Free your content – and what will follow?

Earlier this week, an assembled panel of experts grappled with the possibilities and limitations of freeconomics, the concept that giving content and services away for free is the key to success in the future.

Taking Chris Anderson’s ground breaking article in Wired from last February (Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business), as the starting point, Azeem Azhar, Bruce Daisley, Nic Brisbourne, Victor Keegan, Charles Blake Thomas and Alan Patrick examined the free model, assessing whether it is sustainable and if companies struggling in an uncertain economic environment must now monetise or die. Looking further into the future, the panel were forced to consider if the freeconomic model carries with it the genetic code of its own destruction which will see it collapse, just as the interest free card credit card model did.

While the panel discussed a variety of potential models for the future – Spotify (a big hit with everyone it seemed); Jeff Jarvis’ vision of “support from foundations and the public to pay for investigative journalism” at the Huffington Post; and the Radiohead model (“a publicity gimmick” according to Alan Patrick) – perhaps unsurprisingly there was no overall consensus, aside from Patrick’s assertion that “deep pockets are key” to the free model.

As I returned home however I was greeted by a timely reminder of another way - the good old fashioned premium model. As a Hackney resident I have a healthy curiosity for the works of Iain Sinclair. His latest book Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire is a warts and all celebration of Hackney’s eccentricities, tracing the routes of a variety of unlikely souls - including Joseph Conrad, Jean Luc Goddard, Orson Welles and Tony Blair - through some of the darker corners of the borough.

It came as something of a surprise then that I discovered in the London Review of Books, an advert for a limited first edition with an “etching and aquatint on moulin de gue” (!) retailing at £550. Publishers have of course never been slow to offer enhanced packages. What struck me as particularly interesting about this however was the contrast it offered to Victor Keegan’s earlier discussion about some of his recent cross-media book reading experiments. The Guardian journalist explained that last year he read a whole book on a laptop, describing it as “one of the worst experiences of my life”.

While free may offer one model for the future, media owners must also not ignore the premium model. With this in mind, The FT.com’s recent launch of premium, paid for content specifically tackling the emerging Chinese market (China Confidential) may represent a viable alternative to the free model. It may not be printed on moulin de gue, but its success or failure could do much to highlight the way forward.

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Is it time for a new breed of online display advert?

Online display advertising has in the past been somewhat restricted by the speed of loading and the avoidance of disrupting the user experience. It has done well over the last decade even if for some marketers it is still one of the most underrated branding tools. When you compare the amount of the page space an internet advert dominates in comparison to a half, one or two page advert in print you can understand why this opinion exists.

Online display obviously has greater benefits like animation, video and interaction but given most people’s internet speeds are now faster and screen resolution larger, I think it’s time the industry revisited the ultimate display combination. I’m hoping for something that improves on the tried and tested combination of a banner, a skyscraper and an MPU all on the same page.

This does work, but there must be a way of joining the adverts together to be less disjointed. Some companies do seem to be making strides in this area and I’d like to highlight a couple of them now.

Page take over

IGN.com is an entertainment news and reviews site with a large focus on computer games and film. It is also one of many sites to offer what I think is one of most effective branding combinations on the planet, the page takeover. In the above example it’s the homepage, but it could easily be a sub-section. Here the computer game PES 2009 has provided a background, a larger sized skyscraper with video and a banner ad.

In other words, you can’t miss the product and the impact is huge – particularly thanks to that massive billboard like background. The product is also highly relevant to the audience. It’s easily as effective at awareness and impact as a TV advert, but with the benefit of not interrupting the experience and allowing for interactivity. If you have a smaller monitor, you may not see all of the background but you still see the banner and larger skyscraper. None of which interferes with the content.

Branded skins

I’m a big fan of branded skins which are an emerging format primarily used around video players but can equally be placed around image galleries (and I’d imagine around written content one day). They feel futuristic because they take up the same screen space as a combination of banner and skyscrapers, yet they are a single, solid advert – removing the disjointed feeling. Below is an example on the Telegraph website.

The missing link

The common factor between both of the above examples is a single, large advert that wraps around the content of the page. It doesn’t interfere, but it offers a high level of impact and sophistication. Internet marketing’s biggest potential is in display advertising and I’ll be keeping my eye out for more innovation as the online display industry evolves over the next twelve months.

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Famous for five minutes

I've been thinking about longevity for some time now. I was finally inspired to write something about it after a tweet earlier today from the Guardian's Jemima Kiss who commented: "It's great that Spotify is doing well, but I'm not interested in hearing music I know. I want to find new music, and Last.fm radio rocks."

I thought this was intriguing for a number of reasons. Yes Last.fm is a great service. I'm also a fan of Spotify though - particularly since they did a deal with Warp Records allowing limited access to some of its back catalogue. But what really grabbed my interest was the focus on the importance of newness in Jemima's tweet.

I am as much a fan of “the new” as anyone else - as a reviewer for a variety of music mags means I am in the fortunate position of being given access to the new before most other people. However I am also interested in “the old”. So is it really wrong to be interested in “hearing music I know”?

There has been much written recently about social networking - especially Twitter - affecting attention spans, relationship building etc – the lifespan of a tweet is supposed to be five minutes after all (unless it is re-tweeted of course).

Not all of this discussion on social networking has been hugely useful. Baroness Greenfield for example made it on to the front page of the Daily Mail with some interesting claims which were then extremely well dealt with by Ben Goldacre on Newsnight.

Getting back to the musical example though, just how are new technologies affecting how we engage with traditional forms of culture? Are they simply feeding an obsession with the new to the extent that we are creating an entirely disposable culture that constantly strives for the new at the expense of the old? Will we forget that “new” piece of music five minutes after we’ve heard it – in the same way that we are supposed to forget a tweet?

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Skittles, famous for 15 days?

Britney Spears reads Brand Republic exclusive (allegedly)

Or at least her 2.0 media manager surely must. A few months ago I literally berated Spears' marketing machine for missing the opportunity to advertise around the premiere of her comeback single online and for not making the song available in online stores like Amazon and iTunes during the promotional period. For her latest single, If You Seek Amy, it is an entirely different story.

The song is available to buy online, the premiere of the video on her website had pre-roll video ads and I found all of this out through a link on her Twitter feed. Therefore, it is with great pride that I make the only logical assumption that either Britney Spears' 2.0 media manager or the great lady herself has read my earlier post.

Evidence is included below and I make no apologies for the number of Britney related posts the IAB seems to be producing. It is also a little known fact that our senior PR and marketing manager, Amy Kean was the inspiration for If You Seek Amy. Allegedly.

You can't quite see the logo, but that's an ad by Virgin.

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Tweet me baby one more time

So, Britney Spears has overtaken the official Twitter feed to become the third most popular tweeter in the world (you heard it here first). But what exactly does this mean?

Spears is now hot on the heels of Barack Obama in her quest for Twitter domination. While she is still some way behind the current leader of the Twitter pack - an unofficial CNN breaking news feed - the emergence of a major pop celebrity is a big development in the short history of Twitter. But is it a significant moment in the evolution of digital culture?

Judging from some of Britney's tweets - recent sample: "Went shopping in Coral Gables, bought some purses and sunglasses!" - you'd be hard pushed to argue that her feed adds an awful lot to early 21st century culture. Snide comments aside however, this is a cultural phenomenon that cannot be ignored.

Britney's arrival in the top three marks the emergence of the second wave of twitterati, early adopter celebrities who have shown a willingness to get involved with the medium - but who must now figure out what to do with it. Amongst this second wave are Ashton Kutcher - sample tweet: "I often ponder as to how similar the name Adam and the word "atom" are to one another" - comedian Jimmy Fallon and baseball star Shaquille O'Neal, all of whom are now in the top ten tweeters worldwide.

So is Twitter safe in their hands?

I attended the Social Networking World Forum last week where Dirk Singer, co-founder of Cow, expressed his incredulity that many major brands have so far entirely failed to engage with Twitter. If these brands are serious about communicating with their audience, not for the first time they will be forced to look to unexpected role models for guidance as they attempt to plot a path through the new media landscape. Seen in this light, what Britney and co do from now on is crucial - and could just have an impact on how you and I interact with the medium in the months - and maybe years - to come.

Of equal concern though is the next wave that follows Britney, Kutcher et al. Just who's coming up behind? Who's set to take over? You might find some of the answers here. In the meantime, watch this space.

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"It may be dry, but it's massive..."

Yesterday, one of my colleagues, (a big search advertising fan) was waxing lyrical to me about search, ahead of our event, IAB Engage for Search this morning.  "It may be dry, but it's massive" he said... Like I needed any persuading!

Where’s the best place to advertise on a website, next to written, photographic or video content?

Over the weekend I was sent a link to Ben Adams of boyband and now Celebrity Big Brother fame snogging a granny and it took me back to 2004. No, I didn’t snog Ben or a granny, I interviewed him for the latest campaign with Sony BMG. I used three mediums: written content, video footage and photos. As an online marketer using the tool of content for promotion, it seemed logical to produce something using all methods available to me that the fans/consumers would appreciate.

This wasn’t the first time either, my first multi-format content was way back in 1998 and I’ve lost count of the number of times I have since created more. I’ve been producing websites and content since I was 16 and in that time the world of the online publisher has come a long way, but it seems to have taken an equally long time for online publishers to truly deliver. Now however, it’s common place for publishers to use all three mediums, such as in the above Channel 4 and below Guardian examples:

Admittedly I was an early starter, but it has always amazed me that it’s only in recent years that the likes of the Telegraph, Guardian, The Sun, Daily Mail etc have all adopted this multi-format approach in a big way. These days, everyone’s a broadcaster. Thank god they are too because the experience is incredible.

Back in the day, video content was only used heavily in niche pockets of early adopter industries like music and computer games. Even good, unique photographic content is new to major online publishers. The technology has been around for so long, yet it is only now fully utilised for the mainstream. Of course, producing content like this of a decent quality takes time and skill. Thus I should calm my impatience and remember that large publishers required the following to make the amazing web content experience that they give us today:

1. Funding (through advertising to pay for good staff)
2. Education and experience (to understand how to use written, photographic and video content together)

With the advent of the internet being taken seriously as an advertising medium, the publishers suddenly had the money to hire experts in different content mediums and time has delivered experience. Advertising has been an essential part of this improved direction – something that many people forget when they moan about “the ads”.

This has been quite a long-winded back-story, but I arrive now at the point: multi-format content also calls for multi-format advertising. If people consume content in different ways on the internet, you are going to have to do the same for your adverts. All of the above mentioned websites receive traffic up to and over 20 million. With that in mind consider that it may have taken a while, but they all offer significant amounts of written, photographic and video content – consumers can choose any combination of these to get to their information. All of the publishers know this and they offer a great set of advertising options for you to use.

Advertising in and around video content is now unbelievably important, as unbelievably important as display banner ads because it’s the combination of the two that will truly give you the internet’s branding super weapon. You need to be thinking about all of this and more. Throw into the mix above-the-line advertising and you certainly have a lot to deal with. Like the publishers though, it will be a matter of hiring the right people and training existing staff to learn new tricks. If I could teach myself in my bedroom at 16, your teams can get it too. Remember the basic rule: how to reach your target audience. Choose your path wisely.

So, where’s the best place to advertise on a website?

a) next to written content
b) next to photographic content
c) next to video content
d) All of the above

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Is Google setting the industry standard on privacy?

With the IAB’s Good Practice Principles for behavioural advertising still ‘hot off the press’ (to use an old media term!), Google this week launched its own ‘interest-based advertising’ global product across its AdSense partner sites and YouTube.

Google’s new venture meets the core commitments of notice, choice and education enshrined in the IAB Good Practice Principles (Google is a signatory) and the privacy-enhancing tools in the product will help to build greater consumer trust in more relevant advertising fuelling the “content, products and services available on the internet today”.  Specific features will provide internet users with the following:

• Clear information about the collection and use of data for interest-based advertising by clicking a ‘label’ on the advert  itself.  The IAB’s Good Practice Principles specifically offer this (Guidance Note 1C) as an option to signatories to meet the commitment to provide ‘clear and unambiguous notice to users.’

• A clear choice as to whether the user wants relevant interest-based advertising or not.  Google will have a clear ‘opt-out’ option as well as a ‘plug-in’ to download on a user’s web browser in order to maintain that choice in the event that they decide to delete all the cookies on that particular web browser.  A clear opt-out for the collection and use of data for behavioural advertising (over and above where consent is required – for example when personal data is collected) is another requirement of the Good Practice Principles (2.1).

• Clear information on the product and the privacy features on the Google privacy channel on YouTube (see also below).  This will be linked to the IAB’s new website – www.youronlinechoices.co.uk – as outlined in the Principles (3.2).

• An option on what types of advertising they see by adding or removing ‘interest’ categories using the Ads Preference  Manager.

These are welcome steps.  All of the signatories to the IAB’s Good Practice Principles have excellent privacy-enhancing tools, but Google’s features will certainly set a precedent for the rest of the industry to follow.

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Don’t get Twitterjacked – get involved

The various speakers at the brand building session of yesterday’s Social Networking World Forum, were of course at pains to point out that social media is a vital tool for modern brands. Given that the conference coincided with the release of Nielsen’s latest research into the popularity of social media, who can blame them?

Coca Cola’s director of global interactive marketing, Michael Donnelly, explained how the company’s attitude to consumer interaction with the brand has changed over the years. Back in 1962 for example, the brand slapped a cease and desist order on Andy Warhol after he produced a series of studies of Coca Cola bottles. It seems highly unlikely that any modern brand would seek to discourage this kind of activity – especially in these socially networked times. “My how times have changed”, acknowledged Donnelly.

As an example of this shift in culture, Donnelly outlined how Coca-Cola’s Facebook page has grown to be the second most popular in the world – with very little involvement from the brand itself. The page – second only to Barack Obama in terms of popularity – was initially set up by two fans of the drink (see the video here).

For Connelly, social networking is “a fresh and new space”, and the key to success for Coca-Cola is to avoid being seen as a ‘big’ brand. “We’re a big company, we’re playing in virtually every space – as a participating member,” he argued. “We’re not just some big brand blasting our message at consumers.”

The importance of adding something useful was a theme that was echoed in the session’s panel discussion. For Frances Dovey, interactive and emerging media manager at Cadburys, providing a useful contribution to the community is vital. “Make sure that you bring something to the party and that you’re not just taking from the community,” argued Dovey. Another crucial factor for Dovey is longevity. “If you’re going to do this, you’re in it for the long haul. It’s not about switching off and dumping your friends. Once you switch it on you’re always on”.

But what happens if you don’t switch on? This was one of the issues addressed by Dirk Singer, co-founder of PR agency Cow, during his presentation that sought to explain how to justify social media in a recession (Dirk has kindly agreed to share his presentation slides with us). 

Singer highlighted some of the dangers of refusing to engage with customers on social networks. Singling out Twitter, he pointed to the example of Southwest Trains who had failed to register a Twitter feed. As a result the company has been ‘Twitterjacked’  by someone who freely admits that the southwesttrains feed is “not actually anything to do with SWT - just a spitefull (sic) comuter (sic) playing around”. Sample posts include: “Hope ya'll enjoyed not making it to work this week. No need to thank us!” and “hey suckers! we've been away for a bit - we were busy jacking up the price and making *** up about "temporary signal failure".” The potential for brand damage should be a warning to all.

Singer went on to explain how it is now possible to buy high profile Twitter domains for as little as £20 - an echo of the URL squatting that went on in the late Nineties. According to Singer, a few pounds will buy you @royalmail or @northernrock.

The @experian address is perhaps the best example, containing nothing but a link to a website called Twitternamesparked, inviting people to buy their names back. The same is true of the Bank of Ireland and Bank of Scotland names.

Other brands with parked Tweeter feeds include: Domino’s Pizza, Morrisons, Littlewoods, Dulux, Alton Towers, Confused.com, Morphy Richards, Breville.

Yes there are risks involved in social networking. As Emma Jenkins, head of interactive marketing at Procter & Gamble, pointed out, “some brands won’t like the level of openness offered by social networking.” Putting the point a little more forcefully, Will McInnes, managing director of social media agency NixonMcinnes, argued that those brands that are doing a bad job offline should only get involved in social networking “in a suit of armour”. This is of course true – but surely the risks of not getting involved are far greater?

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What are you Twittering on about?

Twitter was built for micro-blogging. It certainly succeeds with each post/tweet limited to 140 characters – when you first sign up it’s like using text messages 10 years ago. Some people use it as an alternative, more regular Facebook style status update, while others are using it as a more laborious alternative to RSS feed reading.

The problems I have with Twitter are twofold. First, every time I log in, the conversation has moved on so much there is no discussion. Second, the conversation doesn’t move on fast enough for it to be like a chat room. So, for my personal online networking needs, other sites and systems are more appropriate. Indeed, when Facebook's redesign goes live it will even adopt a more Twitter like homepage.

I’m not dissing Twitter, but personally I can’t figure out what I would want to use it for. While we at the IAB are guilty of this and people seem to be enjoying it, I’m not a massive fan of the accounts with lots of posts/tweets with links in them because I already have all of the RSS feeds I want on my browsers and Google Reader. Perhaps Twitter has broken through the barrier built by technophobes to confusing RSS technology? From an advertiser perspective it offers more potential for ad placement in the future than RSS.

There is one aspect of Twitter that I really enjoy, and that’s at live events when you tweet, get instant feedback and that ‘chatroom’ feel – but those moments are few and far between.

I’m getting quite frustrated because I don’t understand Twitter when usually I ‘get’ internet stuff. Is anyone else getting a dose of the Second Life’s or have I missed something? What are your thoughts on the best uses of Twitter?

Fatboy Slim pioneers best practice in online ad measurement

I read on Brand Republic that Fatboy Slim is using online advertising – rich media banners – as part of the launch for his new band, the Brighton Port Authority. The interesting thing about this is that he is only going to pay his agency on the number of times people rollover the ad – so no click through rates, no page views, no singles downloaded on iTunes metrics for Fatboy, just a standard web 2.0 functionality of banner rollovers.

What I find intriguing about this is that the brand thought about what was relevant to them – trialling the music video – and then set up a payment metric for their agency based on this and this alone. No ROI evaluation on site traffic or Google searches or iTunes sales. No doubt they will be following these other metrics, but these rely on factors that are - creative appeal apart – out of the control of the humble banner ad. Sales will depend on air play, awareness and likeability of the music. Click through metrics will depend on time of day, where users are seeing the ad and in a large part on the consumer’s willingness to click on banner ads. The ad agency are being measured on the success of the banner ad and this alone. This is so appealing as it is correctly judging the role that the banner ad campaign is playing in the marketing mix and links the agency reward to achieving this objective.

In my view not all brands use the full range of metrics available to evaluate the effectiveness of their campaigns. Measuring click through rates is the default setting  – even if the campaign or the creative is not directly targeted at achieving click throughs. Web 2.0 allows measurement of so much more. There are automotive campaigns where consumers can book test drives and request brochures into the rich media ad itself rather than clicking through to a website. Intext ad formats allow consumers to roll over a text link and view an ad without having to launch a new page. Some ads have games built in with no need to go through to a website. All of these are great examples of how web technology can be used to go beyond the banner / click model that has come to dominate online display and these interactions carry a value that may be more useful to advertisers than click throughs.

Looking at click through rates is not a bad thing – the transparency and reporting capabilities of online will strengthen in this time of budget cutting and scrutiny. But focusing on click through rates as the be all and end all of display advertising is ignoring the value and the possibilities of the medium.

A campaign to drive traffic should focus on click throughs. A campaign that is about raising awareness and working with other media should be measured on media neutral brand awareness metrics. A campaign to drive awareness of a product – such as in the fatboy slim case above – should focus on interaction and exposure.  We know that media and creative campaigns need to be set up against very clear objectives which need to be measured. Thinking about the campaign objectives from a metrics point of view should happen first. Then the agencies working with brands can be briefed to develop work that will achieve the aims using all of the online advertising tools available.  This may seem obvious but it is not something that is always the case in online.

From the IAB perspective this is exactly why we think the development of UKOM is so important. A common planning tool is a necessity to encourage brands to understand how important measurement is in campaign planning and to demystify online audience measurement.  This is at the core of UKOM's objectives . Creating a common media planning tool for online will be a giant step closer to an achievable utopia of driving more value in and understanding of how online display advertising can work over and above click through rates.

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Privacy is at the heart of the internet's future

Protecting personal data and privacy is one of the biggest challenges of the digital era.  And, as we all spend more of our lives online, so it’s importance will continue to grow.  People are prepared to share more information about themselves and their experiences then we might dare to do in the offline world.  People are also prepared to forfeit a little bit of personal data in return for improved and often more personal services.  This is not a new thing: loyalty cards have been around for a while now.

The last few weeks have illustrated only too clearly these challenges.  Facebook – that social phenomenon with 175 million global users (and growing by 600,000 a day!) – got itself into hot water by claiming ‘ownership’ of its users’ information.  Its reputation on privacy looked distinctly jaded.  However, its response was magnificent showing the true power of the internet: it is to let its users decide the matter.  Yes, Facebook is handing over its policies governing the site to the very people that use and enjoy it.  People talk about the internet being a true ‘democratising force’ and here is another great example.  Hats off the Mark Zuckerberg and his team!

But what about information that is not personal in that it can’t identify us as individuals, such as web browsing activity?  Today we see another giant step forward for user privacy.  Leading IAB members –  including Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL – have signed up to some Good Practice Principles for behavioural advertising.  This type of online advertising – currently only hovering around 20% of the online display advertising market (which, in itself, is worth about £600m in terms of adspend) - has huge potential to make advertising far more relevant to our interests, as well as removing the online advertising we might not want.   New IAB research has  found that 85% of consumers would rather have free internet content with advertising on websites, rather than paying a premium for it.  From a business point of view, it also means more effective advertising and a better return for publishers.  It all make sense.  But what about consumer privacy?  First things first, most of the data collected is anonymous in that it can’t identify the individual.  Where personal data is collected, UK data protection laws are there to protect consumers.

The guidelines commit providers to three core things: 

1.     Provide clear and unambiguous to users about the information they collect and use for behavioural advertising.
2.     Provide users with a choice to decline to receive behavioural advertising.
3.     Provide users with a simple and easy-to-understand information about behavioural advertising. 

Supporting the Good Practice Principles is a portal aimed at consumers - www.youronlinechoices.co.uk - helping them to understand how behavioural advertising works, its benefits and how privacy is protected. 

If behavioural advertising is to grow upwards from its existing market share, we need the trust of the consumer.  They need transparency, choice and education and these underpin the principles launched today.  It’s only a start but one that will begin to build trust, provide significant benefits and prevent a potentially compromised online experience.  We should welcome it.  I'd be very interested in people's feedback and thoughts on this initiative.

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Some wheeeeeeeeeeere over the Rainbow

So go to www.skittles.com and you don’t find a site – no you find a little app that helps you navigate around the social web.  Product flavours are covered by Wiki, videos/ads on their YouTube Page, friends on Facebook and chatter via twitter. What’s exciting yet scary is that by simply navigating live social pages you are beholden to consumers to enter into the spirit of it.  For example if you use the word “skittles” in your twitter update you will appear on the skittles home page.  Some however have used some ‘even fruiter than Skittles’ language but this is largely the minority and disappears from the home pages quite quickly. 

Aside from being innovative (albeit done by the agency Modernista! a year ago) I think this is not only great fun and in the spirit of the brand, but might even be a sniff of websites moving forward.  I’m sure it won’t be long before this app becomes more of a ‘search app’ and changes skin and content depending on what you search for. 

So do you think this is a good idea and could it spell the end of the website as we know it? 

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IAB 2.0

At the IAB we enjoy playing around with different methods of spreading the internet advertising love. In the last twelve months or so we’ve set up the following:

1. This IAB blog
2. An IAB UK LinkedIn Group
3. An IAB UK Facebook Group
4. An IAB UK Twitter feed
5. Videos on YouTube
6. Photos on Flickr

It’s still early days for all of them and we’re still testing out the best way to use each, but I thought it might be helpful to tell you what we’ve found to date.

We’re enjoying this blog and it’s building a healthy readership. It’s certainly refreshing and useful for us to put across some informed views in an informal setting. It’s too soon to say how successful it has been for us in terms of impact but it has generated more IAB content than ever before, offering you an idea of what goes on in our heads from day-to-day. This is incredibly important because we feel that we’re proving that blogs can be used for business.

The Facebook group was our first venture into social media and seems particularly good at gaining Latin American members… so lots of people, but not so many from our target audience. It has 680 members and in terms of effort, it involves absolutely none and it has helped spread the word about our events. Our LinkedIn group is only a couple of weeks old but we have almost 100 members, most of whom are our most senior members. We’d like to use this to create a genuine online community because the approval process means we can be sure that only IAB members join.

Twitter is really interesting and has already proven itself as an extremely good tool for communication, gaining over 500 members in the last couple of months. We’re using it as an IAB news aggregation service, a bit like an RSS feed but with extra, original content. It seems to be working very nicely at the moment and it’s fun receiving live feedback when we tweet from one of our events. The videos on YouTube currently seem to be the least effective but we’re to blame for not investing more time and effort into the content.

To be frank, it’s Twitter and this blog that receives the most attention and content from the IABeers, so it’s unsurprising that they are performing well so far. Over the coming months we’ll be tightening up our use of all of the above tools and hopefully we can share our learnings to help you use the tools effectively for marketing too. Watch this space for a case study later in the year.