Ever since the brand was set up ‘True Beauty’ has been a huge factor in their marketing scheme and this is no different in their new campaign. The message is ‘Beauty is a choice – and the power of this choice is in your hands‘. Dove strive to educate girls and women on a healthy perception and build their self-esteem, inspiring women to reach their full potential. (more…)
On Wednesday March 25th, I went along to #TwitterStrories at Camden’s Roundhouse. Formally Twitter4Brands, this (near enough) annual event is a celebration of the platform’s creativity, innovation and application. As we’ve come to expect with Twitter, the event is remarkably slick with a varied lineup of speakers from Twitter itself as well as brands and users all interspersed with short videos highlighting some amazing uses of the channel from across the world.
So how to put your best creative foot forward?
Always, always, always: quality over quantity. Your focus should never be on the volume of work produced, but coming up with unique, interesting concepts.
That being said, the common misconception is that all successful online media should be geared towards those with tiny attention spans. Perhaps we think that because more users are consuming content on mobile devices we feel that the material has to be equally compact? In fact, long form content marketing is alive and thriving: according to BuzzSumo, longer posts perform well in search results and on the social web despite being accessed on a smartphone.
And in sticking to the theme of quality over quantity, there is a shift to improve what already works. While it’s important to cultivate new ideas, businesses are updating existing content that has already had significant impacts on traffic and leads.
You might be thinking at this point, okay I get it: make good stuff. But how?! Unfortunately, there’s no universal formula. But one thing to keep in mind? Think like a journalist. When formulating new ideas to try out, ask yourself the 5 W’s/1H: who, what, when, where, why, and how. This will help you stay focused on your objective, on your audience, on your method, and on your way to creating newsworthy content!
And once you start producing high-quality pieces – be it articles, infographics, or videos – you will start to gain trust with an audience. Your brand will become recognised as an authority on creative content in your given field, giving you an automatic readership and you will see more positive results.
This December, Tug has joined heads with a great organisation called Eastside Educational Trust. Our main aim is to provide our digital expertise and reach out to young men and women who are interested in our sector, hopefully encouraging them to choose digital as a professional path in the future.
In a nutshell, the Eastside Educational Trust support young students in London, ‘helping them develop their potential, share their talents and enrich their lives’. They focus particularly on helping kids that haven’t been given the opportunities that others may have and also reach out to those with educational needs and learning disabilities.
The variety of projects has been tremendous. From politically based activities to creative production master classes. They are network partners of the Adobe Youth Voices global programme which encourages young people’s creative confidence using advanced digital media tools and tested storytelling techniques. They support thousands of teachers and educators around London, training them in the latest Adobe software. Through this, Eastside Educational trust helped three young Londoners win Adobe Creativity scholarships which support the cost of their university tuition fees.
The trust also supports the BFI film academy, which gave young people the opportunity to experience CS6 Adobe Premier Pro, the latest in video editing software. These sorts of master classes open up new opportunities for their participants, giving them a chance to experience highly rewarding creative and digital industries and hopefully setting up goals for their future.
2014 marked Eastside’s 20th year. This was recognised with a reception at the House of Lords, co-hosted by patron Baroness Bonham-Carter. These sorts of honours truly reflect how successful and important this organisation is.
At Tug, we want to contribute to this worthy cause. Our first act is to donate iPads to the trust, giving access to technologies to those who wouldn’t normally have the opportunity. It will also give them a chance to develop valuable digital skills.
For every new like we receive on our Facebook page, we’ll put £1 towards the iPad fund. You never know, you may be contributing towards developing a talented next generation for your company!
So please like our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/TugAgency and if you’re interested in finding out more about Eastside Educational Trust check out their website: http://www.eastside.org.uk/
Last night I attended a talk from Lego’s Social Media global director Lars Silberbauer. LEGO’s social media pages are both famously successful and highly creative, proving that creativity is important in branded social media.
The foundation of LEGO’s success is their aim to ‘build’ relationships with their audience rather than use social media as a simple platform to sell their product.
LEGO bases all campaigns on two fundamental pillars which are inspired by the customer’s themselves:
#1 Build together
This pillar emulates the theory of collaboration perfectly, a concept that has gone hand in hand with creativity for hundreds of years. To collaborate is to open up the potential for new ideas.
#2 Pride of creation
A product of creativity is the desire to share one’s work and take ownership of it. Social Media, at its core, satisfies the creative human’s need to share in an accessible and rewarding way.
LEGO have strived to encourage and reward consumers’ creativity with imaginative campaigns such as their Facebook ideas app. Followers were asked to pitch their ideas with the opportunity for their designs to be produced and sold in stores. This hands the power over the followers, building their loyalty, making them feel valued and proud to be a part of the brand.
Compared to above the line campaigns, social media is still a pretty fresh concept. Brands are less inclined to put large portions of budget behind a social media campaign. It could be argued, in this case, to create a successful and engaging social media campaign one would have to rely more heavily on pure imagination.
Lars stated: “Don’t invest money… invest yourself!” According to him, it’s apparent when thought has gone into a campaign compared to when shortcuts have been made; an audience recognises this and will respond more positively to a well thought out concept.
LEGO’s $100 campaign
LEGO put this theory to the test wither their $100 campaign. They created a character called ‘George’, asking followers to build and snap him in front of famous landmarks all around the world. This not only provided LEGO with amazing, shareable content but encouraged people to engage with the brand and be creative.
LEGO is lucky in the sense that the product, by nature, encourages and thrives on creativity. However, it is LEGO’s job to harness and amplify this creativity through social media so as to reflect their product in a true and positive light.
If less creative brands were to take LEGO’s attitude as an example, the social media landscape would look a lot pretty exciting and be both inspiring and engaging for the consumer.
Read more:
How Social Media and Digital Apps Continue to Awaken our Creativity
#1 Be careful when choosing a social media handle or name for your social media page. Assuming you own a company called ‘Smith Plumbing’, using the Twitter handle @SmithPlumbing would be a lot more efficient than @PlumbingCo because diluting your brand name and not fully displaying it would have a negative impact on the visibility of your social media profile. Brand names should be kept the same on all of your social media profiles unless the handle is taken.
#2 The ‘About’-section of your social media profile acts as a meta description. On Twitter, this is the bio section on your profile, on Facebook, it is the tagline in the ‘About’-section. Make sure it is fully visible in search results and does not get cut off. You can add keywords and hashtags in this section but less is more, do not overdo this. An example of a cut-off Twitter bio can be found below:
‘The gentleman’s wager’ is the new ad for Johnnie Walker Blue Label; which is produced from rare casks of whiskies from across Scotland). The ad combines a renowned casting – Jude Law and Giancarlo Giannini – in picturesque scenery with the finishing touch being beautiful garments from Mr Porter, an exclusive online retailer.
Video and Ecommerce combined
We cannot express it enough; video content has becomes a crucial element in marketing, which can be distributed via different platforms (YouTube, Vine, Instagram, Google+, etc…).
This YouTube video below promotes both Johnnie Walker whiskey and Mr Porter with a particular twist. By clicking on the video, you’re redirected straight to the Mr Porter ‘Shop the Look’ page, and see all the clothes and accessories worn by the actors of the video.
Sometimes, I wish I could do that on my TV… (Or not!) (more…)
If we were to distil the day of learning at the Content Marketing Show into three points they would be: Strategy is King, Storytelling is Key, and It’s All About Data.
We came away with one take home point for every hour of the next three days. Enjoy!
Can a brand ever truly be social?
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But it’s not just the heated battles to be mayor of the office, or the competitions with strangers to be mayor of the local pub; Foursquare has given me so much over the years. I can always rely on Foursquare to find me somewhere to go, from discovering new places to go in my local area, or popular suggestions when I am in a new city.
I especially like the anniversary compliments given out by the app. “Four years ago today you joined Foursquare and you still look just as beautiful as the day we met.” Awwww shucks, thanks Foursquare.
