There are two types of businesses in the world when it comes to social — an organisation that does it because it feels it ‘has to’ to keep pace, and the ‘socially mature’ business that does it because it truly understands social media engagement, and its value on the bottom line. Social media is now the cornerstone of modern marketing strategies, regardless of the organisation's size, age, market position or revenue.

A business that is able to properly use social and all it...

Data has redefined the marketing game in the last decade. Before, marketers would pump content out to their chosen medium and judge its success based on any increase in sales. Now, they sit on top of a pile of data that can tell them exactly how their campaigns are performing.

But is this ocean of data putting the focus of modern marketing too heavily on analysis, measurement and insight at the cost of creativity?

This seems to be a common view, according to a survey of 250 marketing decision-makers, with 72%...

The word ‘innovation’ must rank fairly highly on a list of the most used and abused buzzwords in digital marketing today. Every organisation thinks that they’re innovative in some form or other – but are they going about it the right way?

San Francisco-based Optimizely believes not. According to Global Head of Strategy Hazjier Pourkhalkhali – who would like to believe his company is ‘the biggest digital laboratory in the world’ – three quarters of all...

If you’re a leader in business, you’re probably not enamoured by social media. Sure, you’ve got accounts on LinkedIn and Twitter that an assistant or a member of your marketing team maintains, but you’re not too active there personally. You don’t have many followers, but you don’t mind; you have bigger things to worry about than who’s reading your tweets.

Too many leaders shy away from social because they see it as “kid stuff” or a time suck that has no place...

Just weeks ago, Unilever, one of the biggest advertising spenders in the world, threatened to pull ads from digital and social platforms if they fail to eradicate content which “creates division in society and promotes anger and hate.” Considering that Unilever spent over $9 billion (£6.4) billion on advertising in 2017 and recently stated its intention to increase this spend by £220 million in 2018 (

Over the weekend, Twitter suspended a number of accounts to a violation of its spam rules and for copyright issues. Some of the accounts, which included @GirlPosts, @SoDamnTrue and @commonwhitegiri, were hugely popular.

GirlPosts, for example, had 9.8 million followers and was listed by Statweestics as the sixth most popular account of 2017, beating out such notables as CNN, Fox News and  Harry Styles. The account was pulling in around 20 million likes and six million...

Editor’s note: This is the third of a three part article series. Part one of three can be found here and part two here.

William Cameron Menzies is considered by most to have been the greatest of all film production designers and art directors. His list of films includes The Thief of...

Following Mark Zuckerberg’s personal post on Facebook’s recent newsfeed changes, the social network’s share price fell as much as 6.1 percent.

With Facebook’s key advertising space for brands reverting back to its original purpose (actual, personal news from friends and family), the brand marketers who have relied on in-feed advertising to drive traffic and revenue must now reconsider how to engage with audiences through this pillar channel.

But more than anything, organisations must...

Five years ago, brands were asking how they could mature their marketing strategy, creating engaging and meaningful content that really captivates their audiences. Today, brands are spending a lot of money on this content; often with huge success.

But others have found that even well-funded, quality content can be something of a one hit wonder, providing only short-term value.

The question is around how brands can extend the lifecycle of their content, to deliver longer term value for themselves beyond...

The average UK SME owner will be putting around 16% of their 2018/19 on marketing, according to a study by performance marketing network affilinet.

The company polled 1,394 SME business owners in the UK who had set up their business in the last five years. Half of them were planning to up their marketing spends as a direct result of seeing their competitors get high levels of return on their own spending.

32% of respondents said that their plan to increase marketing spend was the result of a successful year...