Social media is increasing becoming a factor in how brands communicate with their customers.  The facts are hard to ignore:

- Facebook has over 400 million users worldwide

- 40 per cent of the UK population is on Facebook

- 2.5 million active Twitter users in UK

- Over 30 million tweets per day

- YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world

These are just a few of the social networks out there and there are many more…   However, you don’t have to be signed up to all of them to effectively communicate with your public.  Three regularly updated, channels are better than nine neglected social platforms.  Once you’ve established what social channels best reach your target audience, outlined below are a few tips to get the best out of what’s out there.

5 Social Media Top Tips

Keep updating

Creating a profile page is the first step, not the last.  Content needs to be refreshed, statuses updated, keep on top of it and you’ll find it becomes part of your marketing day.  Even better still is a customised page for your brand that keeps your visual presence uniform on various social websites.

Tone of voice

Social media is an opportunity relate to your audience in a more direct and open way.  Often it’s the personality of the brand or the more human qualities that distinguish your posts from other brands, and in turn will get you a reaction or comment from your audience.  This form of authenticity is in a sense a conversation rather than a lecture or company statement.  Plus you only have 140 characters (for Twitter) so make them count..

Don’t keep talking about yourself

Keep your communication varied and interesting.  You don’t have to keep pitching your product or service, as this can get repetitive and may switch people off your updates.  Remember not all news is newsworthy to your audience.  Do your followers or fans want to know about your admin issues?  Probably not, however they may want to know about a new innovation in the industry or a funny viral video that relates to your line of work.

Use multimedia platforms

Social video websites like YouTube are a great way of demonstrating how a product works in its optimum context.  This can aid the marketing efforts no end if produced correctly and with a bit of imagination.  Plus these videos can receive valuable feedback as well as integrate with other social platforms.

Make all your channels work for you

Combine the reach and high usage on Facebook with the status updates of twitter.  Also post YouTube videos of events or product demonstrations on your Facebook page.  Your social media can work together to provide a cohesive message for all you’re company communications.

Here at Neoco we can identify, consult and look after your businesses social media requirements.   Having worked with leading brands like Topman, Nationwide and Ubisoft – we can help you get in on the social act!

Lovely pastries from the Foxcroft and Ginger

On Wednesday last week, Soho experienced the first (of the new series of) Neoco breakfast event, which took place downstairs at the funky Foxcroft and Ginger. We were delighted to see the RSVP’s roll in – until the point when we realised that we would have to turn a lot of people down… If you were one of them, we are sorry! The details for the next event are coming soon so please do get in touch and let us know if you can make it and we will make sure to get your name on the list.

At 8.30am (we will have a later start the next time, we promise…) it all kicked off. Apart from offering amazing coffees and homemade pastries, attendees were given food for thought on several different aspects of the digital and online social environment with Brad Little from Nielsen as the first speaker. Brad gave a comprehensive overview of the ‘value of social collection’ and several examples of how organisations will benefit from incorporating social into advertising and marketing campaigns.

Attendees enjoying speakers and breakfast

Next, we listened to Claire O’Connell who joined us from Facebook. She explained how social applications have grown rapidly, and how different brands apply these tools onto their website and into their marketing mix to increase their reach and build communities. Last but not the least was our own Benn Achilleas who gave his perspective on why organisations need to seriously consider their social CRM and identify how they can make best use of the social environment, tailored for their own specific needs.

The event was hosted by Steve Barton (thanks Steve!) who is a key figure (with Benn) of the Word of Mouth UK association – he regularly contributes to the social and digital debate in the UK and abroad. If you are curious to find out more about WOM UK and their work pop over to www.womuk.net.

Claire O'Connell from Facebook talking about Social plugins

We want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all who came along and made it such a memorable event! If you missed out, or want to recap on all of the fantastic insights then the speakers’ presentations and also a video of the event will be available at neoco.com in a few days time!

We at Neoco have always liked to embrace new technologies and whenever something new or exciting comes out we naturally get excited. This happened with the iPhone, which we now make applications for, and this is bound to happen with the iPad.

The rumour of an Apple tablet has existed for over a year and now that it’s soon to be reality, developers must look at ways they can create applications or adapt their current ones to best fit the new format. Thankfully, the iPad runs the same operating system and contains the same frameworks as the iPhone and iPod Touch so many developers can immediately get to work. The transition, however, may not be as simple as might be suggested by the fact that they both run iPhone OS.

It runs iPhone applications doesn’t it?

It’s well known that the iPad will run most current iPhone applications. Some won’t work due to hardware differences, some because of changes to the underlying frameworks.

The lack of a camera, which many expected to be included, means that all the fun photo adjusting applications become boring (since you must use an old photo form your library) and augmented reality applications (like those that point you to the nearest Tube stop as you look through the camera) obviously cannot work. GPS seems to only be included in the 3G model, so again like with the iPod Touch, this rules out turn-by-turn navigation programs for many people.

Some changes to iPhone OS 3.2 have curiously broken code from past versions. This is presumably an effort to improve the range of functionality, yet in the past they managed to find ways to do so without forcing developers to re-write their programs. Case in point: the Media Player Framework. It’s not clear whether this is just an iPad issue or whether it will affect all devices upgrading to 3.2, but essentially, the mechanism to play a video won’t work. In the past, the only way to play a video was to launch a full screen player. Now you will be able to play videos in smaller boxes, but you have to do so in a different way. Fortunately even if your application featured heavy use of videos, this should be easy to correct.

Then there is the size. Yes, it can run iPhone applications at their native resolution and, yes, it can scale them up to fit more of the screen, but both forms result in an appalling user experience.

At first it might be tempting to just increase the window size to take up the entire screen and leave the rest of the interface in the much the same form, but it should be pretty obvious that this will not make for an attractive application.

Because of these points and more, it is clear that users will expect developers to make iPad-specific applications. In fact, not just iPad-specific applications, but universal applications that work across the range of Apple mobile devices.

Design and interaction

For all their systems, Apple publish Human Interface Guidelines that describe how they envision all application user interfaces and behaviours. For the iPad they say that a few things need to be different from the iPhone/iPod Touch paradigm:

Orientation

If you spin the device round into any orientation and the interface must follow – this happens in a few iPhone applications, but far from all. Curiously, it sounds as though Numbers form the iWork suite for iPad will only work in landscape.

UI

You shouldn’t just make it bigger. As stated above, with such a large and rich screen this would make your application unappealing on the iPad. But it’s not just a case of aesthetics – Apple want applications to look more like the things they act model from the real world. Their Contacts application, for instance, is modelled after a pocket address book. Naturally this won’t make sense for all applications, but Apple is trying to encourage designers to think slightly beyond the traditional iPhone OS interface elements.

• Downplay controls such as buttons and drop-downs
• Avoid full screen transitions – present information in place where possible to improve the overall visual stability
• Use high quality, physically realistic graphics
• Present lists and their detail views together – e.g. the mailbox list and email preview are on the same screen side-by-side in Mail on the iPad
• Reduce modal interfaces (these interrupt the user flow) – e.g. avoid alert message pop ups by presenting responses inline

Having said that, developers shouldn’t attempt to make desktop-style applications – Apple still maintains that across the iPhone OS family applications should each perform one main task in a clear and concise way. I.e. an application shouldn’t sprout new features – only a new interface – and shouldn’t deal with a file system model of opening and saving files (all changes made to something should always be preserved, and only loss of data such as deletions should ask for explicit confirmation).

Actual Multi-touch

The iPhone and iPod Touch have had multi-touch technology for years, but in very few applications, beyond games, is it used. This is probably because there are few situations where it can be put into practice in a meaningful way on the small screen. With the iPad, Apple is encouraging a more touchy-feely approach to applications.

The crux of this? Lots to redesign for existing applications, lots more thinking/sketching/prototyping before making new applications.

Another worry is the increased fragmentation of hardware and capabilities of the devices an application is expected to run on. Fragmentation is one of the much maligned facts of the Android platform. There are so many Android devices with differing screen sizes and system resources that it is hard for developers to accommodate all forms. The beauty of the iPhone OS family used to be that it was simple but now you have 3 iPhones, 3 iPod Touches and 2 iPads, all with varying capacities. With new models coming out almost yearly, it’s foolish for developers to only focus on the latest systems and cut off the millions who bought one just last year.

What exactly is it for anyway?

All in all, Apple’s choices for the iPad suggest that they’ve carefully thought through what sort of niche the device sits in. The fact that it runs iPhone OS is great for developers as there’s not too much to learn and great for users as it will feel natural to those who have used iPhones or iPod Touches. They haven’t overloaded it with hardware features and focused on the software. Despite being both a hardware and software manufacturer, Apple have explicitly stated that it’s hard to compete in hardware – they will be matched very quickly by others. It’s software where they can claim to stand out above the rest.

It’s a little less clear what this niche is though… The iPad is too big to carry in a pocket / have with you always. In contrast, an iPhone would barely leave your side. The iPad isn’t the most convenient things to hold and you probably can’t use it with one hand or on the move. In contrast, you can type a text message on the iPhone with one hand while walking. Its giant screen will wow you, but will your eyes get tired of the bright light and colours after reading more than a few pages?

So be certain of one thing – the iPhone is going nowhere and will remain popular. But will the iPad succeed? We think so if the developer community can build great applications as they have done for its predecessors.

brilliant online resource with fantastic journalists and articles... like the one about us yay!

If you are up to speed with our agency tweeting (if not, please explain why – ed) then you’ll know we applied for and were accepted in to the IPA! Hooray. Well, it looks like the IPA were proud to have us and Brand Republic obliged with some press coverage. You can read the article here

Or you can read the original IPA article here.

yay! look our logo on the IPA homepage. sweet.

Benn
Mark
Neil
Alex
Elly
Jody
Coxy
Atko
Ross
Carl

Odd fact.

That is all people – back to work

The piggy bank's probably not going to cover this one

Now, I’m sure many people have many views on this, but I’m still in shock about the amount that this poor woman was fined I’m under the impression that 29 songs is about 3 albums, which I’d say is about 20 quid? I’m pretty sure these songs wern’t on special.

Now, I’m not sure if you find this as funny as I do, but the best it is that she was originally fined $250,000 but it was a mistrail and obviously the music industry found some better lawyers.

It makes you wonder though, how exactly do they expect her to pay? If she’s got a good voice maybe they should take her on tour as some kind of “anti piracy extreme tour” it could definitely make a dent in fine!

Makes you appreciate Spotify that little bit more.
Thanks NME

Understanding online

What are your thoughts on Benn’s idea’s?

Lots of debate about DM, Data and Digital - not sure about the Monty Python reference though

Thanks to Results International and Lewis Silkin for inviting me to the round table debate.

Attendees included:

• Richard Lees, Database Group
• Leighton Morgan, Eclipse Marketing
• David Perkins, Indicia
• Benn Achilleas, Neoco
• Mark Patron, Red Eye
• Malcolm Duckett, Speed-Trap
• Simon Morrissey, Lewis Silkin
• Cliff Fluet, Lewis Silkin
• Keith Hunt, Results International
• Caroline Johnson, Results International
• Jo Sensini, Velvet PR

Notes and podcast audio released soon.

Dogs can wear a tag to help their owners make new friends; now pet owners can return the favour by using Dogtree, a social networking site designed especially for dogs.

Australian Dogtree is a free service that aims to help dog owners find playmates and walking friends for their canine companions. To search for doggie friends, human users can simply enter their postal code; more advanced search options are also available, such as breed and size. Either way, the result is a list of other suitable canine members in their area. Once they find some that seem like a good match, dog owners can invite them through the site for a playdate or meeting. There are currently almost 600 members on Dogtree, and most elect to use their dog’s photo and name as their username on the site.

Need we say more? Now that social networking has covered most of the developed world’s human population, niche applications are coming fast and furious—and even extending to some of mankind’s best friends. Cats may be less amenable to the social networking experience, we suspect, but how long before this comes to other sociable species? Advertisers of related products: get ready, or get involved!

So what do Neoco think of it… This is a great way of showing the power of niche social networks and how people cluster around particular activities or interests. There can also be real power for brands to build strong relationships with relevant audiences through these channels – imagine if this was set up by Pedigree Chum or Petsmart, what a great initiative. It’s this thinking that Neoco work with clients to deliver – just look at our successful I Love Design platform for Quark XPress.

Credit to Springwise for original story

Jody Minton is having the time of his life!

Neoco are really happy to announce a period of recruitment in this time of global economic downturn – we like to buck the trend! Jody Minton is new to our Account team and comes with a prestigous agency background including Stream\TBWA & Tequila, working on large pan-Euro projects with clients including Adidas, Nissan, Playstation, Masterfoods and more. Jody is really into football and also supports the Spuds… I mean Spurs.

Without further ado, I’ll hand over to the man himself:

“So, how did I end up at Neoco?  Well, it’s all about what you want from your next big move I think.

You want to feel excited about work, you want to feel like you’ve got a new challenge, and a big one at that.
You want to feel like you can really add something to the process – and make things happen.

Neoco represents that for me.  Cool place, cool work, cool clients and cool team.  That doesn’t happen very often.

I don’t need to tell everyone that digital has been the biggest growth area of our industry (advertising and marketing) in the last decade and the steamroller’s not stopping… but I do need to tell you I want to be a key part of it. We’re still scaring the hell out of the big ad boys (and girls), while they scrabble around with a 30sec TVC, we’re creating social media apps and mashups!

It’s clear the agency wants to drive forward and challenge things, meaning I’ve been gifted a unique opportunity to influence the future here – and I’m lucky enough to find that bundled up with fun people, in a fun environment.

And that, doesn’t happen very often either.”

Thanks to Jody, we already have an assortment of cool/ cheesey phrases bounding around the office, including:

“What’s going down in Chinatown?” and my personal fave “This is Soho, not Guantanemo!”

Looks like I’ll have to watch my back on this one as Jody is definitely going places. Welcome to the team.