Funeral director embraces social media

If you thought that funeral services was the one sector which perhaps doesn’t belong in the social media world, CPJ Field is hoping to prove you wrong.

The funeral director, which has been going since the late 1600s, has just appointed SiteVisibility to help them with their social media strategy.

What can they have planned? A location-based check-in service? The mind boggles!

Victory for the geeks as Facebook buys Instagram

The folks at Instagram are celebrating this week after selling their app to Facebook for an ice cold $1 billion. It’s the stuff of tech dreams, but it’s got people wondering what’s so special about an app that simply lets you make your photos look a bit retro.

There’s also been a bit of a backlash from Instagram fans, who worry that their creativity will be used by corporate advertisers to sell them products.

Still, it’s an interesting indicator of Facebook’s priorities. 96% of 18-24-year-olds use Facebook on their mobiles, and the younger demographic makes up the bulk of Instagram’s users. Some say it’s this age group that Facebook is after to make money from their advertising model. And they’ll use mobile marketing to get there.

You can see why Facebook chose Instagram — it had 200,000 followers within a week of launching and its iPhone app had been downloaded 30 million times by the time Facebook got their hands on them.

Fried chickengate

Its always tempting to latch on to what’s popular and benefit from some of the buzz, but KFC got it very wrong when they used the recent tsunami alert in Asia to encourage their Thai Facebook fans to eat fried chicken. Their social media people are probably getting a walloping right now after posting the following on their Facebook page:

‘Let’s hurry home and follow the earthquake news. And don’t forget to order your favourite KFC menu.’

Pretty bad. They’ve since apologised after a major Facebook backlash, and thankfully nobody was injured. 

It was clearly a case of bad taste and judgement, but it can be hard for businesses to judge when they should or shouldn’t sell when using social media.

Engagement and getting people to feel positive about your brand are nice, but businesses want to see that translated into sales and cash. It can be hard to strike the right balance.

Pinterest growth continues

After getting a massive 50% jump in traffic from January to February, Pinterest is now the third largest social networking site, causing many to shake their heads and warn of bubbles bursting.

We’ll have to wait and see if it’s just the flavour of the month or something we’ll be using for years to come, but it is interesting that another picture-based social media platform is getting all the attention this week…

Octogenarians take over Kraft’s social media

Kraft has enlisted Frankie, 87 and Dottie, 86 to take over their social media strategy to celebrate the 75th anniversary of its Mac n’ Cheese brand. They’ve been learning all about planking, much to the amusement of Kraft’s Facebook, Twitter and YouTube fans.

It is a bit of a gimmick, but with a rapidly ageing population with money to burn, perhaps it’s not such a wacky idea after all?

Tweet us @Mtdors about your social media news and views!

-Maria

And since people searching for something on their mobile phone are more likely to be closer to the purchasing stage of the decision-making process,  I’m guessing a pretty high percentage of those clicks resulted in actual transactions.

I could wax lyrical about all the opportunities mobile technology opens up and try to convince you that you should adopt a mobile strategy pronto.  But the numbers and statistics about mobile marketing are so darn impressive, I’m going to let them do the talking this week.

10 really amazing statistics about mobile marketing for you to bathe in:

1. 86% of mobile internet users use their devices while watching TV
2. By 2014, more people will use a mobile device rather than a desktop computer to surf the internet
3. There are 200 million YouTube video views on a mobile device every day
4. 50% of Twitter users use Twitter mobile and over 1/3 of Facebook users use Facebook mobile
5. Stuck in a TV advertising rut? There are more mobile phones in the world than there are TV sets. Something to mull over
6. Slightly more worryingly,  more people in the world own a mobile than a toothbrush
7. 70% of  internet searches take 1 month to be actioned. For a mobile search, that time lapse drops to a single hour
8. Mobile vouchers get 10 times the redemption rate of regular vouchers
9. 50% of all the mobile devices in America are smartphones
10. Saying that, this is the year that China will overtake America as the world’s largest smartphone market

Psychologists say that all the digital stimulus we’re getting creates addictive spikes in our dopamine levels. When our dopamine levels drop, we get bored and tetchy, and crave that feeling of interconnectivity.

So what effect does all this have on the human brain’s ability to process information, and what are the implications for advertisers?

Shallow thinkers?

The internet is also accused of turning us into shallow readers who are only capable of skimming text for key information.

If you’re trying to communicate a really complex idea online, break it up into bullet points wherever possible and use headers in bold (which also help the search engines understand your pages). Use short, sharp sentences and no more than three or four lines of text per paragraph. An em dash here and a comma there can make a big difference as well.

Twitter’s a great tool for training yourself to be more ruthless with words, which is no bad thing.

Stand out

We’re a nation of multitaskers — watching TV online while tweeting a blow-by-blow account, keeping up with emails and consuming all sorts of media simultaneously on the go (or on the throne) and juggling laptops, netbooks, tablets, smartphones and e-readers all at the same time.

Scientists say that this is harming our ability to give any one idea much attention. We’re also using Google to think for us and as a kind of substitute for our own memory.

A study by Betty Sparrow from Columbia University found that when students were asked a tough question, they thought about computers instead of the question itself!

Get remembered

Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may remember. Make me share it, laugh or interact with your brand and I’ll understand.

If people have to do something proactive and you give them the opportunity to share your content on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or anywhere else, they’ll be a lot more likely to remember you.

That’s partly why we’re so involved in creating apps and games for our clients, because they get people to engage with them, which is a lot harder to forget.

Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks get a lot of the blame, as they distract people from what they’re reading and they lose their train of thought.

Erping Zhu’s study into hyperlinks involved getting participants to read a passage of digital prose containing a varying numbers of hyperlinks, followed by a quiz on what they had just read.

She found that the more hyperlinks the passage contained, the less people remembered about what they had read, regardless of whether they had clicked on the link or not. Just having to decide on whether to click on the link was enough to distract people

You’ll probably only remember about 10% of this blog, but well done for getting this far! If you want to put your recollection skills to the test, try our mini quiz below (no cheating now!).

Let us know how you get on by tweeting your views to @Mtdors!

-Maria

Quiz

1) We mentioned two things that respondents to a survey said they would rather give up than their internet connection. What were they?

2) What chemical does the brain produce when it receives a high level of digital stimulus?

3) What, according to Erping Zhu’s study, affects our ability to recall information when we read text online?

We’ve had clients call us up, worried about how the changes will affect their ability to get likes and what they can and can’t do on their new page. We don’t think there’s anything to panic about, but there are a few things you should be doing in the next few weeks:

1) Get over your need to be liked

Sure, you can still direct people to your like gate page, but it won’t be the default page they land on if they search for you on Facebook or Google. Our advice? Get over it.

Facebook is trying to get brands to move away from their obsession with being liked on Facebook, and to start to think more about how they engage with people.

The success of a campaign should be about more than the number of likes you get. It’s also about how many people talk about and to you, and then go to your website for more. Start to think about what you can post to get more engagement. Videos, polls and pictures all work well.

In a nutshell, you can’t bribe people with content or offers to get likes. You have to give them content that makes them want to like you.

2) Get the picture

Once you’ve come to terms with not having the like gate page, you can start to think about your new cover photo. It will be the first thing people see when they land on your page, so it’s your chance to encourage people to stick around.

The complication is that Facebook are being pretty clear that they don’t want us to treat this picture like an advertising banner. So no funny business like ‘click here for 50% off’, calls to action like ‘tell your friends’ or ‘get it now’, contact information like phone numbers or email addresses and any information about you that should be in the ‘about’ section. They definitely won’t allow any Facebook prompts such as ‘like’ or ‘share this’.

President Obama’s cover photo, using a graphic representation of his job creation accomplishments, was a great example of how it can be used to tell a story and ‘sell’ a product at the same time.

3) Think about your tabs

Tabs will soon be old news; we’ll soon be referring to them as timeline applications.

Instead of having multiple tabs on the left hand corner, you’ll see just four of them under your main banner. The first will be Facebook’s picture app, which you can’t change.  The remaining three will be bigger than before and customisable. So you can have a one that says ‘read our eBook guide to Facebook marketing” and other descriptions which will sell the content a lot better.

There will be eight other timeline applications if people click to see them, but I wouldn’t count on people being that proactive. Choose the three apps that you think are most important now, and put together really compelling visuals to go with them. If you’re not sure, Facebook insights should give you an idea.

4) What about you?

Facebook are trying to get brands to share more about themselves and to tell stories. Facebook wants you to start treating your Facebook page more like getting coffee with friends than taking a stand at a trade show.

The new timeline format is an invitation to share your company’s history and culture, and to give people a quick snapshot of your brand’s personality.

Use this as an excuse to give your brand a little bit of an audit, and to think about how you want people to feel about you. If you think some of the photos a few staff members  posted of last year’s Christmas night out were a bit dubious, now is the time to remove them.  Get digging into your company archives, there might be some interesting history there you can share.

We’re working on our Facebook page in the Matador office, what will you be doing to get timeline-ready?

Tell us all about your plans by sending a tweet to @Mtdors!

Maria

It’s true that no individual human is going to be stalking you online or passing judgement on your secret Daily Mail addiction, but that hasn’t stopped civil liberties groups and the general public from feeling uneasy and questioning whether Google is living up to its own mantra of ‘don’t be evil’.

Google has gone ahead despite the furore because they’re convinced that by combining the data they already collect about you across multiple platforms — from YouTube searches to email messages, search queries and social media conversations when you’re logged in to a Google account — your search results will be more relevant and useful because they’re based on what you’ve been searching for or talking about.  And they argue that this has to be a good thing.

In Google’s own words:

“By understanding your preferences we can ensure that we give you the search results that you’re looking for, and by analysing the search logs of millions of users in aggregate, we can continually improve our search algorithm, develop new features, keep our systems secure and even predict the next flu outbreak”.

Targeting ads is a dream for marketers. We don’t want to spend our advertising budget throwing messages out into the ether hoping they will stick somewhere. And we’ll be less likely to annoy people by sending them completely irrelevant and unrelated messages. If we can get detailed data on customer segments, what’s not to love?

Well, people don’t always like being advertised to, for one. Recent data collected by YouGov confirmed what most of us already know; there’s a time and place for advertising, and it’s rarely on a social networking site. The YouGov survey found that 47% of British people online don’t particularly appreciate being shown a targeted ad on a social network. It makes sense, people go on social networks to be social, they don’t usually want to be explicitly sold to. The challenge is to find ways to entertain and engage with them as well as advertise to them when appropriate.

And what will all this mean for the future of Google+? Now that the initial wave of excitement about Google+ post-launch has subsided, people are spending an average of just 3 minutes a month on the site. That’s even less than MySpace, which says it all really. While Facebook has mostly been able to get away with shortcomings in their privacy policy (and to be fair, have made significant improvements to it), Google+ isn’t starting from the same position of strength and can’t afford to lose the few people who use it already.

Google aren’t doing much more than bringing all their existing data under the same roof, and they haven’t given me reason to close my Google account. Yet. But they need to understand what a position of power they’re in. The slightest hint of misuse of the data they’re collecting on us could detract from the benefits of their new policy and drive people to close their Gmail accounts in droves. My advice to Google? Stick by your motto; don’t be evil.

What do you think? Tweet us @Mtdors, we love a good debate!

Maria

Shamefully, as a film lover I’m pretty late with this. My mates have been going there for years and they all say I should too, so I broke my Grosvenor cinema cherry last week.

What better way to start the night than having a pre-film burger from Ketchup & then on to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo re-make. My first impression of the place was very positive and the online booking process was very smooth. Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, American candy in the reception & you can take your drinks (alcoholic) into the film with you. A pint & a film… What’s not to love.

I did think the screen was pretty small at first, although once you get seated in the most comfortable cinema chairs I have ever sat in, your soon at ease in your surrounding. I then realised it was perfect. What actually triggered me to write this blog was my awful experience watching ‘Mission Impossible’ at Cineworld last night, uncomfortable seats, over priced food & full of noisy weans who had to be told to shut it. Plus the film was average, at best.

The Grosvenor, I’m sold.

So the film… The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, It really was excellent. Well shot & considering how well known the script is these days, It held a real unsettling tension throughout the whole movie. Funny at times, chilling at times. It made me want to travel to Sweden even more than I do already. Great Scenery & very cool interiors. Daniel Craig’s one suave dude, and a bit of a style influence on me also.

What I actually REALLY loved about the film was the opening sequences (see video) by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, coupled with their take on Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song, it set the film off really well. The mixture of gloss black liquid movements & matte black painted faces, usb cables moving into the back of a womans head and then flames. The film then starts quite in a calm office setting. Very appropriate, as it set the tone of what to come. Shiny and corporate on the surface, rough as hell hidden underneath. I won’t spoil it for anyone, but her revenge was very VERY sweet.

I would highly recommend the film, I know I will definitely be spending a good few evenings in The Grosvenor from now on.

Where is your favourite place to watch a movie? Please leave your comments on our Facebook page or Twitter stream.

There have been many famous muses, notably Yoko Ono springs to mind for the impact she had on John Lennon and of course The Beatles. Would Lennon have been as interesting and in the eye of the media as much without Yoko? I suppose we’ll never know however one thing is certain we wouldn’t have had the bed-ins, sloganeering and the nude photos. To be honest though I could’ve done without seeing both their bits and bobs…

Muses are not only for musicians, Leonardo Da Vinci’s for the Mona Lisa was recently discovered. Her name was Lisa Gherandini, the wife of a merchant. Believe it or not her bones were recently dug up in an effort to get to the bottom on the famous smile. Although, some people believe that the painting is a self-portrait of Da Vinci, wearing a wig. Either way he kept the painting with him pronouncing it his best work which is unusual as most work was done on a commission basis.

Recently there was a movie based around Andy Warhol’s muse Edie Sedgwick called Factory Girl. She became a living work of art for him. However today I cannot think of anyone person that inspires an individual as much as the above. Is that because we are inspired by different sources, TV and Internet for example or is it because the role of a muse has changed and the media isn’t interested anymore?

Do you have a muse, if not what inspires you in the creative process? Please leave your comments on our Facebook page or Twitter stream.

As we make our way through the annual consumer splurge that is Christmas, more and more of that money is now being spent online. According to the IMRG and Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index, £6.8 billion was spent online in December 2010, an increase of 25% over 2009, with total online sales in 2011 predicted to increase by 18%.

So how can you grab a piece of this for yourself? Well, the most important thing is to make sure your basket and checkout processes all work correctly and are not throwing up any obstacles to customers attempting to purchase from your store. This would seem to be obvious, but during the 2010 Christmas shopping period 45% of online shoppers encountered website problems. These caused 32% (over 13 million shoppers!) to abandon their purchases. That is a lot of lost revenue and not just for the present, but also in the future as almost half of those questioned stated that they would be less likely to re-visit a site where they had previously experienced problems. Another downside to this is that 9% of people share their online shopping experiences through their social media accounts.

I have very recent personal experience with this. A couple of nights ago I was looking for some after shave online. I found a site where it was cheap and the delivery was fast and free. So I clicked ‘Add To Basket’ and… nothing. Another two failed attempts were enough for me. I left and now can’t even remember what the site was, so that is at least one potential repeat customer they have lost. Like most online shoppers I’ll return to sites where the shopping experience is simple and painless. Make sure your site is one of these and you’ll be gaining many new customers at the expense of those sites which still aren’t quite there yet.

Tweet your opinions to @Mtdors. We will reply to you.

Brian

So you’ve got the iPhone 4S & you want to use Siri. Scottish? well no luck then ‘pal’.

In an office full of apple users & lovers, being the first person to get the 4S was a monumental day. Everyone wanted to hold it, everyone want to use it & everyone secretly wanted me to drop it into my tea and stop waving it around the office like it was Excalibur. But most of all everyone wanted to see Siri in action.

My contract with my previous 3GS had come to an end & besides a drastic drop in the performance of the phone’s 3G, the handset was still in great condition & had served me very well. Upgrading to another iPhone was a no brainer. So I ordered the phone and it came the next day. Better camera, brilliant! Improved chip, fantastic! Faster internet, perfect! My very own personal assistant in my phone…. NAW.

“Siri, What will the weather be like in Glasgow tomorrow?”. Sorry David I don’t understand ‘What will weatherability’. OK, let me try again. “Siri, What time is the next train to Partick?”. David I don’t understand, would you like to Google ‘My number one fart stick’. Now, it may just be me, but I don’t think you don’t get ‘Fart Sticks’ in Glasgow.

Admittedly, I can be a bit of a mumbler and often have to remind myself to enunciate my words a little better. Going for a coffee first thing in the morning and asking for a ‘Vanullalatty’ is usually met with a vacant stare & a reply of “Sorry Sir?”.

So Siri & I have yet to bond, but I guess only time will tell. This is why Robots or voice recognition could never take over Glasgow, They can’t understand us & they don’t mix well with rain. Now where did I leave that yellow pages…

Tweet your opinions to @Mtdors. We will reply to you.

David

When walking into a store we can all see where we want to go by the clear signage usually above or at eye level. If lost there is generally a member of staff near by to ask assistance and nine times out of ten you’ll get to the desired location with relative ease.

Once there you’ll have a selection of products to chose from, when one individual item catches your eye you can easily obtain more information. You can see the size, view from different angles, colour match, touch it to know the texture, get an idea what it looks like in situation or co-ordinated with other items. This is the same for any item regardless if it is a tin of beans or a a sofa. The product itself is designed in a manner that is appealing to the consumer and this should be remembered when selling online.

It’s easy to take a photograph these days with just about everyone having a digital camera as part of their phone. However, taking a good product photograph is a different beast. It’s a skilled area in it’s own right and every item should be given the attention it deserves, it’s not a point and click exercise. I believe that one product image doesn’t give a true understanding of what is being offered, especially if poorly taken. A poor photograph will fail to reveal important information such as the depth, functionality and not allow us to see the reverse. In other words if you can’t see these details you can’t clearly see the product making it difficult to make the decision to purchase or not.

To sell any product online an image is the closest we can get to having the physical object. That’s why we believe its essential that we try to display the many facets of each individual items displaying it face on, at an angle, in situation, colour swatches and so on. Each product should be placed in situation to give an idea of scale plus giving the customer ideas on how that would suit them and from an aspirational point of view. If possible seeing the product rotate through a 360 degree motion so that every face on view can be see. Video, again if possible, would be of huge benefit to any product bringing it to life so any functionality or motion can be seen in full action. After all an image is worth a thousand words.

In saying that, it’s key that each image/product is backed up with an appropriate description. If a product is simply described as “door” I bet you have a picture in your head that is different from mine… However if I described it as… “A red mahogany door with a brass handle and letter box.” you’ll have a much clearer idea of what I’m thinking about. As most websites don’t have an assistant to ask questions in real time 24/7 we try to give as much relevant information to the product as we can as it’s the closest to a sales person the customer will have.

Tweet your opinions to @Mtdors. We will reply to you.

-Crawford