Twitter Gaming - valid marketing or ethical minefield?

Twitter gaming – one of the hottest topics of recent weeks and one that appears to have caused a divide of opinion in the digital world. As a sure-fire way of gaining large numbers of Twitter followers; and fast; is Twitter gaming just another valid marketing technique that gives brands a great way to reach their target markets with their latest message? Or in a digital world where consumer engagement is built around the ethics of authenticity, genuine interaction and the sharing of useful information, is there still room for the traditional ‘push’ marketing message?

A topic of much contention, and one that our very own Spencer Gallgher, will put to the Digital Loungers at this month's Digital Lounge event next week. If you fancy joining the debate, you can find out more and book online by visiting the Digital Lounge website.

To keep up to date with all things digital, you can follow Spencer on Twitter @spg4.

Crowdsourcing - genius from the masses

Crowdsourcing. The term is cropping up all over the place, but is it just a short-lived ‘buzz’ phrase or is it a genuinely useful business tool?

In a world where it is increasingly difficult to achieve cut-through – both from a marketing perspective and a product differentiation point of view, anything (within reason of course) which can set you apart from the crowd is a good thing. So how can crowdsourcing help?

Firstly, what is crowdsourcing?

Brought into the spotlight by Dell’s innovative use of the concept, crowdsourcing is a technique that empowers your audiences to help solve your business challenges, innovate in product development, evolve the business to meet consumer needs and much more. It draws upon the input of the ‘crowd’, posing questions, requests for ideas and general input. The crowd could be made up of a group of brand fans, subscribers or followers who have a level of interest in the improvement of a product, offering or service. By gaining input from the masses, the brand achieves a great number of viewpoints and inspirations in a short space of time and potentially covering a wider selection of viewpoints and abstract ideas.

So, we know what crowdsourcing is, but does it work?

Crowdsourcing does require investment for it to be of value. But this doesn’t necessarily have to be financial. You could begin with a simple approach to crowdsourcing and empower a member of your marketing team to create and then leverage a following, for example, via Twitter. Communication is real-time and you can generate a relatively large number of followers fairly quickly if you have a known brand.

Many brands are now investing in crowdsourcing for a variety of reasons, some of which are cited as examples above. And many are finding great successes from doing so. A recently publicised and unintentional crowdsourcing example comes from Air New Zealand, with its latest ad campaign inspiration being taken from a customer tweet – you can read more about it on Brand Republic – it’s a nice idea, and a different take on the usual airline ad messaging.

There are a host of other brands successfully using crowdsourcing for various benefits – check out the list below (courtesty of Open Innovators) for examples of real brands making embracing crowdsourcing:

• Dell IdeaStorm - external idea sourcing
• P&G Open Innovation Challenge - external idea sourcing in Britain
• Ideas4Unilever - corporate venturing
• BMW Customer Innovation Lab - in german
• Staples Invention Quest - idea contest - site no longer live but you can read more about it here
• Kraft - innovate with Kraft
• Vocalpoint - P&G’s network for women
• Betavine - Vodafone’s mobile app community
• My Startbucks Idea - shaping the future of Starbucks
• Nintendo Wiiware - nintendo embraces crowdsourcing
• LEGO Factory - LEGO co-creation tool
• Nespresso - design contest for coffee machines
• Muji - improving and suggesting new designs
• Fluevog - open shoe design

So is crowdsourcing for you?

This may well sound obvious, but it depends on your brand, product/service and objectives. Crowdsourcing brings a number of marketing benefits such as brand awareness, consumer engagement, the building of a community and potential press coverage. Alongside this, it also brings with it genius from the masses – it is effectively a giant brainstorm. If these benefits work for you, then you should probably consider investing in a crowdsourcing programme…

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @ JocelynKirby

Recession? What Recession!?!

If all the news of the credit crunch is getting you down and boring you to tears, why not buck the trend and show off your spending skills.

And I don’t mean spending wildly out of your depth! I mean controlled, well thought out spend – where the pennies go up in value once you’ve spent them rather than going to ‘newspaper ad’ heaven.

Science of the rocket variety, it is not!

Spending approximately £1,500 on a quarter page ad that will only appear once in a small area of the country, is not dynamically generated and is clouded by other adverts…hmm – [refer back to rocket science comment here!], may not be the best investment in the current climate…

Spending online however, opens up a world of opportunities for digital marketers including the ability to quantify actual results from campaigns, giving you full accountability and justifying that ‘crazy spend suggestion’ to your boss, all the more easy.

We need to reference the ‘crunch’ here but it will be with positive connotations. Money is tight, let’s face it we’re all scrimping and saving where we can. But we do still need to spend.

Particularly in marketing, because if you don’t keep reminding people, then they forget about you - not good! This also gives me the perfect opportunity to reference one of our previous articles – Cut Spend, Damage the Brand.

Not only more cost effective, marketing online allows for highly effective targeting and tracking – making it far easier to quantify your return on investment. You can receive up-to-the-moment reports detailing exactly when someone visited your ‘spend’ – this could be a full website track from page to page or a simple advert on another site.

So if you’re stuck with the million-dollar question – do I put my money offline or online then bank that thought online and save the quandry.

Don’t find your advert lining next week’s fish and chips portion. Come join us all online, there’s plenty of room!

Katherine
Account Manager

Everyone's talking about Twitter

To Tweet or not to Tweet? That is the question.

But what is the answer?

It is a much discussed topic in today’s blogs, news, TV and even radio, with Chris Moyles touching on the subject on this morning’s show. And despite my reluctance to follow the masses, even I have given in to writing about it. So just why is Twitter so newsworthy?

For those of you that haven’t yet come across the phenomenon, Twitter is a micro-blogging service, that allows you to tell your ‘followers’ what you are doing in 140 characters or less – a little like updating your Facebook status.

Launched in March 2006 and probably partly due to its ease of use, its rise to fame has been rapid and it now finds itself ranked in the top 600 websites on the planet! (according to Alexa)

Its popularity has spawned a whole host of ‘bi-products’, making it even easier to post your tweets, keep up to date with the people you are following and post pictures. We’ve written about a few of them in our previous post, The Twitter Revolution.

The question that everyone is asking at the moment is – should you tweet?

It’s not a tough question to answer – YES!

Twitter is great fun and a fantastic communication tool, for personal and business use.

At Bluhalo, we find it a great way to keep up with what our colleagues are working on, what colleagues in our other offices are working on and a superb way to knowledge share – one person finds a great new site that can save them time, they post it to Twitter and now we all know about this great new site and we’re all saving time.

So aside from keeping up to date with friends and colleagues, how else can you make use of Twitter?

It brings huge value to online PR. Not only does it give your brand a way to communicate with its public, it also allows you to glean hugely valuable information on public opinion of your company and products, by monitoring brand chatter across Twitter users. Huge benefits have been seen by the famous, with Obama’s election campaign proving to be a seminal moment for both Twitter and social media. It's worth checking out what we did with a Twitter integration to Andy Murray’s website.

I could write about Twitter all day but in short, the main benefits are:

• ease of use
• access to your public
• ability to informally communicate
• contribution to online PR
• brand monitoring

So to quote the Muller ads, with so much pleasure, where’s the pain?

Some argue that Twitter just shouldn’t be used as a marketing tool.

And in a world where your thoughts are published to the world, you'd be forgiven for agreeing with this view. However, a simple degree of censorship when tweeting means you can make the most of this great comms tool without fear.

Here are some general rules which should not be broken and will keep your Twitter experience a pleasant one and not a business faux pas!

1. Anyone could read your Tweet. Is it suitable for public reading? Could what you are about to tweet offend someone, especially a client?There’s a great story on this which is worth the read if you have the time.
   
   
2. It pays to stay positive. If all you do is moan, people won’t want to follow you. Try to keep it upbeat and if you do feel the need to gripe, at least make it comical!
   
   
3. Keep it interesting. Who really cares what you just ate for breakfast? Keep your tweets interesting and informative. The wider the appeal of your tweets, the more followers you’ll get.
   
   
4. It’s not a sales tool. It’s great for brand presence and communication, but don’t use it as a tool to hard sell. It will turn your audience off pretty quickly.
   
   
5. Be genuine. If you’re a celebrity, your fans want to know it’s you and not your PR guy posting to Twitter. If you’re a brand, followers want to know they’re getting the real story and ‘insider knowledge’, not PR spin.
   
   
6. Know your objectives. Understand why your are using Twitter, whether it is simply for personal communication, building your professional reputation or representing a brand. Confused messages make for confused followers.

So, that’s it! Rather longer than anticipated, but my take on the phenomenon that is Twitter.

Jocelyn
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby

Cut Spend - Damage the Brand

It's one of the most talked about areas in the marketing world this week - the debate about whether cutting marketing spend during an economic slowdown can damage the brand. Fuelling the debate is a recently released report from the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) which warned that cutting budgets during a downturn could damage the brand in a number of ways including loss of market share, a long term effect on sales and a decline in brand image.

So, how does this apply to your website? At a time when budgets are being carefully monitored, if not reduced, there arises an opportunity to gain some ground on your competitors and even extend your lead in your marketplace. When the majority cut budgets, keep on spending, even increase spending if you can get away with it! Invest in a **** hot website, take two leaps ahead in terms of style and technology - then use it!

It's all part of the bigger picture, but with internet usage continuing to grow and the social media phenomenon making even the most tech-shy marketers sit up and take note, a time when your competitors are being over-cautious is the perfect time to stand out from the crowd!

A great website can create increased brand loyalty, encourage interaction between your brand and its public and most importantly help to drive sales - whether they're online or offline. Strengthening your offering at a time when caution is the norm will give you the stability to ride out the hard times and more importantly, will give you a long term competitive advantage. In addition to these marketing benefits, clever use of technology within your website can also help to streamline internal processes, actually saving you money!

Whether you are B2B or B2C, if you want to find out more about how a new / updated website can help your business get ahead of the game, start by speaking to Bluhalo.

Paddy Power's Live!

We're pleased to announce the launch of Paddy Power’s investor relations website, www.paddypowerplc.com.

Paddy Power is the largest provider of fixed odds sports betting in Ireland and is well known for its daring and humorous advertising campaigns.

The new website targets a range of stakeholders including investors, employees, customers and the media and communicates the distinct brand personality, whilst ensuring information is easy to find and the site intuitive to navigate.

Michael Brandreth, Account Director at Bluhalo, says “our brief was to produce a site that is intuitive to use, appeals to a wide ranging user base, but that also reflects the unique nature of the Paddy Power brand. We noticed that most Investor Relations sites fail to introduce any kind of brand personality, which we felt was a mistake. Paddy Power’s brand positioning offers a fantastic competitive advantage and we feel we have been successful at conveying this within the site.”