In the second part of our ‘how to brief’ series, Rob Turner talks about how creatives want to be briefed and how it sets the rules for a good working relationship.

Independent creatives have worked hard to reach the point where they regularly get new business. We’ve gone through the cycle of needing work to build up our portfolio and needing a portfolio to win new work and come out able to deliver great work to customers.

So I’d start off by saying that the brief needs to show that you want to treat the creatives with respect, knowing that their experience can benefit you. If you are briefing a project through something like the Creative Services Exchange you know that the experience is there but you don’t know the creatives in person. This means that clear instructions are vital.

That being said it’s best to avoid instructions that are overly fussy or overcomplicated. As someone who sees a lot of writing briefs, I don’t like to see excessive amounts of keywords or specific instructions. What is particularly annoying is when instructions are contradictory. For example, there are clear instructions not to mention brand names but the next paragraph talks about explaining your brand.

Understanding what’s going to happen during the project is also important. Is everyone involved in the project going to be communicating with the creative? In the brief you should say who is involved and at what stage they’ll be involved. Will they be there to answer questions at all times? This feeds into setting the deadlines as well: if you know that you’re going on holiday for a month then don’t set your deadline knowing that you’ll not be able to respond to the creative during that time.

Similarly, as a creative it’s really important that we look at these deadlines and take our own responsibilities. We should help a customer by being upfront about realistic times to deliver and someone briefing needs to be realistic in what they’re asking.

The final vital part of any brief is the budget. Don’t state a budget that you’ve no intention of paying just to attract attention, but don’t set one that’s so low that it’s not realistic for us to work to.

With a sensible approach putting this information into the original brief will really help the creative and a healthy and balanced working relationship ensures that both customer and creative get what they want!

If you found this advice useful and want to brief creatives and agencies like Rob,  brief the Exchange now!

What do you want?

Before you ask for anything, know what you want. It sounds so simple but so many clients fail to nail this down before they pick up the briefing document.

Start with your laying out your objective, not your requirements. Is it to push a particular new product? Drive general sales? Lay this out in your brief.

I’ve seen so many briefs wanting iPad applications to give a brand fluent mobile presence when in actuality a mobile site would achieve this better. Of course a good agency will suggest routes outside of the brief but it gives everyone a head start if you’re giving them an objective to meet in creative, not a narrow route to get there.

You should only think about what you want your customer to feel or do, how they are made to do this is what the agency will help with.

A well thought out objective:

“We want to widen our online following.”

A confused objective:

“We want to widen our online following through social media, trending, influencing bloggers by creating a meme to position ourselves as the unique leader in our sphere.”

Confuse the objective and you’ll confuse the consumer.

Say it once, say it short

This echoes a little my previous point but keep your briefs, brief. Don’t overload them with all the possible ways the brief might be attained.

Tell us what you want, and we’ll tell you how we can do it.

Where are you in the market place

A good agency will find this out for themselves but it’s nice to see where a brand sees themselves. Are you a smaller company looking to take on a large one? A big player looking to consolidate their position?

How you see yourself is generally reflected onto the consumer. We might want to emphasise that image, or we might want to dispel it, either way image is a key part of any company and it comes from the employees not the brand guidelines.

This is one of the first thing I will look at when I receive a brief, along with what success looks like to you. You can then draw a line between the two in order to figure out how to get there.

Who do you want us to talk to?

Simple. What’s your target demographic? Is it the same as your current customer base? Are you widening it? If not, why not? Why do they like your brand? 

Budget

A ballpark is fine, but we need it. Looking for a quote is one thing and we understand that you are looking to see what sort of value is out there. However without at least a rough budget we could be suggesting completely unrealistic concepts, or even not taking your brand to it’s potential.

Having said that don’t forget a good agency can work with any budget, so don’t put yourself in a negotiation corner! Give us a range.

If you’re inspired by this great advice and want to brief creatives and agencies like Rob (there are nearly 15,000 of them):

 Brief the Exchange now!

There is one overriding maxim when you’re a disruptive company: you have to keep disrupting. If lunch is for wimps, innovation is for the permanently hungry.

So with blur Group, its aim to disrupt the way businesses buy creative services – and the way creatives deliver them, requires us to be ahead of the game. And then some.

We launched the first version of our trading platform last year: it delivered automation and collaboration to the process that we define in three simple steps: Brief, Pitch, Project. Everyone who briefed had their own online trading account, set up at the time of briefing. The Exchange Support team could track every pitch, shortlist and manage the project stage.

Now blur Trading 2.0 has just been released, designed not just to further improve the processes that make up the creative project but to deliver a robust and scalable architecture that allows us to grow our global creative communities and handle any volume of new transactions on the Exchange. It combines our social technologies, the crowdsourcing techniques that underpin the community and continues to make use of the cloud to run a global business services exchange.

Our creatives and agencies have their own pitch dashboard so they can manage all their pitches and a new template allows them to prepare and deliver pitches more easily on to the platform. Customers, whether first-time or repeat users, have a new improved brief app and new features to run their procurement: rating and reviewing pitches, interfacing with invoicing and payment systems, instant messaging and an improved collaboration workspace so that regardless of where their selected creative is based, the project can progress rapidly to completion.

blur Trading 2.0 delivers a highly scalable architecture that extends blur Group’s use of social, cloud and crowd technologies to deliver a unique trading platform for the Exchange. It helps both creatives and customers to streamline their processes further. And with streamlining comes greater value and greater quality. And in the world of big data, being able to mine and manage information about the creative services industries from the demand and supply side is key to the platform.

This new platform gives businesses the means to  change the way they buy your marketing projects. The old way is, well just that, old. Smart companies are moving their core systems to the cloud, and recognizing that social technologies can underpin their way of doing business. So why not the way they buy creative services. Brief the Exchange now!

We’ve given some advice in the past but we’re also aware that people have different ideas about what they must include, and what doesn’t really seem important.

The brief app (newly updated) that kicks off the creative process on the Exchange tries to keep things both simple and open, in common with our streamlined approach to sourcing your creative projects. It splits the brief into 5 key components:

• About your business
• Objectives of the brief
• Deliverables (where known)
• Deadlines and
• Budget

This provides us with enough detail to list the brief to the creatives and start the pitching process. However we may still ask some questions to get more insight – and remind you of things that you may have missed (the branding that has to be followed, the audience profile that will make your campaign successful).

We’re always keen to provide you with more value and so over the course of the next couple of weeks you can read some blogs from creatives on the Exchange about what they like to see in a brief; what really helps them deliver the pitch you’re expecting and some helpful tips that will make your brief easier and faster to write and deliver even better results from our great creatives.

We’ll also cover how creatives like to work – and if your brief brings out the best in creatives, well that’s the perfect story for both sides of the Creative Services Exchange.

Look out for the blogs and we’ll be combining them into a user guide for you to download at the end of the series. Meanwhile if you have a project that you want to get off the ground: submit your brief now!

C&A Brazil took social media to the shop floor with their recent mashup of digital and real time retail.

In an innovative strategy, the clothing chain created a campaign entitled “Facebook Like”, which invited Facebook users to “like” items of clothing. The real time social media activity was then translated to hangers in the store with particular items of clothing, allowing shoppers to see which pieces from the collection were the most popular.

This clever use of online and real time action is indicative of a social future for fashion retail, and paves the way for exciting projects – how might brands leverage Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter for marketing ideas?

Another exciting addition to the fashion digital map is Pimkie Colour Forecast, a website which maps colour trends as they are being worn in real time in fashion capitals Milan, Paris and Antwerp. The data is translated to colour charts and can be viewed by week or by day, with suggestions for what to buy based on the real data produced by European trendsetters.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4qdNb6FvGY

Where will real time marketing go next?

If you need a unique & innovative social media strategy, submit a brief now!

Jo

How much should a creative project cost? What should I spend on a new website? What’s the average cost for a mobile app? How much should I put in my budget for PR? Can I get a new brand for less than 10K?

Setting a budget for a marketing project  always seems to be a dark art. Let’s see how budgets start, what happens in the middle and how a creative project can be delivered on the cost basis that you’re looking for.

First of all, except in the most agile and lean of startups, there’s normally a major cross-management exercise that creates ‘the marketing budget’. 

In most cases it  equates to a percentage of last year’s, or this year’s predicted, revenues. What that percentage is can vary from 1 – 20%. It’s driven by, and drives, the cost per acquisition for a new lead or customer. If your targets are for 1,000 new customers, your budget is designed to cover the known acquisition costs of each of these. It’s why companies tend to put a higher percentage into marketing at an earlier stage. As the business grows, the cpa reduces and so does the overall percentage dedicated to marketing.

So that’s the broad number. Next you have to allocate this and then work out how it translates into project and campaign-specific budgets.

Let’s take a simple example. You have a million dollar marketing budget. You have responsibility for a product launch which will include branding and promotion. In fact, the annual product launch takes up the biggest chunk of your budget. Then for your existing products you want Advertising; DM; PPC campaigns; PR and tradeshow attendance. 

At this point marketing folk start doing the bottom-up approach and hope the top-down total meets this in the middle.

Let’s take DM as an example. You want to email your customers each week with news and offers, knowing that this could increase sales to the targets outlined in the budget. You add in your email package costs, your database cleaning costs, and any specific offers that go with this – the cost of the free hotel stay, the iPad competition etc. You extrapolate by the number of weeks, add in a magic number for luck (or what we officially call contingency) and you have an amount in your DM accounting line. Let’s say it’s 100K.

So far so good. 

Let’s look at the slightly more complicated item. The new product launch. We know that there are all sorts of elements that contribute towards this. It could be packaging in the consumer space, it could be user documentation in the b2b space. It will probably start with the new look and feel – the brand identity elements and then all the components needed to get it out there.

Now the traditional way to work out the pricing – the budget – for this was, well let’s be truthful, get someone else to work it out for you. Given the ‘broad allocation’ we started with, this has whittled down to 250K.

So you go to your agency of choice with that 250K and ask them to create the launch package.  You’ll see concepts, you’ll see estimates, you’ll see the ‘big crazy idea’ of giving your cheese square a new name and sending it round a marathon course, and then you’ll see some very tangible deliverables. But you’ll have started off expecting to write a PO for 250K to cover it all and get the product out of the door.

Which means, that rather like David Cameron not knowing the price of a pint of milk, marketers often don’t really know how much something costs. 

So to actually ‘price’ those elements is quite difficult. 

Which, if you’re willing to just hand over the ‘top-down’ budget from the start is fine. But what happens when you need to tell a supplier how much they have to spend. Let’s revisit our product launch. We’d really like a mobile app to show it off.  Because it was part of the ‘big project’, it’s never been considered on its own, but it can’t be sourced through the ‘big project provider’. Or we’ve been told that if we want this we’re going to have to increase our budget by an amount that even the most generous CFO won’t sanction.

So what should this element cost? You know roughly how much budget  you have left to spend. Cross-check this by how much you expect it to deliver.

Is it going to generate new customers? If so what’s the likely return. You only have 20K from your allocation, but you think the app will generate incremental revenues of 100K.  Whereas the banner ad campaigns you’ve booked have 30K assigned but will only generate incremental revenues of 80K. Perhaps you should look at some re-allocation – or question whether you’re getting best value on those other elements.

At the Creative Services Exchange we’re often asked the ‘how much’ question. But really there is no final answer. It will always be a part of that allocation. On the Exchange the job of the creative is to deliver work that is right for your budget. If after all the machinations you only have 4K for a website, then this is your budget. It doesn’t matter if the last ten website projects we ran were for 15K: somehow you have to make that 4K deliver. You know that 4K isn’t going to deliver the same as 20K in just the same way you know you’re not going to get a Bentley for the cost of a Skoda. Budgets always need a sense of perspective and realism.

However if you only have 4K but know that this is the most critical thing you’ll be buying this year and you know that the returns will be considerable – then is it worth making that shift upwards. Similarly if you’ve over-allocated – think about what that spend could deliver you in terms of other projects.

This simple approach of pricing based on expectation will help you start to budget at more of a project level and the days of handing over an almost blank cheque will be past. To give you that wiggle room the brief app lets you specify a budget range: this means that you can think through and also that creatives can show options within that range.

Finally, taking this project approach to the Creative Services Exchange consistently delivers savings of 25-50%. This means that your 4K project  becomes in excess of a 5K project in value. Those remaining budgets could actually deliver more projects and the projects you thought were impossible become eminently deliverable. And if you still want inspiration – look at blur Trading to see the current projects and their values.

Brief your project now!

As design and creative industries software giant Adobe release their latest version of Creative Suite, a new era of software purchasing is born.

CS6, the latest version of Creative Suite now moved from Beta this Monday and applications are available either as full priced downloads or as the much anticipated  Creative Cloud™ package.

Adobe Creative Suite 6 is a collection of 14 different applications in total, available in combinations of  four packages – Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium, and Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection.

The focus of this launch in the creative industries has very much been on the pricing structure of  Creative Cloud, an entirely new way of purchasing Creative Suite software from Adobe. Acting as a subscription service, Creative Cloud will give access to all the new and updated CS6 apps across both Mac and PC platforms for just £46.88 per month for a year’s contract, with reduced rates for students. Currently available on pre-order, t is expected that the products within CS6 will become available within 30 days.

Adobe’s Creative Suite® 6 software “delivers a whole new experience for digital media creation, enabling you to work lightning fast and reach audiences wherever they may be”.Creative Cloud™ gives the the user “flexibility to download and install [the applications} at any time, acting  as a “digital hub” allowing users to download and install every Adobe Creative Suite® 6 application, to access online services for file sharing, collaboration, publishing, and to have direct access to new apps and features as soon as they are released.

The new cloud system is set to change the way we subscribe to software, and will make software licensing more feasible for smaller companies and start-ups.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEm9AzFxKT8

What do you think? Will you be using the Creative Cloud, or have you got reservations about the new system? How might cloud software affect the creative industries?

For any creative project from webdesign to mobile apps , submit a brief now!

Jo

Today, blur Group announced a funding round of $2m as it continues to disrupt the media industry and develop a new business model for buying and selling creative and marketing services. 

At this stage, convention would suggest a heady mix of VCs to inject capital into the business. Let’s face it, the pros and cons of VC investment fill many column inches. Are they more adventurous in the US than Europe? Are they the right solution for your stage of business? 

Anyway rather than debate the issues, we followed the funding route that we thought most appropriate for our sort of high-growth, networked business. One where we were directly involved, where the investor was the connection that we sought to benefit the business, rather than rely on introductions from investors. An angel round, but on a fairly significant scale. In fact it’s one of the largest ever European angel funding rounds. 

In what we consider to be great news for both our customers and our creatives, we attracted interest from some of the biggest names in business. Archie Norman, the Chairman of ITV who was the CEO of Asda when acquired by Wal-Mart; Kevin Lomax, the founder of Misys and ex-director at retail giant M&S; Tim Schoonmaker the Chairman of intelligent content serving technology Grapeshot and former CEO of Odeon Cinemas.

We’re sure you’ll see how these personalities – just a snapshot from a very impressive list of high net worth individuals, business leaders and angel investors, reflect just how blur Group and the Creative Services Exchange is at the convergence of media, technology and the Internet. As a commenter on TechCrunch said – “ it’s the kind of business anyone would love to invest in and very scalable”.

Those names are just part of a roll call which also includes Richard Bourne-Arton,  Founder & Chairman TASC, Founder UK Hydro, Director Penna Plc, Co-founder Talisman; David Sola, MD Houlihan Lokey, Partner Arma Partners, MD Softbank Europe, MD UBS;  Bob Wigley, Chairman Yell Plc, Chairman Expansys Plc, Chairman Merrill Lynch Europe;  Rob Wirszycz, Chairman Portal, Director Clarity International, Chairman Celaton, Chairman Bluesource, Head of Marketing EDS UK, President Intellect.

And then add in some senior CMOs, CFOs from high-street name businesses and you’re bound to agree that the involvement of these angels is all part of driving the Creative Services Exchange forward, upwards and able to change the media world.

We hope you’ll enjoy our unique funding approach, one of the largest European investment rounds and relish being part of the successful, disruptive business that is blur Group and the Creative Services Exchange, whether as one of our creatives in our rapidly-growing community, or as one of our customers looking to tap into that amazing, global creative talent. 

The huge news in social media circles this week is that Facebook, the ever-growing social media giant has acquired Instagram, the visual social platform for a cool $1 billion.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the deal in his Facebook timeline last Monday, stating “I’m excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.”. He went on to describe how the two newly merged companies would work together by saying Facebook are committed to “ building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.”  “We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.”

Instagram was founded in San Francisco by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and launched in 2010. Just 2 years later Systrom, a 40% shareholder is now $400 million richer. The amazing take over is all the more so since Systrom learned coding in his spare time to get the project off the ground, a key fact in the story of success which has encouraged wannabe developers to flock to Codeacademy, a free online coding e course, in their droves.

This acquisition is typical of the current strategy of giants such as Facebook and Google, who have both been buying up smaller outfits in recent months. It also signifies confidence in coding startups and innovation, which will spur the market and investment in a revived ‘social.com’ boom.

What do you think about the deal? Should more companies remain independent? Could you resist 100 billion dollars for integrity? How will this change the landscape of business?

If you are looking for a unique social media campaign, brief the Exchange now!

Jo

It’s always going to be a challenge to produce a glossary for something as fast moving as social media – it seems every day there’s a new network emerging, or new developments in old (where old isn’t very) favourites. So here’s an update to the glossary we first published last year – and wow, what a lot has happened – from Google Plus to Pinterest!

You may want to look back on our guides on how to write the perfect corporate tweet, how to manage multiple Facebook and Twitter accounts and how to run a Twitter chat, but here is the updated compendium of social media speak; a glossary of all the common terms you’re likely to encounter when working with social media professionals.

This list is far from exhaustive, but it’s certainly a good starting point and keep reading our blogs here and on blur Marketing to find our views on the latest social trends.

5 key social media platforms (including Google+)

Facebook: This is the most popular social networking site in the world, and its 640 million members could well rise to the magic billion mark by the end of 2011. A third of Facebook users now access the platform through mobile phones and businesses are increasingly turning to Facebook as a means of connecting with their customers.

Twitter: With over 200 million users, Twitter is the world’s preeminent microblogging tool. Users post updates of no more than 140 characters (including spaces). Twitter is a great way of sharing bite-sized chunks of information and to follow like-minded individuals from across your industry or relevant news networks. Twitter isn’t typically used to network with friends.

YouTube:  You will no doubt be familiar with YouTube, a video-sharing website now owned by Google. You can upload, view, share and comment on videos, and you can embed YouTube videos for free in your blogs. It is seeing some competition from Vimeo but remains the first destination for videos, and as part of Google, it’s another one which as well as your social media plans, influences your SEO plans.

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003,it is mainly used for professional networking. Today, LinkedIn has over 100 million registered users spread across 200 countries and territories worldwide. In 2011 it had a hugely successful IPO and continues to gain users although in our opinion, there are still some ‘clunky’ areas of its usage. Unlike many social networks it has a clear monetization model: with subscriptions, advertising and job-board revenue streams: enhancing its ‘professional, corporate’ status.

Google+ is the late arrival at the social media ball and if we’re really honest  it still seems to be Cinderella after midnight  in terms of social acceptance. But if stats don’t lie then it’s probably the one that is not only gaining  rapid adoption but is a really critical part of not just your social strategy but your SEO strategy as it seems that a G+ share can up page views considerably (3.5 times).

An A-Z of social-media speak

A

Affiliate: A partner website that links to your own website is known as an affiliate.

Affiliate marketing: This is where a website owner advertises a retailer’s wares, often through large banner ads or other links, and then receive a fee for every lead or sale generated.

Alerts: There are Google News Alerts, Blog Alerts, Web Alerts, Video Alerts and Discussion Alerts which – not surprisingly – alert you whenever a new page is published online that includes a keyword or set of keywords of your choice. Companies often use alerts to monitor mentions of their brand across the web.

AstroTurfing: This is a form of advocacy often in support of a political or corporate agenda designed to give the appearance of an organic grassroots movement. In social media terms, AstroTurfing is used to generate excitement or a ‘buzz’ in a particular product, with someone paid to generate the buzz rather than the interest snowballing of its own accord.

Avatar: A graphic that represents the author of a piece of online content, usually in place of the author’s real photo.

B

Back channel: Whilst social media is all about ‘open’ and ‘public’, there is often a need for private communications (e.g. emails or direct messaging) to be exchanged between key people in a social networking interaction. This is known as a back channel.

Blog: A blog is a portmanteau of the words ‘web’ and ‘log’, and are used by individuals and/or companies to commentate on anything of their choosing. Corporate blogs are typically used to communicate key information and analysis with customers, employees and other partners.

Blogosphere: A generic term to describe all blogs online…of which there are millions.

Blogroll: A blogroll is simply a list of other blogs a blog-owner really likes and links to from their own homepage.

C

Categories: These are normally used in social media to arrange content into subject areas. These can help users identify key blog posts from within their area of interest.

Chat: A chat is pretty much any online conversation, and normally involves users adding text and other media in a linear fashion into the same space in real-time. For example, a group Twitter chat.

Cloud computing:  You’ve probably read a lot about ‘the cloud’ recently. Cloud computing is when users access data remotely across an internet connection, rather than through working from a desktop.

Comments: Most blogs allow users to add comments under posts. Comments help facilitate interaction with customers and the public in general, and businesses should monitor comments and respond accordingly.

Content: A general term for any piece of online media, including images, graphics, text, videos, animations, sound-clips and anything else that could conceivably fall under the ‘media’ or ‘information’ remit.

Content management systems (CMS): These are software tools that allow users to create static web pages, blogs and otherwise manage their online information. WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems in the blogosphere.

Crowdsourcing: blur Group uses Crowdsourcing as part of its Creative Services Exchange. Check our What is Crowdsourcing portal for more detail on this technique and check out some facts and figures here.

D

Dashboard: This is the administration area on a standard blogging platform such as WordPress. It’s where you post content from, check traffic, manage comments etc.

Delicious: Now owned by Yahoo!, Delicious (formerly del.icio.us) is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks.

Digg: This is a social news website. Prior to Digg v4 – launched in late 2010, Digg’s main function consisted of letting people vote stories up or down, called digging and burying, respectively

Dooced: Dooced is a slang term for someone who is fired from their job because of controversial content they published online.

E

Ecosystem: An online community or group of communities, and how they interact with their digital environment. The blogosphere is one example of an ecosystem.

Embedding: This is when a small piece of code is added to a blog or website to display a video or photo hosted elsewhere. A typical use of this would be when YouTube videos are embedded on blogs.

Eye rest: Making content easy to digest (easy on the eyes) by cutting down on text, using images, titles, bullet points, lists and hyperlinks.

F

Feed: This refers to any content delivered at regular intervals, for example the latest blog posts or social activity from an individual/company you sign-up to.

Flickr: YouTube is the world’s biggest video-sharing website, and Flickr is number-one for photo-sharing, although Facebook is increasingly used for photo-sharing and likely to further increase following the news about Instagram.

Follow: The act of monitoring (‘Following’) someone’s online activity, for example through Twitter.

Follower: Someone who is following your updates. The count of followers is most businesses’ first social media metric. In time this has to extend to the ‘value’ of each follower.

Friend (noun): Not necessarily someone you’ve met in real-life, a ‘friend’ is anyone you’ve had some sort of interaction with and have agreed to ‘connect’ with through a social platform, such as Facebook.

Friend (verb): This is now entering common parlance, it’s the act of adding someone to a social network. For example, “I’ll ‘friend’ you on Facebook”

H

Hangout: A video collaboration feature within Google+ enabling live video chat with a limited number of friends in a circle.

Hashtag: Short messages on services such as Twitter or FriendFeed can be tagged by including one or more hashtags (#): words or phrases prefixed with a hash symbol (#), can then be searched by other users to help the flow of information and online conversations.

Hyperlink: This is any link on a website that takes you to another webpage or document on the Internet.

I

Instagram – a combination of photo tools and social networking that has been one of the most successful apps since its launch.

Instant messaging (IM): This is typically real-time text conversations using a tool such as Skype Chat, Blackberry Messenger, AOL Messenger or Microsoft Live Messenger. It can be one-on-one or group-based. Recently the demise of AOL Instant Messenger was announced – but it remains a popular component of most networks and Facebook has launched its own messaging app.

K

Klout – a score developed from your social following, influence, reach – predominantly based on Twitter but now with reference to your other social presence. Subject to some controversy as to its accuracy, but without a doubt it is one of those things that people look at when assessing whether to follow.

L

Like: Facebook’s Open Graph API means Internet users can ‘like’ any piece of content they see online (as long as it has been integrated with Facebook’s Open Graph API), and it will be shared with all their friends on Facebook. ‘Like’ is a system where social networkers can show their approval.

Lurker: This is someone who reads social media content but rarely contribute or comment.

M

Mashable: An online news resource for all things related to social media and technology. Mashable is one of the most popular blogs in the world.

Metadata:  This refers to any data, such as titles, descriptions, categories and tags and captions, that describe a media item. So, for example, a YouTube video description is part of its metadata.

Microblogging: Twitter or Tumblr are good examples of microblogging. In short, it’s the act of disseminating short messages across the web.

MySpace: This was once one of the top social networks in the world, but it has lost the social networking battle to Facebook. MySpace is attempting to reinvent itself as an entertainment hub rather than attempt to compete with Facebook.

O

Offline: The opposite of online…so anything that isn’t connected to the Internet.

Online: You know what this means…

Open Graph API (Facebook): Facebook’s Open Graph API connects external websites with Facebook through such elements as ‘Like’ functions. It makes the whole Web more ‘social’

P

Paper.li – a way to create your own ‘social’ paper that combines content on topics you find interesting. A great way to ensure your content is re-used although newer approaches of this social content curation are developing.

Pinterest: One of the newest but fastest-growing networks with the ability to ‘pin’ interesting graphic content. Has had some issues on copyright but it remains a visual way to capture and display your brand essence and its simplicity makes it a fascinating network.

Podcast: A downloadable radio show designed for listening on a portable media device or a computer.

Privacy settings: Your personal or business social network setting, enabling you to control what content is visible and to whom.

Promoted Tweets: Twitter introduced an advertising model to the US late last year (2011) which has now extended to Europe. It includes the idea of a promoted tweet which appears at the top of a user’s timeline as well as ‘brand’ pages. Rumored to require a minimum advertising investment of $15,000 putting it beyond the reach of smaller brands who need to continue to use Twitter to entice customers.

Profile: The online representation of an individual’s identity, e.g. your personal Facebook profile or your company’s LinkedIn profile

Q

Quora: This is an online knowledge market that aggregates questions and answers across many topics, and enables users to collaborate on them. It’s similar to Yahoo! Answers and Anwers.com.

S

Search engine marketing (SEM): This is tactics employed by businesses to attract customers and generate brand awareness through monitoring customers’ search habits and building a campaign accordingly.

Search engine optimisation (SEO): SEO is the art of setting-up your website to be as search engine friendly as possible. This includes optimising each page for certain key search terms (as used by customers in search engines).

Sentiment: A broad feeling or consensus across the web, normally relating to brand perception (e.g. positive, negative or neutral). Increasingly sentiment monitoring is a vital part of business’s strategies with tools like Radian6 and Klout being used.

Share: This is when you ‘share’ specific content with friends or ‘followers’, it could be a blog post, YouTube video or other informational tidbit.

Social CRM: Taking the traditional CRM and adding in more social traits and information – spearheaded by Salesforce.com and their ‘social enterprise’ evolution from their original roots in SAAS CRM.

Social media: What you’re here to learn about! It’s essentially any digital platform that facilitates interaction between users online. It’s YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogging, Microblogging and much, much more. 

Stumbleupon: One of the most popular ways to ‘social bookmark’ and share content you find interesting.

T

Tag cloud: A tag cloud is a visual representation of tags attributed to certain blog posts. The most commonly used tags are usually shown in a larger typeface.

Tags: Simply put, tags are keywords attached to any blog post, image or video to help users search topics or media. These can help with search both from search engines and within a website itself.

Timeline: The ‘history view’ of your social activity: for example the tweets from those you follow in one view. Since March 30th 2012 the default is to display your brand’s business Facebook page in Timeline format – having been rolled out to individual users in the last few months. While exposing the ‘gaps’ in your brand pages it also provides a great way to build a bigger brand page and really create the alternative web page that many have looked for in their Facebook pages since they launched.

Troll: Anyone who posts controversial or deliberately offensive or irrelevant messages in any online community.

Tweet: A 140-characters-or-less (including spaces) message posted on Twitter, a real-time microblogging platform.

Twitterverse: Similar to the blogosphere, except this specifically refers to all conversations on Twitter.

U

User-generated content (UGC):  A phrase that refers to all material created by ‘the public’, it could be comments on a blog post, videos uploaded to YouTube or any form of interaction on a company’s Facebook fan page.

V

Viral marketing: A marketing campaign that’s so popular it ‘goes viral’. Social media is often used as part of a viral marketing campaign.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VOiP) is when you use a computer or other web-enabled device to place phone calls. Skype is the most popular example of a VOiP platform.

W

Wall: This is any shared discussion board. Each Facebook account has a ‘wall’, where all comments are ‘public’ to those permitted to view.

Webcasting: This refers to audio or video broadcasts delivered either live or delayed across the web.

WordPress: Is the most popular Content Management System for bloggers. It’s open-source and can be hotsed (WordPress.com) or un-hosted (WordPress.org).

X

Xing: another professional social network with strong traction in Europe.

Y

Yammer: This is an enterprise social network service that was launched in late 2008. Unlike Twitter, which is used for broadcasting messages to the public, Yammer is used for private communication within organisations or between organisational members and pre-designated groups. It’s basically Twitter and Facebook but for users on the same company domain.

Z

Zeebox: Much has been made of ‘social TV’: how popular shows are now driving social media comments and vice versa. Zeebox is an app that has taken that trend and provides a social dashboard from mobile and pc to create the interaction between your television watching and social media habits. 

This glossary has been updated from the original post on blur Marketing.

The first of April, “April Fools” day, was this year as inventive, fun and playful for brands with a cheeky side as ever before.

From Virgin’s hopes to drill to the centre of the earth to “green” champagne and old school NIntendo maps on Google earth, social media and tech played a joker’s apprentice part in spreading some Spring japes as big brands and names took the chance to lighten the mood.

The Mail on Sunday used the date to investigate the VAT rise on junk foods by posing the opposite scenario -  a fabricated report that the government plans to limit damage caused by adding VAT to pasties by allowing a “green” tax on chilled champagne. The bubbly piece was written, of course, written by Pru Cremier. Similarly, on the ‘pastygate’ theme, the Guardian reported that  “In a move that will astonish both critics and supporters, David Cameron has appointed the controversial Happy Mondays star Shaun Ryder as a special adviser on social class, following a series of political missteps since the budget.” Brilliant.

Media giant Simon Cowell enjoyed a “bro-mance” with David Walliams, and images of the pair on a swan pedalo, enjoying a park picnic and generally frolicking were published by the Sunday Mirror. According to photographer “Aprile Sciocco”, “’They had a great heart-to-heart about women, cars, clothes and how they like their steaks cooked – it was a proper blokey afternoon out.’It was so good to see the chemistry between them works just as well off screen.’

Google turned old school with a version of Google Maps for the  ‘long neglected’ Nintendo Entertainment system (NES), a game affectionately remembered by fans for pixelated graphics. As Tatsuo Nomura, a Google software engineer said on Google’s official Maps blog: ‘With Google Maps 8-bit, you can do all the things you already do on regular Google Maps.Search for famous landmarks and sites around the world. Take an epic journey with 8-bit Street View. Get detailed directions to avoid dangerous paths, and battle your way through a world of powerful monsters and mystic treasures.’

Mashable had a take over by comedian Conan O’ Brien, who was seen on the site in a video saying “I’m sick and tired of scanning the Internet looking for any news about technology: Devices, gadgets, what’s coming up, maybe even a rating system for gadgets that are out there. It doesn’t exist on the web and it’s high time it did,’

Retro game revival also appeared on tech site ThinkGeek.com whose prank Hungry Hippo’s gadget  announced it would allow users to combine old school 80’s games with an iPad for the digital generation;  ‘All four hippos are present and hungry, except this time, the hippos fit over your iPad and the game board is an app!’ said press release for the supposed $29.99 app.

YouTube also went nostalgic as they launched The YouTube Collection, bringing the contents into users living rooms, with the visual joke of huge delivery boxes arriving in a woman’s lounge.

Richard Branson announced his new project Virgin Volcanic, announcing: “using patented carbon-carbon materials pioneered for deep space exploration, Virgin is proud to announce a revolutionary new vehicle, VVS1, which will be capable of plunging three people into the molten lava core of an active volcano.” Tom Hanks was announced to be on the first expedition.

Which pranks did you enjoy the most? Were you fooled by any of them? Do you think brands should take part in April Fools?

If you are looking for a unique branding strategy, brief the Exchange now!

Jo

It’s probably not escaped your attention that there are now over 14,000 creatives and agencies on blur Group‘s Creative Services Exchange. That’s a fairly substantial creative crowd for a CMO to benefit from. But what turns these creatives on? What’s the project that’s guaranteed to gain their attention – and give your marketing a real boost. 

Well, sorry but it’s a trick question. The whole ethos of the Creative Services Exchange is that you can brief for any sort of creative project for your business. As we’ve built that crowd of creatives, we’ve made sure that they can respond to the needs of the most weird, most wonderful, most way-out – oh and most conventional of requirements. You see, what we realized pretty early on in our history is that it’s not what you want delivering that needs changing, it’s the way you get it. And as a result we didn’t want to limit ourselves – and you – to a ringfenced subset of creative requirements. 

We just wanted to give you a way to source your marketing more effectively, more efficiently and to ensure that you would end up with a better creative treatment. It’s also a way to source those requirements that are just out of reach of your tried and trusted suppliers. It’s why since we launched we’ve seen our creative crowds constantly challenged, and constantly coming up with the goods. 

Anyway as we come to the end of the first quarter of 2012 we just wanted to talk about some of the projects that have been briefed so far this year. Variety really is the spice of creative life.

• Developing a viral marketing campaign for a leading consumer services organization
• Creating a new content management system for a media business
• Building an integrated marketing campaign for a charity launch
• Designing websites and logos for a consultancy
• Refreshing a website for a fashion brand
• Designing and producing corporate videos for a telecoms provider
• Creating a compelling client communications program for a finance house
• Creating an affiliate marketing strategy for a green startup
• Impelementing SEO for a leisure company
• Branding and launching a new medical app
• Content development for a healthcare provider
• Copywriting for an insurance organization’s customer communications
• Advertising campaigns for a new media business
• Building an e-commerce site
• Launching social media campaigns for a retail company

Just a flavour – and you can find out more by visiting our trading view.

We often say that we’re location-agnostic, sector-agnostic and channel-agnostic. This agnosticism is really a modest way of saying that thanks to those creatives, the Exchange can develop and deliver creative for any channel, for any size of business, for any budget and in any market sector. That’s the true value of an expert crowd and is why we continue to position ourselves not just as the world’s largest Creative Services Exchange but as trailblazers in crowdsourcing creative.

Whatever your marketing, design, content or creative campaign, project or requirement – brief the Exchange now!

Some big news in social media land this week is that micro blogging giant Twitter has acquired Posterous, the short-blogging platform.

Posterous has been in existence for 4 years and has been favoured for ease of blogging;  users could post via email and mobile with images and rich text. The company officially announced the news on Monday afternoon on the company blog, saying “the opportunities in front of Twitter are exciting, and we couldn’t be happier about bringing our team’s expertise to a product that reaches hundreds of millions of users around the globe.”

Twitter had similar sentiments, adding “We’re always looking for talented people who have the passion and personality to join Twitter,” and that “Acquisitions have given us people and technology that have enabled us to more quickly build a better Twitter for you.”

The merger gives an insight to the possibilities of Twitter in the future, with more ways to add content and potential for a richer experience. Posterous’ engineers, product managers and other employees will join Twitter to work “on several key initiatives that will make Twitter even better.”

Twitter’s capacity to improve and evolve will be one to watch. A flock of Posterous users will now also be flooding the world of self hosted blogs as their domains cease to exist, and we can expect to see a development in our experience of Twitter.

What would you like to see from Twitter? How could a short blogging medium be beneficial to the platform?

If you are looking for a unique social media strategy across all channels, brief the Exchange now!

Jo

With millions of users worldwide, Twitter is the unbeatable micro-blogging platform that should already be an integral part of your social media marketing strategy. A lot of small businesses and entrepreneurs find it difficult to leverage Twitter to its full potential, partly because tweeting requires a gargantuan amount of time and effort. Although dashboards like HootSuite provide better social media management, the hard work still needs to be done by you.

What if there was a way to streamline it all? What if you could become a powerful and influential Twitter user with engaged followers and substantial referral traffic? Read this three step guide and join the ranks of Twitter users with influence:

Specialize in a niche and write relevant tweets

As a business owner or entrepreneur, you want to target only a specific group of people. Ideally, this would be people who either share your interests or are interested in the products or services you provide. The challenge is to find and reach out to these people, culling through millions of Twitter subscribers. This is exactly why you need to find a niche.

A niche enables like minded Twitter users to connect with you. Understand that a general area of interest such as social media is very competitive on such a large platform, instead choose something on the lines of Google+ pages or Facebook fan pages.

Once you have determined a niche suitable to your business, you need to write relevant tweets. Your tweets should be relevant to the industry and to the people following you. For example, if you’re tweeting about Google+ fan pages, don’t tweet about something completely unrelated like YouTube.

Follow people with influence and connect with them

Influential Twitter users have several hundreds of followers and have built this reputation by engaging in constructive conversation. By connecting with them, you’re not only getting a chance of networking but there’s also a chance they will retweet your tweets. When an influential Twitter user retweets your tweet, you instantly get more Twitter followers and higher website traffic.

How do you connect with an influential Twitter user? By engaging in a conversation with them – start tweeting about something they tweeted about or ask a question. Build trust and find time to discuss what they share.

You can find influential folks in your niche by doing a Twitter search or using apps such as Tag Walk, Klout, and We Follow.

Manage your tweets wisely

If you’re a startup or entrepreneur, it is a tad difficult to find time for networking, sales, procurement, and of course, social media marketing. Managing everything alone is tough, so it’s alright to delegate social media to a professional, who not only knows how to do it right but will also spend time in understanding your goals and expectations, and create a customized social media plan for you.

But, if you want to experiment with creating an influential Twitter profile, be ready to invest a few hours each day to do so. Those using a smart phone like iPhone or Blackberry have the option of accessing it through a social media management dashboard. A tool like NetworkedBlogs will ensure that your followers never miss a post from you.

Another advantage of using a social media dashboard is that you can create several tweets at one go and schedule to post them at specific times during the day.

Follow these three steps and you’ll be on your way to becoming a powerful Twitter user soon.

If you are looking for an innovative social media strategy to attract more customers, brief the Exchange now!

Joe

There’s a lot of talk at the moment about different models for the advertising industry; how best to move the old agency world to address the increasing demands of digital campaigns; how to ensure that the value of creativity is maintained as crowdsourcing models make businesses look beyond a small core of suppliers.

Meanwhile at blur Group we’ve just been quietly running a revolution. It’s two years since we started taking briefs on the Exchange. Now we see businesses brief creative projects every day. As we’ve blogged before, while many are getting their heads around this new crowdsourcing thing, we’ve moved on to the next stage where businesses aren’t looking at this as an interesting experiment, but as a way to deliver creative projects constantly and consistently. Ones that matter to the business. And where the smart creative agencies, rather than knotting their brows and worrying how to address the new challenges of new channels are joining in, joining up and winning new business through the Exchange.

To reinforce this as we approach the end of the first quarter of 2012 we’re set to break some more barriers. We’ve already talked about the recordbreaking crowdsourcing brief – here’s some other highlights

• By the end of March there’ll have been over 650 briefs on the Exchange, with values ranging from $1K to $5m
• There’ll be over 14,000 creatives, including an increasing number of agencies from around the world
• This quarter we’ve had briefs from the US, Europe, Asia and Africa – and fulfilled by those global creatives
• The average brief value has doubled since we’ve started – that’s even better news for creatives.
• The breadth of our creative talent and experience means that there’s no focus on a type of customer – everyone can brief, everyone will get the best creative for their project.

As Philip Letts, founder and CEO states - “Since we launched, every quarter has seen growth for blur Group and our creatives – the massive success of this one is just further proof of the value of the Exchange model. Are we at the beginning of a tipping point? Maybe.”

What are you waiting for? Brief your design, marketing, art, innovation, content project now! 

On Wednesday 14th March Starbucks stores offered a free latte to anyone going into a branch and introducing themselves.

The move by the market’s biggest coffee chain is to get back to a more personal approach; “Nowadays everything seems a little impersonal. That’s why from now on we’re going to refer to you as your folks intended — by your name.”. The campaign also coincides with a newly relaunched latte to include two shots of espresso rather than one in order to cater for changing British tastes.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtr0c6oVvSM

From 14th March, Starbucks lattes will contain more Fairtrade espresso at no extra cost to the customer, in addition to employing a new approach to steaming milk for a smoother taste.

The concept of a more personal service is an interesting anti-culture to the way we live our lives online in a constantly connected social, yet faceless manner. Trends experts Trendwatching.com identify a resurgence towards brands that are “human”, and also a trend towards brands offering Random Acts of Kindess and “Free Love”:

“RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS : For consumers long used to (and annoyed by) distant, inflexible and self-serving corporations, any acts of kindness by brands will be gratefully received. For brands, increasingly open communications both with and between consumers (especially online), means that it’s never been easier to surprise and delight audiences with R.A.K.: whether sending gifts, responding to publicly expressed moods or just showing that they care*. (via Trendwatching.com).

In terms of how brands are being forced to seek ways to communicate successfully with over saturated consumers, the Free Love trend offers an insight that in “an all-out war for consumers’ attention” brands are beginning to seek various handout and sampling techniques. Since the online world in which we reside for most of our working and leisure time has an “amazing capacity to create, copy and distribute anything that’s digital, with costs that are close to zero” brands need to react by offering free and/or cheap incentives in the offline world.

Whether the grand gesture by Starbucks succeeds in reviving flagging and saturated consumers to feel more personally looked after remains to be seen. It will also be good to watch and observe other global brands whose services become more humanised and closer to home.

Brand Republic created a Pinterest board of the day’s promotion, offering a visual tale of the marketing approach and consumers reactions.

If you are looking for innovative marketing campaigns to reach your target audience, brief the Exchange now!

Jo

The naming of your company is something people really do worry a lot about when establishing a new brand, and for good reason. Once your name is established it’s really hard to change, you’ve got it for life.

Entrepreneurs often start in the wrong place, they want a name that ‘sounds good’ without considering the meaning behind the name, which is far more important than the word itself. Obviously there are some basic considerations to think about; you don’t want to offend anyone, and you don’t want a name no-one can pronounce! If you think you might expand abroad then it’s worth considering meanings in other languages and cultures. But, as with anything brand related it all starts from the fundamentals. What is it that you are offering of value to your customers? How is that different from what other people are offering? What’s the best way to build emotional connections with your audience to build belief and trust? During this process you have to force yourself to think from the customer’s perspective. It’s all too easy to get wrapped up in your own vision and forget what this will mean to other people. It’s useful to get an outside perspective on this when you are working it out, even a friend who’s not connected to your business if you can’t afford professional help.

Getting noticed online

The more unique the word you choose for your name, the easier it will be to get a high rank if people search for it, BUT, if this is to work, they need to know your name to start with! To get google to rank you highly on terms that are descriptive, like ‘plumbing’ or ‘business consultant’ it helps a lot if you have these words in your name. We did very well with the name of our last business, d3o, because we had a huge amount of press who were all talking about us on the web, and linking to us. Plus people in our market soon got to know us, so when they searched for our name (even if they got it slightly wrong), we’d be at the top, but if you’re struggling to get people to know about you in the first place, a more descriptive name might help. But, beware; imagine if you called your brand ‘Devon Cotton Cushions’. Whilst this would be great for someone looking for that on google, can you imagine how many people are searching for that term every day? The only reason Apple score so highly is because of their size, as a startup with a generic name, you’ll really struggle getting on the first page. So the answer depends on what you are trying to achieve, what your website is for, and your overall business strategy. The best approach from a search point of view is somewhere in between between unique and descriptive.

Trade mark

Secondly, however much you like the simplicity of the name ‘Devon Cotton Cushions’ you wouldn’t be able to protect it with a trade mark because it’s a descriptive term. Here’s more on this from Donna Trysburg of Ellis IP.

A trade mark can consist of any word, logo, symbol, slogan, colour per se, design, three dimensional shape, sound or even in theory smell which is used to identify and distinguish the goods or services of one manufacturer or merchant from the goods and services of others. 

Marks or terms cannot be registered if they are:

• Descriptive of the goods and/or services, or their quality, quantity, intended purpose, geographical origin or other characteristic. (for example OXFORD SOAP for soap made in Oxford)
• Not distinctive (e.g. no inherent distinctiveness such as “$”)
• Generic in current language or the relevant trade (for example, ESCALATOR was originally a trade mark but has now become generic)
• Deceptive (for example the word KASHMEER for clothing which is not made of cashmere)
• Immoral or contrary to public policy
• Specially protected emblems (for example the Royal Coat of Arms)
• For three dimensional shape marks only – shapes which are typical of the goods themselves, shapes which are functional and shapes which add substantial value to the goods.
• Already registered by somebody else for the particular goods and services in question.

It is best to select a “strong” trade mark if possible, which has no descriptive meaning at all. Good examples are invented terms such as EXXON, KODAK and XEROX. Or alternatively, choose a trade mark with no meaning in relation to the particular goods and services, for example APPLE for computers, or PICASSO for cars. The rationale behind this is that terms which are descriptive should be kept free for all traders to use.

Your brand’s heart and soul

A great example of how your name can really define your direction from the beginning came from a recent talk I attended where the founder of the famous Brighton Choccywoccydoodah chocolate and cake shop talked about her startup experience. Any SEO expert would probably have told you that this name was crazy, and the other alternative “The Chocolate Factory” would have been much more appropriate (although Ellis IP would surely have preferred the more unique version).

The name for the shop came after a late night chocolate eating session over a bottle of gin whilst trying to solve a problem. They had just leased the space next door to their then popular cafe wanting to expand, and had just heard from the council that they’d rather it remained a shop, oh dear. So, with no money and a shop, but no idea what to sell, they decided to open a chocolate shop. At the end of the bottle of gin, they had settled on choccywoccydoodah as the best name, and they went for it; the rest, as they say, is history.

This is a great story itself, but during this talk, Christine was asked what she thought would have happened if they’d stuck with the sensible ‘Chocolate Factory’ name? She replied that she believed they would be nowhere. The irreverence in the name was and still is at the centre of their brand. It defines everything that they do, every decision they make; it’s what differentiates them and gives their brand a heart and soul. So sometimes the sensible option isn’t always the best!

So as you can see, there are many things to consider when naming your company, and it’s really quite an important decision, so make sure you’ve given it adequate thought.

If you are looking for unique ways to build your new brand, brief the Exchange now!

Ruth Palmer

Social media platform Pinterest has had a surge of popularity at the start of 2012, now coming to a grinding halt in the wake of a blog post by a lawyer who has deleted all her pin boards.

Kirsten Kowalski is a photograhper and also a lawyer. She decided to look into the minutiae of the Pinterest terms and conditions  since “ From a legal perspective, my concern was for my own potential liability.  From an artist’s perspective, my concern was that I was arguably engaging in activity that is morally, ethically and professionally wrong.” What she found made her “tearfully” delete her Pinterest boards in fear of breech of copyright and facing a huge fine.  Her blog post, which you can read in full here, went viral, encouraging Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann got in contact with Kirsten to seek advice on how to make copyright issues fairer for Pinterest, a subject still in debate. (via Global post).

The current issue  as it stands, is that Pinterest is a little cloudy about what constitutes an image that does not have copyright in order to be pinned onto the site. This is obviously a fundamental building block of the whole concept of Pinterest, since the site encourages users to “Pin” images from websites and build moodboards. The issue of “fair use” of a copyrighted image is the crux of the debate, since it is illegal to reproduce or use a copyrighted image but there are certain instances in which an image may be granted fair use – whether re-pinning is reproducion or fair use is where the grey area lies.

In the Pinterest etiquette section, users are asked to accredit image sources where possible, saying “Pins are the most useful when they have links back to the original source. If you notice that a pin is not sourced correctly, leave a comment so the original pinner can update the source.”  Under the copyright section, Pinterest claims to respect “the intellectual property rights of others and expects its users to do the same”, addding “it is Pinterest’s policy, in appropriate circumstances and at its discretion, to disable and/or terminate the accounts of users who repeatedly infringe or are repeatedly charged with infringing the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of others.”

The risk taken when re-pinning images without being sure of their source or copyright status is set out in the Terms of use section, saying “YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE ENTIRE RISK ARISING OUT OF YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF THE SITE, APPLICATION, SERVICES AND SITE CONTENT REMAINS WITH YOU.”

This means any costs are liable to you, if copyright is infringed it is down to you.

Suddenly, carelessly re-pinning images of cupcakes seems less tempting when the sound of a lawsuit landing on your doormat might be heard at any moment.

Kirsten’s blog post was a timely message when the platform is enjoying a huge increase in users, and has been the “next big thing” in social media, certainly in terms of visual social networks. Her viral, legal take on the risks of re-pinning images has made the community of users double check their use of the site, and in many cases to delete their boards already in place.

So, as Kowalski says, “ until Pinterest changes some things or until the law is more clearly established, I won’t be taking the risks involved in pinning other’s work.” Although Siebermann made contact no changes have yet been made, so this remains once to watch.

What do you think? Would you take the risk or are you deleting your account just in case?

Jo

In the last quarter of 2011, massolution, the research and advisory arm of Crowdsourcing.org, conducted a major research study on patterns and trends in crowdsourcing. blur Group has talked about how it’s seeing increasing size, value and complexity of the projects that are briefed on the Creative Services Exchange, but the research which surveyed 32 vendors in total, shows that it is still predominantly small to medium businesses that are advocates and early proponents, although the profile of these Crowdsourcing users differs according to the kind of business, tying in with our own findings.

The research focused mainly on crowdsourcing as a way to deliver 5 different types of project:

Ideation – the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas

Expertise-based –  tasks are completed by online workers that are widely recognized as a
reliable source of techniques or skills

Micro-Tasks – short duration tasks completed by online workers, requiring no specialized knowledge or expertise 

Software services –  include design, development, testing and user feedback gathering for
programming code, software products and online applications

Freelance services – performed by workers who are not committed to any particular employer long term and serve as independent contractors. 

Crowdsourcing for the enterprise grew in revenue terms by 75% in 2011, and the main users are within the Internet Services, Media and Entertainment and Technology sectors. Look at blur Trading to see the kind of companies using our Exchange. It seems that segments that have been advocates of outsourcing aren’t taking to Crowdsourcing as quickly – the research suggests that  Financial Services, Manufacturing and Government are significantly behind in terms of adoption, although again as we see the industry moving so fast, we’ve seen that new segments when they do adopt, move very quickly into embracing this model.

Crowdsourcing industry revenue is driven primarily by small enterprises and start-ups.  Collectively they account for over 60% of the market revenues. However, large enterprises with over $1bn revenues are also in the early adopter category: particularly in the creative areas and ideation services. They’re not big users of freelance/microtask type categories: explaining further why blur Group’s Exchange model is appealing to the larger brands who will want to work with experts and crowdsourcing as part of a sophisticated solution, rather than non-experts, on significant business projects.

One thing’s for sure, the research shows that crowdsourcing in all its guises continues to gain traction and we predict that we’ll all see more use and more adoption as 2012 progresses. And of course we’re particularly confident that at blur Group we’ll continue to drive the trends in expert crowdsourcing and adoption. 

Why not find out for yourself – submit your creative brief now!

The full research is available here: please contact us for a discount code saving you $1,000.

Yes, to show that businesses mean business when it comes to the wisdom of expert crowds, blur Group didn’t just get its first $1m brief, it got a $5m brief. For a new online media company that wants to launch with an advertising bang.

It’s a huge step and flies in the face of the low-end crowdsourcing models and reputation. The Exchange model brings together expert crowds, technology and processes that mean that $5m budget will go further – literally and metaphorically. When you have expertise from around the globe, you’re not risking your brand by briefing this sort of crowd: you’re positively enhancing its potential.

Our philosophy, driving the Exchange model, is convincingly even-handed. We’re not just excited for the client, we’re excited for our creatives. As the Exchange has grown, we’ve seen more agencies recognize that this is not just a great way to  win new business, but to be exposed to new business from different regions. To have a chance to show their creative skills without limitations of location. To be that virtual and linked Crowd working in the new way that defies traditional conventions and restrictions.

The beauty of the Exchange is that the model works just as well for a $5k project as for that $5m brief. The platform is built, the process is designed, the interactions streamlined, the crowds in place to ensure that whatever the requirement, whatever the size, whatever the scope, it all happens smoothly, more efficiently than ever before, with results that delight. 

As we predicted, without realizing how soon the predictions would become yesterday’s news – crowdsourcing is now one of the ways a smart business sources its requirements – creative or more. The Exchange is supporting that for every sort of business. The large networked agencies, who to date have looked at crowdsourcing as a frippery, may start to take notice now. 

Briefing the Exchange makes the most of your budgets. The model has led to 25-50% savings compared with traditional routes. So you can look at it as a saving, or a way of getting more for your budgets so that your results are even better. Brief now!

The benefit of social media is that it facilitates two-way communication between your brand and customers/prospects. Interacting with your audience will keep them interested far longer than simply providing links to product/service information. Learning to engage your social network may be a little tricky.

Engagement means different things to different people. As a marketer, or business owner, your idea of engagement could be different from that of the consumer. Understanding your audience and tools will help you define engagement and develop a successful strategy. Here are a few rules to get you started:

Establish an identity. Your audience should always know what to expect from you. They follow your brand because they like its “personality” so stay true to that image – be consistent.

Have a presence on all relevant social media sites. There are countless social networks available and new ones are popping up everyday. Of course, you are aware of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Google+, but there are many others. Take for example Pinterest, the invitation-only pinboard. It has been making waves recently and should be a part of your social media mix. You should also be active on industry-specific networking sites. Professional networks can easily be found through industry associations and by

Spam will be reported and ignored. Users do not want to be spammed and all unsolicited communications are considered spam. They will be reported and you will have to answer to the network, which may freeze your account until things are straightened out. Don’t send direct messages to random people or tag them in irrelevant posts to get their attention. This is annoying and they will be weary of you in the future.

Listen and deliver. Knowing your audience is key. Monitor their social media activity, discuss relevant issues, and offer solutions to their most pressing issues.

Handle customer service issues appropriately. Your customer service team should respond to compliments and complaints from customers according to your organization’s written policies. It’s important to your brand’s reputation to display uniformity and professionalism in the handling of customer service issues. You will build better relationships with customers by taking their concerns seriously.

Participate in discussions with the people/brands that you follow. You don’t have to always initiate conversations. Add your professional advice and/or experiences in discussions prompted by others.

Don’t oversell. Obviously you are going to all this trouble to see something, but you want to make it appear as though you are not. Initiate, participate and engage with your audience. No one wants to be constantly marketed to. They want interesting, fun, and informative content.

Get the right tools. Having the right tools can maximize your social media efforts. The last thing you want to do is spend an entire day on social media (unless you have a team dedicated solely to social media). Schedule posts, monitor interactions, and automatically thank new followers. These simple features can dramatically increase engagement in your social network.

What are your suggestions for increasing engagement? We would like to hear your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below.

If you are looking for innovative ways to promote your brand and reach your target groups through social media, brief the Exchange now!

Tonya

So we just got used to the explosion of moodboard madness that is Pinterest, when Chill gains momentum as the video version of the pinboarding phenomenon. TV is not just TV any more folks…it, like everything else, just got social.

Chill launched in August 2011 and had a re-design update last month. The premise is much like Pinterest, with videos being padded to your stream, sorted into categories and the ability to follow users and their video watching habits. Chill co-founder Brian Norgard, acknowledges the similarities with Pinterest; “Everywhere we go, there’s this Pinterest for video comparison, which isn’t all that inaccurate,”  (via Mashable),  “But the reason we think it’s important is because the web has been so diffuse that eventually you need to move to a curational model. Algorithms are not going to solve everything.”

Chill is the brainchild of the team behind Ad.ly and Namesake, and is very similar to Turntable.fm in style and ethos. A Facebook account is needed to sign up for the site, and in order to watch a video in a social “room” you need a friend on Facebook already on Chill in order to participate. Rooms can be shared on Twitter or via email, and once there you can load up a VJ queue with videos by searching from within the site for Youtube and Vimeo videos. Videos can also be watched in unison with friends online in the room, allowing for social comments, points to be awarded, and thumbs up/down to be given to a video.

As a concept, Chill is in an early stage of evolution; althoughthe format is not dissimilar to the Pinterest, the additional benefits of watching videos and moving imagery in a social way have far reaching effects. Real time lectures and discussions can be facilitated, media houses can launch music videos or exclusive virals, and the power of the moving image can be harnessed in a different way; YouTube has changed how we interact online with the ability to self broadcast, and with the extra social addition this is certainly a site to engage with, play with, and be there when the movement takes off.

Social TV is here – how will you use it?

Jo

This weekend the tragedy of singer Whitney Houston’s death was broken on Twitter some 27 minutes prior to a press announcement. The incident has once again raised awareness of how the micro-blogging site has the ability and reach to enable news to spread far quicker than news channels and press due to the unembargoed and free sources of information.

The first of the news was broken by @chilemasgrande whose tweet read “My sources say Whitney Houston found dead in Beverly hills hotel.. Not in the news yet!!”. This tweet was re-tweeted only once;  a second Tweet to break the news, this time by The Associated Press (@AP) was re-tweeted more than 10,000 times. This one read “BREAKING: Publicist Kristen Foster says singer Whitney Houston has died at age 48”. (via Mashable).

Twitter has been the source of news spreading quickly before in celebrity deaths; the tragic loss of Amy Winehouse was also spreading on Twitter 10 minutes before the news confirmed it to be true. A computer programmer in Pakistan inadvertently live-tweeted the helicopter raid leading to the death of Bin Laden, commenting on the unusual presence of military helicopters and the subsequent noise of attacks, unknowingly becoming a real-time reporter on the events.

Social media has the power to bring the world to us in real time. Twitter has reached such a widely adopted number of users that the speed in which information is passed has become incredibly fast. Twitpic broke the news of the Hudson River plane crash visually back in 2009, and now visual social media has become increasingly popular, the concept of  blogger favourite instagr.am breaking news isn’t an alien concept. Our smart phones are with us at all times and screen culture shows no signs of abating, so  the social media news breaking phenomenon is likely to continue.

How do you think social media can break news in the future? Can you imagine the impact other platforms would have on breaking news and would they be as effective?

Jo

That doesn’t mean that the logo isn’t important; branding is like a huge living 3D jigsaw puzzle made up of hundreds of parts that need to work together to display the picture you intended them to see. It needs to be designed in colour, with dimension, consideration of form, depth and space.

Product quality, features, technical advancements, service, loyalty schemes are all copy-able by others (notwithstanding IP protection which has great value). What competitors can’t copy so easily is the unique combination of ingredients that constitutes the jigsaw puzzle that is your brand, and brings it to life. Your brand is an intangible connection, an emotional one, which is not so easy to replicate if done well, in the same way as it’s difficult for us to replicate life.

What will consumers want in the future?

The consumer of the future will expect brands to be smart about how they talk to them. From their point of view there is really no excuse. We are giving away more and more of our privacy online, and we expect something back for it! If a company can’t be bothered to get to know us, then we are likely to switch to a new brand that pays us more attention. A recent article in Marketing Week brought to light some facts on how we are changing in this way. Technology has had such an effect on us that our brains are actually being reprogrammed to allow for multi tasking as we constantly flip from one activity to the next. Martin Lindstrom, neuromarketing expert and author of Buyology, even goes as far as saying that marketers will become extinct and neurologists and data miners will take over in order to understand the complexities of human behaviour and our interaction with brands. In the future brands will need to try really hard to engage with people in new and meaningful ways to grab and maintain their attention. Ted Baker and Sony are already doing this by getting customers involved in campaigns, rather than simply leaving them on the receiving end of them. As Alistair Frost, Head of Digital Marketing at Microsoft said in a CIM talk recently, technology is enabling people to switch off advertising messages. You can shout as much as you like but what’s the point if no-one is listening! Alister believes the future of marketing is all in inbound. You need to engage people in your story to succeed, and in unique ways.

What does this mean for brand design? 

Branding has always been about creating an identity, a personality for your business, but more and more it’s about creating a real relationship, or in the best case scenario a partnership with your customer, whilst being sensitive to how far that customer wants the relationship to go. Branding and marketing used to be about looking after customers and broadcasting messages about products and services. It’s no longer as simple as that; brands need to give, engage, entertain, provide escapism, be transparent & trustworthy, know when to keep quiet and when to speak up, be part of the community, and respond immediately to feedback, good or bad. Businesses can no longer expect to survive maintaining the machine attitude; life has just got too complicated for that. Brands need to become a living organism that works together as one. The brand experience must be constant and seamless; it must build trust, and understand the people it interacts with intimately. If there’s a crack, someone will find it. In the future I believe that the companies that succeed will be micro-countries supporting their own communities, looking after the people inside and outside, caring as much about the environment they exist in as the bottom line, or using triple bottom line measurement (profit, people, planet). I am really positive about this, I think it means that all our lives will be better as a result; I for one would much rather work inside a community than a machine!

Not surprisingly then, a modern brand is as much reliant on its culture as its visual identity, perhaps more so. To create this seamless experience, every part of the company needs to understand what it stands for, and want to be part of that. You can’t force staff to love your brand and pass that on to your customer, you have to create an environment where this happens automatically. You have to hire people who feel an affinity with your brand’s values. This affects your HR & remuneration policies, the workplace design, holiday entitlement, working hours, internal systems for managing operations and customer relationships, and what colour your envelopes are.

If you are starting up a new company, you are in a great position to be able to establish this from scratch, and it’s a lot of fun to do at this stage too! Creating a proper brand strategy helps you define who you are, where you’re going, what your goals are, who your customers are, how they would like to be treated, and what kind of people you need on your team. If you have already established your company and need to change your culture to fit your ideas of what your brand should become (responding to your own capabilities, your customer and the external environment), then it can be a lot harder to change. In this case, re-establishing a strong brand has to come from inside out. Your team must be involved in creating it from scratch, as I said before, you can’t force people to believe in something, and if your brand is just a surface finish, it won’t mean anything to anyone.

You can’t be something you’re not, you have to play to your strengths. There is no point an accountancy firm that has been around for 100 years trying to be hip and cool if you aren’t, and that’s not important to your customers. But you could use technology to help you serve your customers better, and you could make a big deal of your heritage in everything that you do to emphasise the value this brings to your customers. Perhaps personal letters could still be typed on a typewriter? Or make a rule that your furniture is as at least as old as the company?

Lastly, I would like to expel a myth: Branding is only for big businesses and requires a multi-million £ budget. Poppycock! I know, I’ve done it, and this is especially true now that advertising is (debatably) becoming less important as a marketing tool. What it takes is some serious thinking, research and discussion to build a strategy, good people management, communication, commitment and an excellent graphic designer to bring your story to life.

Human nature is such that we all want something to believe in and something to be part of. As a brand owner, your job is to create a story that enables this, then thread it through everything that you do.

If you’d like the world’s best creatives and agencies to help with your branding – submit a brief now! 

Ruth

The Berlin-based company formed in 2010 and are the creators of Wunderlist, an intuitive web, mobile and client based app that allows simple drag and drop functionality for a variety of projects. The newcomer to the team, Wunderkit takes project management and goes one step further – it goes social.

The basis of the software is still the same – enter tasks by typing, and click return for task to be added. Dates and tags can be assigned to tasks along with specific people to complete the job, as other project management apps would offer too. The difference here is the creative use of social networking; Wunderkit takes project management rules and applies them to daily life, and in making our projects social, be they organising a party of designing a catalogue,  taps into crowd sourcing for ideas, the Twitter mentality and cloud working all at the same time. Smart.

The company say. “We all work behind computers and smartphones. It shouldn’t mean we have to miss out on the thrill of working side-by-side with other people. Invite your friends, family and colleagues and watch your ideas get bigger and better.” (via wunderkit.com), a clever use of the social networking tipping point and recognition of the way so many companies work remotely. The examples given by Wunderkit of how to use the app makes the spin much less business orientated, and more creative in nature. Starting a band and planning travels are included in the ideas, showing how a user can use their social network to call out for ideas and recommendations which are shared through Facebook, Twitter and email to the workspace itself, allowing for a truly interactive and collaborative working style.

Workspaces can be set up to be secret or public, and the searchable notes make for an easy way to brain dump and tag thoughts in a tidy, organised way without losing creative momentum.  Notes are visible to all users invited to the workspace allowing input socially to generate innovative and crowd-generated work.

Currently available as desktop app, web based login and smart phone app with more to come, Wunderkit signals a new way of managing tasks. Right on the button with current crowd, cloud and social trends, what will be next in the way we manage to do lists?

Let us know if you try it out, and what you think the future holds for getting things done.

Jo