digital marketing

September saw the launch of our report into how online engagement can drive action offline published by vInspired, the UK’s leading youth volunteering charity. The research worked with young people across the UK to understand the role that digital technologies play in their lives and how best to use engage them online to inspire them to take action offline.

I was asked to give a talk at last week's Future Of Digital Marketing conference in London. When we talk or think about a topic like this we often focus on the shiny new technologies, so for this talk I chose to talk about another, different aspect which I think is at least as critical - the importance of culture, philosophy and strategy. 

Over the past 12 months, Pinterest has witnessed explosive growth. The site has topped 23 million unique visitors and average site visit time is nearly 100 minutes per month, making it one of the largest and most engaging social networks around. AdAge raves that  “…Pinterest has gone from relative obscurity to exalted status alongside Facebook and Twitter…”

I really don’t care how many people follow your brand on Twitter, or Like your brand on Facebook. Numbers like these are essentially meaningless – building the right kind of relationships with 500 targeted people will always be more beneficial to you then meaningless, un-targeted relationships with 500,000.

I used to decry the fact that CMOs who embraced much of the ethereal nonsense of branding never stuck around their jobs long enough to suffer the consequences of their actions; they, along with their agency friends who enabled the nutty (and usually hefty) expenditures, moved to new jobs where they busily got to work repeating themselves before their old employers announced sales declines and cost-cutting.

What are some of the latest developments in Facebook marketing? How is Facebook changing the nature of brand-building?