Estate agents used to say, that if Pizza Express opens in a new area, it’s a sure sign property prices in said area are about to rise; and smart property investors should pay attention.

So I put it to you, if a meme spreads across YouTube, it’s a sure sign that a new trend is forming; and smart brands should pay attention.

Admittedly, there are vast differences between social memes and the property market, but there is also one clear similarity: they are both traded on currency.

Online memes carry social currency, content that can be traded, shared and associated with, as a means of improving – as Pierre Bourdieu put it – “one’s sense of community…helping to form one’s identity, and providing status and recognition.”

And if online social media memes carry social currency, then think of YouTube as The Royal Mint. A quick look at YouTube’s currently most viewed video today reveals that ‘Simon’s Cat in ‘Catnap’ is the top trending video.

With 922,292 views and 26,005 Likes on YouTube alone, the adorable cat cartoon, by animator, Simon Tofiled, has already reached 11,680 people via Twitter. A scan of YouTube also reveals that there are currently more than 1.6 million cat videos currently circulating across YouTube and a glance at the social media staples such as Mashable, will reveal that advertising agency, John St. in Toronto has, in the last two weeks, heralded the age of ‘catvertising’ – advertising that harnesses the cat’s current trading power as social currency.

So, if cat-related content is the latest social currency, should brands be chomping at the bit to invest in cat-related advertising and marketing campaigns?

Probably not. As PR Web wisely pointed out in a recent post, for a brand to adopt a meme, that meme needs to reflect an “image, idea, or phrase that best sums up your brand or product”. It also needs to “focus on the problem that your brand actually solves”.

Millions of memes circulate across the social web every day, as millions of consumers trade on the social currencies that help them form identities and feel included within their communities. When a brand hits upon a meme that bears relevance to their product or service, the result can be marketing gold.

Shoe-horning a brand into a meme that has no relevance to the brand promise or values is about as wise as purchasing a property on the promise that a Pizza Express is on its way to the area.

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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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This week, YouTube reported the acquisition of movie recommendation engine, fflick, a service that streamed film mentions from Twitter to show users their friends’ tweeted reviews, as well as an indication of the sentiment around the film.

Whilst there’s not enough information, at the moment, to see how this acquisition will pan out; it is clear that the trend to integrate consumer sentiment and recommendation is still going strong. We’ll keep you updated with what’s going on.

Whilst details about how fflick will work with YouTube are still unconfirmed, the YouTube blog hints at the potential for using this technology to integrate YouTube videos with the comments posted on other social platforms –

“We’ve always believed that there are great conversations happening all the time off of YouTube.com, and that commentary has the potential to enrich your experience when watching and discovering video on YouTube itself.”

- a move which could have some pretty big implications for brands.

• Online conversations may no longer be restricted to the platforms on which they take place. This means that someone does not to be Twitter user to be influenced by a Tweet.
  

  Image via CrunchBase

• Negativity or positivity related to video footage is likely to be amplified as the commentary will be amalgamated rather than thinly spread across audiences.
• YouTube would become more social with an increase in dialogue and active conversation. This would make monitoring YouTube conversations increasingly important for brands.

• If content is streamed onto brand-owned YouTube pages, there could be a potential risk under the new CAP code relating to user generated content appearing on branded social.

Whilst there’s not enough information, at the moment, to see how this acquisition will pan out; it is clear that the trend to integrate consumer sentiment and recommendation is still going strong. We’ll keep you updated with what’s going on.

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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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Things are going great for Katy Perry as of late and with more than 3.5 million followers on Twitter, the ‘California girl’ isn’t afraid of using a little social media to create some online buzz around her new album, Teenage Dream.

Record label Capitol came up with a cool little PR stunt to get fans gossiping about her latest release by printing a candy scent onto the records booklet coinciding with the singer’s cotton candy themed album.

Katy Perry is currently the eleventh most followed user on Twitter so it’s not difficult for the singer to inject a message straight into the heart of her ever growing fan base.

By posting a YouTube video on Twitter about the way her candy smelling album was constructed just days before its release, Perry managed to create online chatter and get an influx of new users subscribing to her YouTube channel.

Celebrities such as Katy Perry have a guaranteed pool of Twitter followers that they can communicate with anytime anywhere.

Katy has no doubt recognised that social media is an effective way of creating conversations about her products and generating online buzz. By getting the star of your show involved and using social media platforms to reach advocates, brands can drive mass interest in a product.

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If I said the name Mary Bale or Cat Bin Lady last week, you probably wouldn’t know what I was talking about. Before now, Mary Bale was just your normal, everyday person…until she decided to throw a cat in a bin! Unfortunately for Ms Bale, her actions were caught on CCTV and it wasn’t long before the whole incident was plastered all over the web and the saga is ongoing.

The story reflects an emerging style of news arc, one that begins with social media and is then picked up by all major news outlets both on and offline. Since the initial video was posted on Facebook, the story has become massive across the world, largely thanks to social networks.  Twitter accounts, Facebook profiles and YouTube videos have all appeared in a small space of time. The spoof twitter page, @CatBinLady, has more than 5,000 followers. Numerous videos of the incident have been uploaded to YouTube with one having received 132,000 views in two days.  But, Facebook is where it’s all been kicking off. After the video was posted on the site, “hate groups” (to quote the Daily Mail) were set up almost instantaneously. One group, which reached more than 18,000 members, was shut down after users posted death threats.  Mary Bale is indeed the talk of the social networking town.

This is a classic case of something that starts off small ballooning out of control. Even as I write, news stories are still filtering though about Mary Bale almost 4 days after the initial story. And this should be a warning to companies. Brands should be aware of the mushroom effect of social media as they are with other areas of crisis communications. Sometimes it can appear to be completely out of control, and in many cases, CatBinLady is a case in point, it is. Even though a social networking community may seem small, there is the potential for a story to grow and get out of hand, after all these are often the people who influence the media.

The backlash Mary has received from the video is pretty extreme. But it does go to show, it can often be the most simple and random things that get the online world buzzing.

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• Cat put in wheelie bin: ‘Death to Mary Bale’ Facebook page taken down (telegraph.co.uk)
• RSPCA considers prosecuting Mary Bale over cat in wheelie bin (guardian.co.uk)
• Woman who dumped cat in wheelie bin says it was “a split second of misjudgment” (mirror.co.uk)

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If you’re living in the UK like the team at immediate future, you’ll no doubt be enjoying a bit of classic British summertime – it’s August, and you need a coat, scarf and wellies to go anywhere. It’s frankly rubbish outside, so why not stay in and get everything you need from the online world?

We’ve been talking about virtual reality for ages, with plenty of early 90s shows like Tomorrow’s World and Blue Peter getting presenters to don a cumbersome helmet and escape the real world. Truth is, the transition to the virtual world is getting closer and is much more subtle.

3D is the current driver. Why pay massive ticket prices to sit in a cramped seat listening to some idiot spout abuse at a real football match, when you can watch all of the big games from the comfort of your living room in stunningly immersive Full HD 3D? Soon all sports will be following suit, and you’re much more likely to see what’s going on via your TV (invite a few mates round, crank up the volume and hey presto, the atmosphere is replicated too.)

3D gaming is going to be BIG, BIG, BIG. If you can box, dance and play tennis in the house, without having to deal with those aforementioned weather issues or that sweaty dude from the gym who always stares at you in the shower, well that’s good with me!

You can talk with video conferencing on Skype and iPhones. You can find out exactly where friends are and what they’re doing via social networks. Online shopping is bigger and better than ever. More and more live gigs are being streamed on YouTube. Music festival coverage gets bigger and longer every year as digital channels and online devote resource to bringing you music without any mud. V Festival has recently announced live streaming this year for the first time. Once we get gigs and festivals in 3D, there will definitely be no point in going out ever again.

OK, so you lose a bit of atmosphere, but if you’re on Twitter you can still talk to other people about the events (be they gigs or football matches), the beer’s much cheaper and there’s no chance of getting stuck in a three hour traffic jam on your way home. Sounds good to me.

• Arcade Fire join U2, Alicia Keys in streaming gig online (ctv.ca)
• Can Twitter wit replace live comedy? (guardian.co.uk)

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With a new football season underway and an eagerly anticipated Premier League campaign due to start this weekend, I’ve been considering my consumption of the global game recently and how it’s changed.  Not just for individuals, but for brands as well.

Everyone knows football is big business with dedicated, die-hard fans.  So social media provides the perfect forum for fans to interact, share their thoughts, keep up to date with their team’s latest gossip and transfer news.  The World Cup was also a ‘first’ for two reasons.  Not only was it the first tournament to be hosted in Africa, it was also dubbed the first ever ‘social media’ World Cup.

Interesting stats courtesy of www.simplyzesty.com back this up too.  Coca Cola’s sponsored hash tag #wc2010 received 86m impressions in 24 hours.  The Vuvuzela iPhone app was number 1 on iTunes in 50 countries in June.  Nike’s World Cup advert received more than 19million views on YouTube.  3,238 tweets per second recorded during the Japan Denmark match (the normal rate is 750).  497,000 ‘Likes’ for the England’s Team Facebook fanpage (seems like too many to me and it’s now more than 550,000?!)

Interestingly, brands who weren’t even ‘official’ sponsors in South Africa this year, maximised their use of online channels for their campaigns.  Nike’s ‘Write the Future’ campaign for example dominated the social media landscape prior to the World Cup.  Nielsen also found that Budweiser, who paid a heavy price for the global sponsorship rights, was trounced by their rival Carlsberg in terms of online chatter volumes.

Everyone, from fans to journalists, used Twitter to experience this tournament, with dedicated World Cup hash tags making commentary easier to source.  Twitter is a serious presence in social commentary, an effective means of gauging response and reaction to cultural events for brands looking for tactical as well as more strategic territories to associate themselves with.  Appreciating how consumers are changing their media behaviour reiterates the value of events like the World Cup.

It’s the brands who take the time to understand this relationship, understand where their fans are talking, that grab the real opportunities to engage with consumers.  More importantly, brands are able to measure engagement providing a compelling case for new forms of marketing and sales promotion.

It seems all football fans need now is an internet connection, or a smartphone and the information is at their fingertips.  The combination of podcasts (Guardian Football weekly), websites (nothing beats BBC Football, Football365), Twitter (some of the biggest official club feeds include Chelsea’s stamfordthelion Liverpool’s LFCTV) and Arsenal’s (arsenaldotcom), live streams over IPTV all prove valuable to brands looking to capitalise on fans’ online presence following their passions for the beautiful game.

However, not everyone will get it right first time.  As Umbro found out trying to run a Foursquare promotion at a Manchester City home game last season, aiming to create a record for the biggest number of people checking in at the same location.  Credit to Umbro for engaging with Foursquare so early on, however uptake was minimal.  More investment in the incentive to check in, free tickets or a replica shirt for example, rather than a t-shirt, could have produced further uptake.

Or was it because there aren’t many football fans using Foursquare yet?  We’ve seen brands succeed at the World Cup so I will be interested to monitor if those using social media tactics to good effect during the 2010/11 season…

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