Social media can be used for a variety of new age needs- engaging with consumers who were once out of reach, sharing videos, pictures and news to an audience ready and willing to not only read it and respond to it, but share it to their peers, and, perhaps most importantly, it can be used to translate the personality of a brand.

Consequently, it comes as no surprise that social media is the back bone of consumer engagement. Not only is it a platform that an ever expanding proportion of the world is an active part of, but it is an arena where brands can lay all the facts bare- a secret entrance into the mind and spirit of a brand.

However, we would say that one of the most positive outcomes of social media’s take over is how companies have been forced to provide VIP services to their customers, in comparison to the traditional call center methods that the public have spent their lives trying to avoid.

A recent study by Fishburn Hedges shows that 65% of us find social media to be a better way to connect with a brand, compared to only 7% saying they felt that they were worse off because of it.

The main reason for this breakthrough in online customer services is the microblogging phenomena, Twitter. Queries and complaints are posted and replied to within minutes through the site, allowing a consumer to get on with their day with no hold music and a far more personalised connection with the brand. It is a system that allows the public to communicate with what can sometimes seem like an impenetrable corporation. Negative comments are open for all to see, and the way they are responded to can mean life or death for the brand in question. If companies are not careful, it is possible to lose an entire following due to poor online interaction and handling of complaints.

Social media has allowed the world to be even smaller than it once was. Not only is everything shareable, but everything is searchable, allowing for one person’s opinion to very quickly become the whole of London’s. With poorly executed engagement it is only too easy for entire communities to turn their back on a brand if they give them a smidgeon of a reason to do so.

In order for brands to be in a position to respond effectively to their ever growing community of online followers, they need to be aware of the implications even the tiniest of slip ups can create. Through carefully considered community management, that provides only the best in customer services, can they bring their network of followers around to what can be a cheaper, more transparent and human form of interaction.

A good pinner is hard to find. Not only are they keen to stay under the radar, often too cool to be noticed by the masses, but their jewels are regularly lost in the ocean of terrible pins  by incessant pinners.

However, surpassing all expectations of who is the best brand to follow, is furniture giant and Swedish flat pack lover, IKEA, who have created a Pinterest that puts many interior design boards to shame. Not only do they separate inspirational home pieces into perfectly distinguishable and adorable boards, but they are running themed campaigns alongside impressive new collections that raise awareness for their country of origin.

Their most recent campaign celebrates the new IKEA limited edition ‘True Blue’ range, that celebrates India and all its fabrics, patterns and heritage.

Visitors to IKEA’s site are able to choose their preferred shade of blue, which will then display products in the same colour so fans can perfectly match products to their taste.

The take over doesn’t stop there as IKEA’s Facebook page has also turned blue, with albums, cover photos and links following the theme, whilst status updates reiterate the recurring message of the campaign, that decorating the home can be a lifelong journey that blends craft, colour and quality  of design. For this reason, India has been the country of choice, and with some phenomenal pictures of the country’s iconic and vibrant scenes, it is inevitable that fans will undeniably agree.

http://pinterest.com/ikeafamilylive/true-blue-ikea-family/

We follow Lynx’s digital presence an awful lot at Grape Digital HQ. We tracked their chaos barometers as they launched Lynx for him and for her, and we followed their banterous tone of voice as they heralding themselves as being every man’s wingman.

However, we think that Lynx Australia has quickly become our favourite of the brand’s global teams as their most recent campaign blew every previous digital marketing strategy out of the water, and they made sure to do it in true Lynx style!

To support the launch of Lynx Anarchy For Her & For Him, the brand produced the world’s first invisible ad installation, using specially designed LCD screens that can only been seen with polarised lenses.

The screens were placed in the windows of a large house in Sydney and were displaying a selection of chaotic scenes- anything from a dog’s legs as it paddles through what looks like a flooded bedroom, to a couple getting hot and steamy and another couple getting even hotter and steamier. People passing through the street were handed pairs of glasses and were asked to look up and wait for the effects of the polarised lenses to kick in. After a while they all cottoned on and people were loving the changes between what couldn’t be seen with the naked eye, and what could be seen with the specs.

Watch the video below. And keep a look out for the swimming dog!

How often do you pick up an item of clothing and wonder “but what would my friends think?”. If the answer is “too often”, then head to Brazil as the once global and much loved clothes store, C&A has introduced clothes hangers with real time “Like” rates embedded in the wood!

The marketing push marries online group thinking with real-world decision making- a process that social media has been praised as being a great tool for. The process of “Liking” a page, a picture, a brand and even an item of clothing is believed to be responsible for a large amount of marketing today, as not only do people want to know what their friends and family think, but they like to keep an eye on what any one of their Facebook acquaintances are buying.

Whether it be through Facebook apps or Twitter feeds, the public are using the internet as their base for everything, from booking holidays to reading a book, and it isn’t looking like it’s likely to slow down as other brands have ventured into the world of digital and real life marketing. The hugely popular parody video and Twitter star from “Sh*t Girls Say” has recently joined forced with cosmetic giant, Maybelline, whilst brands such as Topshop upload daily look books to their Facebook for fans to immediately buy, comment and share the items with their friends online.

While the hangers could be a surefire way to get your clothes flying off the shelves, we think the real question might be, do you pick the popular shirt with a couple of thousand likes, or do you go for the kooky, unpopular, less mainstream version that nobody, as of yet, has been brave enough to go for? We think we’ll go down the middle route.

We were left in suspense yesterday afternoon as it was revealed that Mark Zuckerberg had a life saving feature in the pipeline for Facebook. People were speculating as to what it could be, and especially stumped as the social network had only recently introduced anti cyber-bullying measures and tools for suicide prevention.

All was made clear on ABC News this morning however, as Zuckerberg announced plans to introduce an organ donation component to link up Facebook’s 901 million strong following.

Using the largest online community for good seems like an obvious route for the famously charitable billionaire, and the idea apparently came from his close relationship with Steve Jobs, who received a liver transplant that extended his life by years. The cause clearly struck a chord with the Facebook founder as the initiative is being used to not only form a link between organ donors and recipients, but also to raise awareness about the importance of organ donation.

Do you think Zuckerberg’s newest initiative is a true act of good will? Or do you believe it’s all just an elaborate PR stunt? We’d love to know your thoughts…

Call of Duty fans are no strangers to combat, albeit limited to the digital confines of a gaming console. However, when the gaming franchise wants to create a buzz around the next installment of the game, they definitely know how to appeal to the right kind of crowd.

This week the most famous gun blogger on YouTube, FPSRussia, reviewed the latest in military technology to his 2.5 million subscribers- all of whom know to expect only the best, most destructive and hardcore equipment on the planet from the young Russian. The product of interest was The Quadrocopter Machine Gun- a weapon with terrifying power that is controlled by a tablet with precision firing capabilities and what looks like smooth and steady flying controls.

The video’s connection with Call of Duty was subtle and wasn’t made clear until the end of the 5 minute review, but this sponsored post was designed to build hype for the new weapon capabilities in the upcoming release, all while keeping true to form and playing it as cool as possible.

Since its release, the video has received over 7 million views and people can’t seem to stop talking about The Quadrocopter- be it the real life version, or the digitally depicted, far more accessible Call of Duty creation. All in all, it looks like this piece of social outreach went off with a bang!

Yesterday we spotted our favourite ever Facebook cover photo. It was from the brilliant guys at Volkswagen, who made their display into a countryside flip book of a never ending car journey.

Putting impressive use to the Facebook photo gallery, the car giant used over 200 images to create the road trip of a Volkswagen Amarok driving through an open expanse of land. By just clicking your left or right arrow keys you can drive the car with surprising smoothness across the landscape, oblivious to the amount of digital advertising you are consuming.

A great way to use the tool, and one that we’re sure will be used time and time again.

<iframe src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/40727808?byline=0&amp;portrait=0″ width=”400″ height=”300″ frameborder=”0″ webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

Pinterest’s layout has been hailed as one of the most user friendly formats of all the social networks, so what do you get when you combine the Facebook timeline with the Pinterest layout? This new Facebook app has the answer!

PinView is a new Facebook app that allows items from your News Feed, Timeline, friends list and multimedia pages to appear as small panels, just as in Pinterest.

Download the app to see your Facebook life laid out like a pinboard. We think it would be great for shopping websites such as Topshop, ASOS, Ebay etc. What do you think?

There’s not enough thrusting in this day and age for my liking. In the 80s the thrust was a dance move that continued right on through to the 90s, but nowadays nobody thrusts in public. But that’s where Deeplocal come in.

They, like us, decided that the thrust (arguably one of nature’s earliest forms of “liking”) needed to be reinvented and reinstated into the lives of the Facebook generation. Consequently, they created the LikeBelt- a large, rather clunky and definitely uncool piece of equipment that you wear around your waist and thrust in the direction of the things that you “like”. In turn, lowering your street cred, but upping your Klout by checking in, adding friends, posting to profiles and showing your approval of photos while out and about.

The LikeBelt interacts through NFC-based interactions, read by enabled Android phones that trigger the RFID chips embedded in real-world items. So it’s fully functional and can fit with ease into our daily lives… If Zuckerberg decides that his domination of the planet needs to stretch beyond the digital realms, then perhaps even he will one day endorse the LikeBelt.

What do you think?

For those of you that are yet to witness it, we feel that you should be prive to one of mankind’s most impressive feats in technology (thus far), which occurred over the weekend. It supposedly took 18 months to create, and it blew the minds of the tens of thousands of Coachella attendees and online viewers (1,336,854 on YouTube) that have laid their eyes on it since- it was, of course, the rebirth of Tupac Shakur in 3D holographic form. And it was mouth dropping!

The concert goers at this year’s Coachella festival in California, were treated to a once in a lifetime opportunity when they went to watch the set by the legendary Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre on Sunday night. The unlikely cameo of the heroic hip hop artist, Tupac, was a sight for sore eyes, as many from the crowd claimed his appearance looked so real that they assumed his entire death had been an elaborate hoax. Of which, he decided to come clean about in front of an entire country worth of spectators at one of the biggest concerts in the world.

While it was a shame that Tupac fans couldn’t say that they saw him in the flesh, those that were lucky enough to witness the phenomena are some of the lucky few that get to say they were witnesses to a truly futuristic performance.

The question on everybody’s lips now is, “who’s next?”. We’re voting Bob Marley and Barry White.