As social media are increasingly being used to drive audiences to buy products and services, brands are able to evaluate their return on investment using five simple tests.
By Habib Amir
How can brands find a social media evaluation model that forecasts the monetary value of their campaign, plans e-commerce mechanics and evaluates return on investment?
WHEN EVERYONE'S DISCUSSING IT, A BRAND ATTAINS CELEBRITY STATUS IN ITS OWN RIGHT. THAT'S THE BEAUTY OF POSITIVE NEWS COVERAGE, SAYS CLARION COMMUNICATIONS' CHIEF EXECUTIVE
BY GARY FREEMANTLE
Just like celebrities, a brand that can make the news positively has genuine power and currency
As a PR agency we offer many services, from crisis
management to brand reputation building - but the one which excites clients the
most is news generation. Getting their brand talked about (positively of
course) on the news pages, on TV, on the radio or online – or preferably all of
these. PRs and marketers alike love it.
Everybody loves Instagram. Who doesn’t love snooping into the private lives of celebrities or spying on what your faux friends are up to? There’s been the odd argument that people over-share when it comes to posting their favourite snaps online - and when it comes to seeing what your friend had for breakfast, lunch and dinner; there is probably a line to be drawn somewhere.
Vine, the six-second looping video app owned by Twitter,
has certainly introduced a great new format for people to play with, not least
PRs. The forced brevity leads to a great
range of creative uses - so now, six months after it was first introduced, I
thought it worthwhile to recap some of the most novel uses so far.
Online photo-sharing and social networking service Instagram
has taken the world by storm. To date there are over 100 million users uploading
pictures to filter and share amongst other devoted ‘instagrammers’ every day -
the most popular of which rack up ‘likes’ into the five figure bracket or more.
John Mayne, account director, Clarion Communications
A couple of wily news hounds at Clarion Communications decided to set their alarm clocks extra early this week to go and meet Sky News’ defence reporter Alistair Bunkall and news reporter Richard Suchet, to discuss their insights into landing that illusive TV coverage for clients.
Rebecca Bolton, digital account manager, Clarion Communications
Every time I pick up a newspaper just lately there’s another story about Facebook - as the world’s largest social network it’s obviously going to attract controversy and last week was no different, as The Sun ran a story on how bookies are ‘buying advertising space which appears on children’s Facebook news feeds’. Even though, of course, children aren’t the target demographic.
(link: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article4787148.ece)
Habib Amir, head of digital, Clarion Communications
Five Ways Brands Will Drive Revenue From Social Media Over The Next 12 Months
Most brands have learnt how to reach consumers and build advocacy through social media, but to drive sales they need to set up the right online purchase routes relevant to their specific business. And digitally intelligent brands have realised that Likes, Followers, and +1s shouldn’t be the primary KPI for measuring social media campaign success. Measurement is set to become more sophisticated in 2013, and the industry benchmark for measurement will shift from community growth to revenue and profit through social media. Here, Habib Amir of influenceD predicts five purchase routes brands will increasingly be looking to set up this year to drive sales.
After the excesses of Christmas, the traditional January purge kicks off in earnest. Nicola Kemp picks 13 common bad habits that marketers should forgo this year.
Howard Bowden, head of content, Clarion Communications
Twenty-four and a bit hours later and I still can’t work out what’s more astonishing: that David Bowie is back, or the way in which he did it. Lets look at the facts: 1. With the exception of a four-piece guitar band from up north, Bowie is THE most important figure in British Popular Music over the past half a century (source: me). 2. With no live performances in a decade, no new music since 2006 and well documented health issues, the word was that we’d never hear from him again (as ‘confirmed’ to me by a national newspaper news editor the other week). 3. The last time I checked, the internet was a pretty big place, yet NO-ONE knew any of this was coming; no blurry cameraphone shots of him leaving a recording studio, no MP3s of demos leaked onto filesharing sites, and no slip-up by someone involved in its making on Twitter, as the excellent Alexis Petridis wrote in The Guardian. This really isn’t how you’re supposed to do things these days, you know.
It's Christmas party season - and just as I was getting to grips with the gym again, we’re once more in the middle of a booze and indulgence-fuelled five weeks of office, supplier and client dinners and drinks.
Overheard: a journalist saying ‘no more emails - my inbox has crashed twice in the last hour due to the number I’ve received about products for the gift guide I’m working on’…
Sam Payne, account executive, Clarion Communications
At a time of year when Westernised people are expected to lavish each other with gifts - some useful, some dubious - there’s potentially room to take advantage of the consumer when they enter the annual festive spending frenzy.
The battle of the best Christmas TV adverts has been as hot as ever this season - but I’m still talking with friends about the festive offering from John Lewis. Christmas cracker paper hats off to them for producing something different and fresh, as they did last year, which has successfully steered away from the traditional (and boring) glitz and glam of other Christmas ads.
Elizabeth Bateman, account manager, Clarion Communications
Yuletide greetings, savvy shoppers. And of course the particularly savvy shoppers amongst us will avoid the crush this year and do the bulk of their Christmas shopping online. It’s the easy solution to your festive prayers: no need to brave the cold, and you can beat the rush - and the elbow digs - to ensure all your Christmas parcels are signed, sealed, delivered and yours.
Habib Amir, head of digital, Clarion Communications
This month we’re launching Clarion’s new digital division - influenceD - which will work across all aspects of social media, social advertising and online PR. Why? Because clients increasingly want all their digital, social and PR needs satisfied under one roof.
Rebecca Bolton, digital team, Clarion Communications
Christmas can be fraught with customer service nightmares - from last minute present purchases and returns of unwanted gifts to the drama of the Boxing Day sales. And with 18 million people now using social media to contact companies over customer service issues, gone are the days of the polite letter to the editor, or contacting Anne Robinson on Watchdog over an incident of poor customer service.
Habib Amir, head of digital, Clarion Communications
You have to hand it to Facebook: despite ever more cunning attempts by social media newcomers, it continues to lead the field when it comes to reaching consumers online. Which is great news for any of us trying to get our clients in front of customers.
A lucky group of us at Clarion were recently given the opportunity to visit one of Britain’s national newspapers to get the inside scoop on how the other half work. And when I say other half, I mean of course journalists - we all know there’s a love/hate relationship between journos and us PRs, and although some don’t like to admit it, we do work hand in hand to help deliver news.
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