Vikki Chowney

Vikki Chowney is head of community at creative communications agency TMW. She's a former journalist, most recently as news editor for Econsultancy.

Prior to that she was content editor for the JaguarFuture.com project, created by Jaguar to tell the stories behind the C-X16 concept car.

From 2009 - 2011 Vikki was editor of Reputation Online, a sister title to new media age at Centaur Media that presented both editorial and user-generated coverage of the digital PR landscape. During her time there she penned a weekly column for NMA on the same topic.

She helped to co-found The Really Mobile Project, contributing to the site regularly during its early life - and penned a monthly column for Communicate magazine throughout 2011.

She was part of the founding team of writers for BitchBuzz.com, an independent women’s lifestyle network with readers spread across the US & UK.

A G20Voice blogger for Oxfam at the London and Pittsburgh Summits in 2009, her work has featured in The Guardian, Mobile Industry Review, within Marketing Week and many others.

Vikki has also provided freelance consultancy to the likes of Vodafone, O2, Talk Talk and Big Yellow Self Storage.

In a previous life Vikki worked in PR, specialising in digital and social media for clients including Acceleration, ZYB, Skype and Vodafone.

UK job moves: Immediate Media, Panasonic, Saint, Yummi Media

Once again we compile the most senior, surprising and influential job moves in the UK.

This time we cover a switch from Hello! to Radio Times, a promotion at Panasonic, big changes for Saint and a new senior hire for Yummi Media Group.

by Vikki Chowney 13 April 2012 10:16am 0 comments

Budweiser strengthens FA Cup ties with Aurasma

Budweiser, to promote its sponsorship of the FA Cup, has updated its Man of the Match app to allow users to pose with a replica of the trophy by pointing their smartphone at a branded beer mat.

Budweiser Interactive is a new section within the app, powered by augmented reality technology Aurasma, and brings to life “anything from an advertisement in a match day programme to a beer mat”.

by Vikki Chowney 12 April 2012 12:45pm 4 comments

APAC job moves: Block, DMD, Grey Australia, Oddfellows

Once again we compile the most senior, surprising and influential job moves in the APAC region.

This time we discuss a four-strong bolster for Block, a new chief exec for Digital Music Distribution, a well-earned promotion at Grey Australia and new blood at Oddfellows.

by Vikki Chowney 13 April 2012 00:30am 0 comments

China, the world's largest online population: infographic

China is now responsible for over a half a billion web users (greater than the total population of the EU), following a short period of tremendous growth.

This means that more than one in five people with online access are Chinese, up from 200m in total in 2007.

It was also on track to surpass 1bn mobile connections in Q1 of 2012, with market penetration currently estimated at 72%.

by Vikki Chowney 11 April 2012 10:30am 0 comments

Sephora says shopping via mobile grew 300% last year

Yesterday US retailer Sephora completed a ‘digital makeover’, which has over the past few months included the launch of a new website, mobile site, an iPhone app, plus the introduction of iPads (to look up products) and the iPod Touch (to help customers check out) to many of its stores.

So far, the iPhone app has been downloaded 2m times, and the retailer says that shopping from mobile devices grew by 300% last year.

The make-up and pharmaceutical company has also fully integrated with Pinterest, so that users can “pin” any of the 14,000 products on Sephora.com to their own boards.

by Vikki Chowney 10 April 2012 12:58pm 0 comments

DDB unveils Facebook 'I Care' button on MTV Voices

DDB Worldwide has unveiled an ‘I Care’ button for Facebook, pitched as a more appropriate way to show support for charitable causes than the social network’s ever-present ‘Like’ alternative.

The world's first ‘I Care’ button is now live on MTV’s Voices hub, following a period of beta testing.

MTV describes the site as “an international platform that highlights socially positive and inspirational content produced by a select team of global correspondents, international and local music artists and MTV's audience”.

by Vikki Chowney 10 April 2012 10:42am 2 comments

The tag revolution: infographic

One of the hottest topics from Digital Cream London 2012 last month was attribution.

Though not neccessarily the sexiest of subjects, the potential to use this to directly measure which marketing activities are driving conversions is huge.

As DC Storm's Seth Richardson outlined for us, the real value is the long term campaign and budget optimisation benefits.

by Vikki Chowney 10 April 2012 11:30am 6 comments

What we've been reading this week: UK edition

Here are the stories and links we’ve tweeted, posted, passed around the UK office and shaken our heads at.

Check back later to get the skinny on what our US team has been reading too.

by Vikki Chowney 05 April 2012 12:21pm 1 comment

UK job moves: Carat, GroupM, Last.fm, Yahoo

Once again we compile the most senior, surprising and influential job moves in the UK.

This time we cover fresh blood at Carat, a new division for GroupM, a huge hire for Last.fm and sad news at Yahoo.

by Vikki Chowney 05 April 2012 10:40am 0 comments

Socialbakers reveals Sunday is the most engaging day on Facebook

New stats from Socialbakers suggest that Sunday is the most engaging day for brands on Facebook, especially for the FMCG and Telecoms sectors.

The company reviewed user activity by the week and hour for over 10m Facebook pages and places to reveal a snapshot of the best times of the week to score maximum engagement for brands within social media.

by Vikki Chowney 04 April 2012 11:48am 1 comment