Year: 2010

You will remember we have been running a competition online for Audio-Technica, well we now have the winner. Here it is in all it’s glory – the winner is Zebedee Budworth with Astropets. We received more than 1,500 votes on the final shortlist and this won with 650 votes. Here is his official description of his entry: Hello I’m Zebedee and I’m a musician based in London! I wrote this song on the banjo then added all the instruments and vocals in my little bedroom utilising a book as a kick drum and keys as sleigh bells and stuff. All ... Read more

In this country cameras and any other form of recording equipment are banned from our courtrooms to stop the media interfering with live trials, but this week the British Chief Justice actually ruled that there is to be no ban on using the social network Twitter in the courtroom. Twitter finally became a courtroom tool last week when a court judge allowed mediamen to tweet from a bail hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. However, two days after this ground breaking moment another judge barred it, so it’s clearly still a contentious issue. I have to admit I am slightly ... Read more

You might remember that I posted a while back about a social media campaign we have been running for the global music manufacturer Audio-Technica. We ran a social media audit and workshop for them and created an online strategy which included launching the alternative Christmas track competition, which has been a lot of fun to run and organise albeit very busy. In the last few months we have received a huge number of musical entries from all across the world varying in quality and genre. The original aim of the campaign was to seek out fun and vibrant alternatives to ... Read more

I was reading my feeds this morning and came across this little gem from our friend Darren Rowse at Problogger. He has put together a nice infogrpahic on what makes the perfect blogger outreach campaign. I have worked on a lot of blogger outreach campaigns over the last few years and one of the first things I ask the client is what is in it for the blogger and his/her readers not just your marketing campaign? If there isn’t anything in it for both of them and the company then I tell them that it isn’t right for blogger outreach ... Read more

In November a good friend of mine Charlotte Britton, conducted a survey with businesses in Yorkshire to find out how companies in the region were utilising social media marketing. One of the most interesting statistics I noticed was that 75% said social media had been responsible for creating positive PR about the company and 40% saying social media had helped mitigate PR problems. Those are quite bold statements but here are some of the other interesting headline statistics: 82% of respondents said they used LinkedIn to promote their business with 67% saying there key individuals were using LinkedIn to promote ... Read more

This post idea came from a chat I had with a current client the other day, we were discussing the success of their corporate blog. The client is happy with the work that we have done to build the social presence of his company up. However, he then told me that he did have doubts about making his team members in his words ‘too famous’. He asked me what I thought about other businesses trying to poach his staff. I have heard this one before, my advice was this, if you are committed to making your businesses more engaging online ... Read more

I spotted this on Twitter this morning shared by Simon Apps. Its a song all about Gillian McKeith and her troubles on I’m a Celebrity. It’s one of the most amusing things I have seen in a while and I had to share it. I hope you like it.

I am always reading (or viewing infographics) on the latest statistics about Facebook’s mobile usage increasing, Bebo being on the decline and more recently MySpace teaming up with Facebook as it moves away from being a social network to being seen as an entertainment platform. However, the study that has stood out to me this week has one been undertaken by Seomoz which looked into why people start blogs and use social media. An article in emarketer states: Nearly 71% of respondents said they use social media as part of their SEO strategy. Improving visibility was the primary reason nearly ... Read more

I read an article today about a survey, which is reported to be the largest into online traffic, that sadly I whole heartedly disagreed with. The article which appeared in CorpComms Magazine stated the following about the survey: While two thirds of online companies use Facebook to promote their business, less than 30 per cent find the platform remotely effective in driving traffic to their website, according to the world’s largest survey of website traffic. Micro-blogging site Twitter fared equally badly with just 27 per cent of online companies attributing any rise in website visitor numbers to their presence on ... Read more

A friend of mine dropped me a note about this new campaign yesterday and I thought it was worth discussing on the blog. JustGiving, the UK’s largest online fundraising platform, and the international children’s charity War Child have teamed up with Sports Interactive and SEGA’s ‘Football Manager™’ in a cause-related marketing partnership launched this week. Football Manager 2011, which is amazingly now in its sixth series, will include the charity’s’ banners on the virtual advertising boards alongside the pitch, which when clicked, will actually allow users to make donations to War Child through the JustGiving website. I have seen advertising ... Read more