Scarcity, secrecy, exclusivity. Three words that don’t exactly reflect the transparency and freedom of information that brands are supposedly striving for in a social age. But that’s also the reason that they can be so powerful in triggering emotional impact and peer-to-peer conversation when they are used well. Last week, a friend of mine invited [...]
A newly released white paper gives an interesting perspective on how brands are using Twitter – and how it could be done better. Digital agency 360i’s ‘Twitter and the Consumer-Marketer Dynamic’ confirms that marketers’ use of Twitter is very different to how regular folk use the platform in their daily lives. The stand-out stats include [...]
It’s the big question in word of mouth: what is an advocate worth? Well, according to research Syncapse and Hotspex have just released on eMarketer, on average $136.38. The study looked at the Facebook fans of the 20 biggest corporate brands on the site, and calculated the fans’ worth from a combination of how much [...]
Every brand wants their very own new, shiny app, right? Well, maybe they should consider exploiting existing apps – and the audiences and conversations already built around them – before they fork out. In a recent interview Chris Cunningham, co-founder and CEO of Appsavvy, had a great piece of advice for companies looking to incorporate [...]
At 1000heads we pride ourselves on always keeping our eyes, ears and mouths open. So we’ve launched @wewantworkwith; a profile that will chart our thoughts on how brands and people can make themselves more conversational. Some of our ideas will be reactive, such as recommending how GAP could have used the snow to their advantage, by [...]
This barely one-minute video from PBS’s Digital Nation show is a little gem. Watch Sherry Turkle, clinical psychologist and director of the M.I.T. Initiative on Technology and Self, talk about ‘the virtual mirror’: Although I’m wary of the ‘social media symbolises the emptiness of our real lives’ shtick (just see Stefana Broadbent’s recent TED Talk [...]
This week, our Director of Engagement James Whatley headed over to Dublin to speak at Simply Zesty Winter Camp, where a big noisy bunch of people gather to discuss the future of social media and brands. James will be posting about it all over the next couple of days but until then you can check [...]
To misquote Paula Cole (great tune that) – where have all the hitchhikers gone? Though you still see the odd incongruously well-dressed middle aged man (with a mysterious red number-plate) standing on the hard shoulder of the M3, the hitchhiker is largely an anachronism on the British roads. My dear mother recently told me her [...]
Twenty days in, and I was already getting disillusioned with Twitter lists. Their main function seemed to be as a game of one-upmanship for self-promoting marketers to prove just how darn cool and well connected they are. However, Mashable have cheered me up with this tale of how the NHL are crowdsourcing lists of fans’ [...]
There’s a nice piece in the Chicago Tribune this week about a new business trend emerging: reverse mentoring, where social media savvy young employees induct their older superiors into the landscape and language of the connected world. It’s an example of using conversation as an internal change agent, something I touched on last week, and [...]
