Findings from Shareemail by Pew Internet has shown teens and young adults are blogging less and using social networking sites more, with the exception of Twitter.
2,253 American adults and 800 U.S. teens were surveyed, to find out how they use the internet, which gadgets they own, and which social media tools they use the most.
Who’s Online

The research showed interesting trends such as:
- males are more likely to own a cell phone
- income dramatically affects computer ownership but not cell phone ownership
What they aren’t doing much of, though, is blogging and tweeting.
The study finds that blogging has dramatically decreased with the teen audience, 2006 28% of teens were blogging, were as now it’s only 14%. The report found that lower income households (under $50,000) blogged more than higher income households. This trend would, I imagine, be due to Facebook and Twitter offering easier platforms and connectivity to tell your pals what you are up to. A number of brands should be aware of the next point from the study, teens don’t tweet! Stop the press, yep check the figures out below:

The research highlights that teens love to be online, but don’t create content, due to time or possibly life experience. They are consumers and not creators, so in terms of communicating and harnessing this audience online, it’s key to push messages and create content for them online not necessarily adopt them as publishers or bloggers.

In EConsultancy and Big Mouth Media’s most recent “Social Media and Online PR Report,” 50% of companies surveyed said that they had directly contacted those within social media that had given their brand a bashing. Interestingly the survey showed that after this solution, the second most popular way to keep their brand seen in a positive light was ultimately to improve products and services, demonstrating just how powerful the collective voice is online to shaping consumer experience.

The research also showed that one area that was lacking was for brands to create their own content to offset negative consumer opinions, with only 12% of companies engaging in this solution. With brands having so much to talk about, surely this is an easy win for companies?

The research highlighted that Twitter was used to monitor brand sentiment, however Tweets from brands were used more widely as a tool for publicising new content e.g. product, service e.t.c.
A quarter of brands surveyed said that they used the micro blogging service to gather information and for customer service, an area that I feel has a huge amount of potential, especially when recruiting for and announcing winners of brand led competitions.

What is a concern is that more than 20% of the companies surveyed said that the risk of negative brand sentiment was a major influence in not creating more effective social media engagement. Surely the rewards from engaging with social media heavily well outweigh not? With benefits including; creating positive brand sentiment, SEO efficiency, audience segmentation, sentiment segmentation to name just a few, engaging with social media offers a brand so many more rewards and even if a brand isn’t engaging heavily negative views can still be aired, with the power of the collective voice as mentioned in paragraph one if you can’t beat them then you might as well join them.

Been away for a while, laptop’s broken at home and work’s been manic, so to ease myself back into blogging and due to some inspiration from a friend of mine I thought I’d post about a brand that does digital so well.

I’m pretty sure I got sent this back in 2002 and it looks as good then as it does now, it didn’t adhere to the strict time limits of current virals:

Running Fish Gutter

I love this as well, it kind of pulls you in and doesn’t let go, the animation is incredible as is the story, the sound effects and sound track:

Zodiac Race

And finally Onitsuka Tiger’s website that seems to be pulling on the collective voice of the blogosphere, letting bloggers use their blogs as pixels to create a virtual Onitsuka trainer, with the majority of blogs focusing on Japanese culture.

It’s nice but I can’t help feeling that maybe the bloggers should help drive users back to the trainer, rather than it just being a one way street?

Found this blog and we absolutely love it and yes I know it has nothing to do with advertising but it’s a great example of how simple a blog can be, it’s incredible how something so public can still be personal:

Another great example of a fashion photo blog is Hedi Slimane’s, again very simple but extremely powerful:

Guess this virtual card wouldn’t have the seen the type of amplification you’d expect from a viral activity, but I would imagine open rates would have been around the 100% mark:

Had a hunt around for some examples of augmented reality and the only advertiser that I found so far, that’s fit with luxury and premium is BMW’s activity for the launch of the facelift Z4.

With the likes of Mini, Toyota, Honda and BMW all venturing into augmented reality it would seem this is more than likely the way of car brochures for the future, as you can see the car from every angle and control it’s movement.

This platform definitely lends itself to fashion, with the potential buyer or consumer able to see the product at every single angle, check out the video below:
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Our client Imagine Fashion have launched their landing page designed by Giovanni Russo, it looks great.

Greg Kadel has edited the first movie on the site called “Spark Ignition”, with super heavy weights of the fashion world Gisele Bundchen, Catherine McNeil, Veronica Varekova and Ilona Novacek all featuring.

To keep up to date with everything Imagine Fashion check out the social media profiles below:
www.twitter.com/ImagineFashion
www.myspace.com/imaginefashioncom
www.facebook.com/pages/imagine-fashion/80609964181?ref=ts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWPVn6q6muo

In no way fashion related or high end and very old, but was thinking about the video earlier on and love it, so thought I’d post it.

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The “2009 Social Media Study” from BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners has shown that one-half (53%) of the US female Internet population are actively participated in some type of social media. The research showed that three quarters took part in social networking, 55% consumed blogs, 12 million had posted to blogs and 8 million were publishing their own blog.

The research showed that blogs are now vital to many women, as those that use blogs were twice as likely to use them when seeking information, advice or recommendations as women who participated in social networking.

This research demonstrates the need for marketers to understand the digital platforms the user inhabits as well as the target consumers demographic. In order to target the correct consumer within the right environment at the right moment, it is fundamental that the marketer understands all the possible digital media consumption habits of that specific consumer.

Unlike most media digital offers numerous platforms to consider when apportioning advertising budgets, whereas with print you would just have to choose the titles. Digital platform consumption should be as much of a consideration when planning a schedule as the brands/publishers/titles.

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Nice Uniqlo site running on from the the Parka site they ran in February, found myself using it and losing all sense of time.