Mobile News

Crisis Communications: why you should use social media when disaster strikes

I’ve been speaking to a lot of communications professionals lately about how to update their crisis communications strategy for the Twitter age. It’s true that social media has completely changed the game for crisis comms pros as now the crowd informs the crowd about how a disaster, natural or corporate-made, is likely to impact their community. But smart companies can use this technology as well to improve their communications strategy with the public. Here’s another reason why. Firstly, it makes sense to pre-plan your social media crisis comms strategy in advance. A plan of attack will be of a huge help as you try to pull in your organization’s social media monitoring firepower to help defuse a smoldering crisis. Secondly, it’s imperative you bring that advanced training back to your team.

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Crisis Communications: why you should use social media when disaster strikes

The Instagram effect on your business

A few weeks ago we wrote about the “mission-critical” importance of Tweeting business leaders. Why is that? Put simply, CEOs who communicate freely using social media are held in higher regard – not just by employees, but by customers too, study after study shows. An organization where the boss Tweets is an organization where internal communications is more dynamic and transparent. That then has an impact on external comms, or the brand image portrayed to the public. Let’s head to another end of the organization now, to the developers, engineers and coders where some of the best ideas and brightest innovations are emerging in the business world, as evidenced by the run-away success of Instagram. I’ve professed my fandom for Instagram in this column before. In under 18 months, it has amassed a user base of 35 million people who swap photos on the go.

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The Instagram effect on your business

Engagement soars with new Facebook Timeline: study

Last week we got the latest IAB figures showing a booming digital ad sector , helped by the continued rise of social + mobile + video. Today, a new global digital ad report is out, showing social search is one of the fastest growing segments of online search, which itself is still far and away the largest revenue-generator in digital advertising. Deep into the findings of Adobe’s Global Digital Advertising Q1 2012 Update – a title only a search engine could love – comes this interesting fact: Facebook post engagement has grown 176% since the start of the year, thanks to the new pic-friendly Facebook Timeline. Here’s what it looks like in chart form: This mirrors a study we looked at a few weeks back, which found the new Facebook format has boosted brand content engagement by 46 percent for 15 of the world’s biggest brands, including Toyota, Walmart, Coca-Cola and Ford. The Adobe study also goes on to say that the global ad spend on Facebook has increased by 93% year-on-year, accounting for as much as 5% of global search spend. Looking ahead, the CPC rate (cost per click) for Facebook advertisers is expected to stabilize and even decelerate in the year ahead. And, fan engagement is expected to increase as more brands make the switch over to the new Timeline.

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Engagement soars with new Facebook Timeline: study

Infographic that explains why Facebook paid a cool billion for Instagram

A billion dollars for a 13-person app-making startup that’s never made a dime? That’s the headline head-scratcher coming out of yesterday’s blockbuster acquisition of the super-popular photo-sharing app Instagram by Facebook. But take a closer look at the numbers and you see what Facebook gets out of it: a global, mobile powerhouse. Name the region, and Instagram is BIG there. The Yanks seem to be the most prolific at snapping and swapping Instagram photos, followed by Japan, Brazil and much of Europe. Of course the boom in Instagram, with over 30 million users, follows closely to the penetration of iPhones. Now, it’s on the Android system, it’s quickly padding its numbers. Here’s an Infographic on Instagram’s stunning rise that goes back a few months

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Infographic that explains why Facebook paid a cool billion for Instagram

The social, mobile pay-off and how to cash in

If we sound a bit too cheery here at SMI lately, I can assure you our optimism around the social sector is well-founded. The trifecta of social, mobile and video are transforming not just the world of marketing, but business as well. This powerful trio is driving sales, helping brands hone their marketing and improving customer relations, building deeper bonds that could lead to improved messaging and improved products. As we reported this week, the ad revenues around social+video combined now represents a £443 million market in the UK alone. These two are the fastest growing segments of digital. And digital itself is driving the overall ad sector in most markets.

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The social, mobile pay-off and how to cash in

Social apps review: B2B goes app-crazy

There’s something quite wonderful about conducting day-to-day office admin while out and about: sipping a coffee and people-watching, perhaps. Or soaking up the rays on a luxury yacht on the Med (we wish). Long gone are the days when business-folk were chained to their desks, or made to lug heavy slabs of creaking technology around. Nowadays everything is streamlined and easy, as these new apps show.

Video, social drive UK digital ad market to record gains

The IAB UK’s latest tally is just out this morning and again the figures make for bullish reading material. Once again, the digital ad growth in the UK is experiencing crisis-defying growth, and the fastest growing part of that is social media marketing. Let’s dig into the numbers. Here are the top-line figures from the latest IAB audit : online advertising increased by 14.4% year-on-year in 2011 to a new high of £4.784 billion, up £687 million. for first time ever, display tops £1bn (with video display passing £100m) Online video spend doubled year-on-year to £109 million; video has grown more than eight-fold since 2008 (£12 million) In 2011, banner ads on social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn, increased by 75% to £240 million; this too represents an eight-fold increase since 2008. social networks account for 27% of all the time spent online in the UK in 2011. 40% of marketer polled by the IAB plan to use online video to increase brand awareness in next 12 months. What’s interesting to us is what’s emerging as the twin drivers of digital ad spend in the UK: mobile and social.

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Video, social drive UK digital ad market to record gains

More bad news for creatives: user-generated video scores big in ad effectiveness study

Your teenage nephew’s homemade videos may not win an award for creativity, or even clarity, but don’t dismiss the power of these amateur auteurs. A new ad effectiveness study shows that user-generated videos more than pull their weight when compared to the pros. They even drive sales. That’s the findings of a new study by comScore and EXPO , which helps brands tap into the creativeness of undiscovered film producers for their marketing needs. But don’t go cutting the ties with your creative agency just yet. The study found that professionally produced and user-generated video “are highly synergistic, driving higher levels of sales effectiveness when used in tandem.” The results propose something deemed unthinkable just a few years ago: “that even greater returns can be had by combining their use with authentic, user-generated content.” This is no doubt due to the advancement in consumer technologies and super-cheap editing software that can make even handheld video production shot on a mobile look professional. As the chart below shows, user-generated video actually scores higher than the pros in three of these four categorical benchmarks. The message being that used together, the effectiveness scores even higher. The findings shouldn’t be that surprising.

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More bad news for creatives: user-generated video scores big in ad effectiveness study

Twitter crowns the era of T-commerce with Promoted Products

Twitter notified us this evening it is gradually rolling out to small businesses – a huge force in the world of social commerce, it turns out – a “self-serve advertising product” called Promoted Products for Small Business that delivers potential sales leads to SMEs active in the mobile and social space. Promoted Products takes its current ad products suite – you’ve probably heard of Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts  – a step further by hand-selecting advertisers’ best Tweets and serving them up to targeted audiences, the company explains . Here’s the two-minute explanation of how Twitter sees this product becoming a vital tool for SMEs: The timing around the announcement is interesting. It comes as the market faces fresh doubts about the promise of F-commerce and how social media in general can boost sales for social-savvy merchants. For Twitter, it comes on the heels of a new alliance with American Express that rewards customers with coupons and discounts should they Tweet about their purchases. Twitter is taking its AmEx partnership a step further with Promoted Products, offering special incentives to AmEx affiliated merchants who take up the program. Here’s the pay-off, as Twitter explains: American Express is offering $100 in free Twitter advertising to the first 10,000 eligible cardmembers and merchants who participate in this rollout. Companies interested in participating can still register via http://ads.twitter.com/amex

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Twitter crowns the era of T-commerce with Promoted Products

The KONY effect and why it’s a big deal for companies

It’s been just over two weeks since the aptly named, under-the-radar NGO Invisible Children released to YouTube a classic piece of agitprop video, KONY2012 . And what a two weeks! The video has been viewed more than 100 million times and Invisible Children have been lauded for their actions in shining a spotlight on the atrocities carried out in central Africa by Joseph Kony, leader of the Lords Resistance Army. At the same time the very success of KONY2012 has shone an equally bright spotlight on both the finances of Invisible Children and the factual accuracy of the video. And that global scrutiny apparently led to the mental breakdown of the charity’s co-founder Jason Russell, a bizarre episode that played out in broad daylight on the streets of San Diego and was, of course, filmed, becoming a social media sensation in its own right. Away from the main event of bringing a despot to justice and the TMZ sideshow of Russell’s breakdown, KONY2012 also has generated massive interest from marketers, eager to understand exactly what social media alchemy helped create this perfect viral event. Already the web is spewing with blog posts and articles with headlines like: “10 tips marketers can learn from KONY2012″. Social media gurus and marketing MBA tutors no doubt are deleting their Obama 08 Campaign PowerPoint slides and replacing them with fresh, new KONY2012 insight. Okay, maybe I’m being a little glib here.

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The KONY effect and why it’s a big deal for companies

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