The Martini and Dolce & Gabbana partnership is an interesting one. One is an iconic, but slightly old-fashioned alcoholic drink, the other a high-end fashion house. Both are big Italian brands joining forces to launch new spirit, Martini Gold.

The partnership was launched at the end of last year with a short movie which resembles a perfume ad. Although this is what you would expect from a high end luxury brand, it is uncharted waters for Martini. The film, directed by Jonas Åkerlund, is set in Rome and celebrates the Italian lifestyle as well as Monica Bellucci’s heart stopping beauty.

It has generated a considerable amount of interest online, with many consumers sharing and commenting on the content.  To date the movie has received more than 111,000 views on YouTube and more than 1,000 ‘likes’ on the Martini Gold Facebook page. Consumers have also been visiting the Martini Gold YouTube channel to access additional content, such as behind the scenes clips and interviews with the cast and crew.

Martini is the perfect example of a well established brand being given a facelift through social media. This partnership has generated a great deal of online chatter for Martini, helping the brand reach a wider audience and target new demographics who are actively interested in the fashion industry, but may not be familiar with the Martini brand.

Having generated initial interest in the drink with this campaign, it’s absolutely vital that Martini continues to engage with fans of the product once the advertising has come to an end. Only this will ensure that people, who have bought Martini for the first time during the campaign, continue to buy and enjoy the product. Without continued engagement online, new fans of the brand may be left feeling as if they have been forgotten. It also helps if it tastes good, anyone tried it?

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By Kate Eglinton

Last summer whilst researching graduate positions in communications and public relations, I was drawn in by the social media buzz that has taken the PR industry by storm in recent years.  Social media seemed to be big business. With my curiosity piqued and a brand new Twitter profile, I decided to take the leap into online PR – and managed to secure myself an internship at immediate future, where I’ve been for the last few weeks.

3 key learnings from my stint at IF:

Social media is without a doubt, social.

Social media has widened our communication horizons by an immeasurable amount. It’s human nature to want to share and discuss with others and social media allows us do this – wherever, whenever, non-stop.  The popularity of social media platforms is evidence enough in itself – we love to communicate. With social media you can have fun, be inspired, get involved, learn… and all a super speedy rate. I think there is nothing to lose and everything to gain.

It is also diverse.

Each social media platform serves a plethora of purposes and is used differently by different people. We must be careful not to lump all platforms into one social media box just because they come under the same label. I use Twitter to learn from tweeting PR and social media professionals and to keep-up-date with the latest news. Others use it for chitchat and staying in touch, which I save for Facebook. There are no rules of how to use social media – it’s entirely up to you! This diversity extends to brands and businesses…

A career in social media is equally diverse

Working in social media is surprisingly vibrant. From being at IF, I’ve learnt that social media still requires the creativity and communication prowess that traditional PR and marketing demands – with an element of geek which I love. It’s exciting to be involved in such a fast developing and ever-changing arena of business. And I don’t want to get left behind.

To round off…

I think social media’s brilliant. It’s a fabulous new way of communicating – but it’s also a big change which can scare some people. It took me a while to take the plunge and even now I’m a little nervous about tweeting. However, the social media sphere isn’t going to disappear and I believe there is something in it for everyone, whether brand or individual

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This year, it seems Christmas is truly social. And for many brands social media marketing is definitely playing a big role

image courtesy of Creative Nerds

in the festive push to consumers. M&S and John Lewis are integrating TV with their social media efforts, whilst Argos is pushing out a Facebook wish list.  Even Angry Birds is jingling with their advent calendar downloads.

The next few days will see the final turbo charge of social activity – leaving brands dripping in new fans, followers and influencer relationships.

And after the turkey is but a memory, what exactly will happen to all this hard-won social engagement. How will companies capitalise on the nascent connections with consumers? How you can refresh the relationships, tap into the long term value, and maybe learn a thing or two to inform your 2011 initiatives. The first steps to spring-boarding from your festive success into next year are:

Intelligence

What data can you extract from your Christmas activity? Are there trends in purchase behaviour? What were the triggers that inspired sharing, friendship, interest? Look for the associated interests and the reasons people engaged with you during the festive season.

Filter

Distil your new communities. Who is an advocate, who is leading the pack and can your community be divided into segments or tribes? The aim is to pinpoint those consumers that have influence – the connections that will deliver lifetime value. Look for the people with whom you can connect and form relationships.

Nurturing

Don’t stop talking to your newly connected consumers – manage them as you would any community. This requires curation by the brand. Of course you need content, but you also need to start weaving stories, creating reasons to participate, and inspiring sharing amongst your followers, fans and advocates.

If your Christmas campaign was successful, you punched through the festive noise to extend your marketing reach. Now you need to think about the frequency and longevity of your activity. Done right your investment in Christmas this year could last all through 2011. Now that sounds like a great Christmas present.

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When Santa Claus comes to town, the rules are simple. You watch out, you don’t cry and you don’t pout.

I put to you that in 2009 the social media marketeers ignored every single one of these rules, pedalling Christmas campaigns that involved risks, made people cry and yes, made them pout. For this reason, I propose last year’s social media marketeers did not want Santa Claus to come to town.

The offending articles

Item One

In 2009 Essex couple Jon and Tracy Morter diced with fire when they attempted to topple Simon Cowell’s UK Christmas Number One monopoly.

The couple used Twitter and Facebook to build a groundswell around shunning X Factor winner Joe McElderry’s single, The Climb, for Rage Against the Machine’s 1992 release, Killing in the Name.

The result? More than one million fans joined the Facebook page and Killing in the Name reached the top of the download chart just in time for Christmas.

Item Two

US blogger Jill Kocher wasn’t worried about bringing tears to ours eyes when she launched a campaign to bring SEO to the charities that needed it most.

Kocher, SEO Manager at Groupon by day and blogger for WebPieRat by night, found local-level charities had little knowledge of SEO and optimisation.

Following her findings, she set out on a mission to provide back links to charities in featured posts in the first instance, followed by arming them with the skills to embed optimised terms into their sites in time for Christmas 2010.

Item Three

Fashionista definitely wanted you to pout. Last year the augmented reality tool was developed for fashion retail sites to help shoppers virtually try on their Christmas party outfits and share the pictures with friends via Facebook.

I think the evidence is clear, social media marketeers do not want Santa Claus to come to town.

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It’s that time of year again: lists, retrospectives, best ofs, highs and lows. Take twelve months of experience and package it up into a pithy blog post or a commemorative special issue. I am, frankly, powerless to resist. My list of the top ten albums of 2010 has been under construction for quite some time now.

Rather than bore you all with my tales of joy from this year (including Las Vegas and the Champions League final), I thought I would give an extended hat tip to a couple of my favourite blogs that have kept me entertained and informed in equal measure over the past twelve months. Digital Buzz Blog is pretty much always my first stop when I open up feedly of a morning. Written by the New Zealand based Aden Hepburn, it covers the wide world of digital activity with a deft and selective hand. Whilst I love Gizmodo and Engadget, the sheer volume of posts every day constantly leaves me feeling that I might have missed something. Digital Buzz Blog prefer to post two or three articles a day, but almost always provide something that is worthy of a tweet, a mention in a meeting or that provides a creative spark which leads to something new being concocted.

Fave articles from the past year:

Diesel Cam: Connecting Stores With Facebook

Diesel Facepark: The Analog Version of Facebook

YouTube Launches The “Life In A Day” Project

Chat Roulette: HIV Guerrilla Marketing

Heading up the category of ‘entertaining’ more than ‘informing’, I can’t get enough of Will Sturgeon’s The Media Blog. It’s a fairly UK-centric look at the increasingly ridiculous world of newspapers and their websites: the frenzy to get the latest stories, give people what they think they want and aid ailing sales. There’s a lot of laughing at the Daily Mail too, which is always nice to see. On a more serious note, Will’s articles also take in the hot PR topics of the moment, such as the muddied waters of relationships between PRs and journalists, and also how the position of the dailies is changing from being moral guardians and arbiters of taste into something much more reactionary (in both senses of the word).

Fave articles from 2010:

If you only go on one ‘trianing’ course this year…

Old alcohol bad, new alcohol good?

More evidence the Sun gets its headlines from Twitter

On a very personal note, I also love Nerd Boyfriend. Pictures of celebs looking cool ‘n’ nerdy, along with links where you can buy the clothes yourself. Nice.

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Recently, Econsultancy published a piece on ten great e-commerce product pages. Following our research into the social shopping explosion we wanted to find out exactly how ‘social’ some of these retailers are. All of which will be popular destinations for consumers this Christmas.

We’ve judged these ground-breaking online retailers on the following criteria:

• Do they provide on-site reviews (1 pt per method of review)
• Do they have links to off-site social media estates (1 pt per platform)
• Do they actively engage and interact with customers (1 pt per platform engaging on)
• Personalised site recommendations (4 pts)
• Innovative, quirky, value added social media offerings (1 pt per offering)
• Exclusive offers for members? (1 pt)
• Colourful and entertaining campaigns (1 pt per campaign)
• Blogs (1 pt)

We all know Amazon will be a big hit for consumers this Christmas and the customer review ratings and personalised recommendations on the site provide useful tools for purchasing decisions.  In terms of being truly ‘social’ though it’s the fashion retailer that takes  advantage of social media channels to gain fans, really involving and engaging with them.  Asos even allows fans to review items via its own YouTube videos and engage with each other via community pages.  We’ve seen a rise in popularity of collaborative online shopping through sites like Groupon, so is this the next big step for retailers in 2011?

It’s apparent from our research on social commerce, the articles and conversations we pick up on, that it’s an exciting time for retailers. Especially when it comes to social media.  Do you have any recommendations for great sites and product pages that are being smart with social media?  As ever, we’d like to hear your thoughts…

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As we move into December and with all the attention turning to Christmas, the social media stories that hit our headlines in November may be a distant memory to you. So in case you’ve forgotten, here’s a round-up of all the social media stories that got us tweeting in November.

The Royal Family

To some this may have been more interesting if it was about Jim and Barbara Royle, but November has been full of news stories about the Windsors. At the beginning of the month, The British Monarchy got tongues wagging when it finally signed up to Facebook. The Palace has had a presence on YouTube and Twitter for quite some time but it decided to take the next step into the world of social networking when it launched its official fan page on 8^th November.  To date, the page has nearly 300,000 fans!

And wherever the Royal Family goes, controversy follows. It wasn’t long before anti-royalists posted comments on pictures and updates about a number of controversial issues that crop up time and time again, e.g. Diana, tax payers’ money etc. Fans are unable to post on the main wall, but can comment on updates and photos/video uploads. Some have  received more than 3,000 comments must prove quite a headache for the Royals’ comms team! As a social media agency we wouldn’t usually advise our clients to do this, however the Queen’s Facebook page is a good example of how to manage such a high profile and controversial brand.

Not long after the Facebook page launch, there was another long awaited Royal announcement that got the online world talking. Prince William finally popped the question to Kate Middleton. Within a few hours of the announcement, #royalwedding was the number one trending topic on Twitter followed by Kate Middleton at number two and Prince William at number three. BlogPulse showed that Kate Middleton was the second most featured person on blogs worldwide behind Harry Potter.

The online buzz gave a good idea of the sentiment surrounding the announcement. It was mostly positive (43%) on Twitter, another 41% of Twitter users responded neutrally to the news; and just 16% of tweets about the engagement were negative. Around 32% of bloggers reacted positively, while most (63%) conveyed a neutral reaction. Comments were mostly congratulating the happy couple with others projecting anger about the tax bill.

But, this is one trend that won’t be dying down for a long time. In the days, weeks and months leading up to the big day on 29^th April 2011 there is sure to be a lot of online chatter about Kate’s dress, invitees and all things bridal.

Beatles on iTunes

While everyone was getting excited about an extra bank holiday because of the Royal wedding, iTunes had another announcement that got Beatles fans excited. The Beatles back catalogue was finally available to download on iTunes. This was a trending topic on Twitter as everyone anticipated the announcement; unfortunately it was slightly eclipsed by Will and Kate. But, it didn’t stop Simon Cowell from getting in on the act by making that week’s X Factor Beatles themed!

Christmas

It wouldn’t be November without a few Christmas stories.  Monday 29^th November was termed ‘Manic Monday’ as people logged on to start their Christmas Shopping online in earnest. It was predicted that £22 million would be spent every hour by British consumers! Our recent report into the online shopping explosion shows that customers are the new product experts. People now trust reviews they see online from people they don’t know.  So, as more and more people go online to buy gifts, it will be interesting to see if user generated reviews influence purchase decisions.

Path

Path officially launched this month, a new social network that aims to be more personal. If you’re not a fan of sharing photos on Facebook with people you can’t remember from school, then path offers a personal and convenient solution. You are allowed up to 50 contacts that you can to share your photos, videos and information with. We’ve all singed up in the office and will be keep a close eye on how our clients can get involved.

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Brands on Facebook are a lot like teenagers in high school; both crave popularity.

Conventional wisdom teaches us that to be popular you need to be seen fraternising with the cool kids.

Clueless (1995)

A recent study by The Daily Beast, however, reveals the quickest way to become popular on Facebook is to do the opposite.

The Daily Beast outlines a one-month experiment into Facebook’s news feed algorithm aimed at decoding why one member’s news is more prominent than another’s.

The experiment centres around a newly set-up page, which is befriended by a select group of people, monitoring to see how much the page features in their feeds.

The Daily Beast found the Facebook algorithm favoured established members over newcomers, with absolutely none of the page’s news appearing in feeds initially.

It was only when the friends began interacting – clicking on the page, browsing through pictures, leaving comments etc. that news started to appear in their feeds; page interaction and news feed visibility was directly correlated.

The Daily Beast also found that a status update carried a much greater chance of appearing in a news feed if it included a link to an external web page. 

Throughout the experiment the ‘popular’ friends never received any of the page’s news, which meant they never clicked-through, browsed pictures, left comments or clicked on links – all of the things that fuel the Facebook algorithm.

The takeout for brands on Facebook? Start small. Friends with low-level followings are the crucial first rung up the algorithm, only once a presence has been established does it make sense to go after Facebook popularity domination.

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They may be slow adopters but the British Monarchy finally joined 500 million people across the world last week and signed up to Facebook. Instead of having a personal profile, the Royal Family set up a Facebook page for people to ‘like’ and keep abreast of official engagements.

However, with such a high profile public presence, they are bound to invite very public criticism and comments from adversaries. Already boasting more than 200,000 fans, the Royals’ comms team have been kept busy trying to moderate the comments.

The page has been set so fans are restricted from posting on the main wall but still have the ability to comment on updates and uploads. While this isn’t usually recommended for brands, this is a sensible decision by the Queen’s team as the wall would be bombarded with comments from people (and spammers!) if this was live which would distract from the updates that are being posted by the team.

Attention has been on the negative comments that have been posted that harp back to the same arguments and debates that surround the Royal Family. For example, Jason Higginbotham wrote: “Take all their possessions as they belong to the country, sell all their assets to help reduce the national debt. Abolish the monarchy and all its powers, real and ceremonial.” The Princess Diana vs. Duchess of Cornwall debate came up again when a photo album of the Duchess was posted. One fan said: “Let’s put pressure on the monarchy to create an album for Diana on this profile!!!” Another said: “why she has an album and Princess Diana doesn’t? Is there UNLIKE button (sic)?”As with all public profiles on Facebook, the British Monarchy has said it will remove any offensive comments.

So far, the Queen’s presence on Facebook is a good example of how manage a your brand on Facebook.

Keep a steely eye open as there’s bound to be another another Royal controversy in the next few months. Now the Queen is signed up to all major social networking sites, it’ll be interesting to see if these estates will be incorporated into crisis communication strategies and used by the Palace team as a way to connect directly with the public in these circumstances.

http://www.facebook.com/TheBritishMonarchy

Related articles

• Queen’s Facebook page becomes forum for monarchy debate (guardian.co.uk)
• The British Monarchy to join Facebook (cnn.com)
• The Queen’s Facebook page allows royal subjects to vent feelings (guardian.co.uk)

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Love it or hate it, the X Factor has taken to our screens again and the hype around the show is even bigger than ever.  From now until Christmas, the British public (willingly or forced) eat, sleep and breathe the X Factor as it not only dominates our TV screens, radios, print press, but now social media has ensured that it dominates our lives (and Twitter feeds)!

For those of you that still doubt or question the power of social media, then look at how it managed to defeat the music mogul himself, Simon Cowell. Last year’s internet campaign (dubbed ‘Rage Against the X Factor’) to get Rage Against the Machine to the Christmas number one in Britain was described as a protest against the X Factor monotony and an attempt to break Mr. Cowell’s hold on the pop charts. What started out as a Facebook group rapidly became an online sensation and eventually gathered enough support to successfully install the US rock band’s 1992 hit into the number one spot.

This year, longhaired lothario Wagner is being primed to rocket to the top of the charts due to another internet campaign run by the same group that last year ruined Joe McElderrys hopes of topping the charts.

These campaigns show just how influential social media can be in spreading your message to the masses. There are lessons that can be learned from these campaigns and applied to a business’s marketing strategy:

1.     Make your content interesting and engaging – word of mouth is one of the most effective methods of distribution, so encourage your message to be passed onto the masses.

2.     Timing of your social media campaign is absolutely crucial – Christmas can be a slow news time for most, but the Rage Against the X Factor and the Wagner campaigns began at just the right time for the story to gather momentum. Look at the big news stories of the day and identify any issues that are relevant to your campaign. A good marketing campaign can make use of a national news story to maximise its own coverage.

3.     Be prepared for any unexpected developments - for example, during Eurostar’s spell of cancellations and delays, its social media strategy changed from being an online marketing tool, to a method of providing updates to its customers on the escalating chaos.

The power of social networking sites should not be underestimated when it comes to distributing content. The Rage Against the X Factor and Wagner campaigns started out as Facebook groups and then spread rapidly around the web as they attracted more and more members. Before long the campaigns extended onto other networking sites such as Twitter and MySpace. Ultimately the nature of these sites ensured that the campaign stretched not just across Britain, but right around the world.

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