We recently came across an old postcard from the mid-sixties featuring Beaconsfield New Town and Milestone’s offices. Just for fun Peter decided to take a photo from the same angle and created this animated gif. The buildings haven’t changed, but the occupants and number of coffee shops certainly have.
This week, we spent an interesting morning at Bloomberg HQ in London for a Social Media Benchmark event with the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
With speakers including Thomas Brown – Head of Insights at CIM, Josh Graff – EMEA Marketing Director at LinkedIn and Dara Nasr – Industry Head at YouTube UK, it was a great opportunity to delve deeper into the insights and discussions around how businesses are using social media. It was a great event with lots of stats to bring back to the office.
So, who’s doing what? The CIM’s research shows that 71% of UK businesses are using Twitter, although just over a quarter are saying they are ‘just experimenting’ with social media.
Company investment in social media in 2011 was on the increase with 2012 set to grow even more rapidly. Over half of organisations who took part in the research say they are planning to improve social media skills in 2012 by investing in employee training.
Key points we took away: Experimentation is great, but without using the relevant analysis tools available you’ll never be able to measure your success. Social media is a dialogue – it’s more about listening to customers than selling them things.
Even with the global social media boom going on all around us, brands are only just scratching the surface… #SMBenchmark for more information
Last week I did my Brand and Deliver talk to marketing students at Bucks New Uni in High Wycombe. As you would expect from a bunch of 18/19 year olds they were pretty brand savvy, zipping through my brand challenge in their Superdry T shirts. They really took to my chocolate positioning exercise and were quite at home chomping through value and premium bars alike. They had plenty to say about the brands they liked and didn’t like but were strangely quiet when I asked them about Facebook and social media. Was there a sense of guilt, is social media old hat, or is it really for bored office workers?
Brand strategy, tone of voice, ideas and innovation…
See Brand Workshops for more information.
