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Twitter: brands need to use humour to connect with consumers

Everyone who uses Twitter, which is presumably 90% of the people reading this, no doubt follows at least one or two comedians or spoof accounts that are there purely for entertainment value.

And it’s this comic element that Twitter’s UK director Bruce Daisley believes brands need to tap into to develop more meaningful conversations with their customers.

At Bite’s Empty13 event, Daisley light-heartedly suggested that the UK is unique in that its citizens love to find humour in the darker side of life – so while we all enjoyed the highs of 2012 such as the Jubilee and the Olympics, we also love to revel in the troughs that lie in between.

He gave the example of two of the most retweeted posts of recent memory. The one that captured the American public’s imagination most was Barack Obama’s touching image celebrating his re-election.

by David Moth 14 February 2013 09:43am 3 comments

Can social identity improve ecommerce?

A recent Gartner press release suggested a major change in the way we might interact with ecommerce in within the next few years. Their prediction is that by 2015 fully half of retail customer identities will be based on social network identities. The report’s main thrust is on the impact of this shift on IT and security infrastructure, but what is much more interesting is the potential for a more direct connection between purchase and social identity.

The logic behind this potential growth is the frictionless “log-in with Facebook or twitter” option that allows customers to skip the laborious sign up or registration process. But the obvious question that arises is: What happens when social identity becomes purchaser identity? When you consider the potential meshing of purchase data with social data there appears to be a huge opportunity here for e-commerce sites to improve sales and build loyalty.

by Dan Weingrod 13 February 2013 15:58pm 2 comments

How John Lewis uses Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and Google+

In recent weeks I’ve begun looking at the different ways in which some of the world’s biggest brands use social media.

Having already run the rule over ASOS, Walmart and Tesco, the next retailer under the spotlight is John Lewis.

John Lewis has had an excellent start to the year, announcing a 44% increase in online sales over Christmas. You can read more about it in our Q&A with the company’s head of online delivery and customer experience Sean O'Connor.

Unlike Walmart and Tesco, John Lewis doesn’t publish its own social media guidelines online, however in a previous interview its social community manager said that content is key, “with a tailored approach for each social media channel.”

So here’s a quick look at how it uses four of the main social networks...

by David Moth 13 February 2013 10:13am 8 comments

How to measure brand awareness on Twitter

Following my previous post How to measure brand awareness on Facebook, this week we take a look at Twitter.

Unlike Facebook, there isn’t a built-in analysis tool that does it for you (if you want sparkly graphs and the like then you can always use a social media management tool) but there are a few metrics that you can track yourself to get a feel for your brand awareness levels.

by Michelle Hill 13 February 2013 09:45am 2 comments

American Express syncs with Twitter. Gimmick or new social commerce platform?

Strides in social commerce have been made with Facebook and Pinterest but, until today, brands and ecommerce specialists haven't been able to crack the code when it came to Twitter.

American Express and Twitter have announced they are joining forces by allowing members to sync their Amex cards with their Twitter accounts and then tweet special hashtags to make purchases.

This is not the first foray into connecting American Express member cards with social networks. They have focused on the interconnection with commerce and social since it launched its Link Like Love program with Facebook in 2011 and they have been promoting Twitter deals since last year.

But is this Twitter partnership just another gimmick or something more?

by Heather Taylor 12 February 2013 22:03pm 2 comments

Your social media initiatives might be pointless if...

Social media, as a channel, is hard to hate, and despite the fact that companies are still grappling with ROI, brands continue to pour larger and larger sums into social media initiatives and industry observers continue to show the same interest in highlighting and analyzing them as they did when social media first started to go mainstream.

But don't let any of this fool you. Investment and attention don't mean that social media initiatives are effective, or serve a useful purpose. In fact, many of them are arguably downright pointless.

by Patricio Robles 12 February 2013 15:03pm 0 comments

Social media measurement: Is Google Analytics getting it wrong?

Social media attribution is BIG news.

Marketers are struggling to attribute revenue to social channels, and lack of definable ROI is one of the major reasons that businesses cut back on social investment.

I spend a lot of time looking at our own social attribution, but it strikes me that in many cases, the closer I look, the less clear a picture I have.

This isn’t because the figures I have to work with aren’t clear.

It’s because, in a lot of cases, they might not be true...

by Matt Owen 12 February 2013 11:39am 47 comments

Congratulations to our second #TheDigitals superstar of the week: @DanBarker

It’s been a riotous week on #TheDigitals leaderboard, with nefarious ReTweet covenants being struck, random hashtagging explosions and even a bit of cold hard cash being thrown around as various parties try their best to scale to the dizzy heights of superstar of the week!

In the end though there can be only one, so this week we’re congratulating web and online marketing whizz (and occasional Econsultancy guest blogger) Dan Barker – Well done Dan!

by Matt Owen 08 February 2013 11:44am 0 comments

This week's top six infographics

Once again we round up six of the best infographics we've seen this week.

The topics include how brands use Twitter, local search, internet security, the biggest moments in social media in 2012, and the state of viewable impressions.

by David Moth 08 February 2013 09:42am 1 comment

You (probably) don't need a rockstar engineer

If you work in the tech industry, you've probably heard somebody lament just how difficult it is to find "good" engineers these days.

Thanks to the booming internet economy and the fat wallets of companies like Google and Facebook, it's a good time to be a software engineer. There are more jobs than viable candidates, salaries and benefits are high as a result and the best engineers have no shortage of opportunities to work on interesting things.

by Patricio Robles 06 February 2013 16:29pm 3 comments