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Did you know, when a visitor enters your site you only have roughly 6 seconds to grab their attention; what can you produce in 6 seconds that will keep your visitor on your website? Did you also know that there is a 58% increase in retention while watching videos and this heavily applies to animation videos?

Are you getting what we’re suggesting here?

Animated videos are becoming highly popular and it’s because they are so successful in engagement and retention that their appearance is growing. But firstly you have to make the decision…

…Why Animation?

Exactly, why does your company need to use animation?

Firstly, Social media is a key marketing tool and everyone is trying to shout over the top of each other. But posts with imagery and video receive up to 95% more interaction than just text posts alone, so get ahead of the game and get your posts noticed.

Users watching your animated video will also remember 65% more of the content than if you were to just use text alone – making your content more memorable!

Animated videos will also help boost your site in the rankings. I bet you didn’t know that 95% of the population are regularly watching online video. A video on Youtube – which can also appear on your own website – can attract online search and direct traffic to you. Youtube’s home page is the second-most popular search on the web, behind only Google search. And Youtube videos appear in Google search rankings, giving you two chances to be found for each animation.

But where can I use animation?

Animation can be integrated into any part of your business. From a 15 second social media snippet, to inclusion in your company video, to training video, to e-learning, to product videos and content marketing.

I bet by now you’re thinking – “This blog is going on a bit.”

I bet you’re also thinking – “If animation works so well, why are you even writing this blog?”

How many consumers now watch a programme on catch-up so they can skip through all the adverts? How many consumers un-follow companies on Twitter because all they talk about is their brand and their products? But how many consumers will play a video on Facebook for some entertainment, or Pin on Pinterest because the subject is useful and educational for them?

Your mind’s starting to tick away now isn’t it?

Consumers are no longer soaking up marketing and advertising in the way they used to, because it has no relevance to them.

Enter content marketing… Firstly, what is content marketing? Well, it’s a marketing technique whereby a company or brand will distribute valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a defined audience. The objective is to drive profitable customer action. This is an ongoing process that is best utilised in your overall marketing strategy.

As a company, you need to communicate with your customers and prospects without actually selling. Gone are the days when you had to tell your consumers who you are and what you do; likelihood is… they know who you are and most definitely what you do.

Content marketing is being used by some of the greatest marketing organisations in the world. They believe that as a business if they deliver consistent, ongoing and valuable information to buyers, consumers will ultimately reward you with their business and loyalty. And they do.

Good content marketing makes a person stop, read, think and behave differently.

But content marketing is impossible without great content. It’s time to really research what it is people want. What do your audience want to know, and how do they best take the information?

And remember, content marketing should be part of your process, not something separate, so merge this into all forms of your marketing. Social Media Marketing is a great place to start, SEO, PR, Inbound Marketing and Content Strategy.

Do your homework first. Plan the content you are going to distribute. Remember our previous blog Content in Context?

Tell a story. Don’t sell it.

Over the past few years 360 degree photography has become increasingly popular. Although not yet mainstream, online retailers have really taken advantage of the benefits 360 offers. It’s really important, if you’re considering using this technique, to understand the basics and learn how it can help you grow online sales.

So what is 360 degree product photography?

360 degree product photography is a process of using specialist equipment which rotates your product and captures a series of still images along the way. The images are edited, formatted and integrated with a viewer, which allows the consumer to interact with the product; changing the view as they prefer. The end result: making it appear as though your product is continually spinning.

How can this help my business?

360 product imagery will help your product sales in more ways than one. Not only are your consumers getting a better understanding of the product, they are also experiencing it in more detail therefore will be more inclined to purchase. Competition is fierce nowadays so any advantage is welcome; this is a great advantage.

It is also important to note that not all products are a good fit for 360 product photography. For example, if you sell products that look similar from all angles (e.g. cardboard packing boxes), providing your customers with interactive 360 product images would be a waste of time and money. On the other hand, if your products have important features on all sides (e.g. notebook docking stations), 360 product photography would be a good fit.

Should I use 360, or just continue with still photography?

Should you invest your time and money in still images, 360 images or a combination of both? Only you can answer this question.

FWD work hard to keep up to date with the most recent news on various different subjects.

We do a lot of work over social media which is why we blog a lot about it. We are learning first hand how it can benefit us most, after all, isn’t that why we’re all on here? To boost our visibility, make new contacts, learn new things.

We find Linkedin extremely helpful in terms of B2B engagement and new information, so when we stumbled across this piece of information we felt imperative to share.

We recently posted a blog called ‘Is Facebook really worth it?’ At the time, we were leaning towards ‘no, not really’, in terms of a B2B aspect due to many points you can view in the blog itself here.

Well we may have been wrong and we’re happy to admit that.

It seems Facebook aren’t actually just after your money - asking you to pay for advertisement to boost your page ratings, they have just been a little bit tactful.

Facebook know there is so much content being pushed around on social media now, and to save a Facebook user being bombarded with business posts they have made page views a little harder, but more valuable.

Apparently, Facebook actually prefer publisher content – so blogs, website links, and other written content that could be viewed as quite beneficial to an end user.

It’s statistically proven that people click a post when they are basically told to, so adding a call to action button in your posts will really benefit your engagement.

So what’s the lesson?

If all you post is pictures and videos you may see a slight drop in your views because that’s what everyone is doing, it’s everywhere.

But, if you post valuable published content you could see an increase in engagement.

So it's just learning what to post, and how to utilise that.

Training staff in a corporate environment can sometimes be a tricky one to deal with. There are a number of different training methods:

Team Training Your new member of staff will sit in with an experienced member of your team and pick up the ropes as they go in the actual environment they will be working in. Pros: Your new member gets to know the team, and can see the way the company works from a ground level. Cons: Any bad habits your experienced team have picked up will be engrossed in your new team member without even realising.

Day Training Whether it’s on your company premises or elsewhere, you send your new recruits off to a training session. Depending on the intensity and depth of knowledge you want your new recruits to learn, this can be anywhere from a day to a week. Pros: You can train a group of your newest members in one big session. Cons: This is mainly a ‘classroom’ style of learning and not always the most effective

Courses To continue any specific development for your team at any time you can send them off to specialised courses where they can get training from industry professionals. Pros: Industry professionals, you are learning from the big guys! Cons: It won’t be specific to your company, therefore your staff will have to interpret and establish how to use these skills within the work place.

There is another way… 

Corporate Training Videos

So instead of having new employees come to the office and understand what their role includes by any of the above methods, companies can now create videos to do all that for them.

Price is an important aspect to any company. By having a DVD created you save expenses on travel for staff, trainers and other additional costs. By keeping the work process the same the video will become timeless. A company with multiple offices / locations can also reap the benefit of a DVD which can be sent anywhere at any time.

Speaking of time, a company will also save the time in training themselves and having staff out from their usual role to train. With a video all staff learn exactly the same thing, and at the same time.

Studies have shown that people remember what they watch in a video more than what they read or hear. 65% of trainees will remember what they’ve learnt from a video using imagery and text, whereas only 10% remember from text alone.

More and more businesses are taking social media quite serious now and becoming ingrained on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and so on. It’s now understood across most platforms that if you’re not on a certain channel (mainly twitter) it’s deemed quite odd!

Speaking from experience, FWD has recently turned their attention to ‘getting with the times’. We were always present on social media; mainly Twitter and Facebook but the accounts mainly just sat idle.

With this new lease of life, we produce more content, write more blogs, and engage with a lot more people across the social media platforms. The feedback we’ve had from Twitter has been quite impressive so far with increased followers, and we’re also doing well with our LinkedIn and Google+ accounts.

However there’s one social media channel that’s been slightly under performing for us – Facebook.

We’re a business-to-business agency, so we don’t have the option to offer giveaways or competitions like local businesses do with the community.

So what do we post? We mainly use Facebook to show more pictures, more content, and a far more detailed description of what we’re doing – something we can’t do across Twitter.

But still, no increase in likes.

We we’re starting to think, “Well, this is a bit embarrassing!” So we began to research Facebook Company Pages and try to learn what we can do to fix this.

Turns out, there may not be a fix.

On Facebook you can pay for advertisements to further promote your business and they give you options to pay x amount over x amount of days. However, from further research you find that buying your likes won’t actually do any good. Check out this blog which puts it plain and simple: http://www.jonloomer.com/2012/07/09/buy-facebook-likes/

Through research, we also found that Facebook (seemingly) only show 1-2% of your posts to the news feed wall. Therefore for every 100 posts we’re putting out on our wall, only 1 of them is actually getting through…. Madness!

Now don't get us wrong, Facebook does a brilliant job for individual users and a B2C perspective. We're simply finding the difficulty with a B2B engagement and the ROI aspect.

Reddit began as a little startup in a little Boston, Massachusetts, apartment. One of the biggest motivators of the now-tech top 50 company came from a very unexpected place: a hateful comment from an accomplished executive at Yahoo! But as history has shown, the best businesses are able to transform negative remarks into remarkable success.

Back in October 2006, Reddit was started with its founders Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman. Three months after the launch, the pair got the most exciting invitation young internet entrepreneurs could want – to come to Silicon Valley to speak with an executive at Yahoo! Fueled with excitement, Ohanian and Huffman promptly accepted the invitation and went out to the tech hub.

At the beginning of the meeting, Ohanian and Huffman were describing their startup to the Yahoo! executive when he abruptly stopped them. He asked what their traffic was like, receiving the response of about 11,000 users. Without pause and with a laugh, the executive then said the phrase that has stuck with Ohanian to this day: “You guys are a rounding error compared to Yahoo! What are you doing here?” At first, the comment took the Reddit founders aback. As Ohanian says in this video, “You invited us. Is that a thing that Yahoo! does? Just invite startups over to make fun of them?”

Upon returning home, Ohanian decided to do something that would forever change Reddit and how he viewed failure. In his apartment on a wall that he would see every morning, he posted a sign that said, “You are a rounding error.” Ohanian chose to use this hateful feedback as motivation to be better – to prove the Yahoo! executive wrong. The wall started with just the quote from the Yahoo! man but then grew as he added other notes, creating a wall of negative reinforcement. That meeting and that phrase have stuck with Ohanian to this day and he uses them as motivation to improve his business.

So what is Ohanian’s parting advice to startups and young entrepreneurs? “There are always going to be constructive critics who are amazing and make us better, and then there are going to be haters. Haters gonna hate. So you know what? Eat them for breakfast, alright? Use them as motivation – use them as fuel.” Don’t let hate be something that is detrimental but rather inspiratory and motivational for excellence — and maybe a little bit of vengeance.

It’s likely you would admit when it comes to a creative project the last thing you want are constraints involved. But actually, constraints can be very helpful indeed because they take away every choice available to us, making us have to narrow down on the options we can go with.

Think about explaining yourself in three words; probably seems quite difficult doesn’t it? But if we ask to explain yourself within a whole paragraph… those three words probably seem a little more friendly to work with.

So how do you harness the power of constraints? Here are a few strategies for you to try:

1. Set yourself a timer If a project seems too daunting to even know where to start, try setting a timer for 30 minutes or so and force yourself to simply dig in wherever you can. This is a similar strategy to the Pomodoro Technique, which is a time management method that breaks down work into sections separated by short breaks. Supposedly, bursts of focus with frequent breaks can actually improve your mental agility.

2. Take the task one small step at a time. It’s a fact that 88% of all New Year’s resolutions end in failure because when we make a large, life-changing goal, we tax our brains too much to be able to achieve it. So when you have a large project on, break it down into much smaller sections and start from there. Completely ten small segments will become much more achievable than one large project.

3. Single-task until it hurts Multi-tasking makes us all feel productive and seems like a skill worthy of envy, when in fact, it’s not so great. Try extreme single-tasking instead! For example, when you’re working on a project limit yourself to only keep one web browser window open at a time, you’ll learn how to prioritize what’s most important to that task.

4. Limit your team Too many cooks can definitely spoil the broth. To encourage independent ideas to prevail, keep your team to a limited number on certain projects and tasks and see where the ideas take you. Adding more people is one of the most common productivity traps that you can fall into.

5. Give yourself deadlines Brainstorm, and give yourself time limits and stick to them! Sometimes going over and over the same idea can send you round in circles, so a deadline can give you a good cut off point. Whether you deadline tasks, the entire project, or work this with setting yourself a timer; the end result is always more productive.

6. Focus your content When writing content out to that big wide world it’s good to have it focused on one particular subject. Here at FWD we like to blog out industry tips and features (let us know how we’re doing!). It helps us know what we’re looking for, and what we want to write giving us a limited account of what we can do.

Well, how can it not? Would be my first question.

The prime example

Grey Poupon had an ingenious idea in 2012, which caused a Social Media Campaign to rocket across Facebook. Rather than going after quantity Grey Poupon wanted quality and so made users apply to like their page. Your profile would be scanned and checked for specific criteria such as tags, check-ins, and use of appropriate grammar. If you were accepted you had access to special offers, recipes, and all kinds of goodies. If you were denied you would have to refine your profile and try again.

The page made 1 million page impressions, and the fan base rose by 3000%.

You can watch the full video here

Who knew exclusivity could work so well?

Channels available to you

It’s not just about Facebook and Twitter and it’s definitely not about how many likes or followers you have. Although on paper it looks good to have 10,000 likes, ask yourself how many of those are actually engaging with your brand? You need to create something that will create daily or weekly engagement and keep your consumers coming back for more. Reach out to other social media channels such as Pintrest, Vine, Instagram and more. Think creatively and use all your assets.

The bright idea

The idea of how you inject your campaign into the world can be a difficult one. Currently, most companies are using campaigns as a giveaway tool; ‘like this page to be in with a chance of winning’, ‘share this post to win’, ‘re-tweet and you could get…’ The list is endless. Most campaign ideas are fairly similar; it’s just how you execute it that can make the difference. Sometimes an agency can really help with a campaign and produce something creatively different which will inspire others to do the same, and more people to get involved. 

What next?

Time to get your research cap on! Have a look at some of the top Social Media Campaigns that have really worked well for companies in the past (or currently). Have a look at what your competitors are offering and see how you can out-smart their idea. Do some market research on your area, your consumers, your industry and really evaluate what people actually want from you. Get thinking creatively, a good idea can turn into a disaster in today’s world if it isn’t exciting, new and ingenious.

What are your first thoughts when we say ‘Social Media’? Do you think it’s a useful business platform, or can you not really understand how it adds any business value?

A social media novice can look at what Social Media has to offer and completely shut down because there is too much going on, there are too many platforms, and they don’t quite understand how to make everything work together. The problem is… experienced users are also making the same mistake; the difference is that they think they know what they’re doing. People are just throwing out content and not doing anything with it. It’s content in context.

But before that… you must understand there is a real science to social media, heck – there’s a real strategy, you may have just not worked it out yet.

Gary Vaynerchuck is a self-trained social media expert, and he’s offering this advice. He has recently written a book called “Jab Jab Jab, Right Hook” which is a great tool to use to really see social media in a different way.

So what’s a jab, and what’s a right hook?

It’s the same as boxing, it may just look like two men punching each other in the face, but there really is a strategy and a science behind it.

Where users mostly go wrong is by sending out too many right hooks. People are constantly posting a ‘buy my product’ picture or ‘buy my product’ tweet. Consumers will get bored of this and will completely switch off to anything that’s being said.

But what is a jab?

A jab is giving content. It’s sending something over social media that isn’t asking for anything in return, and it’s where you will gain more appreciative followers, and in turn a better business model. It’s saying “Here’s something cool, watch it, learn from it, and enjoy”. Like this blog – this is a jab. We’re giving you some important content that we have found, we’ve translated it, we’ve given you the source, and we’re not asking for anything in return.

But you have to give the right content in the right context. It’s really important to learn your social media platforms and understand the psychology behind it to ensure your content is in the right context and will be looked at. Why do people use Facebook, what’s their reasons and what do they get from it? The same for Pintrest, Twitter, Tumblr and so on.

People think of social media as a distribution channel to take users somewhere else. But what you really should be doing is using each channel to natively tell a story. For example, take your content and turn it into an info-graphic then post it up on Pintrest – because info-graphics work on Pintrest and it will get noticed.

Be smarter, be creative, and have fun!

And if you don’t believe us… check it out from the horses’ mouth:

So, the team at FWD stumbled across this little fella....

Watch me!

Not only does this man have special ties with NASA, he is an incredibly easy person to listen to, and has a fantastic way of explaining things that could otherwise be quite confusing.

Science... Space... Dark Matter, all a little bit boring? Or far too intellectual to understand? Neil DeGrasse Tyson has a wonderful technique to really spice up the 'boring' stuff, making him captivating to watch.

If you've got 2 hours spare to be completely turned on your head, this is definitely the one to watch (in our humble opinion!)

Forget the common cold. Forget bird flu. Forget Sars (oh, you have? Fine). There's a virus spreading whose potency should make us all shudder, and to which many of us are exposed for hours every day.

It gets into our brains. It makes our mouths say other people's words, as if we're ventriloquists' dummies. It leaves us confused about our own identity, so we put our names to other people's faces. It makes us complicit in the deception of those we love and trust. I'm unsure of its Latin name, but I know what the advertising industry calls it:friendvertising.

The idea is that friends become "influential brand enthusiasts" (unpaid, of course). Advertisers know we're all weary of having our web-browsing interrupted by cars speeding across a screen or garish videos popping up whenever we unwittingly hover a mouse in the wrong place. And they know that we're more likely to trust our friends than corporations. So they make content that is designed to be shared on social media.

Relationships that we've built up over decades suddenly become conduits for a remote corporation's message. This is bad enough when the ad in question is straightforward and honest in its intention, but it's usually a different sort that creates what marketers call "buzz". (A more apt word would be "hiss", as cockroaches do.)

There's a ghastly tendency for corporations to disguise their true purpose, crafting short films purporting to further a socially beneficial aim. The most shared ad of 2013 was Dove's Real Beauty Sketches. It's all about self-image and is part of its Campaign for Real Beauty, asserting that all sorts of bodies can be beautiful, unlike those nasty adverts for, say, Lynx. Funny then that both products are made by the same company. It's as if, I don't know, they're just telling us what we want to hear, and don't actually care a jot about any of this stuff, and that the whole thing is a stunt born of the darkest cynicism.

Almost as disingenuous was the appearance, just before Christmas, of avideo promoting Canadian airline WestJet. We were led to believe that it bought presents for its passengers purely out of kindness. But those things coming down the chute onto the conveyor belt at the end weren't gifts - they were corporate investments. It wasn't an act of generosity, but an attempt to gain undeserved goodwill by spending a pinprick of their profits ($65.1m in the third quarter of 2013 alone) on mere tokens of affection. They probably spent Christmas laughing at us from behind piles of cash as we shared this visual soma with each other.

Another advert from Coca-Cola doing the rounds at the moment is particularly nauseating. It's a supposed celebration of family life, depicting the joys and travails undergone by new parents. Yet given the corporation's history of child exploitation in its supply chain and its products' effects on children's teeth, it leaves a bad taste.

But, you may say, so what? If these videos make us feel better for a few moments, where's the harm? To which I would reply: wouldn't you look at Fozzie Bear a bit differently if you knew the strings were being pulled by Daniel Plainview?

It could certainly be argued that the moment we join Facebook, we're working as unpaid writers and photographers for a vast, multibillion dollar advertising platform, whatever we choose to share. And it's hardly new to say that advertisers are cynical. But there is something contemptuous in the way that we and our friendships are currently being treated; the way our lives and likes are being interfered with by a pernicious marketing strategy demands resistance.

The good news is that we can all do something about it. We can all decide not to join in. We can watch or share a friend's song or video or blogpost instead. We can kill this advertising virus – and we'll feel all the better for it.

Did you know? Research has shown that 50% of LinkedIn members are more likely to purchase from companies when they engage with them on LinkedIn.

Definitely worth looking at getting a company page now, don’t you think. So how can you make your LinkedIn company page work for you?

Optimize your LinkedIn Page LinkedIn really gives you plenty of opportunities to show what your company can offer. By using your products and services page well you are likely to attract twice as many company followers. Show what you do best and give them some serious reasons to follow you. Don’t forget to add links to these pages as back up for your products. Company pages are also SEO-friendly. Google actually previews up to 156 characters of your page’s text so ensure it leads with powerful, keyword-rich sentences. Plus, members can search for companies by keyword on LinkedIn, so include words and phrases that describe your business best.

Don’t forget to include your company contact information, descriptions of offerings and your areas of expertise. Your primary attributes can also function as keyword tags. Once you’ve done that, you can ask your customers to recommend the products and services they favor.

Engage Your Audience With LinkedIn company pages, you can now like and share content as a company. Before, you could only do so as an individual. Post content that’s customised to your followers’ and customers’ professional interests to resonate the most.

When you are posting from your company profile these two simple guidelines will work best. Think like a journalist. Concise intros and snappy headlines are more likely to result in higher engagement than long, dry copy. Grab your readers’ attention right away by starting your update with your most important thought. Make your content valuable and “snackable.” Develop quality content that is quick to consume, so members will want to share it with their connections and networks. Data shows that the most successful updates include a picture, chart, video or link to an article. When you do not have a link or image to include, engage your audience by asking a question.

Attract More Followers The more the merrier on the social merry-go-round! If you’re a larger company you will benefit from engaging your colleagues. Employees are 70% more likely to engage with your company updates, so don’t forget to ask them to like and share. Get your company page known by adding the link to your email signature and website, just as you may do with Twitter and Facebook.

Analyze for the Prize There is a goldmine of insights available to help you focus and refine your strategy with LinkedIn Analytics.

Engagement % — Engagement = interactions + clicks + followers acquired. In other words, this metric answers the question, “Of those who’ve seen my update, how many are truly engaging with it?” Look at updates with higher engagement rates, and note the type of content, people targeted, date and time. Then you’ll know how to optimize future content around what’s proven to work. 

Demographics — From seniority and industry to company size and function, demographics give you a snapshot of your followers. With this information, you can tailor the type of content you share on your company page, as well as the tone in which it’s delivered. Demographics will also help you determine segments to target with targeted status updates.

How You Compare — Knowing how your company page compares to your competitors’ pages is a great way to determine whether you should change your strategy.

So there you have it! We hope it helps.