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Manchester’s (the) digital future

Thursday, May 9th, 2013

Sometimes you can’t help but be proud of where you live. This week we’ve stumbled across two articles about Smoking Gun PR’s hometown, and as they both involve major developments on the local (and international) digital media frontier it seems only right to share our newfound knowledge.

First of all then, whilst no longer the top team in England, Manchester City has cemented its place as the nation’s most technologically advanced club following the decision to implement a Wi-Fi network in its stadium at Eastlands. Not for nothing, the Cisco equipment will have all the obvious benefits of reliable, fast wireless Internet in a situation where- 4G or not- there’s every chance if all 47,000 people tried to re-buffer a web page at the same time they could experience a little slow down.

Better yet, 02, who will be delivering the service, also intend on installing kit to boost mobile reception for everyone inside, eliminating the same problem when it comes to making a call (or sending a text). Whether you believe football should still involve standing on terraces and waiting for Match of the Day highlights or not, there’s no denying this is a first for any Premier League side.

Apparently, the Wi-Fi will also facilitate Stadium Vision Mobile, which allows business owners- in this case the stadium bosses- to co-ordinate content between big screens and the mobiles logged on to the network. Even more impressively, they can also filter this down to individual devices, meaning it would, technically, be possible to receive a direct personal message from one of the players, coaching staff or similar whilst at a game. Needless to say, there’s marketing potential there in spades.

Improvements to Manchester’s digital infrastructure haven’t gone unnoticed elsewhere, either. As we read in the Financial Times, the city is now something of a ‘magnet for tech pioneers‘. Out in Newton Heath, The Sharp Project- a development of affordable, creative office spaces that is fast becoming another TV and production hub- has some prestigious new neighbours, with EON Reality setting up its European headquarters in the area. The 3D tech giant already has bases in Singapore and Sweden, with this new address set to boast a Virtual Reality showroom, and Entrepreneurial Coding School, which will welcome 500 students every year.

The same article also references the growing cloud hosting industry Manchester has managed to develop as further signs of the region’s healthy future prospects. EON Reality chairman and founder, Dan Lejerskar, explained to the FT: “No other city in Europe has invested as much in its digital media and content operations- with billions being spent on creating a global hub for creative industries. Manchester is perfectly placed to be the UK’s digital city.” Needless to say then, whilst the warm weather may have subsided (hopefully only for a short while), the skies are grey and the rain falling outside our window, there’s plenty to be upbeat about from our perspective.

 

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Of dogs and monsters: The rise of niche social networks

Monday, April 29th, 2013

This month we helped launch a brand new online community, designed for animals and people. Well, actually, pet owners and their pets. Far from a long-shot, it has already made national print and broadcast headlines, and represents a growing trend for this kind of specialist offering.

Mysocialpetwork makes good on the decade old quip that ‘the internet is mostly just pictures of cute kittens’. Its arrival in the UK follows on from Europe, with the site providing a place for owners to post pictures, status updates and more, on behalf of- or about- their furry, scaly or feathered friends. Two weeks after launch and our client has received hits via the likes of BBC 5 Live’s breakfast show, The Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday and The Daily Telegraph. That’s impressive, although we’re not particularly surprised.

For one thing, we worked hard on an innovative pre-launch campaign. Secondly, the rise of niche social media has been a long time coming. The major networks were not designed to serve a specific market, but specific markets exist, and they all need to be served. Hence Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg forking out $1million last year for a stake in SumZero, a community for professional investors.

No doubt many of those may well be members of another platform, namely Best Of All Worlds. Conceived by Erik Wachtmeister- a Swedish Count no less- it acts as an online meeting point for the wealthy and well connected. Likened by its creator to a members-only country club, imagine the powerful and prestigious talking to each other without worrying about the riff raff, as they always have, albeit with instant messaging and status updates, but sans century-aged Scotch.

Lady Gaga made headlines- and attracted plenty of attention from music pros- when she launched her own network last year. Little Monsters means you no longer need to be at a concert to know everyone in the vicinity is a die-hard fan. Make friends, arrange trips, buy tickets and share music is the mantra her management seem to have adopted, and the benefits are clear in an industry increasingly reliant on events as its core product. Understandably, other platinum sellers are already being touted as the next adopters.

In contrast to the decadent entertainment industry, Impossible.com is a more worthwhile variation on the same idea. Aimed at altruists rather than Gagaists, here people can offer their skills and expertise for free, either as a donation or in exchange for other services and items. According to Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia: “It’s the basis for an economy not based on money.” We’ll not be giving up on Sterling just yet, but it’s certainly an applaudable concept.

The list could go on, too. My Last Wish is a slightly macabre example, allowing you to find others with the same list of things they’d like to do before they die. Meanwhile, Untappd lets you check into any pub, locate those with comparable taste buds, and discover where they go to satisfy that thirst. In each case a gap in the market has clearly been identified, in the same way as fan clubs, specialist magazines, and forums have been doing for so long already. With that in mind, keeping an eye out for any relevant to your industry would be time well spent.

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The Smoking Gun meme guidebook

Monday, April 29th, 2013

When Richard Dawkins first coined a term to describe cultural ideas being passed from one individual to another he probably wasn’t thinking of dancing babies, or Ed Balls accidentally tweeting his own name. Times have indeed changed.

Skip forward 40 years and a ‘meme’ still matches his description, but the way in which they spread- and the ideas that prove popular- are rather different. Today, anything from a Twitter #hashtag and a blundering politician’s actions on any network, to a photo upload could become an internet meme, and the most popular are usually more comical or newsworthy than conceptual.

What can seem like just good fun should be taken very seriously, though. These notions can spread like viral wildfire, meaning it makes good marketing sense to familiarise yourself. With that in mind, we compiled this list of things everyone should know about all the little things everyone’s always talking about.

What makes a popular web meme?

According to Newsweek, the Top 5 Memes are:

*LonelyGirl15- A popular YouTube account apparently owned by a teenage girl named Bree, which caused uproar when exposed as a fictitious online mini-series.

*Lolcats- Pictures of cats in amusing poses, with super-imposed human quotes.

*Obama Girl- A music video that apparently upset the President’s daughters thanks to its overall theme, namely having a crush on the man in the White House.

*2 Girls 1 Cup- Controversial and now-banned trailer to an unspeakably horrific pornographic film.

*Star Wars Kid- Another YouTube phenomenon, an adolescent was filmed by schoolmates whilst pretending to use a lightsaber, and looking ridiculous. Thousands then used editing and animation to make it look even funnier.

Things to consider before using memes for business

*Timing- Don’t fall foul of sensitive news events by making predictions or foolish jokes. It’s also pointless coming up with an idea that will be old hack by tomorrow

*There’s no recipe for success- The people ultimately decide which will go viral, but by grabbing the attention of key influencers you can get a head start.

*Softly does it- As with TV and online advertising, this form of marketing doesn’t need a hard sell. Make consumers stand up and take note, then nod to the brand.

*Evolve and be authentic- This Microsoft clip, based on the Double Rainbow YouTube video, was criticised for being too corporate, and lacking new ideas.

*Keep on brand- Obvious advertising might not work, but neither does content the public will perceive to be in conflict with a company’s ethics and image.

Methods of ‘making’ a meme

*Technically speaking, like a viral, you can’t really make a meme- it is created when the idea is passed on. Without others sharing, it’s technically still an idea.

*Meme creation tools are plentiful, often free and easy to use. quickmeme.com, mememaker.net, and whatdoumeme.com are popular examples. However, it’s important to remember that originality counts for much when it comes to the likelihood yours will be picked up, so if it’s a new idea develop it independently.

*If you’re going to do it, research. Don’t decide to use something that’s already in existence outside its context. Look at meme databases like knowyourmeme.com, where you’ll find most in existence listed, with an explanation on what they mean.

*Publish and re-share the meme comprehensively, once you’re confident, of course. Otherwise there simply isn’t any point in putting all that initial effort in.

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The Blagger’s Blog 26th April 2013

Friday, April 26th, 2013

A weekly roundup of talking points, sans effort

 

Thought for the week

“Despite a tough economic backdrop, we are making progress. We all know there are no easy answers to problems built up over many years, and I can’t promise the road ahead will always be smooth, but by continuing to confront our problems head on, Britain is recovering and we are building an economy fit for the future.” George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, responding to news that Britain’s economy had grown by 0.3%  in the first quarter of 2013, beating the 0.1% analysts had predicted. Is anyone else getting a feeling of deja vu?

Weekly high

London design consultancy Berg has brought the digital and physical worlds even closer together this week with the announcement of #Flock. In short, these cuckoo clocks contain the company’s own wireless interface technology, which (when linked to your Twitter account) makes the birds inside chirp on the hour, and whenever someone in your timeline retweets or replies to one of your posts. Here’s a video to prove it.

 

Weekly low

The world is on the bring of environmental catastrophe. You don’t need to tell us that. The need to lower the carbon output from vehicles has never been more urgent, and any car manufacturer trying to reduce its impact on the planet should be rewarded. Apart from Hyundai, a firm that decided the best way to show off their “100% water emission” model by launching a viral video depicting a man trying to kill himself. Far too far.

Things that might happen in the next week…

On Wednesday Switzerland will begin to enforce a new immigration cap to limit the number of workers that can move to the country from other EU nations in search of a job; several newspaper groups including News International, Telegraph Media Group, and Associated Newspapers will prepare documentation ahead of taking their own non-government sponsored press regulation reform bill to the Privy Council; and the editor of a free London paper may be asked to apologise (at least) for comments in print suggesting some people should be ‘banned from breeding’.

Just in case you missed it…

Twitter is set to expand its advertising offering significantly following a new deal with Starcom Media Vest Group, a division of Publicis, one of the biggest of the U.S. industry players, with the latter’s clients having access to the most preferential commercial space on the network. The social media giant’s revenue is expected to leap from as a result. Read more on the story here.

 

If there is a success story, blunder, or news event you’d like to see included email helloATsmokinggun.co.uk or tweet using #blaggersblog. Happy Friday!

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Marketing, public relations, and the 404 opportunity

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

In comparison to 303s and 808s- musical kit that helped give birth to techno and acid house- 404s don’t usually connote anything cool. Instead, as Tuesday’s Metro newspaper pointed out, hearing those numbers will more than likely wind people up.

Every website has a 404 page, which will be encountered by anyone trying to access a dead link or typing an incorrect URL into their web browser. Most of them read something along the lines of ‘Page error: unknown request’. However, recent years have seen a proliferation in 404s with attitude, or at least a little wit, as companies fill the page with animation and on-brand concepts.

The article then went on to give some amusing examples of creativity at work in this context, ranging from Lego men pulling a plug and mythical creatures to a sketch pad for accidental visitors to entertain themselves with. On a more serious note, the charity campaign NotFound.org specialises in organising pictures of missing children to be used on pages that tell web browsers whatever they were looking for isn’t there.

The idea is that, rather than an area of the Internet designed only for tech-literate readers, the humble 404 is space that can also be put to good use. In terms of an outlet for a company’s culture the opportunities are clear. Conveying a corporate personality isn’t easy, not least when you need to keep a business head on and actually get something sold. This part of a website doesn’t really have a purpose, though, traditionally speaking, other than informing people they have gone wrong somehow, and so it’s the perfect place to get truly creative.

It’s all very interesting stuff. Or at least that’s what everyone at this Manchester PR firm thinks. We’re not alone, either, with Buzzfeed running a list of the 28 Best Error Pages on the Internet recently. It’s also indicative of the public relations and marketing mantra we live and breathe every day. Any form of communication sent out by an organisation must be consistent with all other messages, the result being a strong brand identity people genuinely recognise and understand. Whether that’s a once unappealing webpage, a sustainability policy, or major advertising campaign. By ignoring this requirement double standards can easily catch a firm out, and there will be ongoing confusion as to exactly what the company stands for, neither of which are very good for businesses trading in any industry.

 

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Infographic: What happens in an internet minute

Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

Everyone knows the internet is constantly growing, but what actually happens in a minute? This week’s infographic shows the amount of data transferred in 60 seconds and makes a few predictions for the future.

A hat tip to Intel for creating this infographic

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Don’t waste time fighting the Google regime

Thursday, March 28th, 2013

It’s never good for business if one company controls the market, hence the Competition Commission. Evidently, though, things work a bit differently when you trade online.

As our Blagger’s Blog quoted recently, some experts claim Google has contravened several legislative measures that safeguard competitiveness. By no means the first accusations of this kind, despite this the firm continues to expand its influence, often causing a minor furore amongst smaller rivals in the process.

Of course I’m not saying this is a monopoly. When a critic rounded on Google Play recently after it emerged that highly sensitive data about users is being given to developers for no good reason, the firm made him tone it down. As such I’d prefer to avoid rash statements, especially given a U.S. court absolved the world’s biggest search engine of antitrust back in January, and the UK is a libel hotbed.

John M. Simpson of the American advocacy group Consumer Watchdog feels differently, mind. Following the legal ruling he told TechCrunch: “Google clearly skews search results to favor [sic] its own products and services while portraying the results as unbiased. That undermines competition and hurts consumers.”

Elsewhere, Business Insider ran a story on forced Google+ sign ups to access services like Gmail and Docs. Whether David Beckham would have 4,846,384 UK followers, more than any other celebrity on the network, without the gun-to-head incentive is unclear, unlike the reason for this policy. Google-dominated online advertising increases in value as public targeting gets more accurate. The best way to do that is by cross-referencing search habits with online social behaviour.

Google’s Penguin algorithm update, used to rank pages, has also been the subject of controversy. By actively penalising sites that fall foul of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines with ‘black hat SEO’ tactics, the hard and fast rule seems to be fall in line with what the search giant wants or drop off the world wide web altogether. Plummeting traffic and absence in results being terribly bad for non compliant businesses. That said a push towards better quality content on websites and more naturally earned, relevant links makes sense for general internet users.

So we need Google more than Google needs most of us, and at least for now we’re stuck with the status quo. This means trying to fool the monolith with unapproved optimisation tricks or opting out altogether aren’t viable options. Instead, on-brand digital storytelling via regular creative content- built for people rather than machines- is the only policy I ever advocate. Unless, of course, you want to play an expensive, perpetual game of cat and mouse with the powers that be. Trust me, there can only ever be one real winner.

 

Image (C) Jokeroo

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Broadcasting to the 1billion

Thursday, March 28th, 2013

If YouTube was a country it would be the world’s third largest by population. Culturally it’s just as significant, helping launch the Arab Spring (along with Justin Bieber and Psy). Which isn’t bad, for an eight year old.

Needless to say, plenty has changed since it launched. Not least Google’s acquisition, for $1.6billion, within months of go-live. A shrewd investment, the network is currently thought to be worth 45 times that amount, with video content becoming the most sought after online content between then and now.

Two years later, the American TV broadcaster NBC was amongst the first to be concerned about pirated recordings, demanding content be removed. A direct precursor to official terms and conditions regarding royalties and intellectual property, ironically the television station quickly u-turned, entering into a deal to screen promotional clips for forthcoming shows on YouTube. The first of many similar agreements, and another sign of things to come.

With Virgin Media subscribers and Apple TV owners now having the network wired into their package, and firms like Red Bull streaming live events on the platform (like that record-breaking stratospheric skydive) the original video social network is more like a multi-medium content channel these days. Mobile devices, PCs, plasma screens, and interactive sets all offer access to the website and its filmed treasures.

From amateur enthusiasts to major corporations, by the time U.S. Congress and Vatican City YouTube channels opened- in 2007 and 2009 respectively- the mainstream potential of the platform was more than evident. The popularity and perceived value of video began to increase exponentially too; everyone wanted to watch something, and businesses wanted to exploit that demand.

Having grown alongside the demand for video YouTube’s position as number one isn’t surprising. However, it’s no longer a one horse race. Rivals like Vimeo are slowly gaining ground, with 5million new members joining in the last 12 months alone. The closest competitor here in the UK, it still has plenty of catching up to do but exclusive deals with bands, brands and events prove those in charge understand what incentives will get people tuning in. And then there are the niche networks.

Twitter’s Vine lets you work with six seconds of footage. Similar to Keek’s 15-second idea, along with a host of other Apple and Android integrated equivalents (from Socialcam to Viddy), these short and sweet mobile options probably don’t pose an individual threat to YouTube. But collectively they could. There are only so many hours in the day, and the more people spend on rivals- most of which come with far less intrusive advertising- the less they have for the biggest fish in this saturated pond, meaning much more work will be necessary if it’s to stay in pole position.

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The Blagger’s Blog 22nd March 2013

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

A weekly roundup of talking points, sans effort

 

 

Thought for the week

“Google and Facebook get away with things other companies wouldn’t.” Evgeny Morozov- author of To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to Fix Problems that Don’t Exist- commenting on the rise of Silicon Valley, interestingly in the same week Google slammed China’s government for its attempts to control the Internet.

 

Weekly high

Whether we participate ourselves, or it’s one of our friends, ‘social smoking’ is rife across the world. Some blame the booze, others dangerously weak willpower. Either way, it’s a very bad habit considering the health consequences, and as this Canadian Ministry of Health advert proves, the whole concept is ludicrous and rather pointless.

 

Weekly low

Key reasons behind Apple’s success are reliability and after-purchase cover. At least that’s true for most of the world, whereas in China customers have to put up with reduced warranties and limited repair services once they buy one of the luxury computers. When the story broke Apple U.S. referred critics to the Beijing PR office, but so far no statement has been made. Maybe silence really does speak louder than words.

 

Things that might happen in the next week…

The petition to make online retail giant Amazon pay its fair share of UK income tax could well reach 100,000 signatures, Cypriot MPs will vote on bank reforms and capital control as the island becomes the latest insolvent European country, and on Thursday an NUJ-organised BBC strike will see staff leave their posts for a 12 hour walkout to protest compulsory redundancies, excessive workloads, bullying and harassment at the broadcaster.

Just in case you missed it…

Following the epic Leveson inquiry and subsequent report, Britain’s highly respected weekly news magazine sector, including New Statesman and The Spectator, has slammed the new press regulation reforms, with The Economist condemning the agreed deal as ‘a shameful hash’. Read more on the story here.

 

If there is a success story, blunder, or news event you’d like to see included email helloATsmokinggun.co.uk or tweet using #blaggersblog. Happy Friday!

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Infographic: Pinterest for marketing

Wednesday, February 20th, 2013

As with all social networks, since the image ‘pinning’ site Pinterest launched there has been speculation as to how it can work for brands. Well it seems the site is catching up with the likes of Twitter and Facebook in the marketing stakes. The site has just signed a deal with NBC’s popular show ‘The Biggest Loser’ to promote the programme and healthier lifestyle choices, piggy backing off the site’s popularity for ‘re-pinning’ motivational quotes and images.

This week’s infographic rounds up how users interact on Pinterest and features some interesting stats including the fact that visitors referred from Pinterest spend 70% more money then visitors referred from non-social channels.

So, what do you think? Is there potential with Pinterest when it comes to brands?

 

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