Posted by Jo Reynolds @ February 24th, 2010 in 77News

The three new media companies will host a series of social media events in central London, presenting marketing professionals with the latest opportunities, techniques and tools available to manage social media and mobile campaigns.

Following a successful run of seminars hosted by 77Agency and B!Digital in 2009, business social network Viadeo has decided to officially join the partnership for 2010. Viadeo’s COO, Peter Crosby, has participated as guest speaker in previous events.

As 45.4% of Senior Marketers say they consider social networks and applications a “top priority” for 2010 and 26.8% say the same of mobile, the partnership of new media agency 77Agency, mobile advertising and marketing provider B!Digital and business social network Viadeo brings together specialists in each of the areas in which marketers are keen to focus over coming months.

The topics covered in the seminars will vary each quarter, ranging from a general review of current social media and mobile marketing opportunities to a closer look at different industry sectors and specific sessions to look at campaign management tools and measuring ROI for social campaigns.

Aside from the hosts, guest speakers from the new media industry are being lined up to take part in the events.  Bruce Daisley of YouTube has been confirmed for the March event.

Peter Crosby, COO Europe of Viadeo commented:

“The importance of social media is growing exponentially. It is fast becoming the medium of choice for advertisers and marketeers and increasingly for both internal and external business communication. It is essential that any business or public sector body gets a true understanding of social media so they can maximise the benefits and avoid any potential pitfalls. Social media is the new must-have marketing tool for the foreseeable future.”

Marco Corsaro, Managing Director of 77Agency said:

“We’re very pleased to welcome Viadeo on board.  We feel that the collaboration between the three companies can only build upon the success of last year’s events.”

“Buongiorno has developed unique worldwide experience in supporting and generating relationships between brands and customers via mobile devices in the last 10 years. I’m looking forward to participating in the Social Media Marketing events and illustrating how mobile marketing can be an integral part of the social media marketing mix, in a new convergent phase of the market, ” commented Stefano Diemmi, newly appointed Managing Director – B!Digital.

For further information on upcoming events, check out the 77Agency Facebook Fanpage or visit the 77Agency website.

Posted by Anneke Onwijn @ February 23rd, 2010 in 77News

Last Thursday we hosted our first social media seminar of 2010 with partners B!Digital and Viadeo at Soho House London. The evening was a success. People arrived between 4pm and 4:30pm to register & have a welcome drink before the actual presentations began at around 4:30pm.

First up was 77Agency partner and Business Strategist, Amedeo Guffanti, who spoke about the opportunities of Facebook for brands with a specific focus on the importance of buildiding a good Fan Page and the advertising possibilities around it.

Next on the mic was Wayne Gibbins, Communication & Partnership Director for Viadeo. As part of his presentation, he held a live poll amongst the attendees about the importance of social media marketing for their brands and if they would work with a PSN ( professional social network) to achieve their goals. People voted with their mobiles and viewed the results live on the screen.

The last presentation of the evening was on Mobile Couponing and Social Media, which was given by Stefano Diemmi from B!Digital. It was interesting to see how only a few brands are currently using mobile marketing to achieve their business objectives, however, there seemed to be a clear interest in the opportunities existent today and those in the pipeline.

Some of the companies that attended include: Reckitt Benckiser, Piaggio Group, Expedia World Wide, Acer, Elemis, Miller Harris, FX Capital Group, Deutsche Bank, Alico, and Comment:Visions (EuroNews).

Our next London event will be on the 31st of March and we are very happy to have YouTube as one of our special guest speakers!

Stay tuned and visit our Fan Page for more event news!

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ February 22nd, 2010 in 77News

The annual convention of Athletes World, a subsidiary of  the Bata group, leader in Italy for the distribution of international sneaker brands such as Nike, Adidas, Converse, Lacoste and sportswear fashion, was held last Tuesday in Limena, Italy.

Athletes World, which has a network of over 100 commercial outlets between direct and affiliates in major Italian cities, is also an innovator of new technologies, and has implemented social media strategies in their marketing mix since early 2009.

“Over the years we have built our community on Facebook and with nearly 30K fans we are proud to have been one of the first major retailers to see an opportunity in the social media arena and integrate these new tools into our off-line communication strategy,” declared Paola Sandini, Advertising & Communication Manager at Athletes World, “thanks to the joint efforts of both our traditional communication agency (Attila & Co) and new media agency (77Agency), we have initiated a process of innovation and integration of alternative communication channels which will continue in 2010 and eventually take us to the launch of our e-commerce.”

Marco Corsaro, Founder and Managing Director of 77Agency said:

“We are proud to have been invited to speak at the convention of Athletes World. It’s an honor to be recognized for our efforts  in the development of  successful digital communication campaigns for and to have been selected for the development of the e-commerce platform for this important sports fashion retailer.”

Click image to see full story: (in Italian)

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ February 19th, 2010 in 77News

There’s been quite a lot of buzz going on ever since Facebook decided to open up its API to agencies in order to enable advertisers to manage their Facebook ad campaigns more efficiently and effectively.

Apparently, Google has been feeling threatened by the 400 million user social media platform since many brands have began shifting online ad spend from paid search to Facebook.Virgin Media, Vodafone, Carlsberg and Fiat are some of the big names that have chosen the social network as their ideal direct response advertising channel.

Recent figures from Compete Inc. show us Facebook has passed search engine giant Google becoming the top source for traffic to major portals such as Yahoo and MSN. Today, social media is proving to have a stronger influence and a greater capability to reach the masses than traditional advertising. In addition, the average time users spend using Facebook exceeded 7 hrs per month in January 2010, 10% up from the previous month.

Other benefits this reasonably new advertising platform offers advertisers is the ability to link conversion data to Facebook ad groups making ROI information easily available, as well as the ability to create, delete, modify, and even bulk upload campaigns from a spreadsheet.

In addition, bids can now be optimised in real-time, it is possible to manage budget and status for multiple groups and there is a wider range of reporting and data analysis tools available than when using the Facebook interface alone.

The following articles below were featured on NMA and both discuss how brands are beginning to shift budgets from Google to Facebook thanks to the opening of its advertising API which is enabling agencies as well as clients to have greater control over their online campaigns.

77Agency was among the first three digital agencies in the UK to be granted the Facebook Ads API Agency title late last year and since then the technology is available to clients and is also being licensed out to other agencies, clients and third-parties.

Click on image to read full story:

Click on image to read full story:

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ February 18th, 2010 in Social Marketing

I recently stumbled upon an old Groundswell blog post which predicted that the future of social media would be like air in 10 years time…and that’s exactly where we are headed. Social media is a rapidly evolving space that we should continuously keep up with and understand in order to better leverage it.

Today, the huge success of online applications, the increasing number of brand marketers using social media and the numerous companies for which social media has delivered meaningful business results, is being referenced on a daily basis.

eMarketer took a shot at predicting the future of social media outlining some of the trends to be watching out for in the coming years.

The report explained how more marketers in the future will incorporate analytics, as social media becomes truly integrated into all marketing efforts. In addition, TV will become more social, as will search.

The research company continued explaining that as advertising via social networks increases, marketers need to gain active control over their brands and make brand monitoring a top issue.

As we have witnessed, there has been a power shift from the old media ways to more consumer driven communities, which will force marketers to track a diverse and growing range of sources that talk about a business or product.

Furthermore, these sources could also be influential enough as to reach thousands of potential cosumers in a very short period of time and have either a positive or negative impact on a given brand. And this is where brand monitoring is crucial. It takes only 1 negative comment to annihilate 10 positive ones.

Location was also highlighted in the report and we are beginning to see this in location-based social media tools such as Foursquare (and the likes) and how such companies continue to gain traction and prove to be an excellent way for companies to capitalize on location.

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ February 17th, 2010 in New Media Tips

I’d like to go back to one of my blog posts from last week, Building Good Online Branding While Being Consistent, and discuss one very important factor that was kindly brought to light by Dominique Lahaix co-founder & CEO of Cairn Inc., a privately held software technology company.

His comment was the following:

Thanks for the article. I like the stress on having an objective.

What I think is also critical is to target a specific audience.
Most marketers define their audience as “social media” and I think this is a huge mistake. The web is made up by a myriad of communities and tribes (that connects thru blogs, twitter, facebook) and what marketers should look at is how to select the communities that matter and develop the right value proposal, messages, strategies for these communities not to broadly and loosly diffuse messages into “social media”.

And my response to his statement was:

Yes, I entirely agree. Strategies should be developed to cater a specific audience from a specific network. It’s like having a campaign targeted to a Spanish-speaking audience and using the exact same campaign with the literal translation in English to target the English-speaking crowd…it’s just not going to work. Community profiles are different,they have different customs, demographics, psychographics,etc. Great point!

Like I said, great point. And this is why I decided to dedicate a couple lines to explain this very important aspect.

It’s true that in the thriving world of social media, things won’t always be as easy as they seem. At times, trying to define a comprehensive social media strategy for your brand can even be overwhelming.

But as Dominique stated, marketers cannot assume that the citizens of the ’social media’ universe are all the same, that they have the same likes and interests, speak the same language, or practice the same hobbies.

Before determining your social media objectives you need to first understand your audience. Once you have distinctive goals for your digital brand strategy you can then embark on ‘mini-campaigns’ which target specific audiences in specific channels. In short, your company goals will automatically help you determine the crowd you want to reach and further define the message you want to depict.

For instance, Twitter has proven to be effective on the CRM and customer service front, whereas Facebook can be more useful to interact with customers and foster relationships. And this translates to two different approaches for two different networks.

In addition, measuring your campaign results will become a less daunting task since the idea is to be able to examine each one of your campaigns individually and track your ROI until eventually pinpointing the social media channel that best fulfills your company’s objectives.

(hat tip to Dominiq for the inspiration)

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ February 16th, 2010 in 77News

Today is the last day of the second edition of the Fast Fashion Festival, a showcase-event that includes exhibits, happenings and debates with a focus on fashion, design, art and culture, which takes place at CenterBOX by Centergross in Bologna.

One of the highlights presented at the festival was a round table where the most influential and deep connoisseurs of the field came together to consider how the idea of creativity and production has changed over the last few years, discussed future trends and how digital technologies are taking a significant part in the industry.

The session was dubbed “Run fashion, run. Part two,” where our MD, Marco Corsaro participated as new media specialist along with leading exponents of the fashion system such as moderator Antonio Mancinelli from Marie Claire, fashion designer Elio Fiorucci, curator and art expert, Gianni Mercurio, journalist and fashion critic, Roberta Filippini, and musician/songwriter, Saturn.

As experts in digital media, 77Agency was invited by Attila & Co., the PR agency responsible for organizing the event,  to illustrate the role of digital technologies, particularly in relation to the fashion and design industries, and to share information on the potential of the revolutionizing digital communication channels available today.

“We have been witnessing how new digital technologies are changing the way we communicate, – explained Marco Corsaro- and becoming new business models for an effective, promotional vehicle for companies and services. But most importantly, the potential these ‘tools’ have for diffusing information and generating interactivity, are already changing the rules of the game, and moreover, reducing the gap between brand and customer.”

For some time now, 77Agency, with its expertise in new media marketing, has worked with various fashion houses and designers of international fame with the ultimate aim of improving the external image of the brand, promote awareness and increase the online visibility of the products.

“We need to understand the key role that technology is playing now more than ever. It’s becoming the primary source of innovation and competitive advantage, especially in a high value-added industry such as fashion,” declared Corsaro.

Click the image below for the press release in Italian:

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ February 15th, 2010 in New Media Tips

Want to give your offline event more visibility and reach the masses?

Below is a list of activities to help you bring your physical event online by leveraging online tools like social networks and the likes.

BLOG

If you have a blog already, make sure you write about the given event well in advance and also a few days prior to it. Look into your sector’s blogging community and identify the bloggers that would be most likely interested in blogging about the event, and of course, don’t forget to invite them to the event.

CREATE A FACEBOOK EVENT

If your brand or service already has a Facebook Page, include the event on the page, plus highlights of the event, keynote speakers, images, ways to participate, etc. Event’s can be easily shared between users and if you like, you may also promote your event by launching a highly targeted Facebook ad campaign.

After the event, you can add photos of the participants, tag people and even thank them for joining. It’s a great way to start conversation between you and your audience.

TWEET! + HASHTAGS

Tweeting during the event can generate great buzz and get people talking. If people talk and comment about it, that’ll get more people interested and awaken curiosity about upcoming events. A few days ago I attended the Forum Digitale della Comunicazione here in Milan and it was great in the sense that they had a Twitter live stream being projected in a huge screen and all tweets being shown included the dedicated event hashtag: #fd10tag (no idea why they added the ‘tag’ at the end).

The good thing about hashtags is that those who couldn’t make it to the event can 1. keep up with the live streaming as the event occurs and 2. look up news on the certain event using the hashtag on the Twitter search field.

SOCIAL NETWORK STATUSES

We all love the ‘what are you doing’ or ‘what’s happening’ questions, but moreover, we love answering them. Why not make good use out of these and promote your upcoming event, where you’re headed, which event your attending, why you’re looking forward to it and who your favorite guest speakers are, etc etc.

USE BUSINESS NETWORKS

Take advantage of online communities such as LinkedIn or Viadeo to promote your event. Networks such as these are advantageous for joining groups and communities where you can easily find subjects related to your industry or sector. Also, now that Twitter updates can be synced with your LinkedIn account people can keep up with your tweets and current activities as they are broadcasted on your status update.

UPLOAD PHOTOS + VIDEOS

A good way to generate some good noise is by creating photo albums on sites such as Flickr or Facebook or by uploading videos on YouTube. Online sharing applications are the best to manage your photos and share them with the world. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words…People enjoy viewing pictures/videos, not only are they entertaining, they also serve to inform and give people a general idea of what the event, conference, roundtable was like.

Try these out and let us know how it goes!

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ February 12th, 2010 in New Media Tips

A few months back we wrote a post discussing the importance of dedicating time to customers and how the rise of social media use can positively impact customer service as well as enhance interaction between brands and consumers.

This still holds true as we haven’t stopped witnessing great efforts on behalf of brands, for instance, @WholeFoods, who have turned to social media and harnessed channels such as Twitter and Facebook to reach their customers and build relationships.

On this particular post, however, I wanted to discuss the importance and the role of employees in a business when it comes to social media sites.

If you think about it, your employees are the people who are most familiar with your product or service, hence, they’re your biggest brand ambassadors. Because the interent gives everyone and anyone a voice through these social platforms, why not use the opportunity to leverage  your employees and make them active advocates of your brand.

According to Nielsen, 2/3’s of the world’s interent population visit social networking or blogging sites. Your employees are now on the web more than ever and being very social. Facebook, for example, has recently revealed that the average user has 130 friends on the site. Just about anyone can get access to the Internet and communicate with likeminded individuals who share the same interests that they do.

You can make your employees your biggest fans and have them showcase why your product or service is their absolute favorite. Make your employees feel like they can engage online by encouraging them to participate in social networks, forums or blogs.

The idea is for your employees to start dialogue, give valuable insight about the company and become influential enough to encourage others to join the conversation.

Your employees represent one of the best solutions to connect your business with your customers and start conversation. The more natural, spontaneous and sincere their interactions are, the more they will appear like real humans who are not trying to sell anything to anyone…and this can only result in one thing: open, friendly dialogue.

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ February 11th, 2010 in New Media Tips

Any company’s goal should be focused on achieving results when embarking on a branding, marketing and online advertising campaign, especially considering all the opportunities and channels available in the digital enviroment today. But even more important is building brand awareness for your product or service.

Some common marketing challenges for marketers may include, increasing sales, increasing market share, boosting profits, reaching a wider audience, identifying new audiences, building a community, interacting more with current customers/prospects, creating brand awareness, so on and so forth.

When implementing an internet marketing strategy, whether it’s through a company’s website or via social media, it’s important you keep two things in mind: consistency and differentiation.

You want to make sure that whichever strategy you decide to implement is consistent with your brand, your brand personality and your commercial image.

Creating original and recognizable campaigns that communicate your brand’s values and benefits to your clients while keeping a consistent voice across all of your e-marketing channels is one way to go about.

Another aspect of it is identifying your unique situation in order to gain competitive advantage. For this you need to study the competition and pin point the areas that make you stand out from the rest and use that as your selling point and the angle for your campaign.

The key to an efficient online marketing strategy is to be consistent in your message and stay focused on the actual brand strategy marketing.

Every day new online marketing communication channels are introduced, which  slightly complicates the situation since businesses try to harness these as much as possible in order to drive traffic, generate leads and convert sales.

However, the focus should be on both- delivering the right message the right way while maximizing the internet marketing opportunites available.