How the little guy can use social media to take on the big guys at their own game

The current furore about the News of the World’s attempt to bluster out the allegations about journalists hacking into mobile phones has taken an interesting turn.

My fellow social media expert Naomi Johnson has pointed me in the direction of this site: http://www.pint.org.uk/notw.html

If you click the link, what you find is a series of pre-written tweets along the lines of:

“Dear @MorrisonsOffers, after new hacking revelations why are you refusing to withdraw your advertising from the toxic brand that is #notw?”

How NOT to write an advertising proposition

Digital Ad / PR agency Golley Slater have just announced that they are to change their name. But rather than come up with the name themselves, they are using crowdsourcing – via social media including Twitter – to get the creative community to come up with a new name for them. This isn’t laziness on Golley Slater’s part: in fact it’s potentially a great PR stunt.

But I use the word ‘potentially’ advisedly.

Are UK consumers really unconvinced by Facebook commerce?

A recent report by Havas Media Social and Lightspeed Research, publicised in Marketing Week  claimed that “almost half of UK consumers are not interested in buying products via social commerce, such as Facebook stores”.

So does this mean that social media is just a lot of hot air with no commercial application?

I don’t think so. In fact, I think the opposite is the case. Here’s why.

How to get better work from your ad agency, get it faster – and pay them less for it

Many years ago I interviewed for a client-side marketing position. The hiring manager mentioned the name of the direct marketing agency they were working with, who at the time was one of the most admired in adland (BHWG, for those with long memories).

“Wow”, I said, impressed. “What are they like to work with?”

The hiring manager sighed. “What are any agency like to work with?” she said, and went on to set out a litany of crimes that the agency had committed – the worst of which were (surprise, surprise) they charged too much, took too long, and the creative work never met the brief.

Social Media Set to Explode

By: Simon

If there was any doubt that social media is now being recognized as a central plank of the switched-on marketer’s communications strategy, a report published here puts that doubt to rest.

A survey of over 1,000 UK businesses by Office Cavalry available here has shown that the demand for businesses to manage their online presence across networks like Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter is growing faster than ever.

The survey picked out the following current key trends:

Don’t be afraid: Why Social Media is good for business

By: Simon

Way back in 1986, I worked in the marketing department of a big-ish company. I was fresh out of college, and one of my first jobs – beyond making the coffee, doing the post, and checking the brand-spanking-new fax machine (there were no desk-top computers in those dark days) – was sorting through the occasional customer complaint letter and drafting an answer for my boss to sign and return.

On one particular occasion, the customer in question seemed to have a legitimate complaint and was asking for their money back. I told my boss we should give the customer a refund.

“You can’t do that” he spluttered. “If you give this one a refund, they’ll ALL want one”.

Why advertisers should always make their logo smaller

By: Simon

If you are a marketer, take a minute out of your busy day to answer this quick question: When you last picked up a newspaper, why did you buy it?

Was it to check out what is happening in the world? Or to see how your team got on yesterday? To catch up with the mumblings of your favourite columnist? Or just to get the telly listings?

Chances are that if you sat and wrote out a list of all the reasons why anyone buys a paper – or a magazine, or turns on the radio or the TV, or surfs the internet – the chances are “just to see who is advertising” would come bottom of their list. We actively avoid ads. We set up our PCs to block pop-ups. When we Sky+ our favourite telly, we scoot through the ads to get to the bits that we actually want to watch – the programmes themselves.

Yet the bane of agency account handlers’ lives is the email from the client with the quietly apologetic rejoinder: “We liked the ad, but can you make our logo a bit bigger?”