This is a presentation that I gave at the IAB Retail Forum (other presentations only available for IAB members). It gives an overview of the best and worst in class in this space as well as my view of the future of retail and social media.
By , Associate Director – Social Media, Tamar
Before I start this blog, I must apologise for both the tenuous nature of my analogy, and the actual origin of the story too. Both may make you chuckle, or they might simply make you wonder “What the hell was he searching for THAT for?” – but hopefully you can see past my eccentric search habits and make it through to the end of my story, for therein lies the gold… Read more…
by Rob Salmon, Director of Digital Marketing, Torchbox,
Did you watch any of the ski cross in the Winter Olympics? The one where four top class skiers line-up before racing down a rocking and a rolling rollercoaster of a track over bumps and jumps at blistering speeds in a quest to beat the rest and make it to the bottom first. Like a James Bond ski chase where you don’t know whose going to triumph. It was incredibly compelling content.
I made a point of watching as much as I could. I told my family. My friends. My workmates. Maybe they too went and watched and then told their circles.
So what relevance does this have to social media?
Well, if you want people to become a fan of your Facebook page, follow you on Twitter or share your iPhone app, I reckon you had better make sure it has a compelling content offer.
Otherwise, you’ll end up with a Winter Olympic discipline akin to watching paint dry. And I don’t think watching paint dry is ever going to command a large or highly engaged audience (although maybe this YouTube link which has been watched 33k time proves that wrong!?). Read more…
By Katie Streten, Imagination
There is a lot of discussion on blogs and in social media generally about Twitters slow and careful inching towards a revenue model. Most of the thought is that it will take the tried and tested advertising approach, and after all, it has worked well for Facebook so there is no reason Twitter wouldn’t benefit in a similar way. Twitter has a simple mechanic that allows trend and conversation tracking and the potential is that this will deliver the possibility of highly targeted advertising from brands in much the same way that Facebook does. The key difference between the two would be that Facebook’s advertising is based on the demographic and life stage data their users provide the network with and Twitter’s would focus not on demographics but on moments of interest, conversations. And in fact Twitter’s ability to model and deliver based on conversation would be far more powerful than Facebook’s model – after all, simply because I am a 45 year old mother of three doesn’t mean I am not going to be highly interested in paintballing in the New Forest, and yet this may only be the interest of a weekend, a day, an hour. Identity is more fluid than demographics allow and the ability to talk to users in real time moments of decision would be incredibly powerful for any advertiser. Read more…
