Like many, I had my doubts after the firm sold part of its soul (stake) to what critics might call the devil but it hasn’t lost its, well, innocence yet. Even the 2011 AGM meeting sounds like the most fun day ever.

And Innocent is being clever again, this time for Valentine’s Day by launching a new promotion via a dedicated website that allows consumers to create their own ‘Love Label’, print it out and stick it onto a smoothie bottle to give to their special someone. The campaign is being supported by Facebook, Twitter and other online activity.

After choosing your favourite smoothie, you can complete the label by either writing your own message if you feel particularly inspired, or picking one of the not-so innocent messages. The barcode and logo also come in different shapes.

Valentine’s Day is usually the time of the year when most of the brands only seem to be able to come up with PR clichés, ideas that have been done to death or campaigns that offer no link between the season and their product, so it’s refreshing to see a new, original initiative that is both engaging and fits so perfectly with the brand.

Have a try – don’t you love these guys even more now?

Image via Wikipedia

Tetley grabbed my attention today when a friend let me know about its social media campaign. The firm already upped its marketing ante by bringing back the Tea Folk in television adverts so the next natural step was for Tetley to brew up a storm in the social media space.

It took me until 11am this morning to realise Tetley were conducting a competition on Twitter, which was to simply start following @tetley_teafolk and retweet one of their posts. This competition has already been incredibly effective with Twitter followers jumping up from 38,281 to over 39,000 (at the time of writing). The giveaway is a year’s supply of teabags and as a nation of tea-drinkers I think it constitutes as a pretty good prize that won’t even break the bank for Tetley, but will do wonders for its brand advocacy.

Another company ramping up its social media efforts is bmibaby; the airline has put a competition on Twitter to add cheer to a dull January day. On Friday, 20th January, bmibaby announced it would be giving away five pairs of tickets to help its followers make someone’s January special. Anyone who’s on Twitter will know about the ‘Follow Friday’ hash tag – #ff – used to suggest people to follow. The competition from bmibaby is, effectively, an extension of this; you nominate your friend using the hash tag #ffff, which stands for “Free Flight Follow Friday”.

So, are brands finally waking up to social media or are the just becoming less scared of it? With 61% of UK adults using social media sites it demonstrates that it’s a marketing opportunity not to be missed!

Brands should absolutely be looking to integrate social media into their marketing strategies to take advantage of such a vast audience. However, brands should proceed with caution – consumers see Twitter as a different way of marketing; it’s about dialogue and a sense of community. With Twitter, consumers have a direct communications channel with a brand and one that’s in a public forum, which if not handled carefully and respectfully can turn very bad, very quickly for a brand.

P.S The Tetley competition ends at 5pm today when a winner will be announced. Having now lived in England for the last couple of years I, too, have taken on the tea-drinking way of life and entered this competition; I’ve had my fingers crossed since 11am.

There have been significant developments over the last year in the way retailers are engaging and implementing mobile services. Some have learnt from their initial adventures in to apps, some less so.

The fast food industry has perhaps seen some of the greatest success with mobile commerce and incorporating mobile services– Domino’s Pizza for example announced in October that it did over £1m in sales in a single day, with 13% of that (£130k) coming through mobile devices – just as a disclaimer, the Domino’s iOS and Android app was developed by Somo, a client of Speed.

There have been other app launches in the market that have been considerably less successful and this post is a tale of two apps launched this month as part of that industry, which I consider to be at two different ends to the spectrum.

Nando’s, one of the nation’s favourite chicken restaurants, first established in the UK in 1992, launched its first iOS and Android app this week. Perhaps a little late to the app game, but understandably it takes time to implement a mobile strategy, which usually means they’ve thought about it long and hard to make sure they get it right. However, it’s a little disappointing to see that despite the leaps and bounds made in mobile and retail, the first iteration of the app seems to be lacking any real strategic thought. Although the app is visually very nice, it lacks functionality. It allows users find their nearest restaurant (as you would expect), check in or ‘Chick-in’ to a restaurant via Facebook Places and share that information, inviting their friends to come join them….but that’s about it. To me, it just doesn’t make any sense as to why Nando’s has released this app right now.

Nando’s has a really strong social following, with around 700k ‘likes’ on Facebook and almost 200k followers on Twitter – there’s no doubt of its popularity. On the website, Nando’s has said that it has chosen to focus on the social aspect in the first version of the app and that it’s already working on the second version of the app which will include a menu as well as other ‘top secret’ features. If that’s the case, then why release this version? It’s waited this long to launch an app, why not wait a little longer to offer something that really blows the consumer away in terms of functionality and experience. It doesn’t benefit the consumer in any real way and it’s unlikely to drive any footfall to restaurants. It seems like it’s making the same mistakes retailers and other companies made back in 2010 in the first generation of apps – creating something that didn’t really drive an end result – something like the Barclaycard Waterslide app. A good app for sure, but it didn’t provide an incentive to sign up for a Barclaycard or drive people to their nearest Barclay’s Bank, so it was difficult to measure its actual effectiveness.

The Nando’s app had so much potential. It wouldn’t have been too farfetched to think that its loyalty scheme could have been included in the app – connecting up a loyalty card with Facebook, hey – even throw in some badges to unlock on Facebook or Foursquare. What about the potential to not only check in to the restaurant, but order through the app – you can already call ahead with your order and pick it up, so why not implement this in to the app. Maybe this is all coming in the second version, but for me, it’s about thinking not only about what customers will want to do, but what will make their visit to Nando’s that much better by using the app. How can you enhance their experience?

Compare this with another app launched in the last couple of weeks in the FMCG market, Starbucks. In London, coffee shops are everywhere. For example on my walk up to Leicester Square from Embankment tube station (0.5 miles) I think I pass three Starbucks, two Prets, a Nero’s, a Costa Coffee, an EAT, Notes Coffee Shop (at the bottom of St Martin’s Lane) and maybe a couple more smaller independent shops. Needless to say, you get a little spoilt for choice for your morning cup o’ Joe. Before two weeks ago it had been about two years since I’d been a regular Starbucks customer, but all that changed after it launched its app.

Aside from telling me where my nearest store is, letting me share my favourite coffee with my friends, the app lets me sign up to a Starbucks account and register a virtual points card, top it up with my preferred debit card and pay for my coffee using a digital barcode on my phone’s screen. It’s this sort of functionality that pushed me over the edge and converted me in to a regular drinker of Starbucks. I know it’s not the best coffee in London, but I’m a sucker for a gimmick and anything that will make my life a smidge easier. I’ll be interested to see how many others have done the same, signed up and use the app regularly to pay. It’s definitely quicker than messing about with a card or cash, but ultimately my visit to Starbucks is the same length of time as before – after all i still need to wait for them to make the coffee. The genius of it all is the fact that when i top up, i’m giving Startbucks £10 or so for nothing up front. It has my money to do what it pleases and i’d be extremely interested as to how this is reflected in its Q1 results.

The strategy for Starbucks is to drive up membership of its loyalty card and track the thirst (sorry) for mobile payments by tracking just how many of their customers are paying for their coffee with their smartphone and how many virtual cards have been registered. From this it’s incredibly easy for Starbucks to track results and analyse whether the app has been a success or not. It’s much more in line with what retailers should have been aiming to achieve with mobile through the latter half of 2011 and going in to 2012.

For Nando’s the success of its app will be a lot harder to track, after all, the number of downloads doesn’t equate to success if no-one’s engaging with the app after downloading it. If it’s not encouraging people to come in to a restaurant or order anything further than they would normally, it would be difficult to deem it a success.

You can make your own mind up about each of the apps by downloading them below:

Starbucks iOS

Starbucks Android

Nando’s iOS

Nando’s Android

The romance that can spark through using SEO tactics

My friend raised a very good theory to me the other day which I felt deserved expanding further. He proposed that the rules for good SEO can be utilised for winning the heart of someone you desire.

After five minutes of thinking this through and perhaps one too many alcoholic beverages, the true genius of this theory began to shine through. After all, Search Engine Optimisation is all about getting your site to appear on your audience’s internet searches as often as possible and in the most prominent position. Let’s face it, the early days of dating is all about trying to stay on someone’s mind as much as possible, (but, you know, in a good way, not in a “I’m creeped out because this person’s in my head, kind-of-way”).

So, below I have taken this general idea and listed the five key rules to effective SEO and posed the question, does this also apply to the art of ‘making a move’.

1) Keyword search is the first step

For SEO purposes this is vital. You must know the keywords that your audience use to search the topic you are discussing. That way you can build your site and tag your posts to ensure you are appearing on the correct searches and start building upon your ranking.

For dating this is just as important. You need to do some research into what words gain the interest of different types of people. For instance, if they’re from the Shoreditch/Hoxton area then you’ll know that certain words will catch their interest. Use words like ‘dub’ or ‘retro’ in one of your first sentences and you’ll notice an increase in attention. I’d also recommend dropping in something about some form of art or design degree or at least the name of a DJ best friend you have (or have just made up) who’s latest work can be heard on Soundcloud. Similarly, if they’re from the lovely southern countryside, then try vocalising a hatred for the 50% tax bracket and suggest that foxes are actually a true scourge on our wonderful woodland regions. This will almost certainly peak their interest.

2) Build an easy navigation

When trying to make your site SEO friendly it is important to link between pages. Search engines like sites to be easily navigated.

When trying to stay on the mind of a “seed waiting to blossom” (as the same friend calls it) it’s important that they can get to you easily. Facebook, Twitter and general ‘social research’ are all there to ensure you keep popping up on her mind. Facebook and Twitter can also give you some good indications on keywords – for instance they may have have ‘liked’ TOWIE, suggesting that your opening conversation should almost certainly be about vajazzles and definitely avoid any classical literature (Charles Dickens will mean nothing to them).

3) Give good links

When it comes to SEO, each link you have facing your site is like a vote. It’s people saying that they found your topic interesting and others might too. Search engines take this into consideration and it’s the quickest way to boost your position.

One of the keys to successful dating is friend approval. Similarly to getting links from relevant sites, you want to create links from the person’s friends to yourself. If they see that their friends like you then they will think “oh…well they must be a nice person because I trust my friends opinions” – the beauty of this is that it works even if you aren’t.

4) Content is vital/it’s what’s inside that counts

Search engines like sites with regularly updated content. With that in mind, it’s important to build good content and use the correct keywords to tag each page. Also, let’s face it, there is no point boosting your SEO if nobody wants to read what’s actually on the site.

With dating, good content translates to good personality – I am not sure why this matters to people but from my understanding it does.  On the plus side, this does mean that anyone with a good personality can be attractive – it’s all about emphasising your best attributes. I’m not talking about dominating your date with a massive personality, but you need to try to impress. Looks can only get you so far, but if there’s nothing beyond a glossy front page, you’re not going to retain much attention after an initial look.

5) Own your domain

To reach the top of Google rankings you must hire a good hosting service with fast and stable servers. Search engines will not wait too long to load your page. Worse yet, they hate it when your page is off the air and if it is repeated many times you fall in rank with certainty.

We all know which domain really counts when courting and if you want to impress you best start owning it! There is nothing worse than putting all that time and effort into getting the person into your domain and then letting yourself down on the final hurdle – and if it is repeated let downs you will drop down their rankings with certainty.

To summarise…

The same tactics that will take your webpage to the top of Bing and Google will also help you land the object of your affection. Which, in my mind, one hundred per cent disproves the theory that none of us techie geeks can land a date on a Friday night, and instead spend it on Warcraft until the early hours.

So, what could be better than spending a day with The Hoff talking to an enviable stream of journalists about the launch of Clintons new Celebrity Fastcard – video greetings cards for mobiles and MMS – and hosting a showbiz event at No5 Cavendish Square that’s resulted in great coverage.  Quite frankly, nothing.

Having dealt with multiple stakeholders, celebrity brand ambassadors and the cream of the UK celebrity and showbiz press, here are our top five tips for throwing a top party:

1. Never lose sight of why the event is taking place! Whilst it’s important to get the styling, canapé and cocktail selections right, it’s so much more important to keep the bigger picture in sight: What will the press want to get out of it? What will get people talking – before, during and after the event? What opportunities exist for creating as much content around the event as possible?  Will it deliver the right brand and commercial value for our client?

2. Always consider how to get longevity from your event. Whilst the event itself may be over in a few hours, video content, interviews, photography – and more – captured at the event, will give you a reason to talk about your cause for longer. Likewise, consider how else you might get further leverage from the event by involving consumers via competitions to attend, hosting live twitter feeds and debates, installing webcams etc.

3. Never scrimp on quality when capturing content at events, which are often noisy and badly lit for photography and film; this isn’t a job for a flipcam! You only have one chance to get the content that you need, so ensure that it’s professionally handled.

4. Organisation and communication are key – in equal measures. Every team member should have clear responsibilities but it’s equally important that daily updates amongst the whole team take place, as each detail will affect another. A comprehensive running order with even the smallest details listed should be accessible to everyone involved and kept updated.

5. Consider a ‘B plan’ for every detail so that you’re prepared when more photographers than anticipated turn up, when VIP guests arrive early – or late or when the champagne runs out earlier than expected! However, the most important element to a successful party and creating a big impression in a small amount of time, is being quick to adapt and react to the unexpected; some things you just can’t plan for!

For a sneak peek of the party and The Hoff in action click here to see what went on.

One week on and to date the launch event has generated over 45 items of coverage including broadcast, online and national print including the Daily Star, Daily Express & Metro plus over 2,700 new Facebook fans engaging with the brand on the Clintons Facebook page.

Celebrity Fastcard went on sale today exclusively at Clintons stores nationwide and on their website.

Image via Wikipedia

Research into how US charities are using Facebook, which was announced last week, found that only 0.4% of them have raised more than $100,000 from Facebook, 32% had raised less than $1,000 and 52% weren’t actually on Facebook.

These stats have given rise to debate in the UK over how the third sector uses Facebook and social media as a whole. One point has been that Facebook doesn’t have an inbuilt mechanism for donations and that a large fan base is pointless if the charity has to drive them to an external site. The response from some parties (particularly John Brunsdon writing for The Guardian last Friday) has been that there are Facebook apps available for donating via the social networking site and the charities need to be more tech savvy and find them, as well as collaborate on what they are doing in this space.

Every charity has its own diverse range of donor profiles that it needs to reach, which is what makes fundraising so challenging. It is also what requires fundraisers to keep one leg firmly in ‘traditional’ communications and the other bravely stepping into the world of social media. From my own experiences at Macmillan I am continually surprised at the number of fundraisers that aren’t email savvy, let alone engaging with charity via Facebook or twitter. Of course, a high proportion of donors/fundraisers are fairly switched on, but when you live in the online world it’s easy to forget that not everyone else is (even if you think they should be). The fact that not all donors have handily moved online is perhaps what has held some charities back from fully engaging in social media.

Regardless of sector, it can be daunting for any organisation to make an entrance online. Rather than an ad hoc foray onto Facebook, twitter or blogging any organisation needs to have a strategy; without a plan for growing a fan base and driving traffic to relevant websites there will be little reward.

It’s undeniable that social media is a fantastic means for charities to reach multiple audiences, bring supporters and fundraisers together, and be far more interactive with its donors. As a consequence, this can drive participation in fundraising events and fans and followers to donate. Yet to achieve this, some questions need to be asked beforehand to ensure the move online delivers:

-       Which of the donor audiences profiles do the different social media platforms reach

-       What information will be communicated to them

-       What is the communication style

-       How will online donations via social media be tracked? (If using an App, does it allow the charity to track what event and location the donation came from?)

For charities, a consumer’s positive experience of their ‘online brand’ may well prove to be the difference between clinching them as a life-long supporter for the charity, or not. In his article, John Brunsdon makes the valid point that there needs to be collaboration if charities are going to reap the rewards of social media. This is why I’m looking forward to the nicely timed mediaPro Expo next week (on twitter here) – where the likes of Breast Cancer Care, Breakthrough Breast Cancer and WWF will be sharing their online work. Most pertinently, Breast Cancer Care will be talking about how they used social media to raise money. I look forward to seeing you there!

Image via Wikipedia

The social utility connecting people around the world will tonight stream its first ever football match from 7.30pm, with kick-off commencing at 7.45pm.

The FA Cup’s opening game will be broadcast live through Budweiser’s Facebook page. The new FA cup sponsor will make broadcasting history as Ascot United, competing for the first time in its 46 year history, takes on Wembley FC in the first qualifying match of the tournament.

Ascot United’s stadium holds just over 1000 fans, while their average attendance in nearer 100; Facebook has over 700 million users worldwide.

Ascot United’s top striker, Jon Bennett, welcomes the challenge: “It’s great for the club and everyone involved in football; it gives lower league teams exposure we wouldn’t usually get. The whole squad is loving the unprecedented hype around the match, it should bring out the best in us and we’re proud to be making history.”

Budweiser has replaced E.On as official sponsor of the FA Cup in a three-year sponsorship deal worth to be around £24m.

Only time will tell if Budweiser’s decision to air the game will result in increased sales but it is a great way to increase its Facebook followers and what better event to be associated with? Football fans stay loyal to their club (albeit with a bit of moaning) and therefore, should become loyal consumers of Budweiser beer.

Social media is fast becoming an integral part of a business’ marketing strategy and it shouldn’t stop at football.  The majority of advertising spend occurs during sporting events, and I believe sport sponsorship is dominated by the alcohol industry thanks to the reduced advertising budgets for the tobacco industry.

To try and guess who might win I’ve been taking a look at the number of Google searches for each contestant’s name, how many Facebook fans they have, how many Twitter followers they have, and how many daily page views each of their personal websites have been getting according to Teq Pad.

I’ve then given each contestant a score from one to four. The contestant with the lowest score is most popular with the public, and so in theory, may be most popular with Lord Sugar too.

The results are as follows:

1. Tom Pellereau (8 points)
1. Susan Ma (8 points)
3. Jim Eastwood (10 points)
4. Helen Louise Milligan (14 points)

Monthly Google searches in UK:

1. Jim Eastwood (1,900 searches)
2. Susan Ma (1,000 searches)
3. Tom Pellereau (480 seaches)
4. Helen Louise Milligan (260 searches)

Facebook fans:
1. Jim Eastwood (30,420 fans)
2. Tom Pellereau (6,836 fans)
3. Susan Ma (2,732 fans)
4. Helen Louise Milligan (1,982 fans)

Twitter followers:
1. Tom Pellereau (2,536 followers)
2. Susan Ma (1,642 followers)
3. Helen Louise Milligan (1,606 followers)
4. Jim Eastwood (23 followers)

Website traffic:
1. Susan Ma (1,146 page views)
2. Tom Pellereau (961 page views)
3. Helen Louise Milligan (568 page views)
4. Jim Eastwood (48 page views)

So there you have it! One of these four will win it.

Interestingly the top two match us with the latest odds on BettingPro.com.

1. Tom Pellereau (9/4)
2. Susan Ma (5/2)
3. Helen Louise Milligan (7/2)
4. Jim  Eastwood (5/1)

Facebook Every Phone app

Yesterday Facebook announced the launch of its ‘Every Phone’ app that will provide users of feature phones (read non-smartphones) with a unified experience of Facebook. It’s no real surprise that Facebook’s done this although it may have a few people smacking their foreheads, remembering the obvious.

Over the last couple of years in Western Europe and the US, the mobile industry has been about smartphones – particularly Apple and Android devices. While Facebook has addressed this market extremely well (but I’m still waiting for a Facebook iPad app, so pull your finger out), the feature phone market,  consisting of hundreds of millions, if not billions of people across the globe, which have largely been forgotten.

Through it’s own statistics, Facebook recognises it has over 250million registered users accessing Facebook through their mobile and these users are twice as active as non-mobile users. Being a company that’s always thinking, Facebook’s also counted for this. As part of the ‘Every Phone’ app, Facebook has teamed up with a number of network operators around the world to give people that download the app 90 days free data. What a fantastic move. Genius!

You might be wondering if people outside of Europe and the US actually use Facebook all that much. 70% of Facebook users come from outside of the US and Indonesia has the second highest number of users in the world, with India coming in at number three.

So while the Western world holds its gaze on iPhones and Androids, this move from Facebook may well catch their eye, even if for only a second and remind them that there are billions of phones out there that aren’t iPhone or Android devices and you should be providing a service for them too.

Here’s a video run down of Every App

Well done Facebook. Now about that iPad app…

For those of you who don’t know about CyberMummy it is the UK’s conference for Mummy (and Daddy) bloggers – the opportunity for them to come together for workshops designed to help them with their blog writing as well as giving them a chance to meet one another outside of their virtual worlds.

I arrived at 8am whilst the other Sponsors were setting up and stood watching as the queue began to unfold. Once the doors opened you could feel the excitement in the air as each attendee let out a sigh of relief that the day they had been waiting for had finally arrived.

A lot of the mums I spoke with were having a much needed break from their normal day to day home life. Some spoke of their apprehension from being away from their children, whilst others bashfully exclaimed of their shyness at having been out of the social pool for so long.

Product after product of baby friendly brands were grasped by eager hands in the form of goody bags and standalone items.

After the first initial hour of meeting and greeting and parents making their way across the company in brand sponsored cars and luxurious hotels the first speeches of the day kicked off at 9.30am. After a rapturous applause for the events founders Lord Richard Allan, Facebook’s Director of Policy, kicked off the conference with the topic ‘Working with Facebook: the power of social web’.

He handled questions from the floor well, especially when asked about privacy and content ownership where he not only reassured all there present that Facebook would never reveal their contact details or sell off their images.

The second key note speaker, and the one most people were there to see, was Sarah Brown, the wife to former Prime minister – Gordon Brown. Active in charity work and the founder of PiggyBankKids she took the floor to a wave of applause and flashes of photography where she discussed her work and spoke of the launch of her new book ‘Behind the Black door’.

There were four workshops throughout the day covering everything from working with brands and making money using your blog to SEO and the basics of a well designed blog with writing tips thrown in for good measure. I’m not surprised that those attendees present were like giddy school girls. I have never met a nicer, more welcoming group of individuals who not only understand their need within their community but the power they hold when it comes to brands.

There were some really inspiring individuals from the speakers to the friends I made throughout my time there. And whilst the insight into mummy bloggers grow and grow so does their power within consumer brands and the expansion of their following.