Due to overwhelming demand, the Nokia Lumia 820 is now available ahead of schedule online and in some retail from today.
Available with a range of fabulous cut through colors, the Lumia 820 offers a wireless charging plate DT-900, ClearBlack OLED display. Live Tiles, People Hub and exclusive Nokia apps like City Lens, Drive and Smart Shoot as standard.
The latest additions to the Nokia Lumia family, the Windows 8 Lumia 820 and 920, are set to launch on our fair isle in late January but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get your hands on one before then!
Nokia Ireland have launched a search for the best Lumia #Switch reviewers – Nokia advocates who will trial the handsets and showcase all the reasons why Irish consumers should switch to Lumia (if they haven’t already!)
To be in with a chance, simple email switchreviewer@nokiamail.com demonstrating your tech know-how, online influence and brand loyalty. If chosen, the trial will last just a couple of weeks so grief preparation is advised!
Check out Nokia Ireland’s Facebook and Twitter for more info.
This article by Claire Feely is in the current issue of IMJ.
In Barcelona in 2010, 225 measurement and PR professionals from more than 30 countries agreed to the Barcelona Principles at a conference organised by the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication. In summary, the Barcelona Principles say:
• Goal setting and measurement are important
• Media measurement requires quantity and quality – clippings alone are not enough
• AVEs are not the value of Public Relations – we are two separate industries, so why value one based on the other?
• Social media can and should be measured
• Measuring outcomes is preferred to measuring media results or outputs – it is not about the number of clippings generated but rather it is about monitoring if there was a shift in awareness, attitude and behaviour as a result of the campaign
• Business results can and should be measured
• Transparency is paramount to sound measurement
On the surface some of the Barcelona Principles may seem obvious and are topics that are regularly included in briefs and brought up in new business pitches and campaign reviews. However, one of the most talked about outcomes of the conference was the need for the industry to ban AVE – measuring PR coverage based on the advertising value equivalent. Clients are attracted to AVE as it puts a euro value on media coverage, but is it a true reflection of the success of the campaign? The answer according to the Barcelona Principles, is no.
At the conference 92% of delegates agreed to ban the use of AVE, but the question remained what metric should replace it? The next measurement conference, which took place in Lisbon last year, had a number of agendas; mainly to set priorities for future action, which included how to measure the ROI of PR, creating a global standard for social media measurement and educating clients and insisting on the measurement of outputs, outcomes and business results, as well as finding a basic measurement system that the PR industry could use instead of AVE. While at this year’s conference, which took place in Dublin, social media was front and centre in most discussions.
The Valid Metrics basic model, born out of Lisbon to replace AVE, offers a ‘framework for identifying possible metrics for individual PR programs. They are not intended to be the definitive rules of measurement and therefore do not include every possible metric.’ According to AMEC, ‘in reality there is no one perfect metric to measure the entire breadth of PR. Public Relations addresses many different publics and has many different forms of impact – from selling a product, to building a company’s standing in a community, to mitigating a crisis, to improving employee engagement. Recognition of the many achievements of PR requires more than one metric.’
And so the question still hangs. How can we measure PR effectively and efficiently and in line with the global industry when most clients usually want to see the size of the clippings book, the coverage in the Irish Times or on The Late Late Show or the return on investment based on how much the PR campaign cost them, (which is generally still worked out on budget versus AVE or PR value)?
In theory the Barcelona Principles are ones that the PR industry needs in order to be able to break away from valuing our campaigns against ‘what it would cost you if you bought it as an ad’. However, from the perspective of a consumer PR agency, measuring outcomes and business results has proved difficult. In some cases when a product has sold out, is seen on a celebrity or attendance figures have increased, we can trace it back to a clipping in a leading glossy magazine, a seeding list or a mention on a target radio show, but giving access to business results to a PR agency is not always a priority for many clients. Measurement is fundamentally about assessing performance against objectives and having enough information to determine what is working and what is not.
In the UK the Chartered Institute of Public Relations has effectively banned the use of AVE and PR Week is not using it as success criteria for its PR awards. Here in Ireland, the PRII has taken a similar stance in terms of its awards. It will probably take a while for AVE to disappear from the PR industry in Ireland completely, but there is a greater shift towards measuring sentiment, awareness attitude and behaviour. In an ideal world, PR campaigns will be reviewed once research and analytics, in partnership with sales and marketing and finance departments, are made available. However, for smaller clients this may not ever be possible due to budgetary constraints. Until the PR industry in Ireland starts implementing it from the pitch stage and removes AVE altogether, it will remain a grey area.
We recently attended an interesting conference in the Digital Hub, entitled ‘Search meets Social’. Organised by the Irish Internet Association, the event brought together a collection of innovative speakers to discuss all things social media, SEO and marketing. Key speakers included Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEO software company SEOMoz, Gareth Lambe, Director of Advertising Operations EMEA at Facebook, Vanessa Vallejo Head of Search in Mindshare and Kieran Flanagan, who is responsible for Marketo’s Online Strategy in EMEA.
We were particularly interested in Gareth’s talk, which focused on the explosive growth of digital over the last eight years. Facebook is still firmly leading the social media race, with almost one billion users worldwide – 64% of these users access Facebook on their mobile, which just shows the massive increase in mobile in recent years, a statistic that Gareth admitted Facebook didn’t even expect. There is currently a staggering two million plus Irish Facebook users, with 270,000 of those logging on every day.
Facebook is still one of the leading ways for consumers to share information, with over 2.5 billion pieces of content shared every day. Think that figure is high? Well, the amount of content shared is still continuing to grow, with the figure doubling every two years. With so much content being pooled through the social media site, how do consumers distil all of this information? Gareth explained that the answer now lies in each person’s individual connections, i.e. their friends. Now context is king rather than content. A Facebook timeline is basically a newspaper, which can be read by your friends and family.
Irish people spend up to five hours a day on Facebook. Gareth compared a successful marketing campaign to a dinner party – you need to invite guests, offer them something of interest (similar to offering guests a drink), and let the conversation unfold.
There are three main pillars that brands need to focus on when building a successful page which include:
1. Create a page that people want to connect with – the basis for this needs to come from consumer insights and finding something that your fans want.
2. The second step is to use Facebook ads to broaden the audience and to increase numbers further.
3. The third and final step is to use apps to interact with fans and give them something back.
Gareth also revealed that Facebook is currently working on its own search engine, which is due to launch later this year – with social media still continuing to develop rapidly, we are excited to see what comes next!
With 11.7million users and the capacity retain and engage users for the same amount of time as Facebook, Pinterest is the latest social media platform to consume us. But what’s the best way to use it when promoting a client? And is for big brands at all?
Mashable recently commisioned an eye-tracking study, which used the webcams of 600 participants to track their eye movements as they looked at top category and brand Pinterest pages for 10-second at a time. This was followed by a short survey.
Some of the results which stood out were
• Pins that were front and center were seen by the highest percentage of viewers.
• Faces attract attention more than objects.
• Profile information or the brand isn’t always as noticeable as profile content itself so incorporate the brand into the content where possible
• Brand pages are just as popular as category pages.
• People like brands better after viewing their Pinterest pages. The survey found that the majority of participants said that viewing a brand’s page enhanced their attitude towards the brand and said they were more likely to buy it.
Here’s a little video infographic that illustrates a brands place on pinterest nicely!
Though Zuckerberg cites his main reason for this buyout as being Facebook’s ability to now offer “the best experience for sharing beautiful photos”, analysts are certain that there is further rationale to the billion dollar takeover of a company which has just 13 employees and has never earned any revenue.
TechCrunch has pointed out that not only has Facebook obtained the standalone Facebook mobile photo sharing app it was trying to develop with the added bonus of a community of photographers, it has also neutered any danger that Instagram could have become a social network in its own right.
Learn a little more here:
Google has unveiled one of its most incredible technologies yet – augmented reality glasses.
Code-named ‘Project Glass’, the specs allow the wearer to get directions, take photographs, check in at places and message friends, with all the information appearing on the lenses of the glasses, and the technology staying out of the way when it’s not needed.
Is this the next technological leap or a wacky fad? We’ll let you be the judge!
We enjoyed this video from the Ted conference – it’s a fun take on everyone’s worst pitch nightmare, technology failure.
