Steve Davies

Steve Davies is a media, venture, and technology advisor and former Partner at KPMG Consulting. His clients range from global web and media companies to small start-ups, who he supports as an angel investor.

He played a key role in a number of significant industry changes including the conception of Bluetooth and the growth of several household names in the media, gaming and entertainment sectors.

Sector experience has focused predominantly on Internet, Media, Telecoms, Financial Services and Utilities – the common theme being the delivery of business and technology solutions which maximise customer engagement.

Three reasons why advertising and social media don't mix

In an attempt to deliver more tangible returns from their social media investments, brands are falling back on tried and tested methods of 'pushing the needle', most often using the familiar tools of advertising.

This partly stems from the misuse of 'proxy' measures in determining social ROI, such as followers, likes, shares and fans. None of these deliver value and are easily abused - with many marketers seeing them as just another contact list.

However, advertising and social media are like oil and water and should never be mixed, here's three reasons why.

Does the size of branded videos matter?

Marketers and content makers have been conditioned over time to believe that online video needs to be short and punchy.

This is based on the presumption that people have limited attention spans, and therefore longer-form content would be wasted - particularly on the multi-tasking Gen Y consumer.

But is duration really a key factor of successful adoption? And how about social sharing? Is the length of a branded video likely to affect people's willingness to share it?

In the space of 1,000 or more words, I can't promise to deal with all the answers, but hopefully you'll agree these questions merit further consideration before setting your content or advertising strategy.