Getting Creative As a social media agency, we love to see some great examples, as does Mashable. Matt Silverman recently covered the new header image, nicely complimented by a four minute video highlighting how to unite your avatar and header image. This can be seen below, and what’s more so, you can even download a Photoshop template here . Why not have a go and impress your followers. Feel free to share your creations, One Direction headers are fine, no Bieber though thanks. From insight executive Mark @MisterMumble @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/21/twitter-updates/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/21/twitter-updates/ Fri, 21 September 2012 00:00:00 http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/18/onesmalltweet-for-mankind/ Festival campsite rumours.  We’ve all heard them.  “Did you know that Robbie Williams was drinking in the campsite last night?” “Did you hear that Blink 182 are doing an impromptu performance at midnight next to the big wheel?” “Did you hear that Neil Armstrong passed away?”      “Haha very funny, in the campsite, right?”                “No really, check Facebook or Twitter” Check Facebook and Twitter.  Traditionally, we would have headed straight for the news sites; however our first instinct now is to head directly to social media to confirm or quash rumours. Unfortunately, as I sat on the grass in Bramham Park (home of the Leeds Festival), my Facebook friends confirmed the news, Neil Armstrong had passed away.  As an avid believer that Neil Armstrong was in fact the first man to walk on the moon (no, it wasn’t a hoax), and generally just fond of the great astronaut with Scottish ancestry, I was deeply saddened by the news.  It was inevitable that the public would make use of the social media to pay respect to the late hero and express their sympathy; however I hoped that the initiative would be taken and something innovative would be done in his honour. We have the lovely Memes (see below), the RIP Facebook groups with 80K+ likes, the YouTube videos paying homage and even a US Congress petition to Make August 5 National Neil Armstrong Day.  But in my opinion, the first man that walked on the moon deserves something a little more fitting than that. Source Thank goodness for the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.  With the help of The Martin Agency, it has launched a centralised Twitter tribute, ‘One Small Tweet’ , to recreate Armstrong’s renowned journey to the moon. Source Every time a Twitter user posts a tweet with the hashtag #onesmalltweet, it counts as the equivalent of 100 miles of his journey.  That 100 miles is beautifully displayed on an interactive microsite that showcases the journey so far.  As each message is posted, we can track the journey from the earth to the moon, all 238,900 miles of it.  At the time of writing, we are 185,744 miles into the journey.  That’s 77% of the way there!  The end goal is for Armstrong’s family to send the last tweet. What an innovative, visually compelling tribute to the late great Neil Armstrong. Why not join in our office banter in the comments section below; Did Neil Armstrong really say ‘Good Luck Mr Gorsky’ as he boarded the Apollo 11 for the journey home? By client insight manager John Paul @johnpaulfox   @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/18/onesmalltweet-for-mankind/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/18/onesmalltweet-for-mankind/ Tue, 18 September 2012 00:00:00 Jillian Ney http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/14/collaboration-in-social/ One of the defining characteristics of social media is the ability it gives us to collaborate. We collaborate through our communication, and the participatory nature of social media means that every post has the power to draw collective thought though likes, comments, shares, etc.. Social media is littered with different types of collaboration. We can provide reviews of product and services to make informed purchase decisions, we can ask questions and receive collective responses. Businesses can use insight to make informed business decisions and we can help other people when they are in a fix (ref: Facebook dramas, you know you always have a friend complaining about something). So, as I say it’s all about the collaboration. Image from ThinkPublic In fact, this year’s Social Media Week even has the global theme of ‘Empowering Change Through Collaboration’. However it wasn’t the events at SMW that have me thinking about collaboration today. Instead, it was an advert for a new TV show on Channel 4: ‘The Audience’ . Have you seen it? Here is a sneaky peak... Essentially 50 strangers follow a person about and help them make a difficult decision through the power of collective wisdom and collaboration. Frankly, if this show is not the living, walking, breathing version of social media then I don’t know what is! I know, I know, it sounds like a nightmare. Why on earth would you want 50 people a TV crew, production team and the rest of the world follow you about on your daily business while you have to make an emotionally difficult decision? But frankly – we are all doing this already. Albeit without the TV cameras and to some extent ‘strangers’ – is this not just another version of the collective thought that can be found in social media? We all live our lives with an audience whether we think we do or not. They are there waiting, lurking or actively engaging in our lives. Clearly the ‘social media’ version of ‘The Audience’ would not make such good TV (not much to look at with someone writing a status update). But posting on social media opens you up to the same collective power or mock criticism. In my eyes the show demonstrates the power of social media, albeit unintentionally. So to all you naysayers out there watch the show and see what the power of collective thought can achieve. Then come back to me and see how I can help give insight from the much larger and nosier world of social media.    By Jillian Ney, director of research and insight, Yomego @jillney http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/14/collaboration-in-social/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/14/collaboration-in-social/ Fri, 14 September 2012 16:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/13/nyfw/ With photo sharing sites on the up, and Zuckerberg stating that Instagram has 100 million users, fashionable photography is one of the leading trends on social, perhaps just narrowly behind Justin’s Beliebers Just a glimpse at some of Bill Cunningham's iconic street snaps from The Culture Concept .   Street Style, as it has become known, was brought to the mainstream by Bill Cunningham, who captured Swedish actress Greta Garbo for The Times in 1978. This was a huge milestone, as it was the first time a paper had run pictures of a ‘celebrity’, as we’d refer to them now, without their permission. Bill’s back catalogue is huge, reportedly taking snaps every day for the last 40/50 years. He has since inspired the new wave of social street photographers such as Scott Schuman, better known as The Sartorialist . The ever increasing range of social platforms is not only helping to provide a virtual gallery for these photographers and style-gurus, but it is also providing them with front row access to fashion shows around the world. A glance at The Sartorialist makes it clear to see that he was given front row seats at the recent Marc Jacobs Spring/Summer show . Rewind a couple of years, to the Fall-Winter show of 2009, and BryanBoy made his first appearance in the front row. Who? You might well ask. Bryan Grey-Yambao is a fashion blogger from the Philippines, who started his fashion blog in 2004 at the age of 24. Since then, he has amassed a huge number of followers, making fashions elite take notice and bringing in a reported $100k in 2010 . The social boom has certainly benefitted Bryan, along with a range of names from the world of fashion blogging. In the past I have documented Burberry’s innovative use of social, and from The Art of the Trench to live tweetwalks, the fashion house has been at the forefront of social, guided by Musa Tariq.   While some lead, others follow, although innovating is key in an industry which moves so fast. This year’s New York Fashion Week documented some sterling examples of how to engage with users, with Twitter snagging a seat in the front row. Ahead of Fashion Week, Twitter debuted a fashion guide , which highlighted key influencers within the industry, including fashion writers, designers, models and stylists. These users are heralded as some of the most influential to follow during the fashion season, including Victoria Beckham, and soon to be joined by her daughter Harper if her early moves are anything to go by. Not only that, it created the hashtag #DayInTheLife, set-up to provide followers with a unique behind-the-scenes view of the week. To highlight the growth of social, it was estimated that this year one-third of designers would live stream their shows on YouTube, Livestream and Facebook pages. YouTube’s ‘Live From The Runway’ captured all of these and will rebroadcast them all on 13 th September. Elsewhere, users can check out Tumblr’s dedicated NYFW page or Women’s Wear Daily’s Pinterest, along with some of the other suave bloggers attending the events. Our data provider Brandwatch has also been casting an eye over the conversation, with Marc Jacobs the ‘social trend setter’ on 11 th September. While New York Fashion Week comes to an end, we look forward to London, hoping to see some more great uses of social. Topshop has got off on the right foot with a shoppable livestream of its show at 3pm GMT on Sunday, although personally I’m looking forward to see what Burberry produce on Monday. From insight executive Mark @MisterMumble @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/13/nyfw/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/13/nyfw/ Thu, 13 September 2012 00:00:00 Catriona Lindsay http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/7/what-i-learned-about-social-media/ Almost three months have come and gone, and as summer begins to pale and fade into autumn – my time, too, comes to an end at Yomego.  As I reflect on these past three months of internship at Yomego I offer this up as my (slightly melodramatically introduced) swansong. When I started here, it was because I wanted to know more about social media. As a law student, it really interests me – but I barely use Facebook. I don’t have a Twitter account and until three months ago, I’d somehow never heard of Pinterest, though I do use Tumblr. So as far as social media went when I started here, I was pretty niche in my background. All the same, I had an idea that I knew enough about it – people liked r age face memes , retweeted some stuff or reblogged endless cat gifs and that was that. I knew the stereotypes and archetypes, with a vague grasp of buzzwords and key phrases - but never really thought to think much beyond those.  As far as corporations went, I found it almost strange that people would want to ‘like’ their page and (willingly!) have endless advertising guff spewed at them. When I started here, social media initially seemed like some foreign land that I had never really explored; some gigantic, mythical place that was always there at the forefront of the internet. Good old social media stereotypes - source   So, lots of work done, research carried out and countless articles swallowed up from Marketing magazine , The Drum and multiple blogs later – how has my perception of social media (and what agencies are for) changed? I was wrong to think of social media as a land, as a single piece of unchartered territory. Facebook has over 800 million active users alone. That’s just over the population of Europe. Social media is not a land, it’s a continent – and just because they all have people doesn’t mean they’re all going to act and think the same.  It should be overwhelming. And indeed, it is. But that’s okay. Yomego has shown me that it’s okay to not know something. It’s okay to still be in the process of learning, and it’s definitely okay to learn how to adjust. I’ve come to appreciate that from the corporate side, engagement is not about forcing advertisements down people’s throats (or it shouldn’t be.) It’s about understanding, connecting and influencing people. The internet is the biggest social experiment ever conceived, and if there is ever a time to understand how people work – now is it. Working here, I’ve been impressed by the anti-oneshoefitsall ideal.  Every single client is treated differently and with their prospective clients at the centre. Does it work better on a visual platform? Should it be offline as well as online? Do we make a game? Will people engage on Facebook?  On Twitter? The list goes on, but just as European Courts must make laws that can be applied, shaped and warped for every one of the European states – so do marketing policies shape, change and warp depending on the medium, client or budget. I was wrong to assume all companies just want to spew out advertising, or at the very least, I was wrong to assume all advertising was necessarily bad and uninteresting. Offering up competitions, encouraging creativity, actually talking to customers and fans with a personality rather than a company – that is what I’ve learned is what companies should do. And it’s genuinely interesting, too! Creativity is rewarded, good humour is prolific, and overall, there’s a drive to stand out and be ‘different’ – and a real desire from brands to get better and learn too. It seems strange to correlate social media with what I’ve learned through studying law, but let me give it a go. One of my favourite tasks while working here was doing research – trawling through website after website, blog after blog, opinion after opinion.  And one thing I realised is that good social media campaigns are good stories. They’re tales of success or failure – but more importantly, they’re case studies. Cases are the foundation of... well, case law. And seeing the exact same principles of learning from someone else’s experiences and mistakes – well, it’s refreshing to know. I think I’ve meandered on a bit, now. So, to sum up, social media is a far bigger, far more engaging, far cleverer field for corporations than I ever really considered before. It’s evolving and changing, and some companies simply fall flat by the wayside and others know how to shine. Thanks, Yomego, for showing me a continent of content. By Catriona Lindsay, (much missed) Yomego intern, summer 2012 http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/7/what-i-learned-about-social-media/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/7/what-i-learned-about-social-media/ Fri, 07 September 2012 18:00:00 http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/handcuffs,-baton-and-social-media-the-latest-addition-to-the-police-arsenal/ This time last year, the dust was just beginning to settle on the London riots, and many commentators had already begun discussing the disruptive role that social media played in mobilising those involved in causing the unrest. But today I want to look at the other side and ask how the police stepped up to meet the challenge, and how they’ve done in the year since. At the time of the riots, while some police forces did make great use of social media, on a whole, it’s fair to say the old bill didn’t make full use of the platforms available. Fast forward to 2012 and it’s a completely different story.  Many police forces across the UK and US have got to grips with social, and have developed a number of innovative strategies to monitor and engage with a wide range of users on…ahem… ‘both’ sides of the law. So that’s everything from a pat on the back thank you to a tip off on social or two years behind bars for the posting of a compromising photo. Here at Yomego, we often refer to social media as‘the world’s biggest, 24 hour focus group’. What we highlight to brands is that whether you like it or not, people are talking about you online. So brands need to use the tools available to monitor this conversation and draw relevant insight. The same applies for the police. People (and often, amusingly, criminals – see below) still forget that social media CAN be monitored and thankfully, the police have been making use of the tools available to solve crimes and catch offenders.  In the US, a 20-year-old Kentucky man, for example, was arrested on a misdemeanour charge after he posted a photo of himself on Facebook syphoning petrol from a police cruiser .  In the UK, police have managed to discover hundreds of smuggled mobile phones thanks to pictures and updates posted on social networks, including the phone used by an inmate to take the picture below of three violent Scottish criminals in HMP Kilmarnock.     Police forces across the globe are also making great use of social media to educate citizens.  With social media accounting for 22% of time spent online, it is convenient for the police to engage users on a place where they are spending a high proportion of their time.  Staffordshire Police are really leading the way here, using a range of platforms and different types of media to educate those living in its constabulary.  Recent campaigns include #behindbarslive , where the force gave Twitter followers a unique insight into life behind the bars of Staffordshire Police’s busiest custody centre through live tweets.  The force also uses YouTube to educate citizens on a range of issues, from how forensic data is analysed to what it’s like to be processed in custody (see video below).     Forces are also making use of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to keep citizens up to date and appeal for information.  With police forces under-resourced, uploading CCTV videos to social media and appealing for help has proven successful.  Police are beginning to become even more localised, with senior officers and specific departments posting and engaging from individual accounts.  Kim Gregory, online journalist at Essex Police, shared its success in using social to help with the search to find a missing elderly woman with dementia, the arrest and charge of a prolific shoplifter and the arrest of a dog walker, whose out-of-control Rottweiler attacked a young boy as he was paddling in the sea.  She praises the community’s engagement on social, claiming that they are there; ready to help spread the word and help police whenever required. Although I’ve highlighted the unparalleled access to conversations that social gives to police forces to help solve crimes, sometimes bungling criminals like to make things that bit easier for them. One stellar example is a criminal in Philadelphia who stopped mid-crime to check up on his Facebook status on his victim’s laptop, then forgot to either steal the laptop or log off from his account. SERIOUSLY....?   From client insight manager John Paul @johnpaulfox @yomegosocial   If you are in Glasgow during Social Media Week, why not attend our event 'Social in the community – the voices that keep Glasgow going ' on the 25 th of September at 10am in The Lighthouse.  The event will be a compered panel discussion with some of the leading presences in public sector social media around Glasgow.  By speaking with the organisations that keep the city moving smoothly - and that look at metrics other than sales – there should be lessons here for every organisation that’s keen to build engagement. http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/handcuffs,-baton-and-social-media-the-latest-addition-to-the-police-arsenal/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/september/handcuffs,-baton-and-social-media-the-latest-addition-to-the-police-arsenal/ Wed, 05 September 2012 16:10:00 Claire Foss http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/30/social-media-week-glasgow-yomegos-events/ As Scottish Social Media agency of the year (thanks The Drum !) you won’t be surprised to hear that we’ve put a lot of thought into what we’ve got planned for Social Media Week Glasgow (24-28 th September). We’ve come up with some events that cover the big issues that we know our clients discuss and face – and events that cover social media with a Scottish twist. Our first of the week kicks off on Monday 24 th at 11am and looks at kids, activism and social media. How do kids engage online, and what happens when they suddenly attract a large following? For this session, we’ve got a special guest: David Payne, father of school meals blogger Martha Payne, who became famous with her blog reviewing school dinners: Never Seconds. The blog became popular – and then went stratospheric when the council attempted to ban Martha from blogging. The furore led to enormous social good when supporters of Martha and her cause donated £113.801.90 (so far) to the blog’s nominated charity, Mary’s Meals . Find out more and sign up here . On the Tuesday, we’ve got two events planned. The first is at 10am and looks at how local institutions such as the Council, the Subway and the forthcoming Commonwealth Games use social media to build relationships and talk to their local community. These institutions don’t measure ROI in the same way as companies – and so there will be interesting lessons here for both companies and NFP organisations. Sign up and info here . The second event of the day is our social media pub quiz! Think you know your social stuff? Come along on Tuesday evening and pit your wits against the best – prizes on offer for the winning team! The venue is almost confirmed and the quizmaster is crafting his finest questions as we speak… Roll up, sign up here . On Wednesday evening, we have an event in association with The Lighthouse – a Pecha Kucha with a range of great speakers confirmed – from artists and professors to foodies and lawyers. Everyone will be talking about how social media has changed their life or work – and importantly, making predictions about how it might do so in the future. The all important sign up page is here . Our final event of the week takes place on Friday morning and looks at sports and social media. We’ll have speakers from across the world of sport talking about what social allows them to do – and why it’s so important for them. Get your place by booking here. http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/30/social-media-week-glasgow-yomegos-events/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/30/social-media-week-glasgow-yomegos-events/ Thu, 30 August 2012 17:40:00 Catriona Lindsay http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/22/social-media-and-the-law/ Devastation! Destruction! Delays! England sees itself closed up from the world, shivering in the heavy January snow. Everywhere, the news bleats of cancelled flights and transport delays. Roads close, ice refuses to thaw and chaos ensues. One bleak, miserable morning on January 6 th , 2010, a storm begins to brew that would have far more lasting impact than any disruption caused by a little bad weather.  The snow piled higher and higher, and the citizens of the snowed in landscape grew more and more embittered. From the depths of a frozen Britain finally came the cantankerous call (among so many others, but only one would be so important), “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"  25 words would cost a man his job, and bring to life another story about the relationship between criminal law and the internet. In the  end of a long battle, on July 27 th July 2012, Paul Chamber’s conviction was quashed for the above comment; his statement viewed as a joke and lacking in ‘menacing’ character. Yet it is cases like these that garner so much media attention and public interest that set in motion the ‘big’ questions. With an ever-changing, constantly updating, forever growing online community – where does the law fit in? Social media sites spring up and die within years. Tweets, comments and blogs pile upad infinitum, and while most slip through into a gaping maw of irrelevance – when and where, and more importantly, how does the law intervene?  In the coming years, social media and the law are going to cross paths more and more often. The ‘storm’ unleashed by Mr Chamber’s comment will not die anytime soon. It was found that, in 2011, the UK had around 62 million citizens, 30 million of which use Facebook. The massive growth of social media will also see a growth in cases and legislation dealing with it, too. So where does the law stand now? We’ve all seen situations like the following: Image via Smartplanet.com   But where does the law stand on using Facebook misdemeanours to dismiss someone? A recent case from 2011, Preece v JD Wetherspoons Plc showed that when an employer has a clear social media policy in place, then it is fair to dismiss an employee who comments inappropriately about customers on Facebook. However, Whitham v Club 24 Ltd showed that dismissal in these circumstances can still be unfair – the burden of proof lies on the employer to show actual or serious risk of potential harm to the business. This is just in the UK, though. A case in the US, Bland v Roberts , recently found that a Facebook like does not constitute a constitutionally protected speech. Allegedly, Daniel Ray Carter Jr was fired for liking the page of a candidate challenging his boss for the job of Sheriff in Hampton, Virgina. Questions begin to rise – is it okay to fire someone for ‘liking’ the Republican’s Facebook page when it would be illegal to fire someone forstatingthat they liked the Republican party? The law, in the eyes of Scotland and England, is not a granter of freedom. It is something that restricts freedom. The law does not exist to preserve free speech, to this extent, because there is no constitution dictating that it must. The reasons behind this are that anything not restricted by law, is by extent, freedom.  Even when we turn to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights , freedom of expression is subject to restrictions “in accordance with the law” and is “necessary in a democratic society.” It is not an absolute right, by any means. So, then, should we evaluate what we say on social media sites just as much as we do in a public place? Should we only express ourselves professionally online despite having ‘personal’ profiles? Should we watch what we wish for, and what we say, because one judge might view it as a joke and another might see it as a serious threat? The world of social media is just like that heavy snow from January 2010, it piles up and grows at an unrelenting speed – covering everything and anything from airports to roads to homes. The question that has still to be answered (and perhaps never will be, as the law is a creature that changes and evolves as much as society does) is when do we close the airport and put someone in jail for something he or she said online? In the coming months and years, there will massive changes to the law in regards to social media. I’ll be watching, will you?   By Catriona Lindsay, second year Law student, U niversity of Aberdeen, and current Yomego intern  @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/22/social-media-and-the-law/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/22/social-media-and-the-law/ Wed, 22 August 2012 11:40:00 http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/21/whats-new-with-facebook/ With our last two blog posts coming in the form of a lovely emotive piece from account manager Sam and an insight-packed study by Jasmine at Brandwatch; I thought it would be nice to take a more practical approach for my blog this week. So here’s the lowdown on some of the changes that Facebook has made to its advertising and analytics of late, and some of the neat features it has been testing over the past few weeks. Enhanced Page Post Targeting On July 31 st , Facebook began the roll out of an extremely powerful marketing tool: ‘Page Post Targeting’.  Until this point, posts could only be targeted based on location and language – but now targeting can include the likes of gender, age, likes, relationship status, education and even workplace.  Photo taken from Tech Crunch   Essentially, this development lets brands publish different content to different fans, eradicating the problem of users feeling bombarded with irrelevant content ( a reason why over 36% of people disengage with a brand on Facebook ).  It also means brands can have a single Facebook presence targeted towards a range of different audiences. Facebook are currently targeting a high proportion of its marketing efforts to get SMEs to advertise on the platform and this granular level of segmentation is testament to this. Facebook Optimises Ad Tool We’ve seen a sneak preview ( thanks to Inside Facebook ) of the social network’s attempt to make its self-serve ad platform more accessible and easier to use.   The new design and user journey simplifies the process through recommending the most effective approach based on the objectives of a campaign. In order to meet the goal of making ads ‘more social’, the new system also creates Sponsored Stories to run alongside traditional ads.  COO Sheryl Sandbergs’s justification for this approach is that by running Sponsored Stories at the same time, each new ‘Like’ works harder for an advertiser because it is subsequently promoted to the user’s friends. I couldn’t agree more. Enhanced Advertising Analytics Facebook has really improved its advertising analytics dashboard over the last few months. My favourite feature is by far the new performance section, which now lets you see the actions users have taken after viewing your ads.  Did they share content, like content, look at a photo?   This feature makes the user journey really clear and allows you to understand which calls to action work best with your target audience.  Fan and Non-Fan Post Impressions One massive piece of insight that was previously missing from Facebook’s insight API was the ability to tell how many of your post and ad impressions came from existing fans. Facebook has added four new metrics to allow this level of granularity. Post Impressions Fans - The number of impressions of a page post amongst users that have already liked your page Post Impressions Fans Unique - The number of fans that saw a page post Post Impressions Fan Paid - The number of fan impressions that came as a result of an ad, sponsored story or promoted post Post Impression Fan Paid Unique - The total number of fans that saw your page post as an ad or sponsored story Facebook Ads in Timeline The hottest story of the month.  Head over The Drum to find out our MD Steve Richards’ opinion on what it means for brands. Permanent Photo Deletion On a more personal level…. We all have those embarrassing office Christmas party photos lurking on Facebook.  Previously, pictures deleted from Facebook were still accessible by entering the image’s direct URL.  So, although the picture may have disappeared from your profile, it could still be accessed. Thankfully, Facebook have finally fixed the problem, and deleted images are now permanently removed from Facebook’s servers within a couple of days.  From client insight manager John Paul @johnpaulfox @YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/21/whats-new-with-facebook/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/21/whats-new-with-facebook/ Tue, 21 August 2012 00:00:00 Sam Macleod http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/20/impossible-to-disconnect/ For all the marketing hype that surrounds social media, it’s sometimes hard to notice the impact that it’s making to the world around us right now. Every two years I like to travel to a music festival in Serbia. Despite the constant sunshine, great music and (fantastically) cheap exchange rate, I still get asked all the time why I pick such a peculiar location to habitually travel to. Sure I could rattle off everything I just mentioned, but my defacto response is always “for the culture shock”. Typically, every time I’ve been, the combination of roaming fees, inadequate charging facilities and lack of smartphone adoption has resulted in a nostalgic, tech-free existence where there are no status updates, no “add me on Facebook” and absolutely no checking-in to every.single.venue.ever. Imagine my surprise when this year was different. Perhaps it should have crossed my mind when I was packing the adaptor for my smartphone that I was probably not the only person bringing my connected self along for the ride. But Serbia is hardly a mecca for high-speed internet, right? Desperate to avoid technology? The famous scene from cult classic movie Office Space ( source )   So yeah, as it transpires, in the last two years Serbia has actually become a mecca for high-speed internet. Every single restaurant, bar, nightclub and even the festival campsite itself had massive ‘Free Wi-Fi’ banners hanging from every available wall. Not only that, but Novi Sad (the venue for this years journey) had FREE citywide broadband for all to use. I’d left the comfort of ol’ forward thinking Blighty to travel somewhere even more forward thinking. This marked shift in technology manifested itself in almost every part of the trip. Why bother texting people when you can add them on Facebook and message them for free from the comfort of the beach? Why feel obliged to trail your friends around lest you end up separated when you can instantly share your location or find them on Google maps? Brands were desperate for me to scan their QR codes; bars desperately needed my ‘like’ – it was social life or death! All of a sudden, any dreams I had of some idyllic return to the hey-day of p2p interaction was steamrolled by the avalanche of friend requests, event invites and, sigh, status updates. We all know that the stats for social media adoption are constantly on the rise – there are almost 1 billion people on Facebook, give or take 100m fake accounts or so. But it’s so easy to get caught talking about the future of social that sometimes the present can be a shock too. My holiday tale might not seem very significant in the grand scheme of things, but it highlights that interaction through social is no longer tethered to your home city, country or even continent. Your ability to instantly connect with friends, acquaintances or even brands is global and unrestricted. Over the next few years this reach will only continue to grow. A strong social presence in one country might also provide the opportunity to expand your brand into places you never imagined. But right now, just for a second, please stop thinking about what the future holds and think about what impacts youright now, right this minute. Impressive, isn’t it? By Sam Macleod, account manager @cooltweetbro http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/20/impossible-to-disconnect/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/20/impossible-to-disconnect/ Mon, 20 August 2012 12:50:00 Brandwatch http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/16/when-is-the-best-time-to-engage-on-social-brandwatch-guest-post/ Yomego today welcomes its first ever guest post!. It's from Jasmine Jaume, community manager at Brandwatch , and is all about finding the best time to run campaigns in social media.Take it away, Jasmine... ***** As brands increasingly explore ways of using social media for marketing purposes, they may find it difficult to answer all the traditional marketing questions: what content works? How much content is the optimum? When is the best time to publish? Where traditional forms of promotion have clear ‘prime’ times for content – think of advertising slots within evening shows compared to those in daytime TV – social media is less clear cut. A study by Bitly attempted to understand behaviour patterns on social networks, which found that the best time to post on Facebook was at 3pm (EST) on Wednesdays, and the best time for tweets was between 1 and 3pm Monday to Thursday The problem is that every industry is different, and these timings may not work for every brand and sector. Automotive fans, for example, might be online and interacting at a different time to gamers or mums. There is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to social media. Using our social media monitoring tool Brandwatch , we took a look at the days and times that some industries might be best suited to tweeting. Let’s imagine we are a pizza company. We want to offer a promotion or run a competition via Twitter to help the brand gain visibility and – potentially – new customers and more orders. Common sense would suggest that mealtimes would be perfect for promotion, as it’s when people might be thinking about pizza.  Using Brandwatch, we can track all the tweets mentioning ‘pizza’ for the past couple of months. Analysing the timestamps on those tweets reveals to us that the majority were posted – perhaps unsurprisingly - over the weekend. We can see that Wednesday is the least likely day for people to be talking about pizza. This could be approached in two ways. Either we, as a pizza company, could consider that we should run our promotion when people are already discussing pizza, as they may be more influenced towards choosing us for their pizza needs. Alternatively, we could want to be putting the idea of pizza in the minds of those not already thinking about pizza, and therefore give them a craving to place an order. The strategy will be more sophisticated than we've suggested, but it's this kind of data that makes the decisions informed ones.  Let’s take a look at what times of day pizza is discussed on Twitter. Again using Brandwatch, we can see that most people discuss pizza in the evening, predominantly from between 6 to 9pm. There’s also a bit of a peak a bit later in the evening and a smaller increase at lunchtime. These findings are perhaps unsurprising, as when it comes to food, the patterns are pretty predictable. However, it’s definitely worth considering whether it remains valid if the subject were to be switched to something a little less mealtime-specific. Well, we kept the example simple to portray how easy it can be to investigate something that could dramatically enhance the quality of your marketing strategy, but it’s indicative of the type of insight you can glean from social data. Obviously this is not an exact science. It may be that tweeting when everyone else is tweeting about your subject might be a bad idea – your tweet might get lost in your followers timelines. You might want to tweet at a quieter time, though then you risk less people seeing your posts. This kind of analysis can be performed at a much deeper level, and can be applied to other ideas, such as content type, where you publish and even look at why different marketing and content is succeeding or falling flat on its face. It's just one of the many ways that preliminary research can be used to gain insight about your market, and the possibilities for such research are endless.   Whatever your digital strategy may be, one that is researched properly and backed by data is always far more informed than firing in the dark, and therefore more likely to succeed.    By Jasmine Jaume, community manager, Brandwatch http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/16/when-is-the-best-time-to-engage-on-social-brandwatch-guest-post/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/16/when-is-the-best-time-to-engage-on-social-brandwatch-guest-post/ Thu, 16 August 2012 12:05:00 Claire Foss http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/15/how-branch-and-medium-could-change-twitter/ The news today that the founders of Blogger and Twitter, Ev Williams and Biz Stone, have launched not one but two new social publishing/discussion platforms will surely have crossed your radar. When these guys do something, it’s bound to be big news in social-land. The platforms, Branch and Medium , look promising – though both are at very early stages. Like most, I haven’t yet had a chance to play with them but I’m keen to get started – they look like they could both fill a real need. But based on the stated intentions of the two platforms, what’s most interesting is how both seem designed to alter the Twitter experience. Both Branch and Medium are both plugged into Twitter and use it at the heart of their design. Just to step back for a second and outline the two… Branch is a place to go when you want to carry on an interesting debate. So rather than a whole range of @conversations appearing in your timeline as contacts carry on a merry natter, the chats could take place in a ‘Branch’, which you log into and invite contacts to participate in. It’s public – and anyone can see your conversation – but they have to go to the ‘Branch’ to do so. So if ten of your contacts are ‘in a Branch’ to chat about a new restaurant, you can drop in and listen, but their updates won’t appear in your Twitter feed. Here's an example: http://branch.com/b/apple-hardware-leaks With Medium , Williams and Stone seem to have built a platform that’s a cross between Blogger and Instagram, based on some of their sample collections . It’s very easy to write and edit in, and not character-limited. Collections are public, anyone can contribute to them – and any reader that signs in via Twitter can vote on the best content. It seems to be a way of curating vast swathes of information – much in the way that Twitter and Instagram are great filters through which to view the world – where like-minded people help you to find the information that matters to you. Collections here can be either public or private. Medium feels very much more like a blog – perhaps like Tumblr – than Pinterest (posts can be just words and needn’t have an image attached). What both launches have the potential to do, it seems, is change the way that Twitter looks and feels. One of the things that can be most daunting about joining Twitter for the first time is that it seems that you’re walking into a party where everyone knows each other – they’re all talking and you’re not yet involved. The original question that Twitter posed as an invitation to post: ‘What are you doing?’ seems to have been superseded by a lot of public conversations. If more in-depth conversations can be pulled out of the main Twitter interface and into side alleys via Branch, then Twitter regains some of its original feel. Not necessarily a bad thing, when competitors are nipping at Twitter’s heels . But of course, its success depends on people taking that extra step to move a chat into a branch. Potentially, by the time an organic discussion is halfway through, many might just carry on rather than ‘branch’ off. But the intention is interesting. Medium’s biggest potential seems to be as an Instagram competitor – but with more versatility. So what will this change? Well, bearing in mind that Instagram is now owned by Facebook, it must be starkly obvious to Twitter, through the thousands of millions of Instagram pics tweeted every second, that a competitor has stolen a march. Instagram wasn’t a competitor when it launched – it needed Twitter as much as Twitter benefitted from its rise. But now, Instagram is owned by the other team – and it’s sitting right in the middle of Twitter’s patch. If Stone and Williams’ Obvious Corporation (the incubator behind these businesses and many others – including Twitter once upon a time) can build a better alternative, the land is still theirs for the taking. By PR and marketing manager Claire Foss @claire_foss http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/15/how-branch-and-medium-could-change-twitter/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/15/how-branch-and-medium-could-change-twitter/ Wed, 15 August 2012 18:05:00 Skip Reid http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/10/why-we-love-responsive-design-and-html5/ Two years is a long time in digital. And after two years of faithful service, this spring, the time had come to give the Yomego website a well-deserved make over. The great site you see now is the result of that process - but we wanted to explain what we did (HTML5, responsive design) and why.   Yomego's 2010 vintage site   Earlier this year, we all sat down to thrash out what we were going to do – and it became immediately clear that Yomego's in-house design and development team was desperate to get to grips with a few new toys – especially responsive design and HTML5 , with umbraco used for managing the site. But being a sensible bunch we decided to do a bit more research into these technologies – and HTML5 in particular, to make sure we were going to do this for the right reasons. We took the classic pros and cons approach – and now, with the site live in all its responsive, HTML5-umbraco glory, we thought it would be useful to share this list with you and explain the thinking behind taking these approaches for the new site – and why taking the plunge was the right thing to do.   Pros One design fits all – with a bit of careful thought, the design of the site would carry through to all devices: smartphones, tablets and desktops – and maintain its integrity throughout. Simpler back-end build – with a site built in this way, the back-end developers would only need to build one version of the site rather than several for different platforms. While the front-end would take care of the presentation layer on all devices. Lower maintenance overheads – with just one site to maintain, updates or layout changes are front-end only, so much simpler to implement. HTML 5 – although HTML5 is still not fully defined, it of course will be eventually. So by building this way, we’d be adding a bit of future proofing – which again, will make updating the site in the future much easier. Keeping Google happy – Google now recommends building responsive sites in this way for smartphones. We need to keep them on side. Team skills development – building this site would mean lots of new things to master which keeps the team motivated and at the forefront of development technology Keeping the team happy – this was the most important consideration, of course. Every member of the team was massively keen to get their hands dirty and explore the potential of this new approach. In short – we wanted to get our hands on the new toys. Cons Longer front end build – we knew there would be a fairly steep learning curve here but thanks to fantastic resources like HTML5 Boilerplate and the Foundation framework we knew we wouldn’t find this too painful. What about legacy browsers?   Unfortunately media queries and many HTML5 elements are not supported by Internet Explorer 7 and 8, but thanks to the polyfills built into the frameworks this is taken care of. Site load times – this remains an issue for responsive sites viewed on smartphones. While bits of the site are switched on or off depending on the viewing device, essentially the whole site still has to load. So although sites look great, they can be slow to load on mobile. But as mobile download speeds improve and fixes are developed, this will become less of a problem.   As you can guess the pros far outweighed the cons for us so we felt using this new method was the right way to go. Sometimes making the harder decisions now means you’ll be making easier ones in the future. Best of all, the boss totally bought our pros and cons list, and the dev team got their new gadgets and technology. And as you can see from the site you’re viewing now, everything worked like a dream. http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/10/why-we-love-responsive-design-and-html5/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/10/why-we-love-responsive-design-and-html5/ Fri, 10 August 2012 00:00:00 Jp http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/7/cutting-through-the-negativityare-fans-rewarded-on-social/ We can’t seem to open a newspaper, turn on our TV or visit a news site without seeing the words ‘SOCIAL MEDIA OUTRAGE ‘plastered all over the headlines. Whether it be a brand expressing sheer incompetence by hijacking a hashtag created in remembrance of a terrible tragedy (yes, you Celeb Boutique ), a Swiss Olympian tweeting he wants to beat up the opposing team or someone viciously ‘trolling’ a sports star, it seems social media is still rife with unpleasant behaviour. But it’s not all bad. Social media presents brands and celebs with an excellent opportunity to really delight and reward fans, and there are many great examples of this out there. Unfortunately they tend to get lost in all the negativity (a negative story is a great news story right?) so I thought I'd set this right here. Here are five of my favourite examples of brands and celebrities surprising, delighting and engaging their fans. Jason Mraz Jason Mraz asks his fans to help him come up with ideas for the music video for his new single “The Woman I Love” by answering the question ‘ “What does ‘The Woman I Love’ mean to you?” on Twitter.   Mraz posted this video last week, so we’ll keep an eye on response rates and update you on its success in the comments below. Shaquille O’Neal Legendary basketball player Shaquille O’Neal is well renowned for the time and effort he puts into interacting with his fans on Twitter.   When it came to his retirement, he showed them the utmost respect by announcing his decision to them before sharing with the press. QPR Sport, at all levels, is inherently social, and QPR chairman Tony Fernandes is a great advocate of giving the fans unprecedented access and insights into the running of the club.   To find out who the fans would like to see on the pitch, he asked for their opinion on signing suggestions.       Sean Walsh over at the excellent Digital Football blog did some research and found that QPR witnessed a 39% growth in its Twitter following, as well as a staggering 49% increase in the number of Facebook fans around this period.   This, coupled with the high number of suggestions actually sent by fans highlights that fans really do love being empowered by their clubs. Marseille Marseille offered its fans a special surprise if they could hit 1m Facebook likes on their official page. The fans met this request, and as a result, were given the task of creating the 2011/12 shirt. 60,000 submissions were made, and one lucky user's creation was selected by the fans. This is an excellent example of a creative way to drive traffic to your social presence.   Citroen Citroen are on a mission to design the first car ‘Created for the Facebook generation, by the Facebook generation.   The brand is doing this through the ‘You Like it, We Make it’ Facebook app allows fans to choose from six configurations including alloys, interior and exterior colour schemes, in-car technology options such as Bluetooth and sat-nav as well as the number of doors the vehicle has. Citroen then plan to put the most popular ideas into production to create its Citroen C1 Connexion special edition city car. By participating, users are entered into a prize draw to win the car. As a nice little bonus, I thought it would be good to showcase an example of people using social media to rally together for a good cause.   Karen Klein, a 68 year old bus monitor from upstate New York, was reduced to tears by a group of teenagers on a school bus who relentlessly bullied her for over 10 minutes. The video (above) was uploaded to YouTube and went viral, with sympathisers offering to start up a fund to send Karen on a ‘dream holiday’.   To date, the fund has raised over $700K. This list is by no means exhaustive.   If I’ve missed out your favourite example, let me know in the comments section below :)    From Client Insight Manager John Paul @johnpaulfox #Yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/7/cutting-through-the-negativityare-fans-rewarded-on-social/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/7/cutting-through-the-negativityare-fans-rewarded-on-social/ Tue, 07 August 2012 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/7/let-the-ambush-continue/ After an early look at Nike’s Find Your Greatness campaign, which I blogged about last week , it appears the sporting giant has once again upped the ante with its ‘almost ambush’ marketing. Again, nothing breaks the rules – but it does sail close to the wind. Nike advertising, as featured in The Guardian   Nike has done a good job at getting its name out across London right now. The most visible parts of this are the digital posters on the tube referring to the Olympics, but – at the same time, cleverly not referring to them (ie. ‘Greatness doesn’t only exist in SW19’ ). These follow on from the launch of the ‘Greatness’ TV ad two weeks ago. Since then Nike has been hard at work, with quick turn-around campaign creation. It was only a matter of days after Paula Radcliff pulled out of the Olympic marathon before we saw Nike’s #LegendsRunForever campaign, starring “the world’s greatest female distance runner”. It was terrible to hear of Paula’s injury which would rule her out of the race, but Nike jumped on the opportunity to use her right away, as it meant she was no longer associated with the Olympics. Nike quickly launched a campaign that will see all Nike+ running mileage dedicated to Paula, creating a wealth of positive brand discussion, as highlighted in Brandwatch. Nike’s running arm takes things a step further by cheekily placing itself in the centre of Clapham Common, with its very own Fuel Station . The pop-up shop follows the successful launch of its first ever fuel station in Boxpark, London. It also acts as a workout station and most of all, brilliant publicity generator captures the attention of many, yet makes sure it doesn’t refer to the Olympics in any way. Selling products from the Nike range and using athletes, including former gold medalist Shawn Johnson , to host workout classes, ensures it reaches masses on Twitter and social networking sites. And research shows Nike still leads the way on social mentions, with almost 33% more coverage than Adidas. The Royal Mail, not a sponsor of the Olympics, but the postal service of the nation, is also getting involved. As the postal service is owned by the government, its involvement is not brought in to question in the same way as other brands, and as a result, has capitalised on the Olympics with some great marketing.     Dunblane's golden postbox, with a photo via Andy Murray's mum, @judmoo   A commemorative stamp is created with each gold medal won by Team GB, celebrating their achievement and featuring a photo of the winner. The speed of the availability is exceptional, with stamps going on sale the day after a gold medal is won. If that wasn’t enough, post boxes in the hometown of each winner are being painted gold, so locals can celebrate closer to home. Royal Mail has even launched a map to make it easier to find the golden boxes. Rumour has it, our very own MD, Steve, will be making a special trip to Andy Murray’s commemorative box in his hometown of Dunblane. The Burger King Olympic hijack ad - via AdAge   Moving slightly further afield, McDonald’s has been getting a tad angry with Burger King in Brazil , for what seems to be an obvious piece of ambush marketing. The local promotion offers double fries on days after Brazil win a gold medal during the games. The major giveaway, and where Burger King is likely to fall foul of IOC, is its use of the words gold, silver and bronze, oh and the small matter of the campaigns image bearing a striking resemblance to the Olympic Torch. Nice attempt Burger King. From Insight Executive Mark Stuart @MisterMumble #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/7/let-the-ambush-continue/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/august/7/let-the-ambush-continue/ Tue, 07 August 2012 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/31/nike-finds-its-greatness/ I must confess, before I blog about Nike’s guerrilla greatness, that I am a huge fan of all things Nike. Not necessarily all the clothing, I’m not the type to walk about the streets in tracksuit bottoms and a hooded top, but certain aspects of the brand really appeal to me. The key aspect of all this is Nike’s advertising and marketing, which continually gets it spot on. One prime example is the latest ‘must have’ gadget, the Nike+ Fuelband , which I have bored the Yomego office about for months. I finally purchased one of the said bands last month in America, after falling victim to the sporting giants’ clever marketing – its use of reputable athletes, creation of one-of-a-kind events to over hype it, and then the stroke of genius - making it available in very limited outlets in the UK. The Nike+ range of products, which the Fuelband falls under, is one of the greatest social conversation generators for the brand. The fitness apps promote goal sharing and competition between friends, all on a public domain. This in turn is published to a user’s followers, which subsequently want to be a part of the action. From this, the cycle continues, and what better time for that to happen than now, during the pinnacle of sporting events? Over the past few months we have been monitoring Nike closely. Although it isn’t an official Olympic sponsor, the brand attracts a huge number of mentions relating to the event. This comes much to the displeasure of its rival, Adidas. Roger Federer certainly won’t have helped much when he stepped out looking like a real-life billboard for Nike at the first round of the tennis at Wimbledon. Yet the ongoing furore around the sponsorship of the Olympics, not to mention the strict measures put in place by LOCOG, has led to non-sponsors taking interesting measures to gain exposure during the games. Some of you might have seen the Paddy Power ad , sponsoring ‘the largest athletics event in London this year’. The London in question is in the French region of Burgundy. Sure enough the advert was banned, though LOCOG rapidly changed its mind when it faced public ridicule and the risk of even more publicity ( the famous Streisand Effect ) if it carried on. Nike entered the fray on Wednesday when it uploaded its latest ad; ‘Find Your Greatness’ on YouTube. Voiced by Tom Hardy, the short video concentrates on athletes from Londons around the world – not just the “chosen few” participating in London 2012. The campaign was released in 25 countries at the same time as the Opening Ceremony on Friday and is clearly an attempt to cash in on Olympic fever. It has already been viewed almost 4m times in just five days. Nike isn’t a stranger to this kind of approach, with a track record in gatecrashing major sporting events with ambush marketing. Just look back at Beijing 2008 , the 2010 World Cup and even the Euro 2012 ‘My Time is Now' campaign. This Olympic attempt was perhaps more closely watched than previous campaigns (coming off the back of the banned Twitter #MakeItCount campaign ). Yet Nike states Find Your Greatness has been thoroughly vetted by Clearcast, the body responsible for ensuring ads don’t break the advertising code policed by ASA. Nike is also running a corresponding Twitter campaign, using the #findgreatness hashtag. Similar to #makeitcount and #GameOnWorld, it has already generated a high volume of conversation. Using Brandwatch, our data provider, we uncovered more than 20,000 tweets making a nod to “findgreatness” just five days after launch. Conversation began early on Wednesday, highlighting an immediate awareness of Nike’s ambush attempts, and continues steadily. Adidas is using the Olympics to springboard itself to become the number one sporting brand in the world, but one thing is for sure, Nike won’t go without a fight, sponsor or not. Make sure you keep an eye-out for our upcoming Nike Brand Barometer piece with Marketing magazine which will be online this Friday. For some more history, take a look at our work with Econsultancy and our previous Olympic spread in Marketing Magazine back in November. From Insight Executive Mark Stuart @MisterMumble #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/31/nike-finds-its-greatness/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/31/nike-finds-its-greatness/ Mon, 30 July 2012 12:00:00 Annie Macfarlane http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/26/i-like-you,-but-we’re-not-friends/ This is a story about Facebook. It’s the wet summer of 2012, it’s the east end of Glasgow, and there’s a smallish corner cafe which is making quite a name for itself. The staff are friendly, the mood is chill and the venue itself has the important advantage of being the least stabby-looking place to get a beer in the area. I go there far too often and would be totally happy to hear when there’s an open mic night happening and when their meltingly- delicious slow-roast pork belly is back on the specials menu.  In circumstances not unconnected with the slow-roast pork belly, I’ve also rejoined my favourite gym in the west end. Since it’s been a while, there are a lot of unfamiliar faces and it’s all go for the staff, with a major refit and a bunch of new classes being trialled over the last few weeks. These are businesses I enjoy interacting with, identify with and would happily promote to others. But I don’t follow either the gym or the cafe on Facebook, and I’m not going to. Both businesses have made an error that, for me, is a deal-breaker: they’ve set up a personal Facebook profile for their business. If your business page is set up as a personal profile right now, please understand that you are missing out on a ton of cool stuff that doesn’t require much time or any special skills to use. You could be pinning your best offers right at the top of your timeline so that new people who add you have a decent chance of seeing them. You could be accessing Facebook insights , happily prying into how people are interacting with your page and deciding when and what to post. If you want to disappear for a week or two, it’d be a doddle to add other members of staff as page admins and choose which level of permissions you give them. Dealing with friend requests would be a thing of the past, and you could have as many fans as you like without ever hitting a limit. Facebook clearly doesn’t want people using personal profiles in this way; in fact, it’s a direct violation of their Ts &Cs. In reality, I don’t know how likely it is that Facebook would push the big red Delete button for this, but as well as being functionally rubbish, these pages are also on shaky ground. All this, of course, is none of my beeswax. From a purely self-interested point of view, this matters because I don’t want businesses on my friends list. Maybe this seems pedantic, but when you look a little closer there are some very sound reasons to be wary. As a ‘friend’, a business has access to all of your status updates and pictures. The owner can see who your friends are and can post directly on your wall if he feels like it. When you add a business as a friend, you don’t know who looks after the Facebook account or who else the account might be shared with. Perhaps you could set up a special subgroup of friends and assign those people limited permissions, but who really does that? We’re lazy, we have a bunch of cat videos to watch and anyway, why should all the effort be on our side when Facebook has made this so very easy for admins to fix ? As a specialist social media agency, we don’t recommend Facebook as a blanket solution for all businesses. It can work incredibly well or be totally inappropriate, and where it’s a good match, admins have to have the time and the content to keep it flowing. These small, local and mainstream businesses are one of the areas in which Facebook really has a chance to shine. But unless we’re on real-world friendly terms: please, let’s keep the relationship strictly business. From Community Manager Annie Macfarlane @anniefiddle #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/26/i-like-you,-but-we’re-not-friends/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/26/i-like-you,-but-we’re-not-friends/ Thu, 26 July 2012 12:35:00 Chris Casey http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/18/five-inspirational-social-media-campaigns/ Agencies and brands from around the world are constantly trying their hardest to make themselves or their clients stand out in social. Here’s a collection of the latest campaigns that we’ve been saving to our favourites bar here at Yomego… 1. The Generous Store by Anthon Berg chocolatiers Anton Berg opened a popup chocolatier for one day, called The Generous Store. The difference here was that no money would change hands: this was the first store where customers would pay for goods with promised good deeds. A great piece of work that spread fantastically on social and which of course, portrayed the brand in a very positive light. 2. Carling Black Label Cup South African football fans were given the chance to control the destiny of two of SA’s biggest teams, the Kaiser Chiefs and the Orlando Pirates. They chose the teams and controlled pitched side team management via mobile and social – with the campaign creating mobile experiences that worked across a range of handsets, not just smartphones. A great way to absorb fans. 3. Nike Black Mamba Analysing Twitter chatter which would ‘open’ locked parts of the site. Kobe Bryant, or his epithet, Black Mamba is one of the most famous basketball players in the world. To track his popularity, Nike developed a unique algorithm that would track his Mamba nickname. During games, if he scored or did something that would make the twitter community react, the Nike Mamba site would react. After set amounts of tweets, locked areas of the site would open, design would change, exclusive video would be available and more. A great way to incentivise already passionate fans to promote him more to gain a reward. 4. The Camry Effect The ultimate way to sell is through honest, transparent testament. Perennially popular US car brand Camry set out to achieve this through a site which would update everyday with more and more stats and testimonies left from current and past Camry owners. They could recreate their car from a selection of old and new models and customise it to match their own. They could add their stories of past experiences and share memorable stories. The sharing was just the start as the social campaign migrated into TV and other channels. A great campaign that showed real, tangible results – right through to sales leads. 5. Israeli Anti Drug Authority Drugs Set Your Timeline was a campaign using a fake profile on Facebook. It portrayed a fictional character, Adam, and displayed a split profile documenting his life. One showed his life of drug use side by side with a life of sobriety. A really powerful method of showing the horrific effect drug use can have on everyday life. Unfortunately, this campaign only lasted 8 days as it breached Facebooks rules on fake profiles, but it generated all the buzz it needed. What are your memorable campaigns? Any that have stuck out for you, leave them in the comments below. From Senior Designer Chris Casey @YomegoSocial #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/18/five-inspirational-social-media-campaigns/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/18/five-inspirational-social-media-campaigns/ Wed, 18 July 2012 00:00:00 Annie Macfarlane http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/05/how-to-make-your-cv-full-of-win/ It’s hiring time at Yomego, and we’ve been busy sifting through applications for the positions we’re advertising just now. I am fortunate enough to work with an awesome team which has creativity, talent and a place for everyone to contribute. The CVs have been stacking up over the last few weeks, and it’s clear that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for new graduates to cut through the noise and get noticed. With that in mind, I thought it might be useful to provide my personal breakdown of some of the things that make our ears prick up when we’re on the lookout for new hires. Be a social superstar If you want to work in social media, it’s probably because you love interacting online. Not everyone is great at this , so we want to see what you can do. If you’d rather keep your tweets personal, that’s fine, but think about the skills your employer will be looking for and find another way to demonstrate your talent for communication: maybe you rock on Tumblr, or manage a Facebook page for your band. If you’re active on a gaming forum or have a kick-ass Etsy store, let us know where to find you. Pro tip: don’t link to your Twitter account if it’s locked down. Ditch the bot and get human Universities have a lot to answer for in the style of writing they encourage in students. You might have a great vocabulary and perfectly-finessed academic English, but I’d always prefer an aptitude for unfussy, conversational language that gets the message across and shows off your great personality. Practise good verbal hygiene An apostrophe in the wrong place here and there might only drop you a mark off your essay, but the people who care about this really care about it, and one of those people may well be reading your CV. If you’re in any doubt about the cleanliness of your grammar and punctuation, get a friend to look over your writing, or check out some online resources . Format matters Whatever recruitment agencies say, we’d rather have a PDF than a Word doc, and if you use your full name as the file name, it’ll make it easier for us to find you. Naming your file something like CVforagencyjobs.doc tells me you’ve sent the same document to a ton of agencies and don’t care much about this particular job. If you don’t have an eye for design, get someone to help you, or keep it simple. Fugly borders, messy spacing and gimmicky fonts will only distract attention from your winning content. Make it personal If you’re applying to work at an agency, chances are, the staff will be visible online. That’s good news, because it won’t take much research to find out who’s recruiting for the position so you can address your email to a real, live person. At the very least, make sure your CV reflects the qualities and experience the recruiter will be looking for, and your cover letter expresses an interest in what the agency does. In particular, if your background is not directly in line with what the job is about, being clear about why this job is relevant to you and where you see it going will save us all some head-scratching. ...but not too personal If you have a degree, your B in GCSE Woodwork and award for perfect attendance in Brownies can and should be retired from your resume. If you’re happy to have your personal profiles wide open, take care with what’s on display . We all know by now (do we?) that pictures of lairy nights out might not win favour with recruiters. Maybe people who know you don’t think less of you for swapping sexist jokes or joining sectarian groups, but these kinds of associations would make me question whether I could trust you to be the voice of our clients. Have you ever received a standout application? Or do you have any more tips for graduates taking on their first job? Tell us in the comments. We’re hiring! Take a look at our jobs page for the latest vacancies or follow @YomegoSocial on Twitter. From Community Manager Annie Macfarlane @anniefiddle #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/05/how-to-make-your-cv-full-of-win/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/05/how-to-make-your-cv-full-of-win/ Thu, 05 July 2012 00:00:00 Claire Foss http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/03/serious-consequences/ 'Me and my dad… I’m the one without the moustache' The night before I got married last year, family and friends that had travelled to the wedding got together for a meal and a few beers. One of the highlights of the evening was when both sets of parents produced stacks of photos of our formative years. Friends cooed over what an angelic baby I was (golden curls, blue eyes) and laughed hysterically at what a hilarious child I became (NHS specs, ginger hair, fondness for sitting in boxes) – and did the same for my other half. It was lovely. And by the time the photos were wheeled out to all and sundry, it was in a supportive environment and I was no longer scarred (much) by the NHS specs. I was a grown up, and the photos were funny little reminders of a small person that looked a little like me. Facebook and pics of kids. It’s like the two were invented for each other. Keeping up with pics of grandchildren and nieces and nephews is the reason that my parents joined Facebook. If you’re past your early 20s, you’re practically guaranteed to have a Facebook feed liberally peppered with snaps of your friends’ offspring. Stats here (a little old, but I only imagine things have got worse since) back this up. A snapshot of people I know on Facebook reveals the full range of attitudes to pics of their kids, right from never allowing any photos to documenting every last sneeze with an accompanying pic. Some people request that their friends don’t post any photos of their children without their consent. Some friends have set up profiles for their newborns which only family and close friends can follow – thus keeping some of the child’s privacy intact. Whereas others post every detail, every drooly tooth – all preserved for prosperity. There are four big issues here that bother me. The first is of course, the privacy issue. Your kids did not consent to these photographs being posted – and neither can they. I’ve written before about the fact that people complain endlessly that kids have no concept of privacy in what they post online – but when your parents haven’t got a clue either (ref: the old schoolmate that posted naked photos of her seven year old in a paddling pool) then who is really at fault here? The second most obvious issue is that photographs of your child’s bowel movements, or them smeared in food or snot is actually quite unpleasant. I don’t want to see it. I know their parents find it gross/grossly hilarious and that’s why they are sharing. But I browse Facebook over lunch. I really don’t want to see this. But this is well-trodden ground. There are entire blogs, such as STFU Parents , that reassure me that I’m not alone in this. The third and fourth issues are the ones that are bigger for me. The third is closely linked to the first: dignity. Privacy is one thing, but dignity is something else altogether. Yes, kiddy photos are inherently undignified. As parents, you take photos of your kids being funny and cute and often, these photos could be deemed to be embarrassing. But they were once shared privately and then, possibly, wheeled out the night before a wedding. My childhood photos weren’t present all through my life. God knows, it was enough fun at school having NHS specs and ginger hair – kids don’t need any more ammunition with which to torture each other. I can’t imagine it doing wonders for a wee tike’s sense of self-worth when the school bullies find pictures of their first poo in the potty and them playing naked in the garden. And the fourth point is about being able to live in the present. Instagram seems symptomatic of this to me – it’s a way of adding instant heritage to an old snap, letting you look at a sunset from yesterday and feel a bit wistful. Baby photos on Facebook are no different – there’s the timeline, there’s every snap you’ve ever taken. You spend so long documenting and externalising – it’s an attitude that with all of their history available to them, it would be hard for a child not to inheret. What does it do to a child to have a record of their every move from birth available to them in an instant? Is that healthy? By PR and Marketing Manager Claire Foss @claire_foss #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/03/serious-consequences/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/july/03/serious-consequences/ Tue, 03 July 2012 00:00:00 John Paul Fox http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/28/brands-not-listening/ Customer service is in the middle of its fastest phase of evolution since the call centre revolution of the ‘70s and ‘80s. The popularity and widespread adoption of social channels means companies can be more responsive, strengthen relationships and cross-sell products and services (we produced a white paper on this back in February). This evolution is blindingly apparent from taking a look at contemporary consumer behaviour; Nowadays, the first thing 57% of consumers do when they have a problem with a product is search for a solution online. 62% of consumers have used social media for customer service issues. 65% of consumers feel that social media is a better way to deal with companies than call centres. Of this, 88% would be less likely to buy from a brand if their questions via social media went unanswered. (stats courtesy of Parature and Econsultancy ) So, unless a brand wants to concentrate all of its efforts on targeting the remaining 12% of the market, then it should be actively engaging with consumers online and doing, in essence, what social media is all about: two-way communication. Then why aren’t they?! Research by Socialbakers has revealed that 70% of questions from fans on Facebook go unanswered. Not only that, but what is even more worrying is that 25% of global companies go as far as closing the Facebook wall; thus completely eliminating the opportunity for consumers to start a dialogue with the brand. How frustrating! To put it simply, if you don’t want a two-way dialogue with your consumers, then don’t include social media in your marketing strategy. It’s not a numbers game. A small, engaged community is worth much more to your brand than a poorly designed Facebook page with 15m followers who have little or no dialogue with your brand. Anyone can buy likes and followers, and doing so does absolutely nothing for your brand. The prevalence of ads similar to that below (I’m getting better at Photoshop!) highlights just how worthless a dormant ‘community’ really is.   To coincide with the publication of these results, SocialBakers also announced a new feature, aptly named ‘Socially Devoted’, which highlights which of the world’s brands are the most socially active based on response time and response rate. As well as this they also compiled data to see what the most socially devoted industries are.   Unsurprisingly, Telecom and Airlines are the top two industries. With the likes of BT and KLM leading the way in social customer service, it’s nice to see that others in their respective industries are following suit. We all love a bonus, so please find my top 5 do’s and don’ts for effectively providing excellent customer service on social media. Listen Effectively. If you know what your customer are saying about you, you can react appropriately. This must be the very first step in getting customer service right, and social media is no different. Be Responsive Don’t create a ‘Talk to us! We’d love to hear your experiences!’ page and then leave comments there to rot. Many a social media fail could have been avoided or minimised if a company hadn’t taken so long to get its story straight. Respond Appropriately. There’s nothing like posting identical corporate responses to everyone who comments on your wall to get the community into a spin. Have some standardised issues and answers pre-prepared but tailor the actual responses to the individual. Apologise if you get something wrong. Don’t be afraid of using the ‘s’ word and don’t forget to keep people in touch with progress when you’re trying to right a wrong. Make that strong social media guidelines are in place. Ensure that all staff are trained in social engagement. This will ensure consistency when responding to customer queries. It would also be useful to have a crisis management plan ready to be implemented should things go wrong. From Insight Executive John Paul Fox ( @johnpaulfox ) #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/28/brands-not-listening/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/28/brands-not-listening/ Thu, 28 June 2012 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/26/nba-finals-lebron-to-bosh,-who’s-got-the-twitter-heat/ It might have taken him nine years and a controversial trade , but last week’s NBA playoff final saw LeBron James claim the first NBA Championship of his career with Miami Heat. The glistening championship ring that had so long eluded him could finally be placed on his finger, much to the joy of millions of fans expressing their joy on social. Ron, Nike’s ‘ ring maker ’, in its latest viral video, can also finally rest easy knowing that his work is done and the ring with its rightful owner. As a part-time NBA fan but long time follower of Nike’s foray into the sport , I’ve spent several years watching LeBron miss out and Nike’s Kobe Bryant puppet famously mock LeBron’s lack of rings. Nike’s rights with two of the sport’s most famous players ensured they were constantly associated with the top players, and this year was no different. In fact, the actions of the NBA itself also makes a great case study for how brilliantly sports bodies can work with social. In the build up, and during Game five of the Finals, where Miami Heat beat Oklahoma City Thunder to win the Championship, fans mentioned LeBron James an average of 210,000 times per hour on Facebook and Twitter. Throughout the Finals alone, LeBron has been mentioned almost 2.5m times. Such is the scale of his success and appeal that LeBron has been mentioned more than teamates Mike Miller, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade combined. Despite being mentioned 478k times throughout the finals, Dwyane Wade attracted just shy of 14,000 mentions per hour in the build-up and during game five. Oklahoma City Thunder players didn’t feature quite so prominently, although Kevin Durant has racked up 1.1m mentions to date. These stats are nothing short of incredible with a level of mentions leading brands would be proud of. But of course you have to remember that the NBA itself is in essence a top franchise. With 5.4m users following @NBA on Twitter, it is in fact the most popular sporting league on social, and was the first to pass the 5m followers mark. This level of popularity is promoted and heralded by the NBA, which began selling Twitter handle t-shirts back in March. It then followed this up with the launch of Tumblr and Pinterest accounts to tie-in with the 2012 playoffs. The Tumblr account showcases images from recent basketball history, currently populated with Miami Heat images. Its Pinterest account has two approaches, the first as an ecommerce platform but also to showcase moments that make basketball such a great sport to follow. Finally, the icing on the cake, underlining the importance of social media for the NBA, was the first-ever NBA Social Media Awards. Of course this is an event we had our eyes on, and it will be interesting to see if other sports brands follow suit. The event awarded players for their use of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram and saw Jeremy Lin pick up the league’s ‘Social Breakout Award’ as his stand-out performances in February attracted critical acclaim. One of the most ironic awards went to Kobe Bryant, a player who gained the most mentions on Facebook and Twitter, although the player is one of the few big names not to have an account on Twitter. The full list of award winners can be seen here , meanwhile, take a look at the ‘FTW Award’ winner as Kevin Durant wins the game with a buzzer-beater in December 2011. So while the NBA is a sport using social across every major platform, and awarding players for doing likewise, will it only be a matter of time before we see similar movements in major sports around the world? We’ve seen some great examples already, but the NBA's efforts show how well The FA et al could do. But perhaps the upcoming Olympics will present us with some excellent uses from top athletes…Watch this space. From Insight Executive Mark Stuart ( @MisterMumble ) #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/26/nba-finals-lebron-to-bosh,-who’s-got-the-twitter-heat/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/26/nba-finals-lebron-to-bosh,-who’s-got-the-twitter-heat/ Tue, 26 June 2012 14:31:00 John Paul Fox http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/20/search-and-social-what-does-the-future-hold/ Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a discipline – in fact, a science – that fascinates me There are many articles and blog posts out there about optimising social media presences for SEO, but discussing this with someone yesterday really got me thinking about how things will change in the future. I’m no expert in SEO, but in my opinion, when it comes to a strong search strategy, the more data that can be collected, the better. Because of this, I’m going to assume that most search marketers already use social data to inform their strategies. By this, I mean, making use of social listening tools (e.g. Brandwatch) to take keyword analysis a step beyond the common search terms unveiled by the likes of the Google Adwords Keyword tool. So what comes next? As marketers, we are well aware of the impact that peer to peer recommendations have on the decision making process. Refreshingly, the big players in the search engine market also realise this. Microsoft emphasised its awareness in a recent campaign for Bing, in which it referred to the service as ‘the decision engine’. Google’s increasing integration of Google+ content into search results expresses a similar understanding. So, with search being about finding what you want, and social being about researching what you want, it was inevitable that we were going to see the gap between the two get smaller. Together, search and social can go to infinity, and BEYOND Features prevalent in search engines already highlight that this gap is closing. For example, Bing in the US has a really cool ‘people you may know’ feature. (Visit Bing and switch to the US mode to see this in action wherever you are). This feature links with Facebook and suggests friends who are familiar with the brand and 'brand experts' as potential helpers with your search, bringing a more personal and social touch to results and reinforces the influence of brand advocates. Click on 'United Kingdom' and change to'United States - English' Although Google doesn’t have access to the Facebook and Twitter data that Bing does, Google uses its proprietary Google+ to marry search and social. The announcement this week that it is now easier to link your G+ page to your website shows that this trend for increased linkage isn’t going away. Although many people complain about search engines ‘unethically’ storing their data and providing personalised recommendations, these same people willingly give mountains of data about their daily schedule (e.g. what they do, who they are with, what time they do things) to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. So, whether they like it not, search is going to continue to go social – because that’s where the important data is. So, what does this mean for the future? Discussion about social networks creating their own search engines continues – but that’s a debate for another day. I can see the data that we are happy to provide to social networks being increasingly used to improve our search experience right down to a granular level. What do I mean I hear you ask? Well, I’ll use this lovely example from Ben Elowitz in a recent Tech Crunch article to effectively highlight my point. Ben gives here his ideal version of a future where search and social work together to simply provide the right answers: ‘Arrive at the Sao Paulo airport and search on my mobile for the city’s public transit map. My device knows that I’ve never been there (even though I bought a phrase book on Amazon last week), and it also knows (from scanning TripAdvisor comments about Sao Paulo buses) that the public transit is impossible to navigate for newcomers. While the map is loading, a message appears gently encouraging me to consider a rental car instead – there happens to be a great deal on an Audi (my favorite(!) as noted on Facebook) at the rental counter 10 feet away. Talk about targeting!’ Some might find this an Orwellian nightmare – but I think it’s technological bliss. By Insight Executive John Paul Fox ( @johnpaulfox ) #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/20/search-and-social-what-does-the-future-hold/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/20/search-and-social-what-does-the-future-hold/ Wed, 20 June 2012 00:00:00 Colin Mckinney http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/15/google-loves-design/ Google recently revamped the UI of many of its products. The unstyled form elements of old have been replaced with subtle white/grey panels and flat red buttons (no Web 2.0 gradients here please!). The redesign of Google+ and Gmail at least have been covered in a variety of blogs (e.g. Engadget and WebDesign Tuts+ ) and attention to design detail doesn't end with their apps. Job posts on websites such as Dribbble.com indicate that Google is keen to attract top design talent and is using its resources to outsource fantastic illustrations and icon sets for their many new web projects. Yomego are big fans of Google’s latest creative output, particularly Google Ventures and Google Green. Google Ventures This website was designed by the Google Ventures design studio and strikes a great balance between design and photography. For a very text-heavy site this in no way feels corporate. Unusually, the home page features a transition which obscures the site’s fixed position navigation on scroll. The design and dev team are keen to give you a peek under the hood of their creation, even going as far as linking to their humans.txt file in the site footer. Google Green Ever wondered what happens to your Gmail messages once you hit that big red Send button? Google have created this animated CSS3/Javascript animation to show exactly that. Data centre stats have never been so entertaining. This slick site raises the bar for online presentations and could signal the end of infographics, which up until now have been so popular. We look forward to seeing what comes next from their team of designers. From the Yomego design team @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/15/google-loves-design/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/15/google-loves-design/ Fri, 15 June 2012 00:00:00 John Paul Fox http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/14/@sweden,-the-voice-of-a-nation/ One of my favourite things about social media is that it presents marketers with an excellent opportunity to really humanise their brand. Through some good quality content and a dialogue with consumers, the most dull and lacklustre of brands can quickly turn perceptions around and become something really cool and appealing. Who would have thought watching a Blendtec employee put a variety of things into an expensive blender could be so much fun and result in an increase in sales of over 700%?! Will the iPhone 4s blend?!?! So you might guess that I get really excited when brands do some out-of-the-box thinking and get really creative on social. One recent example is the ‘ Curators of Sweden ’ campaign launched by The Swedish Institute and Visit Sweden back in December. To highlight how wonderfully democratic the country is and to showcase it from the perspective of the diverse range of people who live there, the official @sweden Twitter account is handed over to a different citizen each week. Sounds excellent. I mean, would you actively follow and get excited about the Twitter account of tourist boards across the globe that bombard you with marketing and PR messages all day? I certainly wouldn’t. The account was doing well, with up until last week, around 35,000 followers. But a number of questionable tweets and curators (one curator called himself ‘the masturbating Swede’ and another started a #breastfeedingriot ) got the campaign coverage in the New York Times , resulting in an increase of over 12,000 followers. So, with the account now in the global spotlight, will the current curator tone it down a bit? No chance! Sonja Abrahamsson , a 27 year old mother of two from a “tiny town where everyone is related and owns a tractor”, caused widespread controversy yesterday when she began tweeting about anti-Semitism (in a not so politically correct way….). In my opinion, I think it’s pretty apparent that Sonja was not trying to cause offence, but rather try to discover the mystery behind why anti-Semitism actually exists. After a series of negative comments condemning her Tweets, which also included an image of Freddie Mercury looking at a table of food with the caption "This pic I call 'hungry gay with aids'”, Sonja apologised. Despite this, the comments are said to have shocked the Jewish community in Stockholm, and even warranted a cameo on the Colbert show in the US. This story kicked off a debate here at Yomego Towers. Was this a PR disaster that has resulted in the country being portrayed in a terrible way to the rest of the world? Should the curators have a strict set of guidelines and their posts face an approval process? Initially, I was of the opinion that posts should perhaps be moderated (to an extent). However, after a lengthy debate and taking a second to think out of the box (that thing I said I loved others to do), I think Sweden have done the right thing. Despite a barrage of questions from the media about the consequences, the creators are holding their ground, with Visit Sweden’s marketing director Marie Ziv releasing a statement; "She is a controversial and provocative person for sure. We haven't called her or told her to stop or back down. We want her to continue being herself. It's our choice not to censor anyone because we want to keep it real." When we at Yomego launch a campaign, our focus is 100% on meeting its objectives. Sergio Guimaraes, media relations manager for the Swedish Institute, released a statement which outlined the key objective of this campaign; “In Sweden freedom of speech, democracy, tolerance and openness are at the core of society and should be at the core of how this communication reflects society.” In our opinion, they have achieved just that. Good job Sweden! By Insight Executive John Paul Fox ( @johnpaulfox ) #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/14/@sweden,-the-voice-of-a-nation/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/14/@sweden,-the-voice-of-a-nation/ Thu, 14 June 2012 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/13/twitter-gets-racey-nascar-and-flirting/ Following in Google+’s footsteps, Twitter aired its first ever TV commercial during the 2012 Pocono 400 Nascar race on Sunday night. These ads were to raise awareness for Twitter’s latest offering, hashtag pages. Led by #nascar , the page is populated with a stream of tweets making use of the hashtag, along with users “strongly related to Nascar and the race”. The aim of it, according to Omid Ashtari, part of Twitter’s sports & entertainment team, is to “bring users closer to all of the action…from the garage to the victory lane”. With hashtags continuing to become a more prominent feature in tv shows, and Beyonce’s pregnancy announcement generating 8,869 tweets per second, the latest venture from Twitter could be the perfect way to showcase this chatter. It is worth highlighting that this example was the result of a partnership between Nascar and Twitter, yet Nascar had no editorial control over what appeared on the page. This raises the point that the new offering is not aimed towards brands, purely events and capturing the experience ( this is reported by Mashable here ). While we’re talking about Twitter, we thought we’d finish off with a little what not to do following Brian Presley’s seemingly innocent alleged flirtation with model, Melissa Stetten on board a Virgin Atlantic flight from LA. The rather unfortunate Brian, a married actor from Texas and dad of a four year old boy, certainly didn’t expect his advances, which allegedly included removing his wedding ring, to be broadcast to Melissa’s 13,000 followers. The nature of the platform meant her followers informed her of the actor’s identity, his past and his family. The story has since been covered across the net , with Brian responding on Facebook (he’s not so hot on Twitter apparently) and denying the allegations. Despite this, he has been actively blocking users accusing him of adultery. No news on his current relationship status, but a rather comical incident none the less. By Insight Executive Mark Stuart ( @MisterMumble ) #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/13/twitter-gets-racey-nascar-and-flirting/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/13/twitter-gets-racey-nascar-and-flirting/ Wed, 13 June 2012 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/08/rules-of-engagement/ It’s fair to say that the Republic of Ireland and the UK have a fairly controversial history. A quick Google search unveils a wealth of information about the Irish uprising, so you would think that multinational corporations operating across the countries would consider any sensitive issues when deciding which creative will work well in the markets. Wrong. Back in March, Nike launched a new trainer to commemorate St Patrick’s Day; the ‘Black and Tan’ sneaker, innocently named to represent one of Ireland’s greatest exports, Guinness. Amazingly, however, Nike failed to realise that the ‘Black and Tans’ were the violent British paramilitary unit, the Royal Irish Constabulary reserve force, that conducted brutal reprisals during the early 1920s Irish Independence Wars, including the atrocities of Bloody Sunday in November 1920. So, with only three months since this marketing disaster, surely another global brand can’t do it again? Oh, hello Starbucks. While trying to get into the spirit of the jubilee, the brand managed to land itself in hot water by asking its @StarbucksIE followers what makes them proud to British. Worse still, Starbucks failed to fix the problem quickly, leaving users waiting hours for an apology. This led to a barrage of complaints from Irish users, with the topic trending in Ireland. Users demanded an apology, and were greeted with one some four hours later. With Irish consumers finally beginning to show signs of warming to the Starbucks brand (€490K profit in Ireland this year compared with a loss of €3.3M the previous year), this erroneous tweet could prove costly. The content on both the @StarbucksUK and @StarbucksIE accounts is almost identical, suggesting that this mistake is most likely a result of a poorly designed content plan rather than a post made from the wrong account. This gaffe raises the debate of global versus regional Twitter accounts for brands operating in multiple territories. Regional accounts are most definitely relevant in certain situations. However a clear content plan must be in place and regional sensitivities must be considered. Having multiple accounts that post the same content is counterproductive in my opinion, and brands should look to tailor content specifically to each region. To put it simply, a region-specific account should be managed from within its region. Significant problems can arise when managing multiple Twitter accounts, with incorrect posting an ever present threat (Tweetdeck users have surely felt this fear!). With regional sensitivities thrown into the mix, problems are inevitable if it’s not managed properly. From Insight Executive John Paul Fox @johnpaulfox #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/08/rules-of-engagement/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/08/rules-of-engagement/ Fri, 08 June 2012 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/07/the-bird-is-the-word-twitter-redesigns-its-logo/ Over the past six years we have seen numerous variations of the Twitter bird . However today/last night, Twitter introduced a simplified Twitter bird logo that will represent the microblogging platform. The announcement featured some great quotes, including: “Twitter is the bird, the bird is Twitter” (reminds me of The Bird Is The Word song). And of course, the new and reissued brand guidelines which ask people not to mess around with the logo (and even provide a visual guide of what not to do) have been like catnip to internet users with a sense of mischief and a copy of Photoshop. Cheekily edited versions of all sorts have been doing the rounds on, ironically, Twitter all day (we dare not link to most of them, but they aren't hard to find). Apparently the new logo was created from three sets of overlapping circles – similar to how our networks, interests and ideas connect and intersect with peers and friends. Read more about it and see the logo here - and out of interest, you can see a very early Twitter page here - quite a change! By Insight Executive Mark Stuart @MisterMumble #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/07/the-bird-is-the-word-twitter-redesigns-its-logo/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/june/07/the-bird-is-the-word-twitter-redesigns-its-logo/ Thu, 07 June 2012 00:00:00 Sam MacLeod http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/30/we’re-listening-how-facebook-private-messages-changed-the-game/ It’s been a few months now since Facebook flipped the ‘on’ switch for the compulsory roll-out of Timeline for brands. Like it or loathe it, the switchover has brought major changes to the way brands communicate with their fans. However; in our experience, the biggest change Timeline has brought to the table is also one of the least discussed – private messaging for brands. By opening the floodgates to direct interaction between companies and consumers, can Facebook play the big customer service catch-up game with other social networks that have better-established customer service credentials? If you were to ask the majority of people, we’d bet that they had always just assumed private messaging was built into Facebook. It now seems bizarre that with Twitter’s increasing prevalence as a customer service tool, brands on Facebook had been left without an option to conduct their affairs in private. Of course, a number of support forums and apps help bridge this gap (notable examples include Get Satisfaction and Zendesk ), but in our experience, a lack of consistency has meant that the process is often more cumbersome than intuitive. With Timeline now live on our clients’ pages, Yomego’s community team can request customer account numbers, discuss potentially volatile topics and diffuse situations in a discreet yet personal manner, building advocacy and serving to protect our clients’ images in the process. The change brings Facebook’s functionality in line with a general shift in the way organisations use social media. Facebook now recognises that companies can no longer rest on the platform as simply a tool for self-promotion and casual engagement. Consumers now expect that wherever a company has a voice, there will be a means to interact with them beyond the corporate bravado. For now, the option exists to disable brand private messaging, although by disabling the feature, page admins risk appearing ‘closed off’ to customer interaction. Additionally, with the added customer service emphasis on a Facebook page, it now falls on companies to re-assess how they are managing their presences. Facebook page content is often left to PR and marketing staff, who may be skilled at push messaging but out of step with customer services and haven’t yet acquired the skills to deal with potentially complex support issues. Ensuring that the resources exist to enable rapid communication between PR / marketing and customer service teams is absolutely essential. This should be complimented by a well thought-out escalation policy that helps all aspects of a company work together to resolve matters. We’ve had a lot of positive feedback from both our clients and their customers on the addition of private messaging; however we’d love to hear some stories from those who have had different experiences or perhaps decided to disable it altogether? Let us know your thoughts. By Account Manager Sam MacLeod @cooltweetbro #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/30/we’re-listening-how-facebook-private-messages-changed-the-game/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/30/we’re-listening-how-facebook-private-messages-changed-the-game/ Wed, 30 May 2012 00:00:00 John Paul Fox http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/28/football-players-on-twitter-do-clubs-need-to-get-stricter-with-regulation/ Although it may be obvious to the majority of us that Twitter is a public forum, we continue to hear stories of people not only looking like an idiot to the masses, but on occasion, incriminating themselves by posting derogatory content. Despite regular reminders in the media, and the courts continuing to hand down serious custodial sentences, many people just can’t seem to shake the idea that it’s ok to say what they like whilst hiding behind a computer screen. So, it makes me wonder; do some top-flight football players even consume media? Because by looking at their Twitter accounts, you’d think that many of them wholeheartedly believe that what they are posting can’t be viewed by the entire nation and is simply locker room chat. For some players, Twitter has led to serious trouble, with clubs and sporting bodies dishing out some pretty hefty fines. Carlton Cole recently received a fine of £20K for using Twitter to post racially aggravated comments and Ryan Babel received a £10K fine for Photoshopping a picture of referee Howard Webb onto a Manchester United top. This has led to the FA announcing that it is to take a hard-line stance against players who use Twitter and other social networking sites to criticise match officials. In my opinion, no one has successfully managed to paint as bad a picture of themselves as QPR captain, Joey Barton. Despite publically humiliating himself (just click here for some of his finer moments) and taking a sabbatical from Twitter at the end of March, he has returned with a bang, reminding us all that not only does he love a physical attack (see below), but also a good war of words with the likes of Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer . Barton tweeted soon after the match that he had attacked Aguero on purpose so as to "take one of theirs with me". So, with Twitter giving those players with their brains in their boots a platform to tarnish their club’s reputation as well as their own, should players be banned from Twitter? Or, should their personal Twitter accounts be heavily regulated? Twitter gives fans unprecedented access to players, and I think in this web 2.0 orientated world that this is great. Players have the opportunity to thank and reward their fans, and they’ve done this in some really nice ways. Basketball player Shaquille O’Neal announced to his Twitter followers that he was retiring before telling the media, and QPR owner Tony Fernandes used Twitter to ask fans for signing suggestions last November. Fans now cherish a response or retweet in the same way that a traditional fan valued an autograph. So, to take this access away from the fans because of a few bad apples is definitely the wrong approach. At the same time, there is more clubs could do to regulate its use. For example, the NHL operates a blackout policy in which players cannot tweet on matchday until they have spoken to the media post match. With clear social media guidelines in place and some effort at fairness and compromise from players and their clubs, I think fans will continue to enjoy this close relationship with their heroes online. Oh, and Joey Barton; paying some money to apologise in a promoted tweet doesn’t make your behaviour OK! From Insight Executive John Paul Fox @johnpaulfox #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/28/football-players-on-twitter-do-clubs-need-to-get-stricter-with-regulation/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/28/football-players-on-twitter-do-clubs-need-to-get-stricter-with-regulation/ Mon, 28 May 2012 00:00:00 YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/11/mobile-handsets-in-social-media/ In case you missed it this week, we'd just like to point you in the direction of Marketing magazine, pages 22 and 23... ...where you'll find a comprehensive look at how the top 10 mobile handsets are doing in social media, produced by Yomego. We've scored each of the handsets using our proprietary SMR system and seen who comes out on top and why - and the answers might surprise you. If you want to take a look online, head over here for more - and if you want more information on any of this, just get in touch and we'll be happy to help. Website: http://www.yomego.com Twitter: @yomegosocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/11/mobile-handsets-in-social-media/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/11/mobile-handsets-in-social-media/ Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/10/andthewinnerisnot/ BrewDog’s Twitter bio states it is a brand which pushes limits and challenges conventions with award winning craft beer. Unfortunately it didn’t add another award to its shelf at the 2012 BII Scotland Annual Awards, held in Glasgow on Sunday 6th May. The BrewDog team arrived for the night with high expectations. This was helped along by the fact they were sat at the same table as a number of judges, who might have let it slip that they were set to win the ‘Bar Operator of the Year Award’. It was then that things took an interesting twist. “The winner is…not BrewDog”. Despite being etched on the award, another party was named as winner of the ‘Bar Operator of the Year’, much to the surprise and uproar of BrewDog. The winner, Behind The Wall, based in Falkirk, then refused to accept the award as it didn’t bear its name. The controversy began with a Diageo executive, who remains anonymous at the moment, as he threatened to pull any future sponsorship of the event if BrewDog was announced a winner. These slightly childish tactics, mixed with the global reach of social media, ensured the story went viral. Manifest London, BrewDog’s PR team, clearly recognised the potential. Camilla Brown, an account manager, took to Twitter to look for a photographer to shoot at BrewDog Camden, undoubtedly producing the photos we see all over the net, giving a middle finger to Diageo. Although it is a brand known for its controversial marketing, this is one campaign that forged itself, with a little helping hand from Diageo. The end result was a worldwide trending campaign, generating more than 1,500 tweets of the #andthewinnerisnot hashtag in 24 hours. Diageo has since apologised, although the immediate sharing on social, partnered with the virality of the campaign means that the story has been seen around the world. BrewDog’s grasp of the PR potential ensured that its side of the story led the coverage, attracting comments from around the world, even as far as Chile. Did Diageo feel it had to respond to the controversy due to the global impact via social? Would it have issued a response had the story not gone viral? One thing is for certain, Diageo was caught red-handed trying to carve its seniority and it came out on the backfoot. Here’s to the underdog, the drinks are on you. From Insight Executive Mark Stuart @MisterMumble #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/10/andthewinnerisnot/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/10/andthewinnerisnot/ Thu, 10 May 2012 04:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/10/tiger-woods-and-j-lo-go-social/ Over the past few days a golfer and a singer used social to offer fans exclusive video content like never before. First up, Tiger Woods took to social to answer to his fans with a 14 minute Q&A video. After taking answers to questions submitted on Twitter and Facebook, the resulting video was posted to his personal website ahead of the Wells Fargo Championship in North Carolina. This intuitive approach meant Tiger could choose relevant questions and plan an answer to each. This meant he could avoid any criticism following the Masters and speak directly to fans. Although the likes of David Beckham have participated in live Q&As, this pre-recorded method could be one we see replicated a lot over the next few years. The approach received a mixed reception, with industry commentators saying the golfing star didn't reveal much of interest – but perhaps for Tiger that level of control was the point. The next celebrity to offer fans exclusive content was Jennifer Lopez. She became the first musician to use Twitter to premiere a new music video , as she unveiled ‘Follow The Leader’ to her 6.4m followers. J-Lo has been promoting the event as “a part of history”, pushing the event to her 12m Facebook fans. This approach further extends Lopez’s use of social after giving Facebook fans access to ‘I’m Into You’ before its official iTunes release in March 2011. From Insight Executive Mark Stuart @MisterMumble #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/10/tiger-woods-and-j-lo-go-social/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/10/tiger-woods-and-j-lo-go-social/ Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 John Paul Fox http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/02/hanging-out-with-footballers/ As an avid believer of the power of social media in sport (cue shameless plug of my previous blog post ), the news that the top two picks in last week’s NFL draft will hold G+ hangouts with selected fans of their new teams really excites me. The NFL is renowned for its excellent approach to social media, so it’s no surprise that it would be the first sporting body to innovate on G+. The Indianapolis Colts have confirmed that its eight lucky fans will be ‘hanging out’ with Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck; with the Washington Redskins fans likely to be hanging with Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III. A great way to reward and engage with loyal fans - good job NFL! From Insight Executive John Paul Fox @johnpaulfox #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/02/hanging-out-with-footballers/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/02/hanging-out-with-footballers/ Wed, 02 May 2012 10:00:00 Sam MacLeod http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/02/facebook-status-organs-available/ In its never ending pursuit of acquiring your private information, Facebook has made the next logical step from asking for your status updates – asking for your organs. The new ability to tag yourself as an organ donor was met with mixed reception from users and and the press alike, however it definitely seems to have done the trick . Within a matter of hours Donate Life California reported a spike of 700% in terms of new organ donors. By 5pm that figure was 1400%. Currently Zuck intends to reach a goal of 100,000 people declared as organ donors – a number he looks more than likely to reach. Do you heart Facebook? By Account Manager Sam MacLeod @cooltweetbro #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/02/facebook-status-organs-available/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/02/facebook-status-organs-available/ Wed, 02 May 2012 00:00:00 Annie Macfarlane http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/01/lose-pounds-of-advertising-budget-with-this-one-weird-old-trick/ Unless you’ve tampered with your browser or carefully nurtured a blind spot to the right of your peripheral vision, you’ve most likely spotted Facebook ads offering a cure for your flabby belly, an ancient tip to turn your gnarly old teeth into a gleaming Hollywood smile or any of a host of similarly depressing acts of sorcery. Enter Dove, which plans to bring a glimmer of light into your otherwise empty existence with a simple ad-serving app for its Australian audience. Here’s how it works: you, the indignant Facebooker, get to pick a suitable feel-good message from a range of preselected choices, and as if by magic, your ad will be served up in one of the slots often allocated to anti-cellulite wipes and knuckle-bleaching kits. It can't guarantee direct replacement, but the ads will enter the mix aimed at the target demographic. There’s a certain irony to the notion of a beauty brand setting up a campaign against companies that rely on women’s insecurities as their bread and butter, especially when Dove comes from the same stable as nasty synthetic boyspray Lynx, whose well-established titillation ads seem to me to be exactly the kind of thing Dove is politely requesting that we’re offended by. But as much as the soap-maker’s glib definition of a “real woman” brings me out in hives, in my opinion this is a smart and innovative app idea that sits well with their wider marketing. If you’re in Oz and have seen the ads already, I’d love to hear what you think. By Community Manager Annie Macfarlane @anniefiddle #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/01/lose-pounds-of-advertising-budget-with-this-one-weird-old-trick/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/may/01/lose-pounds-of-advertising-budget-with-this-one-weird-old-trick/ Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 Steve Richards http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/27/social-media-why-so-blue/ It started as an odd musing, but it's developed into a bit of a minor obsession: why are so many of the popular social media platforms blue? Yes, blue. A sort of mid-to-bright blue to be precise. Twitter , Facebook , Linkedin , Yammer , Tumblr , Orkut , Foursquare , Blippy and Soundcloud (with some orange). Even MySpace , back in the day, had a blue logo . It still uses predominantly blue, alongside black. Once you’ve noticed this you can’t un-see it. You start to feel like it’s everwhere. Why on earth has this happened? Why do so many of our websites look the same? Even Wikipedia’s photograph of the collective ‘share’ buttons is about 40-50 per cent blue. Perhaps it’s down to the dictats of Pantone, the international colour people. In 2000 and 2008, they declared that blue shades were the ‘Colour of the Year’ . In 2000, we had Cerulean , a sort of sky blue, and in 2008, we had the brighter Blue Iris . For both colours, the Pantone people justified their choice by saying that blue was calming – in the case of Blue Iris: “Combining the stable and calming aspects of blue with the mystical and spiritual qualities of purple, Blue Iris satisfies the need for reassurance in a complex world, while adding a hint of mystery and excitement.” There’s some similar guff about spiritual fulfilment for Cerulean. You may guess that I don’t buy this, and you’d be right, though there may be something in it being perceived as calming. But between the two years, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter were founded. Yammer started up in 2008. These were big years for social media and the officially sanctioned use of blue. Hmm. Another theory for me at the moment is that as computer users, we are used to seeing a blue screen. Both the Microsoft Windows and Mac desktop backgrounds and logos have made use of blue for years. Does blue = trusted technology provider? Happily, I’m not the only person to have noticed this; Quora has some questions with very good answers on the subject. There are some interesting responses, ranging from blue having no negative associations in any culture, to blue simply being a versatile background colour and one that is easy on the eye, especially when covered in text. But in short, no one really knows why it’s suddenly become so popular among a certain type of online business. Either way. Surely we’ve reached blue market saturation? By Managing Director Steve Richards @chips11 #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/27/social-media-why-so-blue/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/27/social-media-why-so-blue/ Fri, 27 April 2012 00:00:00 Dougie Pender, John Paul Fox, Mark Stuary, Claire Foss http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/20/social-soup-cookie-law,-the-olympics,-spotify-and-more/ Cookie… d’oh? In just over a month, UK business will be subject to new EU laws that will totally change the rules around using cookies on websites. From 26th May, businesses will have to obtain website visitors’ consent to store cookie on their devices, as well as explaining what they want to install and why. Image from the Muppets Wikia site Some limited cookies will be exempt, but largely, that’s the deal. Obviously this is a huge change both for both companies and user experience. So it's not as surprising as it should be that a survey out by KMPG suggests 95 per cent of businesses are not yet compliant with the rules. The law is pretty much universally criticised for being vague and ultimately pointless, with no clear recommendations for implementation. As a result, businesses have tried many different strategies for implementation, none of which are ideal. Marketers complain it will kill business, developers are scratching their heads in bemusement wondering how to comply. However, whether you understand it or not, code breaches could result in fines of up to £500,000 Is this perhaps another example of the difficulties traditional lawmakers have in imposing their will on the internet? From Studio Manager Dougie Pender @YomegoSocial #YomegoSocial Olympic Gamification With this year’s games being heralded as ‘the social games’, it was inevitable that the IOC would mark its major milestones in social media. Cue the launch of the ‘ Olympic Athletes Hub ’ to mark the ‘100 days to go’ countdown. This site aggregates the Twitter and Facebook feeds of more than 1000 current and former Olympians and allows people to follow and connect with them. Fans can enjoy photos, videos and live chats from the heart of the Olympic Village. The IOC has even added gamification elements to play on the sporting feel, as users have the ability to unlock extras such as training tips and virtual Olympic medals through their activities on the site. It will be interesting to see the extent to which the Olympic ‘Brand Police’ make use of the platform to keep an eye on athletes and ensure they don’t use social media to promote brands that are not official sponsors. From Insight Executive John Paul Fox @johnpaulfox #YomegoSocial Coke-Spot Coca-Cola has a rich history of musical partnerships, dating back to Ray Charles and most recently ‘The Beat’, a campaign for London 2012 with Mark Ronson and Katy B. The 125 year-old brand has now teamed up with music-streaming service Spotify to bring free music to the masses. Details of how the partnership will actually work are yet to be released. But the move is undoubtedly a great opportunity for Spotify, as it teams up with one of the world’s best known brands. Not only that, but it grants Spotify access to Coca-Cola’s 41m Facebook fans. Both brands have close ties with Facebook and it is almost inevitable that the partnership will bring many exciting new features. An ‘hacker den’ event took place in New York last weekend with the intent to develop apps centered on social, music-sharing experiences – so things look promising. With less than 100 days to the Olympic Games (for which Coke is a huge sponsor), the timing couldn’t be better. From live shows and events to Olympic playlists, this looks to be a match made in heaven. From Insight Executive Mark Stuart @MisterMumble #YomegoSocial Facebubble? And in case you missed it, Facebook has supposedly set its IPO date for May 17th (or maybe the 24th) . The company is hoping to raise $10 billion on a $100 billion valuation – mindblowing figures. This week, we also spotted this great infographic from Century Link, looking at the lifespans of other internet giants. Apparently, 11 years is the average before the empire starts to crumble. Facebook is eight years old. Obviously, this is one we want to buck the trend – but it’s certainly food for thought. From PR and Marketing Manager Claire Foss @claire_foss #YomegoSocial Samsung and Apple take it outside Federal Judge Lucy Koh this week directed the feuding CEOs of Apple and Samsung to meet up ‘mano-a-mano’ to discuss their ongoing patent war over the Galaxy and iPhone/iPad. Although ordering settlement talks isn't out of the ordinary, it is usually the legal teams that meet rather than the CEOs, further adding to the excitement and underlining the enormity of this case. With Samsung a key supplier to Apple, it is in both companies’ interests a truce is reached pre-trial. Let’s hope Harry Hill is on hand to ensure a clean fight. From Insight Executive John Paul Fox @johnpaulfox #YomegoSocial Find more at @YomegoSocial #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/20/social-soup-cookie-law,-the-olympics,-spotify-and-more/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/20/social-soup-cookie-law,-the-olympics,-spotify-and-more/ Fri, 20 April 2012 00:00:00 Sam MacLeod, Annie Macfarlane, Ricky Gill, John Paul Fox, Claire Foss http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/13/social-soup-your-weekly-round-up-featuring-googleplus,-kids-on-facebook-ereaders-and-instagram/ Friday 13th: unlucky for some – but not for you, privileged reader of the finest social round up on the web. This week we have the the redesign of Google+ and the backlash against its fudgy user numbers; some great stats on eReaders; worries about kids on Facebook and of course a little more about the biggest social buy-out story of the week (maybe ever): Facebook and Instagram. White space Google’s social network is obviously gearing up for the long haul. After announcing 170 million users on Google+, a figure that has been heavily questioned by critics (more below), there can be little doubt that Google is prepared to throw everything it has at making sure the product is a success. So it came as a surprise to many yesterday when they discovered that the already minimal layout of the service had been overhauled overnight. Google has justified the revamp by claiming it now focuses more on its key differentiators such as hangouts. However we can’t help shake the feeling we've seen a lot of the ‘new’ features before: a “trending topics” element borrows heavily from Twitter and a new cover photo for profiles that practically mirrors Facebook. Perhaps more excitingly for users (or less, depending on whether you actually use the service) is the mysterious white space that seems to occupy a third of the screen. Vic Gundotra, head honcho for Google+ has coyly alluded to the fact that the space is there for a reason; however was it a short sighted move to roll-out such a radical UI change with only part-baked functionality? Either way, this new interface has a lot of people scratching their heads, and possibly not for all the right reasons. From Account Manager Sam MacLeod @cooltweetbro #YomegoSocial A turn up for the books? New research from Pew confirms that reading on our favourite electronic devices is on the up and up, with a fifth of American adults having dipped into an eBook in the last year. Whether it’s due to novelty value or convenience, those of us who consume our books digitally are taking in a respectable ten extra tomes per year. Kindles and other eReaders have contributed to several new trends, including social reading (where communities virtually read and annotate books together, much like real-life bookclubs) and publishing on social platforms. We’ll be interested to see whether this trend brings some of the promising social reading and publishing communities into the mainstream. From Community Manager Annie Macfarlane @anniefiddle #YomegoSocial The kids aren’t alright It’s well-known that in order to avoid parental approval processes and child moderation, Facebook only allows users aged 13 and over to register for an account. However, a recent survey by Mini Monitor has highlighted some of the concerns of parents around the numbers of children aged 12 and below that are using the service. According to the survey, 38 per cent of all children on Facebook fall into this bracket and are too young to use the service. Obviously this presents major concerns for protective parents worried about child safety, grooming and bullying. So what can Facebook do? It could look to put in place barriers to registrations, however that would affect their own registration figures for all age groups. We have used an eModeration approved ‘Parental Approval Process’ before – but again it’s not bullet proof and users can bypass the full process by simply entering an incorrect age. Unfortunately, this is one of the hardest questions for Facebook to answer. Unless it goes extreme and start requesting credit card information to validate a user’s age, the onus will remain on parents to monitor their children’s online activities. From Project Manager Ricky Gill @rickyzu #YomegoSocial FaceGram Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram was undoubtedly the hottest story of the week, with the purchase extremely contentious amongst social media users. The $1b deal meant Instagram, with its 33m users, was worth a full $50m more than the 116 year old New York Times. For a service operating in an industry that has proven to be extremely difficult for start-ups and that was until now only available on one handset, these figures are astronomical. But with only 12% of discussion around the acquisition positive, will users jump ship to another service such as Pixable ? I doubt it very much, and if Instagram can keep its autonomy and forge a Google/Youtube esque relationship, I think the acquisition will help the service continue to evolve and increase in popularity. Smart move by Facebook? Definitely. From Insight Executive John Paul Fox @johnpaulfox #YomegoSocial Googlefudge Finally, some of the major commentators on search and social are starting to crack and wail quite loudly at Google and it’s evasiveness over Google+ user figures. This week, Danny Sullivan of the hugely influential blogs and news sites Search Engine Land and Marketing Land finally said it: If Google’s really proud of Google+ it should share some real user figures . The resulting article is an essential read for anyone interested in the media giant and its forays into social (which really, if you’re reading this blog, probably includes you). It’s fair and even handed, and even says that Google+ could have lots to be proud of and might just be great. But it won’t be any of these things for the general public until it starts being honest about what constitutes a ‘user’. Hopefully this pressure will mean we start to see more transparency about who is really using the service, and how. From PR and Marketing Manager Claire Foss @claire_foss #YomegoSocial And video of the week award goes to Belgian TV channel TNT with this beauty... Find more at @YomegoSocial #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/13/social-soup-your-weekly-round-up-featuring-googleplus,-kids-on-facebook-ereaders-and-instagram/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/13/social-soup-your-weekly-round-up-featuring-googleplus,-kids-on-facebook-ereaders-and-instagram/ Fri, 13 April 2012 00:00:00 Mark Stuart http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/12/facebook-and-instagram-now-the-dust-has-settled/ On Monday, Facebook bought Instagram . Every man and his dog had an opinion on the matter ( some news outlets even had several , differing opinions ). It certainly got the world talking. So now the dust has settled, what do we know? Instagram was 551 days old when bought and for every day of its life, it created £1.8m of value The $1b deal meant Instagram, with its 33m users, was worth a full $50m more than the 116 year old New York Times And all this for a service which has no web presence, and until very recently, was only available on one type of mobile handset It’s been impossible to ignore the fact that photo sharing is growing massively in popularity. The success of Tumblr and Pinterest further underline this. And while many people have referred to Instagram as a photography app, it’s actually a complete, visual social network in its own right. Facebook has been in this market for a while, but rather than try to compete on Instagram’s terms, Facebook has chosen to buy a tool which has seen its users’ share over a billion photos on the iPhone app alone. Although Facebook is the most popular photo-sharing service on the net, the acquisition brings over a talented pool of workers, each who will add value to Facebook. Not only that, Instagram just launched on Android, opening the app to millions more users. As a Blackberry user, I initially failed to see the appeal of Instagram, mainly because I didn’t have access to the app. But as time moved on, I began seeing friends tweeting and uploading photos to Facebook through Instagram and I liked what I saw. Images were interesting, artistic and fun. It might have some photography purist detractors, but mostly, people love it. It looks like Instagram is set to become mainstream and I look forward to seeing how Facebook manages this, integrating features and such. You can’t deny it is a huge step for what started as a little iPhone app and whether or not the astronomical price tag is the reason behind the huge quantities of conversation, Facebook has certainly set tongues wagging. There is no timescale on development at the moment (it’s not even live on the developers blog) but it is most certainly a partnership with a lot of advantages for both parties. From Insight Executive Mark Stuart @MisterMumble #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/12/facebook-and-instagram-now-the-dust-has-settled/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/12/facebook-and-instagram-now-the-dust-has-settled/ Thu, 12 April 2012 00:00:00 John Paul Fox http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/11/how-to-avoid-data-overload/ Anyone that has dipped a toe into social media monitoring will agree that the amount of data it presents can be overwhelming, with most of what emerges of little relevance to your business. One way to tackle this is to make sure that the data you’re pulling in is relevant. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all method to getting this right. The process is cyclical, and your objectives and approach must be refined on a regular basis. However, the five tips below should help you to organise and refine your social listening plans to avoid falling into the trap of measuring what you don’t need, and most importantly, ensure that those lovely analysts are leaving the office at a sensible time. Image from the very interesting Vizcraft 1. Set clear objectives Obvious, but it all comes down to this: It is important to set clear objectives for your monitoring strategy, and stick to them. This means you know what you’re looking for in the first place. For example, are you monitoring in order to improve customer service? Drive advocacy? Increase direct sales? Include key members of the wider organisation when setting objectives. This ensures that your listening strategy benefits the entire organisation. 2. Pick relevant search terms If you get this right first time, get in touch and I’ll buy you a beer. Getting the most effective keywords is a trial and error process. Simply searching for your brand name is likely to swamp you with lots of irrelevant data (can you imagine the poor analysts at Orange searching for the first time?), so make sure you try different variations till you get the data that helps meet your objectives. Remember, you must consistently refine your keywords as your strategy evolves. 3. Get the right tool The social listening market is saturated, with thousands of paid for and free listening tools that offer a range of features. Some are better at pulling data from different platforms; some allow you to respond to users directly from the dashboard (good if one of your objectives is customer service) and some have customisable dashboards that are great for content curation. Don’t let the shiny dashboards drag you in. Demo different products and compare the results. 4. Resource Properly Get the right people listening and make sure they are monitoring the correct data. It’s counterproductive to have several parts of the business listening to the same conversation. Likewise, it is also counterproductive to have one area of the business monitoring all the data. Remember to share intelligence throughout your business. If someone monitoring customer service discussion discovers an awesome product development suggestion, ensure that the staff member is adequately trained to recognise this and passes it on to the correct department. 5. Monitor the relevant platforms You need to understand the context of what people are saying and where they are saying it. Different segments may be more active on different platforms, so make sure you understand where they are. This will help in times of crisis, as you can easily uncover the signal and not get lost in the noise. Often, it could only be a small segment of the entire market reacting negatively to an issue or campaign. Different segments may act as indicators of future trends or problems, wider public opinion or may be bigger advocates for your brand. Understanding these give you an edge. 6. Go back to point 1 and start again This isn’t a one-off exercise. Objectives, influencers, resources, tools and terms need to be continually reviewed and optimised either continually or very regularly. Put this process in place and build it in to your strategy. I hope this blog post has helped you to see the light at the end of the data tunnel and begin to put measures in place to ensure you are listening effectively. Making sure that the majority of data you receive is relevant won’t happen overnight, so don’t be disheartened if you don’t get it right first time. Effective social listening is a learning process. From Insight Executive John Paul Fox @johnpaulfox #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/11/how-to-avoid-data-overload/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/11/how-to-avoid-data-overload/ Wed, 11 April 2012 00:00:00 Claire Foss, Mark Stuart, Sam Macleod, John Paul Fox http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/05/social-soup-–-your-weekly-news-round-up-googleplus-and-skype-ads,-censorship,-pinterest-and-more/ This week has been one of social services launching ‘traditional’ ad campaigns – we’ve got another weepy ad from Google+ and some hard hitting posters from Skype; some welcome search changes from Linkedin, a bit of online censorship from Dubai and a lovely little Pinterest analytics tool. And it's a day early because of Easter. Better than a chocolate egg any day... Google+ ad Google has ‘ done a John Lewis ’ and launched a tear-jerking ad following the progress of a person’s life through their interactions with the product. This time, we have Tom who meets a woman, falls in love, gets married, has a baby, gets old and has a grandchild. I can’t deny that it made me feel a bit weepy, but that could have also been the dulcet tones of Benedict Cumberbatch (*short break for swoon*) reading Shakespeare as the voiceover. It’s an ad designed to push your emotional buttons, but rationally: what does it mean for a social product or portal to promote itself via ‘traditional’ means? I can’t help thinking of Ask Jeeves and its fate [link]. Surely a portal that thrives on being better than the competition and all about sharing should be seeing organic take-up? Google claims high growth rates, but signing up to have a look is hardly the regular sharing and use they need. But then again, they might be looking for an older market that isn’t too keen on Facebook and is more responsive to traditional ads. And judging by the fact that we meet ‘Tom’ when he’s already around 30, this could well be the case. From PR and Marketing Manager Claire Foss @claire_foss #YomegoSocial And talking of ads, here’s Skype… (Image from Adweek here ) Skype has launched a $12m poster marketing campaign taking a direct swipe at text-based interactions – the likes of SMS, Facebook and Twitter. It would be interesting to know how many employees at Skype use both Facebook and Twitter, but with ad copy lines such as, “When did LOL replace the sound of laughter?” and “140 characters doesn’t equal staying in touch.”, we’d imagine some hold a grudge against the social giants. Perhaps the most interesting part of the campaign is Skype’s reliance on those platforms it makes fun of. It will use the hashtag #timeforskype on Twitter and it’s important to remember Skype’s partnership with Facebook chat for video calls. A nice campaign, but will it work? From Insight Executive Mark Stuart @MisterMumble #YomegoSocial They’re watching The US government is no stranger to keeping tabs on citizens’ social media activities, and the UK could be set to follow the same path if current plans come to fruition. However one place that is still flying the flag for gross privacy invasion is Dubai; last week the Emirates chief of police called for legal action to be taken against those that speak out against the UAE on social media channels. Dubai police already has a specialist team that deals with monitoring online chatter and any added powers can only serve to restrict the freedom of its citizens further. With the Arab Spring being powered through social, it’s easy to see why states in the region would fear the power of the net, but is it right to arrest people based on a tweet? Dubai is by no means an isolated case – governments across the world are scrambling to keep tabs on social – but at what point does it cross the line? From Account Manager Sam MacLeod @cooltweetbro #YomegoSocial Linkedin search changes The mere thought of using the built-in search facility on a social media site such as Facebook is enough to send a chill down the spine of any social media user. The poor functionality and predominantly irrelevant set of results has led to most of us doing our social media searching (stalking) on Google. Linkedin was another big offender, but a range of new features has just been rolled out to entice users to keep their searching on-site. One update involved significant improvements to the ‘group search’ function, matching searches by conversations taking place rather than relying solely on the title and description – a long-overdue feature. This will help to filter out inactive groups and highlight groups which users may not have discovered in the past. An update to the ‘People You May Know’ feature has also been well received, with users now given the ability to filter based on company and university. Good work Linkedin. Let’s hope other platforms follow suit. From Insight Executive John Paul Fox @johnpaulfox #YomegoSocial Pinalytics Start-up Pinerly this week launched a neat analytics tool for the world’s fastest growing social network , Pinterest. By creating campaigns within the tool, brands can view stats on a dashboard and schedule pins. Although basic at this early stage, the metrics are handy to see what kind of content is doing well. Though the majority of brands are still to venture into the realms of Pinterest, some have launched nice creative campaigns. Peugeot’s multi-platform Panama Puzzle is a good example, with the brand rewarding fans that completed the missing pin on a board by tracking an image down from its Facebook page and website. From Insight Executive John Paul Fox @johnpaulfox #YomegoSocial Find more at @YomegoSocial #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/05/social-soup-–-your-weekly-news-round-up-googleplus-and-skype-ads,-censorship,-pinterest-and-more/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/05/social-soup-–-your-weekly-news-round-up-googleplus-and-skype-ads,-censorship,-pinterest-and-more/ Thu, 05 April 2012 00:00:00 Dougie Pender http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/04/html-5-its-the-future-or-is-it/ It's the future... or is it? ( Source ) Mobile development platform provider Appcelerator recently released its Q1 Mobile Developer report – normally a fantastic resource for monitoring mobile development trends. “Key findings: HTML 5 moves to centre stage” – screamed the headline. “79% of developers are keying in on HTML5” apparently. “Really?” thought I… “how have I missed this seismic shift in mobile app development methodologies? Has the handset market suddenly matured with a reasonable level of saturation of HTML5-compliant devices? Or is this another example of HTML5 hype which leaves developers with their head in hands, knowing that it’s added more fuel to the myth of this programatic Nirvana?” Inspection of the (admittedly excellent) Appcelerator report reveals the headline to be in a similar vein to that old retailer favourite “ up to 50% OFF ”. A large proportion of developers have indicated that they expect to use some HTML5 within their apps, with the majority indicating that less than half of their app is likely to be HTML5-based. The most relevant statistic, in my opinion, was that only 6% of developers intend to build pure HTML5 browser-based applications. This figure reveals a far more accurate picture of the current development landscape. HTML5 is a useful emerging tool in the developer’s arsenal. It is highly likely to be a significant component within a significant percentage of future applications, but it is not yet a mature enough technology to be utilised extensively across a broad range of apps. My problem with the current wave of marketing hype is that it’s creating an unrealistic expectation amongst those of a non-technical persuasion. It’s becoming increasingly common to receive a brief from a client who has already decided that their application will be built in HTML5 and for Account and Project Managers to casually mention HTML5 as a suitable development option. “Developer evangelists” perpetuate these views through the slew of speaker slots and magazine articles which seem to be available to those who wish to shout loudest rather than smartest. I was recently at a conference where a keynote speaker spent 90 minutes extolling the virtues of HTML5 for cross-platform games development. When asked why he didn’t get have any titles on public release he sheepishly admitted “we can’t get them working properly outside of Chrome. Yet”. “Really?!” thought I… Correcting these unrealistic expectations can be exceedingly difficult. Advising a potential client that they may wish to re-think their development strategy is often met with bemusement, and can easily result in the client deciding to give their project to the unscrupulous tech team who are more than happy to agree until the budget is signed off. As Appcelerator correctly points out in its report, developers should be selecting a suitable technical approach based on the tasks required by the application. To limit functionality (or to wipe out access by vast swathes of your user demographic) entirely because you want to build using the most fashionable tech isn’t really a good idea. From Studio Manager Dougie Pender @YomegoSocial #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/04/html-5-its-the-future-or-is-it/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2012/april/04/html-5-its-the-future-or-is-it/ Wed, 04 April 2012 00:00:00 Sam MacLeod http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2011/december/23/social-soup-5-festive-frolics-edition/ What a year in social! There have been highs, lows and an overload of end - of - year rundowns . So for the final Soup of 2011 we’ve decided to focus on the strictly festive with a collection of our favourite campaigns this holiday season. Oh Heineken... Social media savvy Heineken realised that a normal Christmas tree just wouldn’t cut it in this day and age of internets and Facebooks. Accordingly they decided to take things to the next logical level by creating an 11 metre tall, 48-screened, interactive social media ‘tree’ based in Singapore. Yup, it’s as crazy as it sounds. Using their Facebook app users can create and share messages that will displayed on the tree throughout its stay. The season of goodwill to MEN. In terms of effective social media marketing, few can dismiss the raging success that was the ‘Old Spice’ viral campaign of 2010 . Here he is again, this time giving out presents to all 7 billion people in the world through his MANta Claus viral videos on YouTube. Gifts so far include separating Australia from Pangaea and gifting 'Dove-chucks' to the people of Switzerland. Once again, Old Spice has created a campaign that’s managed to keep a relatively well-known character fresh, exciting and incredibly sharable. Good on them! Dads don’t go to Littlewoods Littlewoods re-telling of a Christmas school-play (complete with gate-crashing rappers) proved to be particularly divisive this year after it seemed to imply that Mums were the mysterious force behind Christmas – not Santa – and that the way to gain a child’s love is to do so through expensive electronics purchased on credit. Unsurprisingly this hasn’t worked out too well for their social credibility with the campaign receiving some pretty terrible write-ups ; compounded all the more by the very un-festive manner in which they handled things. Bah humbug! #o2santa Good ol’ St Nick took some time out of his busy prep work to help mobile phone provider o2 launch a particularly sweet festive campaign entitled ' the o2 Santa '. Users could tweet Santa using the hashtag #o2santa and he would then read out their message for the whole world to see on his YouTube channel . So far Santa has uploaded a whopping 991 videos for the users that managed to find themselves on the right side of his naughty & nice list; proving that even at his busiest time of the year Santa still understands the value of good social media. Ever seen the John Lewis ad? Obviously that question is entirely rhetorical: the advert itself has topped almost every list for ' ad of the year ' and has been responsible for mass hysterics , renewed festive spirit and a slew of parodies , so it would be churlish to turn a blind eye to this year’s seasonal viral hit. Aside from bringing the nation to tears, the video has managed to amass an impressive 3.7m views on YouTube as well as propelling the ad’s songstress, Slow Moving Millie, to #31 in the UK singles chart. And finally... How does he do it? Perhaps the reason Santa has the time to record 991 YouTube videos these days is down to his new and improved sidekick ‘Siri’ – or at least that’s what Apple’s suggesting with their newest campaign. This year they managed to obtain exclusive footage of Mr Claus using his brand spanking new iPhone 4S and its inbuilt digital assistant to aid him with his annual rounds. It may be atrociously cheesy but it leaves a warm, tingly feeling in our hearts, and we can’t be alone as the video has racked up a whopping 2.8m views so far. Viva la Santa! That’s all folks, have a great time this Christmas and we’ll see you all, bleary eyed, in January! By Account Manager Sam MacLeod @cooltweetbro #YomegoSocial http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2011/december/23/social-soup-5-festive-frolics-edition/ http://www.yomego.com/blog/posts/2011/december/23/social-soup-5-festive-frolics-edition/ Fri, 23 December 2011 00:00:00