what’s next
A great follow up from Paul Isakson to his deck from last year - ‘What’s next in Marketing and Advertising’:
A great follow up from Paul Isakson to his deck from last year - 
Power of the RT
We’re doing some fascinating research here at Mindshare at the moment about how people and brands are using Twitter.
What’s coming out that is really interesting is how far different types of tweets travel and the relative value of having lots of followers who just receive tweets vs fewer more active retweeters and the journeys tweets can go out on, sometimes hitting seams of influence 8 or 9 layers removed.
Will post full report once finished.
Dell makes first $1m on Twitter
So Dell’s been on Twitter from the early days and it looks like it’s paying off. Whilst some are commenting that in the grand scheme of things for Dell $1m over 18 months isn’t that much – it is still $1m for pretty much zero cost. And for many smaller brands in the current climate that would be significant. It also doesn’t take into account the intimate connection Dell may have been able to foster with their Twitter followers and the potential impact on WOM this could have generated.
Whilst there are issues around authenticity and inactivity on Twitter, if a brand can find a way to add value through an emerging channel, the lesson is not to stand on the sidelines but to get stuck in.
Press gangs vs bees
Whenever i write a blog entry I feel like i’m stating the obvious, so apologies in advance, but I’ve been thinking about the change in how we use the internet and what this means for how brands use it to talk to people. For some time this shift in behaviour has resulted in a clear and growing change in our digital marketing strategies, and I’ve been thinking of analogies that help bring this to life. These are probably a bit rubbish, but the old model of building destinations and paying to get people to them is a lot like (well a bit like) the press gang going out and taking people to places where they probably don’t want to be. This is vs the approach that now seems more relevant, of brands adding value and being part of the conversation out across the various places where audiences are spending their time - more like bees pollinating the brand out across the web. This shift seems pretty obvious, but I think it is quite fundamental to what we do, and is interesting when it comes to how our agency models are set up to approach it. It seems that, in very broad strokes, there is a difference in how creative and media agencies are set up to approach this model of communication solution. And as agencies converge and the pressure for land grab continues, we are going to have to learn more from each other – creative agencies will have to get better at understanding where and how audiences are spending their time, across the ever expanding spectrum of potential touch points. And media agencies better at being able to provide entertaining and useful reasons to talk intimately to people at these touch points.
Of course any better analogies than press gangs and bees are greatly appreciated.
why twitter?
We’ve been wondering at MindShare why people use Twitter – I love twitter but don’t quite know why. Most of the people I follow just seem to be twittering about what they are eating for their lunch.
Maybe its to do with the feeling of connectedness without direct contact.
That might just be a worrying insight on me, but maybe that’s also where the power in twitter lies for brands.
If a brand can make twitter truly useful for its customers then they get close to the holy grail – permission to connect with them on regular basis through mobile at no cost.
The digital planners’ planner Nick Emmel talks about the Dell example on his blog.
I think this is a really nice example of how brands can use twitter.
