How does your brand deliver the expectations they deem fit and do they take into full consideration the needs of their consumers? A new consumer brand study, recently published by Edelman, identifies the link between effective brand sharing and business value.

Within the study, brandshare™ measured six dimensions of sharing – shared dialog, shared experience, shared goals, shared values, shared product and shared history. Of the 11,000 people, across eight countries, who took part in the study 90% of people wanted marketers to share their brands more effectively.

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Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo announced the new advertising model the company will be employing at CES 2014, showing an integrated suite that runs across all of Yahoo’s platforms.

“The new Yahoo Advertising includes a comprehensive suite of web, mobile, and video ad products across native, audience, and premium display, which are accessible through a new buying platform. These products are supported by Yahoo’s data and analytical tools, with insights into the daily digital habits of more than 800 million people worldwide,” Yahoo wrote in a Tumblr post.

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It’s the 3rd of January 2014, and already we are inundated with waves of infographics spreading across social media. The one below created by Adobe is fairly simplistic in nature (and a lot of the numbers can be called into question) but it does offer a number of interesting topics for debate amongst social media professionals. (more…)

Just when we thought the John Lewis Christmas ad was going to be the one to go down in history, out comes Candian airline WestJet with their Christmas miracle video. It’s garnered almost 6 million since it was released on Monday.

TL;DWatch: Passengers getting on a WestJet flight were casually asked what they wanted for Christmas. By the time they land, they are surprised with the gifts they as for. People cry, children scream, everyone is happy.

This is an example of great PR and content marketing. Why?

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It’s been clear since its inception that Google are keen to promote and push Google+ as relentlessly as they can. One such example is the recent introduction of Google+ comments on YouTube – which has been lambasted by users due to privacy concerns and functionality. Market research firms also regularly point out the social network’s rapid growth, with the GlobalWeb Index recently publishing a report claiming the network now boasts 359 million active users monthly.

Interestingly, I recently stumbled upon a display ad by Google – which upon clicking redirected me to a hashtag search of #findyourstyle within the social network itself. The results were brand and image rich, with River Island, British Vogue, AllSaints and L’Oreal UK all employing the hashtag. It’s quite clear based on the ad alone that Google are upping the ante in an effort to prove the value of Google+ to consumers and brands by working closely with them –  as seen with the likes of Burberry & TopShop in recent times.

In the prolonged battle of budget airlines, Easyjet takes a clear lead over its rival Ryanair after winning on service, marketing, messaging and social media. Easyjet runs a successful Facebook Page and Twitter profile where dissatisfied customers are given flight vouchers and often find their issues resolved quickly (operating between 8am – 8pm GMT). Using both profiles the company communicates with a community of 325,000 people.

Ryanair is notable for its late adoption to social media and has recently started using Twitter to stem the tide of negative comments relating to bad customer experiences. The company doesn’t currently have a presence on Facebook and has let multiple home-made complaints pages take its place as customers vent off about bad experiences using the airline. None of the complaints on these pages have been responded to by the company.

In a poll on the Guardian’s website, the result of this mismanaged customer relations has become plain to see.

The Facebook “like” button is set to change, dropping the thumbs up logo and replacing it with a descriptive “FB Like” motif with dark blue background. According to one estimate, Facebook’s “Like” and “Send” buttons are viewed 22 billion times a day and are embedded into 7.5 million websites. It’s a more serious looking function now, reflecting the fact that it is now a staple feature of websites external to Facebook which have an independently thought through approach to style and design.

The idea of this button is that it will make it easier and more understandable to “like” something, whether internal or external to Facebook.

The photo sharing social network Instagram, has shown the first mock-ups as to what its  advertising will look like in users news feeds. Users in the US will be the first to receive advertising on the network, with other territories rolling out at a later phase. According to Instagram’s blog: “This is a one-time ad from the Instagram team that’s meant to give you a sense for the look and feel of the ads you will see.”

Adverts on Instagram will have a “Sponsored” label where the time stamp would normally would be and an instagram logo where the username appears, otherwise it seemingly resembles a normal Instagram post.

“We want ads to be creative and engaging, so we’re starting with just a handful of brands that are already great members of the Instagram community.”

“If you see an ad that doesn’t interest you, you can tap the “…” below it to hide it and provide feedback about what you didn’t like. This will help us show you more interesting ads in the future.”

The famous wheeler dealer of a football manager, now at Queens Park Rangers, agreed to a Twitter Q&A today using the hashtag #AskHarry. Now currently trending heavily in the UK, the ex West Ham, Portsmouth and Spurs man is being overwhelmed by hundreds, if not thousands, of internet troll opportunists – all of whom have been relentless in their humorous efforts.

The brilliance of this ongoing Q&A (if we can indeed still call it that) is that a number of relevant brands (Coral, Paddy Power, Daily Mirror) have wittingly joined in on the conversation – all in an effort to showcase their cheekiness and gain significant brand exposure.

Today is an excellent example of the need for brands to be reactive on social media. In order to do so you need to be monitoring and identifying opportunities like these, and secondly taking ’em by the scruff of the neck (no pun intended Harry).

Here are a selection of tweets from #AskHarry:

#AskHarry If a train is 500m long and traveling at a speed of 100km per hour, then how much is Christopher Samba worth?

— Coral (@Coral) October 24, 2013

Would you say you are a ‘wheeler dealer’ or a ‘farkin footbaw manichah’? #AskHarry

— MirrorFootball (@MirrorFootball) October 24, 2013

Ahhh one more. What did you do before electric windows were invented? #AskHarry

— Paddy Power (@paddypower) October 24, 2013

Google have introduced and aggregated their vast array of digital tools into one central site which can be found here. At first glance, its design and purpose looks to be catered specifically towards journalists, yet most of the tools can be used by any media professional or enthusiast.

It has to be said that the site is both user friendly and informative. Rather than merely serving as a centralised repository where the tools are now more easily accessed, each section provides a sizeable amount of helpful tips to guide you through usage.

What tools will you be using most?