Thursday, September 27, 2012

The Burke’s Backyard website is really strong


We were recently give some bonus activity across the Burke’s Backyard website as bonus, tagged on to our magazine buy. Given the show has been offline for so many years, our expectations of meaningful reach were low.

4 weeks on, we couldn’t have been more wrong! The site has fantastic reach (200,000 unique users to date & climbing) as well as a very engaged & responsive audience. A pity that the site is a little dated & clearly plays second fiddle to the magazine, it clearly has a lot of potential!  

Mehrak Saheb
Prophesy Digital

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Complementary Medicine Users Find Their Info Online


As the trend towards Complementary Medicine consumption continues to rise in Australia, CM Marketers must get their digital ducks in order – The Internet is one of the key ways their audience find products & information in this category.

A survey conducted by NPS has found that advice from family & friends is the #1 information source for Complementary Medicine Users (Social Media anyone?) followed VERY closely by the Internet.

Interestingly advice from the Doctor and Naturopath ranked #7 & #9 - music to my ears!

Important to note that whilst the research is done online, the purchase still happens in-store.

Mehrak Saheb
Prophesy Digital



Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Facebook mobile ads may launch in the US as soon as March

A reported 50% of Facebook’s audience accesses the site via their mobile device & Facebook has been unsure of how to monetize this to date. It sounds like they are close to finding a solution via ‘Featured stories’ fed in to profile stories. Will be interesting to see.

There has also been some talk about location based targeting across the Facebook mobile offering so a very interesting space to watch.

Mehrak Saheb 

Adults making Facebook ‘uncool’ for Teens…


Remember the cool place you used to hang out at with your friends when you were a teenager? The no parent zone where you could do what you liked, say what you liked & misbehave to your hearts content without your parents finding out? Now imagine if that place was suddenly the cool place for your parents too.  And they don’t just sit in the corner with their own friends but right next to you, looking over your shoulder, joining your conversation & LOLing at your jokes.  Welcome to a Teen’s life on Facebook.

In the beginning Facebook was just the place for teens & their friends. It has been taken over by the adults & teens are diversifying fast to more private forums (they are still keeping their Facebook account however).  

So where are they shifting their social efforts to next? Twitter! They love the privacy & anonymity!

This was always going to happen wasn’t it? …Remember Myspace?
 

Fantastic article in USATODAY, have a read here:


Wednesday, September 7, 2011

When Blogger Out Reach Goes Wrong…It’s Not Pretty


A program to entice bloggers to love your product/service & write about it can be extremely effective when done right. The influence they have with their readers is phenomenon & their recommendations taken seriously. In the age of social media their influence goes even further than their core readers via Facebook & Twitter.

These programs have to be well planned, upfront an honest. The consequences are BAD when they are done wrong.

Interesting case in the US last month where food bloggers & mum bloggers were invited to dine in a fabulous restaurant with a promise of an Italian feast by a well renowned chef. They were also told that the dinner would include an “unexpected surprise”.

At the end of the meal the “surprise” was revealed.  The fabulous food they had just had was not made by the renowned chef, it was in fact from a new frozen food line by ConAgra Foods!

The blogger reaction? Pretty bad.

“Our entire meal was a SHAM!”

“We discussed with the group the sad state of chemical-filled foods,” wrote one blogger. “And yet, you still fed me the exact thing I said I did not want to eat.”

“I’m NOT their target consumer and they were totally off by thinking I would buy or promote their highly processed frozen foods after tricking me to taste it,”


Read the full article here.




Thursday, June 30, 2011

“What have you done for me lately?” Consumer expectation from brands they connect with in social media environments.

Sensis released a fantastic social media study last week which outlined that consumers expect discounts/vouchers/special offers from brands they connect with on social media environments.


Inversely majority of Australian brands on social media are there to just ‘connect’ with their consumers & no doubt build their ‘Earned Media’ presence by  inviting comments/ratings & reviews. Only 29% of small businesses, 28% of large business & 49% of media sized businesses use social media to offer discounts & special offers. Quite a big disconnect between what consumers want & what brands are delivering.

A key question to ask when planning your social media strategy is “what real value can we bring to our consumers?” because that sure is what they are expecting.

Mehrak Saheb
Prophesy Digital 

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Mobile Internet usage is looking fantastic in AU!

300,000 daily unique users and counting. This is in comparison to 55,000 daily unique users 2 years ago!

In addition to the massive growth rate 43% of mobile internet users say that they access the internet on their mobile several times a day. When you look at iPhone users, this figure jumps to 60%.

The hype is now reality. Thank you Smartphones & most of all, thank you apple!



Mehrak Saheb
Prophesy Digital