Category Archives: Social Media

Irish Social Media Statistics

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It can be hard to find credible, consistent stats for social media in Ireland.

IPSOS MRBI are a great resource that I use a lot. They’ve been doing this for a few years now so their figures give us good insights into which platforms are going from strength to strength and worth continued investment.

I use a lot of stats from the UK and the US as well to help me. That’s really just as a guide as they’d be somewhat ahead of Ireland, also we can have some pretty quirky, unique stats … because we’re Irish. We have the highest penetration rate for Snapchat in the world and the most usage of Facebook in the English spoken world.

We Are Social Singapore produce a monster piece of research every quarter which really helps with International clients.

 

No such thing as a free lunch

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Mashable published this article today outlining what has been the topic of conversation for the past few months – the free Facebook lunch is over.

This will be much better for the site as a whole.  In general the quality of content on Facebook could definitely be improved.  It could be more strategic and harder working for brands.  More relevant and “on brand” – less of the generic “Hit Like if you are happy it’s Friday” posts. More valuable and rewarding to the fans and just more considered overall.  In my experience the amount of time a marketing manager will spend making sure that the artwork for a press ad is perfect, or the edit of a TV ad is bang on, is in direct proportion to the amount of money it is costing.

So maybe if Facebook requires an investment, more time will be invested in creating a better page and Facebook will keep going from strength to strength.

Best Twitter conversation ever

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A lot of what makes a brand stand out is the tone of voice used.  It’s integral to the brand personality and says a lot about the company.

innocent bottom

Here’s the wonderful Innocent with “Stop looking at my bottom” written on the bottom of their cartons.

And Google with a “Stats for nerds” hyperlink

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Tesco Mobile took this the next level and ran riot on Twitter late last year, creating a lot of publicity and making friends along the way (Yorkshire tea, Jaffa Cakes, Cadbury…).  #wishihaddonethis

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Burger King – pretty, pretty cunning

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Burger King are the King of social, imho.  Well within their category anyway.  So whatever they do it’s worth keeping an eye on.  Everyone knows about their controversial Whopper Sacrifice campaign on Facebook that encouraged a spout of Friend Denunciation in return for a free Whopper.  This time the crazy Norwegians have taken the whole Genuine Friend thing a bit further with the Whopper Sellout.  

It was a brave move and must have taken some convincing to the marketing bosses, but I think it was pretty clever.  The value of a real Fan is something new in Facebook marketing, and is definitely an area that is worth exploring and brands investing in. I can’t tell you how many Facebook page competitions I’ve run where the entrants are either compies, or totally physically incapable of enjoying the prize at stake (entrants from India hoping to win a movie pass that evening in Dublin).

How’s Vine doing?

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It will be a while, I imagine before brands will be familiar with and comfortable using Vine. Unlike Instagram you can’t upload ready made videos, so it’s more restrictive and reliant on having someone on board who’s handy with the app and creative with a camera.  Also the six second time limit is a challenge in itself.  Instagram is much more marketeer-friendly with 15 seconds.

How and ever, it’s interesting to look at best practise examples and Social Media Examiner have a great article on the way businesses are using it.  And the ever-excellent Hubspot blog has another suite of examples here.

vine best practise

Valenvine

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Mashable did a great challenge for Valentine’s day using the latest trending social media phenomenon Vine and creating the hashtag #valenvine.

vine, twitter, social media, kerry fitzgerald, consultant

Everyone is saying Vine is the new Pinterest.  If images are king, video is god, I guess.

Since Twitter is backing Vine it’s knocked all the competition sideways.  Viddy must be seething as they turned down an acquisition offer from Twitter… the words Decca and The Beatles spring to mind.

Brands are already advertising on Vine and celebs are entertaining their fans with it.  It’s going to be  a great way for brands to garner interaction through competitions.  However, one major drawback is that infuriatingly they have only launched it for i-phones.  I naively thought those days were over, since android users far outweigh i-phone users now and are steadily and dramatically increasing year on year.  Droids – you can browse the videos using Vine Flow, but isn’t that a bit like watching people enjoy a great meal through the restaurant window?

So long as Twitter continue protecting people from unsolicited promoted messages and asinine branding, I suspect it is going to enjoy a Pinterest-like ascent.

Update:  June 2013 – it’s on Android now….flawed, but available. For exampleon the i-phone you can search for people that you’re not connected to…on the Android at the moment you can only invite people by text or email… or twitter. Which is quite laborious.

Small businesses shouldn’t have to struggle

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This article from Silicon Republic demonstrates the need for social media but reinforces the fact that many small companies struggle to implement it.  It does eat into your staff’s time, but I can show you ways to create an efficient social media strategy that minimises time spent and resources used.  Social media is a fabulous way to keep consumers up to date and aware of your services and products and needn’t be the headache that pushes you away from it.

Ways I can help:

  • Identify essential social media channels
  • Develop a content strategy that pushes out your key messages
  • Determine the most suitable candidates in the organisation to post, monitor and maintain the sites – or do that for you
  • Workshop a conversation calendar that takes the head-scratching away from what to post

social media, small businesses

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/30008-small-businesses-struggle-w#