We have had much debate in the office surrounding Twitter’s ‘favourite’ star, and now the new ‘love’ heart. Should the star have been reserved for those extra special tweets (and is therefore fairly pointless) or should it be used similarly to Facebook’s ‘like’ button, used as a conversation ender, an acknowledgment of posts that don’t require a response and just to generally like a tweet? (more…)
The ones that follow you around the Internet, the ones that pop up half way through the article you’re reading or the flashy ones at the top of a page. Adverts are everywhere and are ever more pervasive, invasive and persistent, until now.
Ad blocking, particularly in mobile advertising, is becoming even easier for the user to do, potentially plunging your advert, your money and your presence online into oblivion. Ad blocking has grown globally by 41% in the past year alone as more users are purging their pages in favour of a clutter free viewing that is of their choosing. (more…)
Google Plus: Dead, Dying or Starting Anew?
Tech giant Google has finally relented in its attempt to corner the social media market with erstwhile Facebook competitor Google Plus. A relative failure by the industry titan to muscle its way into the lucrative social media business, Google’s social network struggled to gain traction at the start of its four year run, maintaining a middling user base and lack of interest from their target audience. Heavy handed attempts to manually boost their users fell flat, and the forced integration of Google Plus with YouTube only made people begrudging of this social network they didn’t want to use. (more…)
Researchers at the University of Cambridge and Stanford University have found that computers are able to predict our tastes and personalities better than people we know in real life, just by analysing Facebook ‘likes’. (more…)
Social media is quickly growing and in this day and age it can sometimes become difficult to keep up. With new social networks being created all of the time and new updates to existing platforms you can get a bit in a spin about social media.
When you start a social media campaign it is best to research into what platforms best suit your client base, so choose wisely. You wouldn’t want to fill your plate with too many cakes all in one go, so why overload yourself with too many social media platforms at one time?
You should initially set up the big 5 which are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube. Set these accounts up containing your business information to give you more chance of being found through local search. After these are set up you can then pick and choose any other platforms that would work for you, such as Pinterest or Flickr. These examples would be particularly relevant to businesses that sell products and would be an additional way of circulating images of these products and getting them seen and shared.
After all this has been done its time to start posting!
Before you start you should research similar accounts, even competitors to see what works for them and potentially for you. From this you’ll be able to create posts using ideas used on other accounts as well as your own to create unique content to draw in your customer base.
At Mulberry Square we carry out ongoing research to follow and like the right type of people to get the accounts we manage seen on the different platforms. We search the many platforms for ideas and create content to suite our clients customer base and produce results.
Don’t overload your followers.
Don’t just see what you post on Twitter and other social media platforms as an easy win when you need to get clicks! Twitter is about building up a valuable relationship between your brand, product or service and your target audience or audiences. Social media is not just a method of broadcast; your content needs to be valuable and incentivise followers, fans and the like to continue to follow your account. (more…)
When it comes to social media most people don’t realise the benefits and how it can help their business. First of all it’s free and if something is free you should definitely take advantage of that. Secondly there’s a huge potential client base that you aren’t reaching and lastly it’s used daily by almost everybody!
What people may not know is that like Google and Yahoo, social media platforms work in a similar way. They all work like directories, for example on Facebook you can look for a print company and it will come up with the most popular, location based or exact match to what you have searched.
As there are so many different social media platforms that it is always best to assess where most of your client base will be. There would be no point being on LinkedIn for example if you were selling fruit and veg, but if you were selling fruit and veg franchises this would work. It’s all about knowing your audience and which platforms they are using. (more…)
So I arrived yesterday morning to start my new job with Mulberry Square nice and early. There had been a little bit of snow overnight that led to me being a little bit over cautious. I was happy to be early though and have been warmly welcomed into my new role and place of work. Eager to get started, so far I have customised my desktop, browser and email. Now that I am happy with my set up, I am looking for the next thing to do. I happen to love writing blog posts so I have already asked if I can write for the blog here. So here goes; please be kind.
Apparently 5% of marketing executives cut their budgets in the first three months of 2011.
This compared with 20% who said they had increased their planned spend.
In fact, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising survey suggested that confidence among marketing executives fell to its lowest level since the recession began. Pessimism was at its highest for two years. Fears around public spending costs, rising unemployment and political uncertainty all contribute to whether we’re confident about spending, both on a business and personal level.
Now marketing folk are generally upbeat and optimistic – we can always make things better. We’re creative and enthusiastic by nature. We’re also opportunist and so it was no surprise that the same survey revealed that TV, press and radio advertising, and the budget for PR and events, actually increased, albeit only slightly.
Generally though, there was little to cheer about although the debate about cutting a marketing budget in recession is not new. If the time is right to launch a product or service, then surely you shouldn’t delay. Economic downturn creates competitive pricing. As not all companies survive recession, there’s an opportunity for the others in a particular sector to win market share from competitors.
So cheaper advertising and the chance to launch new products can push spending up rather than down. But, not surprisingly, online marketing has enjoyed the biggest boost during the recession. The web is comparatively inexpensive. More importantly it’s easy to measure success with the number of site hits, social network activity, enquiries and firm orders via e-commerce sites.
Being noticed amongst the many thousands of marketing communications and messages that are seen and transmitted each day seems daunting, but if you have a clear vision of how you want your customers to see you, there are great opportunities. Well crafted content that appeals to the search engines; punchy, direct and relevant words in an online advertising campaign or an e-shot, all contribute to success.
Add to this the power of social media and you have a successful route to market.
I recently chatted with local reporter Tom Pegden to discuss the state of play in the local business economy as news of a high profile media success had made its way along the grapevine to Leicester Mercury towers – the launch of Leicester based luxury hand made leather satchel brand, Zatchels!
Zatchels, the brainchild of local businessmen Dean Clarke and Brian Brady of Charter Street manufacturer Leicester Remedial and Sewing Ltd was launched to the world with its satchels, hand made here in Leicester, on their beautifully designed e-commerce website on 20th April 2011.
This is one of the most comprehensive product/brand launches we’ve ever undertaken for a client and we’re delighted about the reaction so far. The satchel is the ‘must have’ style accessory for 2011 and Zatchels has launched a truly iconic British collection of leather satchel style bags that have caused a major stir since it was discretely introduced to fashion observers and stylists during this spring’s London Fashion Week. It was essentially a UK launch but already Zatchels are getting interest and media coverage from overseas, so we’re delighted for our client.
Since the Zatchels.com website went live three weeks ago it has had more than 6,600 visitors/hits, with orders coming in from the UK, USA, Australia and France as well as from UK based retailers who want to offer Zatchels satchels to their customers on the high street.
The new website features 71 different bags, with high quality creative studio shot photographs taken by Mulberry Square account manager and Leicester Photographer Ian Bursill, who has gained world wide acclaim for his photojournalistic style of photography.
We were involved right from the early stages and worked with our client to develop a logo and identity for the brand that was really strong and represented all of the key values and strengths of the product; and this in turn led to the introduction of the branding to the product itself with the stitching in of the distinctive woven label which coupled with its fantastic designs, materials and finishes sets Zatchels leather satchels apart from competitors in their market.
As well as designing the Zatchels brand identity and website, we have also been involved in leading and managing the launch campaign which benefitted massively from PR and media relations being added to the usual marketing mix. This involved product placements with magazines and newspapers such as Bliss, Heat and the Daily Express, gifting to members of the band McFly coupled with a social media campaign using Twitter, Facebook and blogging.
To visit the Zatchels website click here
To enter the Zatchels Facebook competition click here
To find Zatchels on Twitter click here
Our marketing services business based on Loughborough Road in Mountsorrel, Leicestershire faced a tough time in the height of the recession in the later part of 2009 but has really bucked the trend over the past 18 months with a full order book keeping our six fantastic staff very busy indeed.
We will build on our historic turnover of £300,000-£320,000 p.a. this year as we have really focused and tried to get across our message that we cover all aspects of the marketing mix and therefore can really make a difference to our clients, some of which have been using our marketing services knowledge and experience for the past 18 years.
To view our portfolio click here
As a result of our networking efforts we have been working on the launch of another new brand for a £20 million turnover Leicester business, with the launch of this planned for later this month. Rather than being fashion with the emphasis on consumer marketing this new brand will be very much B2B and will feature another eCommerce website designed and built on the Magento platform.
We seriously have seen an upturn in the local economy, especially from manufacturers who have ridden out the recession and are now investing to take advantage of a better economic climate to come.
Are we aiming to win more big clients? You bet we are!
Read Tom Pegden’s article at www.thisisbusiness-eastmidlands.co.uk/news/Marketing…/article.html
View the Leicester Mercury version here Mulberry Square feature in the Leicester Mercury 060511