New Twitter cards to allow email sign-ups

Twitter has unveiled a new lead generation card that allows brands to gain email sign-ups direct from tweets.

The new tool, which has been tested with a few brands already, allows users to sign up via their twitter credentials within the app or website. With one click their username and email address is completed for them and then securely sent to the brand.

This seems to be further expansion by Twitter to appeal to brands, especially following some high profile hacking that has taken place recently.

Currently the lead generation card is only available to Twitter's managed clients but there are plans to roll out globally and to small to medium businesses in the future.

Find out more on their blog.

Now being a social influencer can get you into airport lounges

American Airlines has rolled out a new perk for social media users, use of their Admirals Club lounges, regardless whether you are flying with them or not.

To gain a one-day pass for the club, you need to have a Klout score of 55. What does this mean? Klout is a tool that measures your usage and engagement on social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

The perk includes almost 40 lounges across the world including airports in San Francisco, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo and London.

With others already signed up to Klout Perks including Sony, Nike, Microsoft, Disney, Audi and Gilt, this is a major push by the social measurement tool.

A clever development, but one can't help to think that social influencers may see through it, regardless of whether they take advantage of it or not.

ThingLink lands on Facebook

This week interactive image platform ThingLink officially hit Facebook. Already available for use on Twitter since November, the platform allows users to embed links to anything, meaning that you can link an image to a website and the person viewing it would not have to leave their Timeline.

The images work by having anchor points embedded on them, when a user hovers over that point they get information and with a click, they can open YouTube videos, audio clips, other websites and virtually anything else that would previously have been linked to in the description.

This could open up new avenues for brands, marketers and general users providing interactive images that will have more impact than normal posts might.

Whilst this isn't the first interactive image brand to launch their services on Facebook, Stipple launched on the network back in January, it does show a growing trend for people and brands trying to improve the level of engagement they have with their followers. One company to already try it has been Doctors Without Borders with this post.

The platforms reps have said that since it launched on Twitter, engagement on posts was increased, with some up by five times, so the scope seems to be there for it to do well on Facebook.

Is interactive imagery the next step for social marketing? Let us know what you think.

The state of B2B social media

B2B Marketing has produced an infographic on The State of B2B Social Media 2013, built from the data included in their 2013 B2B Marketing Social Media Benchmarking Report.

From the infographic we can see that Twitter is the most popular platform for B2B businesses, however there looks to be an increase in the prevalence of Google+ in the B2B market.

We also see that a lot of companies don't calculate the ROI from social media.

Click on the image to see the full Infographic, or click here.

Get the most out of your LinkedIn Company Page

Professional networking site LinkedIn has produced a useful little slideshare which gives the top ten tips for Company Pages.

They asked for tips from some of the 2012 Best Company Page winners, which included Adobe and Hubspot.

At the end of the presentation LinkedIn summarise their 3 main tips for better engagement;
1. Add an image
2. Post status updates
3. Add products or services

The reasoning for these three? Imagery speaks more to people, hence why Pinterest and Instagram grew so quickly. Status updates keep you in the mind of your followers and of course having your products and services allows people to see what you do without having to click through to your website.

Other comments to take away from this would be:
'Before posting an update, ask yourself - "Would I want to read this story? Would I want to share this with my connections?"'

'Listen to your audience. Look at the Company Page Insights, read comments, make connections'

Take a look at the full list here and let us know which tips you like the most.

Expedia announces luggage tag competition

After they produced a new advertising campaign that created clever words from the IATA codes found on luggage tags, Expedia.co.uk has launched a new competition on its Facebook Page.

The competition asks entrants to try and create their own slogans or phrases using over 9,500 available IATA codes, as seen in the campaign which we previously featured, in an effort to win a £2,000 Expedia holiday. Entries are made through an app on their page, where you can also view entries by others. The competition will run for four weeks, with a winner chosen at random.

The original campaign was the idea of copywriter Jon Morgan and art director Mike Watson at Ogilvy & Mather.

It is a clever way to build on what must have been a successful campaign for the company and, in turn, will increase their visibility on  Facebook as people need to 'like' their page before being able to enter.

Try out the app for yourself here.

Zombies swarm around hastag

There are two things that seem to work well in advertising; zombies and reverse psychology.

With this in mind the Darewin Agency created a social media campaign for 'The Walking Dead' in France for the TV channel NT1. They urged viewers not to use the hashtag #walkingdeadNT1 as it was 'contaminated with a virus'. Those that did were then stalked by online zombies.

This clever ploy started with ads on the website that led to people trying it out to see what happened, obviously this then led to them telling others to use the hashtag to gain their own zombie followers. They also introduced this to Facebook, with zombies commenting on posts where the hashtag was used.

The final result was 30,000 users being "attacked" by zombies in less than two weeks, with 550,000 impressions tallied, and most importantly for the TV channel, viewers ratings were up.

Another clever marketing campaign for the TV series, that some may feel doesn't need marketing. Watch the campaign video below.

Write the 'perfect' tweet

With the growing number of people using Twitter  it's no wonder that Gerry Morgan, of US-based blog Marketing Think, produced this great little infographic on how to write the perfect tweet.

The blueprint covers all the basic content - links, hashtags, and mentions, in terms of both the ideal placement within a tweet and their uses. Some of the more relevant tips to take away from this could be leaving 20 characters at the end of your tweet for people to comment when they retweet, the importance of formatting, like using headlines or calls to action, and finally passing the "perfect tweet filter".

This a great piece for anyone who uses twitter but the post was targeted at marketeers, advertisers and PR professionals, talking about engaging and informing audiences.

So regardless of what you use twitter for, have a read, take some notes and let us know if there is anything you feel he missed.

Read more about the perfect tweet here.

TTT Tips - Content Marketing - Part 2

We’re regularly being asked about content marketing and how businesses should use social media to engage their audiences. On this note, we thought it would be a good idea to offer a few hints and tips that readers may find useful. Here is part 2 of 2. Read part 1 here.

8.    People respond better to visuals
Picture and video content makes your posts more engaging. This is very important online and across social networks, after all an image speaks a thousand words. Use infographics to demonstrate your proposition quickly and imagery that supports your content.

9.    Start and finish strong
Don’t trail off at the end; keep it consistent all the way through and summarise where possible with references to further information.

10.    Keep it simple  
Don’t overwhelm with information or numbers, give sources so that readers can find out more. We live in an age of information with the means for people to pick and choose what they want to know so let your readers choose how deep they go into the content.

11.    Employ emotion
Emotional responses make things more memorable, they invoke a natural response in people.    

12. Link, Link, Link Link your content to relevant online content.
There is nothing more annoying than referencing someone or their work and the reader having to use a search engine to find it.  

13. Tone of voice
Choose a tone of voice that is relevant to your business and how you communicate with your audiences. Once chosen keep your content consistent, using the same tone of voice every time.  

14 Ask for a response
There’s nothing wrong in asking your readers to respond to your posts. Seek their opinion and get a conversation going.  

And on that note, let us have your thoughts on content marketing.

TTT Tips - Content Marketing - Part 1

We’re regularly being asked about content marketing and how businesses should use social media to engage their audiences. On this note, we thought it would be a good idea to offer a few hints and tips that readers may find useful. Here is part 1 of 2.  

1.    Fear of missing out 
Deliver content that is unique, inspiring, useful and about something new; no one wants to miss out on the next big thing and content that is interesting and communicates something to the reader that they have not seen before will encourage engagement and sharing. Look for the wow factor or the unusual.

2.    Make your content easy to skim
Only around 20% of online content is read so try to break down what you are saying into lists or shorter paragraphs that allow readers to skim through and find the information they need quickly and without effort.

3.    Make it informative
We all want to feel like we’ve learnt something; if your content offers to educate the reader then link to other websites that substantiate your information or reference to other sources.

4.    Allow the content to be shared easily
Add sharing buttons for as many social networks as possible and offer the ability to email the content. The easier it is for people to share, the more likely they are to share it.

5.    Length is related to sharing
Make content substantial but not too long. There are direct correlations between the number of words and how viral content may become.

6.    Show consistency and authority in posts
Regularly posting content that is informative and accurate boosts your online reputation. Ensure that your content is written well, grammatically correct and offers insightful information.

7. Don’t make content all about you
People don’t like self-promoters, the most interesting person at a party is not the one who constantly talks about themselves. Talk about interesting topics that other people can relate to and that are relevant to your business and the products and services you offer.

Part 2 coming soon.....

Social marketing without give aways

A lot of people feel that the best way to gain exposure on social media for a new product is to spend lots of money advertising it, either directly or through competitions or give-aways. Not so for Nars Cosmetics, they decided to utilise the power of social marketing in a different way - by creating an app.

Their Warhol App would would take a snapshot of you via a web cam, or you could upload a pic, and then add an Andy Warhol look to it. This would produce a new cover image and/or profile photo for you to use, although the image does have the Nars Warhol branding included (a very subtle but great way to raise awareness). 

The idea was to promote their new Warhol Collection, and it worked, as every time someone updates their cover photo a unique update goes out to their friends, unlike when a profile image is updated.

The app attracted a relatively small number of users on Facebook — 3,143 — but an impressive amount of engagement: Together, those users made more than 5,300 images and spent an average of seven minutes and nine seconds using the app, generating an estimated 823,000 impressions on Facebook.

The app is no longer on their Facebook page, although they were smart enough to provide the app off Facebook as well, which had an even higher number of users and traffic, thanks to tech and beauty blogs talking about it. However the app still requires you to login via Facebook to use it.

Take a look at the video of the app below, and try it out for yourself.

10 Ways to optimise your Twitter feed

In the first of a series of Social Marketing pieces, we are going to discuss how to optimise twitter, for either personal or business use.
Below is a list of 10 major ways you can optimise your twitter account and how you use it

1:  Your password
If you created your account many moons ago there is a good chance that your password has not been updated and is not as secure as it should be. Standard tips are to include numbers, special characters, and a capital letter. You can use http://howsecureismypassword.net to test how “strong” your password is.  

2: Your design
Like most social media platforms, you can customise how your profile looks, from background image to “header” image; you can add in your own images or use a site like Kuvva to get access to artistic images. Header images are important for when people look at your profile on mobile, but need to fit in with your background. Your profile picture may need updating too, especially if again, it hasn’t been changed since you set it up.  

3: Your profile info
What do you put here? It can vary in terms of what is best, but generally it is best to talk about yourself in the way you use twitter; What do you tweet about? Why should people follow you? If it’s a professional account talk about your services, and make sure you have a link to your website. If it’s a personal account, make sure if you mention your job to specify that views are your own.  

4: Following / Followers
Just because twitter suggests you follow someone doesn’t mean you have to, likewise if some-one follows you be sure to consider if what they tweet about is the sort of thing you want to read. if you wish to build and keep a good number of followers be sure to make your tweets informative and interesting, especially if you are representing a brand. There is a free online tool to help clear up which accounts you follow – Manage Flitter, it will tell you who doesn’t follow you back, who isn’t active, and if they may be a spam account.

5:  Apps
If you want to become a “pro” user, then use of apps is important. Check your profile to see what is connected to your account, anything that you don’t use get rid of, then try to use something like tweetdeck, a great way to monitor your twitter feed and more without having to click through. Hootsuite is similar, and can provide analytics, but the free version has limitations. There are also some great paid for tools if you wish to go down that route, but read reviews and take trials, make sure it is right for how you want to use twitter. Mobile apps are great for being on the move; twitter obviously has a mobile app as do most web apps.  

6: Links
Whilst twitter shortens links for you, using bitly or even tinyURL will allow you to put more content in as it shortens links to 20-26 characters as standard, and with bitly, you can track clicks, and it’s free.  

7: Getting people to follow you
Whilst a lot of people will follow you back if you follow them, having too big a ratio of who you follow to who follows you can make you look like a spammer, even if you have a fully complete profile. Gain authentic follows by promoting your twitter account; put it in your email signature, on your Facebook, on your blog and even on your business cards. Never buy follows, as it doesn’t gain anything for you.  

8: Messages
Keep an eye on when people message you, remember they can only message you if you follow them and vice versa, so if you work in customer service for a brand, follow people who have an issue and get them to send you a message. At the same time, delete old messages, including sent, and avoid clicking links from people who claim there are dodgy photos of you online or that someone is saying bad things about you, these are viruses/spam.  

9: Engaging
Twitter is not just about tweeting your own thoughts, retweeting shows you value others thoughts and gives them credit for content.  
Using @handles is good practise too for when you are talking about other people, brands or products, liekwise for #tags, these allow for people who don't follow you to see your tweets. Always reply to people when they mention you or favourite your tweets. Following back is also good, but again, be wary, it can be just a way for them to gain followers.  

10: Notifications
Getting emails from twitter left, right and centre? Phone going off every time someone mentions or follows you? That’s fine if it doesn’t happen often, but if you are using twitter a lot you will see all of this, so do you really need emails? Change your settings to avoid this, but be sure that you keep on top of your feed and interactions.

Kit Kat crowd-sourcing a new bar.

In a move to determine a new flavour, Kit Kat has turned to social media to find out which flavour "chunky" bar is most popular between mint, coconut, fudge and hazelnut.

The campaign is similar to one they ran last year, where consumers were asked to vote for their favourite chunky from a selection, via text message. This time round the company is using Facebook as the voting medium.

To vote, you need to go to the Kit Kat page, where there's an app which is 'like-gated', meaning you must like the page before you can vote, then finally you can choose your favourite of the four flavours.

The Facebook campaign runs alongside a television advert, with the flavours given the persona's of superheroes albeit cumbersome ones.

This is a clever use of social media and crowd-sourcing by the company, one that saw peanut butter chunky being voted winner last time around.

B2B Marketing issues Best Practice Pinterest Report

B2B Marketing has issued a new report on Best Practice use of Pinterest.

It looks at one of the fastest growing social media platforms, Pinterest, and examines the potential benefits for B2B companies looking for another marketing channel to target their customers.

This best practice guide looks at the first principles of using Pinterest, through to creating a content strategy to build up brand loyalty, develop better customer service and gain customers’ trust. They say, 'The platform enables businesses to share visual messages with their audience, which, in turn, develops the brand, drives engagement and can strengthen their thought leadership position.'

Details of the report:

Understand the fundamentals of using Pinterest – the origins of Pinterest and how to leverage it to achieve marketing objectives.

Use Pinterest for brand development – create a brand personality to communicate your brand message responsibly.

Measure audience engagement – look for users repinning your brand regularly and use this information to improve your targeting and branding strategies.

Interact with your customers and prospects – if you notice fans taking an interest in your brand (positive or negative) there are various ways you can strike up a conversation.

The guide covers:
Strategy – integrating Pinterest into your social media and content marketing strategy.
Metrics – measure the effectiveness of your social media activity to build better customer service and advance brand development.
Content and timing – deliver a constant stream of relevant, qualified and valuable content.

You can order the report here for £99.

Social media in the workplace seminar

If you need help with or have concerns about 'Social Media in the Workplace' then this forthcoming seminar is for you.

The Think Tank's Director of PR, Samantha Dawe, will be joining the Employment Department at Bracher Rawlins LLP to present a seminar on this topic on 28th November in London.  

The venue is 77 Kingsway, London, WC2B 6SR and it starts at 5.30pm. The seminar will also be followed by a drinks reception.

There are a limited number of spaces so if it is of interest then email Carol Watson at carol.watson@bracherrawlins.co.uk to secure your place

Bodyform asks if you can handle the truth

When Bodyform received a rant on their Facebook page from a disillusioned male visitor they decided that it deserved a response.




Yulia Kretova, brand controller for Bodyform said in a statement: "We found Richard's post very amusing and wanted to continue the positive dialogue around periods that this generated. Working with the brand for five years, breaking down the taboo around Bodyform and periods has always been a challenge, and I hope that we have started to address this. Carat has created an original and uniquely personalized response, brilliantly PR-ed by Myriad, allowing Bodyform to quickly engage in consumer conversations in a meaningful way."

A very amusing response to social media interaction.

The changing nature of news

There was a great article in the FT’s Inside Business section by the paper’s media editor, Andrew Edgcliffe-Johnson.  Describing how newsrooms have shrunk, he looks at how services such as PR Newswire (owned by UBM plc) are responding and how it sees its future being driven by digital syndication, social media and search engine optimisation.   

As we have commented before in our blog, a rethink has started for press releases as multimedia content to help feed the growing number and variety of news outlets online.  Edgcliffe-Johnson argues that “search and social media trends suggest corporate content will only grow”.   

So not only do we now need to be aware that the majority of news is ‘broken’ online, but that how we package up that news into deeper content will increasingly make a difference. This will have an impact not only in how this might be facilitated both client and agency side, but also that the content must be credible and ‘watchable’.   

There will be a need  closer integration of advertising, digital marketing, PR and investor relations concludes Edgcliffe-Johnson.  

See the article in the FT here. (registration required)

Tweet Shop opens in Central London

Kellogg's has opened a pop-up shop in SOHO, London that bridges the gap between social currency and real-life money.

The shop offers you a menu of Special K Cracker Crisps and accepts Tweets as currency to buy them. Combining social media and real-life interaction the promotion not only engages those that tweet to buy a special pack but also across social channls as the word spreads.

The response has apparently been very positive, always a gamble when asking consumers to Tweet about your business, as Waitrose found out recently.

If you missed the shop I'm afraid that it closed yesterday, 28th September, but you can find out more about this interesting multi-media experience below.