Heather Taylor

Heather is a writer and filmmaker who covers media and communications, tech, ecommerce and the arts and was listed by Brand Republic as one of the top 200 most influential bloggers in 2011. She is currently editorial director of Econsultancy in New York.

Prior to her move to Econsultancy, Heather was acting editor of About the BBC, the BBC corporate blog and website, and managed online corporate reputation for the BBC. Previous roles included social media manger for PayPal UK and social media/ PR manager for Groundswell award winner, giffgaff.

Heather speaks at events on social media, marketing, community and filmmaking - previous speaking engagements include talks at ComicCon, Reputation Online Live, Technology for Marketing and Advertising, PR Week, European Customer Experience World, Social Media in Business, Media Camp London, and Digital Surrey. She has also advised on social media strategy for a number of startups and charitable organizations.

Will social TV and the second screen move beyond advertising in 2013?

Though the definition of social TV does expand beyond second screening to the advancement of technology in our TVs themselves and the interaction with programming, it still often relates to how consumers use their tablets and mobiles while watching traditional TV programming.

With the rise of video in 2013, it is only natural that we will continue to look at our relationship and interaction with all of our devices. As the use of mobile while watching TV is steadily increasing, 2013 may bring more overlapping content that moves beyond advertising.

by Heather Taylor 04 January 2013 16:30pm 0 comments

The rise of video in 2013

As companies further embrace the need for content, video is becoming a bigger part of editorial calendars and content teams.

Gone are the days of shooting a 10 minute interview and slapping it up on YouTube. Consumers' tastes have become more sophisticated and short form video content has become our brain candy.

But what will 2013 bring the industry in terms of video?

by Heather Taylor 03 January 2013 12:55pm 1 comment

The future of mobile in 2013

As 2012 is officially over and we've now welcomed in another year, we reached out to a few industry professionals to see what their thoughts are for the year ahead. As we had so many great responses, we have made a series of posts that will come out over the month of January.

To start everything off, we're looking at the future of mobile and what companies need to have in their strategic approaches in 2013.

by Heather Taylor 02 January 2013 16:57pm 7 comments

eBay brings Christmas presents directly to your door with eBay now

eBay has been testing a new mobile app called eBay Now that allows shoppers to order from local stores and have their packages delivered to their door in as little as an hour.

Through this new app, shoppers in San Francisco and New York City (Manhattan up to 125th street and select parts of Brooklyn) can purchase items from more than 200 participating stores, including Macy’s, Home Depot, Target, Toys R Us, RadioShack, Walgreens, and Office Depot.

by Heather Taylor 24 December 2012 15:58pm 3 comments

Video: Air France-KLM spreads holiday joy with business class upgrades

This week shows the holiday spirit of a popular airline and a clothing line in our weekly showcase of The Dachis Group's Social Business Index. Our focus is on two well-known brands – Air France-KLM and H&M - as analyzed by Allison Squires at the Dachis Group.

We'll also take a glimpse at the top twenty brands on the Social Business Index, a real-time ranking of more than 30,000 global brands based on their performance in the social space, to see how the biggest brands in social are faring.

by Heather Taylor 20 December 2012 17:13pm 0 comments

JUMP feature: The new CMO must be a data CMO

For our fifth JUMP interview, we had a chance to speak with Mike Sands, president and CEO of BrightTag, who will at the JUMP conference on January 30, 2013 in New York.

Before Mike Sands joined BrightTag, he was part of the founding team at Orbitz acting as both CMO and COO until they were acquired. In an earlier position, Sands was what he called a rebel at GM when he fought to spend 2% of the budget online, around the time with you could, in his words, literally buy the internet by getting banner ads on hotwire.com.

Unfortunately those early days are gone, and now sites are bogged down by miscellaneous code and third party script as marketers try to be smart about advertising online. This has brought about the new future of tag management including companies such as BrightTag who are trying to improve the safety, security and speed of ecommerce sites today.

by Heather Taylor 19 December 2012 20:07pm 0 comments

General Mills makes holiday food social

This week is a mixed bag of cars and music in our weekly showcase of The Dachis Group's Social Business Index. Our focus is on two well-known brands – General Mills and Kia Motors - as analyzed by the team at the Dachis Group.

by Heather Taylor 17 December 2012 15:30pm 0 comments

40% of media buyers plan to put 10% of 2013 budget into native advertising

This week, Solve Media released a report on Native Advertising that shows 49 percent of media buyers plan to make native advertising purchases in 2013. This is big news as, while native advertising has been news in media and at recent conferences, the dollars haven't backed the excitement.

With two out of five media buyers surveyed in the report are putting aside more than 10% of their 2013 budget into this type of advertising. This is becoming an integral part of online advertising and will only grow throughout 2013.

by Heather Taylor 14 December 2012 18:28pm 0 comments

Econsultancy Google hangout: big data and best practices in data management - Thursday, December 13

Data has become such a popular topic in digital marketing circles that we're running out of metaphors. But whether you think of data as the oil of marketing, a firehose of numbers or the next gold rush, chances are that your organization is still coming to grips with the possibilities and realities of "Big Data."

As a great end of the year Google Hangout, join us December 13, 2012 at 12:30 EST as we discuss cutting-edge data techniques for supercharging advertising used by global corporations for marketing as released in the latest Econsultancy report "Best Practices in Data Management." Data Management Platforms (DMPs) and Audience Management Platforms (AMPs) are all the rage, but getting the most out of data for audience segmentation, insights, and targeting takes more than just a relationship with a vendor.

by Heather Taylor 12 December 2012 16:57pm 0 comments

Bonobos shows the power of integrating social and email

Most email marketers don't get email-social integration, and most of them approach it backwards. You'll see little blue Twitter birds and Facebook icons in email templates but this is the extent of their insertion of "real-time" content. It then becomes a send and hope moment as marketers pray recipients will re-post their commercial email offers onto their own Facebook and Twitter pages.

But some companies are beginning to look at new ways of integration that are bringing user generated content right into the emails in real time. One such brands is Bonobos, a company with a strong social presence that takes fan interaction and branding seriously. Leading the charge is Grace Low, Retention Marketing Manager for Bonobos, who is working with Moveable Ink to create innovative and fresh emails that are first to market with.

by Heather Taylor 11 December 2012 16:24pm 7 comments