Just seen that PC Pro has launched a blog. Good example of a “traditional” media outlet getting it right. The posts are short, to the point, and entertaining. I can’t say I’ve ever been a huge reader of the mag (I’m not really their target audience) but once I started scanning through the blog there were loads of posts which grabbed my attention.
I went to yesterday’s Supplier Showcase event from e-consultancy on Behavioural Targeting.
I’ve just pulled out a few nuggets of interest to share here and downloads of their complete presentation will go up on the e-consultancy site soon.
I posted a few weeks back about Balance, an agency I work with, launching their new experiential agency Balance Live.
The group is growing fast and winning new business so have a few vacancies going. I said I’d chuck up on here. If you’re interested contact:
A great initiative from Koodos.com the online fashion retailer of discounted designer goods. After recognising that a major barrier for online consumers was concern over authenticity of discount goods, the company decided to lead the way by launching Authenticity Week to educate consumers on how to spot a wrong ‘un.
With their recent survey show showing 1 in 3 Brits own a fake designer item they are probably doing many of us a favour as police start to crack down on copyright infringements on online sites like eBay and brand owners take legal action against sellers and selling-sites alike.
Nice social media element to it too with the formation of a Facebook group and video with the style gurus over at Catwalk Queen.
Watch the video after the jump:
When i lived in Italy I visited the Benedictine monastery in Subiaco. It’s built around a cave where St Benedict supposedly lived in solitude for three years fed by a shepherd or monk (I’ve heard both versions) who lowered a basket of food down at intervals. The cave is surprisingly peacefully and, depending on your temperament, kind of appealing.
My positive response to the environment demonstrated that people feel different degrees of being intro- or extroverted and it’s something that crops up in questions when I run social media training sessions: who are ‘these people’ ie bloggers, tweeters, social networkers et al and why do *they* feel so comfortable broadcasting their lives?
I’m not sure I know the answer. At a basic level, once you and your friends start using something like Facebook it becomes more standardised and natural, you find yourself adding more personal updates, posting photos etc.
But honestly I still feel a bit like a social media “observer” using tools like this blog and Twitter to engage with my community from professional more than personal desires. As a pretty private person being publicly online makes me feel exposed and I contemplate deleting my accounts to run away to my Benedict’s cave. (Although I wonder if after 30 mins there I’d discover a compulsion to tweet “sitting in cave waiting for @Romanus to stop by with the food basket”).
Ever been out of work and had the old stat 6 of 10 jobs are not advertised quoted at you? It used to not feel true but social media is starting to show that stat in action.
Over the past few months I’ve seen:
Those are just the ones I can think of right now. Ignoring the obvious “what if they see my drunken pics on Facebook/MySpace” hype which hopefully everyone has a handle on now, I’m wondering if social media communities are going to replace the recruitment agency?
Social media just provides the tools to tap into your own or others’ networks which were harder to mass broadcast to before Web 2.0 technologies.
Working your community:
The Blackberry Women and Technology Awards were last night and I wondered how I totally missed this tech event. I didn’t even spot a random Tweet about it this morning.
A quick scan of the official site revealed, disappointingly, that perhaps this wasn’t the techiest event of the year. The nominees and winners hadn’t even been posted 18 hours after the event began (an age in online news terms).
This got me thinking about the benefits of this type of brand association with an event. It’s not a bad idea at all. If you caught the Saatchi & Saatchi ‘Lady Geek’ research last year you’ll have seen there’s a huge missed opportunity to market technology to women (around £600m worth).
So I did a rudimentary Trendpedia search to see who might be “owning conversations” around women and technology. First off I scanned through a quick Google search to see if there were any stand out brands in this space. There weren’t so I just used:
The search terms I used were [brand] AND women AND technology.
The results:
I don’t think I’ve put podcasting high enough on my radar. Part of the problem is that I’m not someone who listens to the radio, but I realise I’m in the minority with 51% of people identifying themselves as regular listeners. So, are podcasts just a fad? Will voice just be surpassed by video or vodcasting?
On the video front, while growth in the digital space is rapid I reckon the desire for audio only will always remain. It’s a similar behaviour to choosing to put on a CD or watching music videos. Sometimes you just want to listen to something.
There’s great growth potential for podcasting. Radio has been an enduring medium, even with the advent of digital technologies, and I see the podcast as simply providing a form of “on-demand radio”. Uptake may be slow, but awareness is growing, suggesting that podcasting suffers from the same challenges as on-demand TV services; if good content exists, it’ll just take time to ensure the delivery model is in place and help the consumer adapt.
I didn’t attend the ‘New TV Insights from Thinkbox’ event the other week but they dropped me a note to point out they have a load of useful downlaodable content on their site. I’m getting particularly engrossed in their Generation Whatever section which has research and presentations on how marketers can target the “yoof” audience.
Also visit the beautifully titled ‘Nickable Charts’ section which has all the facts and figures on TV audiences you could ever wish for; your next powerpoint presentation will thank you for it.
