Our #ArchitectsofNext series focuses on people in other organisations creating what comes next, but also introduces our very own architects… Design and data. Beyond the alliteration, they can often be seen as worlds apart. Not for Cat O’Brien, who is taking her design background into exploring the world of digital engagement. Her experience reads like many people’s dream: Manchester United, London 2012, Saracens rugby, and most recently the Baku European Games. From dressing football stadiums for the world’s cameras, to working on matchday experiences for the most passionate rugby fans, approaching everything with a keen sense of what the visual experience is has made her focus on the user. So, when it comes to applying that to the world of digital engagement, she sees exciting possibilities, but acknowledges that not everyone regards social media, in particular, the same way: “Instagram has the ability to make anyone a photographer. Some people complain that means a lot of poor quality shots of food. But Instagram can make you a photographer – how exciting is that? The democratising power of the level playing field giving everyone with talent access is incredible. I see it instead as an exciting way to move the world to become a visual, inspiring place. Anything which encourages and enables more people to utilise a creative outlet is a good thing, in my opinion. “It’s that ability to create new ways of working, creating what comes next, with a fairer playing field for brand and influencer collaborations which I’m excited to be exploring. The creativity that gives rise to can be infectious – because social media is relatively new as a creative medium means there’s more opportunity to be destructive and transformational.” Taking a career which has focussed on the creative and visual, to approaching things from a strategic, data-led perspective is the challenge which she’s embracing. “The power and possibility of the accessible information and data behind the social media apps that I have become so familiar with, and how this accessible data can shape my approach to understanding different approaches to creative challenges in future. Applying that to human behaviour, and developing a strategic understanding of things like how we can make the ‘everyday beautiful’ through Instagram, or encourage people to seek trusted recommendations from a peer is really motivating.” Looking at the sports sector, which she knows well, surprisingly she sees it as ripe for disruption. “The technology on the pitch is ahead of the pace of adoption in many (not all) marketing and comms teams. Beyond the obvious names (Nike, RedBull etc), as a category sport has not yet explored the full potential of digital technology as far as one might have expected”. Fusing design thinking with effective use of behavioural data points to the sort of human-focussed thinking which will create what comes next. Top Twitter follow: @saracens Top Instagram follow: @cjhendry Top blog subscribe: Psycle’s Inspire Productive habit: Sunday afternoon cooking sessions for the week ahead Unproductive habit: Cancelling gym classes minutes after booking them Favourite brand: & other stories #design #social #socialmedia #sport #ArchitectsofNext

Ever wondered where those accounts get all those followers from? Why, despite the huge follower count, they don’t get much engagement? How those start up businesses get so many followers, so fast? What is that freelance consultant doing who has treble the followers of industry bigwigs? Yep, they bought their followers. Yes, for those of you sitting agog, one can really buy a bunch of followers. Well, we say that, but the chances are that many of them will be fake accounts, run by a single person, automatically. Either way, you can buy a bunch of accounts, who will follow yours, and boost that shiny number next to your name. The ‘why would you do this’ is clear – setting up, and growing, new accounts is really hard going. Who wants to follow an account with 7 followers? It’s hardly a glowing endorsement. There’s a reason buskers always put a load of change in their guitar case – popularity breeds popularity (attachment theory in social networks). What did we do? So, we decided to explore the reality of buying followers by doing it. Not on our OneFifty account, but on a dummy one. It’s worth noting, before we outline how this works, that Twitter are officially against the purchase of followers (albeit limited efforts appear to be made to police it). We would never do it for ourselves, or clients. The account we’re using for the purpose began with two followers. After all, however ugly the duckling, it has two parents who think it’s beautiful. Although actually we don’t think this is beautiful. We gazed at in admiration and horror, as we ponder creating Frankenstein. Surveying the field of potential vendors of twitter followers is a depressing exercise. We chose to stop after the first two pages of results for “buy Twitter followers”. Our faith in digital marketers keen to make a quick buck had sunk lower than when we accidentally did a similar exercise for “search marketing gurus”. Within that time, however, we discovered a mini cottage industry. One significant enough to have at least two sites dedicated to reviewing the quality of this murky pool of vendors. It also demonstrated the way people come across these services – I’ve rarely seen a site with such a high degree of search keyword optimisation. How do they work? It seemed there were a few points of differentiation between the services: Whether they required your password Whether they guaranteed your follower numbers for a minimum period of time Whether you could select the territory and language your new followers were based in Whether they were ‘real’ people you were buying Nearly all show an awareness of the issue that you breach Twitter’s terms of service by using such services (Twitter prohibits one from buying or selling followers, and likewise for account ownership). They address it head on, in many cases. Few offer much reassurance, however. One who stood out for their, erm, probity in this respect was Devumi. Pricier than their rivals, they team up buying followers with buying other social actions at the same time (liking, retweeting etc), which they claim reduces the chances of Twitter suspending your account. Now I suspect that’s true – Twitter will be using some form of algorithm to detect accounts buying followers, as well as accounts which are within such “bot networks”. Here’s Terence showing how one can identify such networks. One of the dimensions in Twitter’s detection algorithm will almost certainly be other signs of “real” account activity and popularity alongside the rapidly rising follower count. Surprisingly there’s less consensus than one would expect on pricing, given this is an entirely online marketplace, and everyone is getting their leads via organic and paid search. Using 10k follower “packages” as the benchmark, the cheapest we found was the marvellously branded “Buy Twitter love”  at £24.99, through to Devumi topping the scales at $99 (they really are the Rolls Royce of this situation). Most surreal is the confusingly named “Buy 1000 followers”, who offer a million dollar package for $2500. I’m unsure why anyone would hand over such a large amount of money to such an unconvincing looking service, but anyway… Not full of confidence, we opted for “greedier social”. Toward the cheaper end at $39.99 for 10 k followers, they won our business through their acceptable copywriting and lack of requirement for the account password. Plus they took payment via PayPal, unlike some competitors who seemed to have built their own payments systems. I kid you not. We decided to start small, buying a thousand followers to test the water. The account we’re using, it is worth noting, had been registered a considerable time before, and we’d taken care to send a few tweets before we started buying, to give it an air of credibility we thought might stop Twitter’s ‘bad actor’ sniffer dogs from finding us immediately. Did it work? After the payment had cleared, our followers started flying in. After 20 minutes we spotted our first ‘egg’ – an account without even a photo. Oddly for a service offering UK-based accounts, we found a surprising amount of Russian names. It did, however, deliver the promised numbers (plus a few hundred). What’s worth noting is that, 40 days later, only about 50% remained. Contractually the followers are only promised for 30 days. That, combined with some accounts being suspended by Twitter (for obvious reasons!) meant residual numbers are lower. So, what’s the lesson? Unsurprisingly, this is a shady space, with shady providers. It’s also ridiculously straightforward. But, having done it, accounts with a lot of fake followers are rarely only using that tactic to sustain their newly acquired numbers. Auto-following as one example, is clearly playing a part. In this case, knowledge is power – it’s not a route we’d advise on for growing your channel… #followers #Twitter

Christmas dinner is all about traditions. Every family has them, and national stereotypes dictate country by country patterns. But, do we really understand the battle for our tastebuds, or do we rely on lazy assumptions? We decided to dig deeper, using social and search data… It’s not all about the bird. Only 15% of the overall meal conversation discussed turkey, duck, goose or other roasts Regional differences within the UK are marked: Northern Ireland really love Christmas dinner, over indexing for conversations The Welsh love Christmas desserts, again over indexing for searches Scots are unmoved by mince pies – half the relative interest of other home nations The Sprout has few advocates, whilst Christmas cake is the surprise winner in sentiment wars Eight weeks in the making: We begin to research and discuss Christmas dinner from November, but many of us only really engage on the week (or even day of) Who is winning the battle for our affections? Waitrose and Tesco are level pegging for mince pie chatter, with Asda second, but Waitrose convert this into action, with the most search interest Meanwhile, across the wider Christmas dinner conversation, it’s Lidl, Aldi and Iceland who demonstrate the most effectiveness at driving intent, based on search Chefs who get the hype: Jamie Oliver Mary Berry Nadiya Hussain So, some of our assumptions are true. We really do love Christmas dinner. The sprout really is polarising. BUT – meat isn’t the be all and end all, turkey sweeps all before it, and if you’re visiting people outside of your home nation, you might want to check what you’re getting… #data

We’re continuing our 2017 living a social media trend per month. Whilst some are dramatic, such as the meteoric rise of veganism, some are persistent and unrelenting, over much longer periods. Which brings us to cycling – our February pick. Yes, the humble act of pedalling a bike is enjoying year on year growth, as expressed through social and digital data. It’s not as simple as simply that ‘cycling’ is big. We see limited evidence of a growth, or significant discussion of, getting into cycling for the first time. What instead, is far more apparent, are people getting back into cycling – for example commuting – and embracing the competitive side of the sport (whether through sportives, Strava, or discussing pro cycling). In absolute terms, these conversations are material – but especially for these ‘high end’ conversations around the competitive end of the sport. This concentration on serious participants and fans is the inverse of that which we see for many activities, whereby the grass roots sees greater volume. The growth of commuting is notable on both a civic level, but also on a behavioural level. Evidence comes in numerous forms, for example: bike helmet, lock and light search trends increased threefold since 2004. High-visibility clothing increased by a factor of seven. Although no single element can explain this, efforts in London to promote commuting have undoubtedly had an effect, with a total of 13,832 tweets last year from 5,418 accounts. May 7th 2016 had the highest traffic with 453 tweets about the super cycle highway in a day. This was driven by the opening of the embankment super cycle highway in April 2016. Who are these people? Well, there is a heavy male skew (as high as 80% of these conversations) and particularly focussed in 25-40 year olds. They’re also safety concerned – 5% of all confident cyclist conversations revolve around this, rising to 15% for those getting back into cycling. So, how are we going to live the trend? Well, across the team we have a mix of current cycling levels. A couple of the team haven’t been on bikes in years, and will be re-engaging with the activity. Another team member is going to begin commuting from his home in South London. Finally, one of the team, a daily cycle commuter, doing 45 minutes each way, is going to get competitive, chasing down Strava KOM segments in some of London’s most hotly-fought routes. We’ll be following their journey over coming weeks. #february #cycling #trends

When I was told cycling was our February trend and that I was going to start commuting in by bike, I was less than enthusiastic. Yes, it’s more cost effective than getting the tube, yes it’s a good way to exercise, but it’s so cold! Eventually I changed my mind and decided to plunge in head first. I was mainly persuaded by the two Northerners on my team who both commute by bike and proceeded to tell me how soft I was for even mentioning the fact it had been snowing recently… After deciding I wanted to start cycling to work, the next thing I did was try to narrow down my choice of bike. For me, reliability and cost were my biggest priorities. With this in mind I choose to get a single speed over the more traditional road bike. It was generally the cheapest option and the fact that I would be using this bike mainly in London and for commuting meant that I had no real need for gears due to the stop and start nature of TFL’s road network. After this, some online research, coupled with friends’ recommendations, helped me to finalise the exact model and specification I wanted. Despite my early apprehensions I’ve found cycling fun (even in February). I am quite a competitive person and will readily admit that I enjoy trying (and failing) to keep up with other cyclists who had proper road bikes and cleats. I also enjoyed seeing the city that I love from a new perspective. There are a couple of things that I would recommend if you are just starting to commute, though: Gloves (although not a necessity) can make cycling in winter a much more pleasant experience. I’m no stranger to having cold hands from rowing but the combination of wind and rain on a cold day can turn the daily commute into a less than pleasant experience Secondly, make sure you have some sort of device that can accurately tell you where you are. In my first week of commuting in I found many ‘alternate routes’ into work. These were neither time efficient or more scenic! If I had a phone that could use maps properly then maybe I would have found the first few days a lot easier… Lastly, give yourself an extra 10 minutes on any journey in your first two weeks. This ties into my last point but it’s also just to enjoy the route. Cycling past some of the world’s most iconic landmarks is far less fun when rushing to get to work on time. That extra time means you can appreciate those sights so easily forgotten when you’re in a rush. I’ll be updating more with further thoughts at the end of the month, but in the meantime, enjoy this montage of my bike commute through London… #commuting #socialtrends #cycling #trends

More data, more analysis = better understanding and decision making. If it works for the way organisations operate, why can’t it work for ‘Brand You’. or in this case, ‘Brand Me’ (Alex)? Yep, putting my professional money where my professional mouth is, I’ve decided to share my year of life data (2015). There’s a whole range of services I’ve used to either live my life digitally, or track my offline life – a full list at the foot of this post. Why bother? Well, who doesn’t want to live a better, healthier, more productive life? In what we do, and specifically the macro trends, we can identify patterns and opportunities: things which work well and we can do more of, and things which we should reduce or eliminate. Why share it? Because at OneFifty we believe better insights into human behaviour allows better outcomes for all – organisations, customers, stakeholders. This is a microcosm of that. Telling that story is sometimes easier through personal experience than abstract or more technical discussion around social data. But also, because it engenders a level of transparency and therefore accountability on a personal level. If people know you’re doing something, and ask about it, you’re more likely to follow through on it. What did I track? The data broadly covers six areas: my communication, content I consumed and created, nutrition, exercise, music, and how I spent my time. The latter is probably the most useful to track – I was inspired by Nicholas Felton’s annual life reports and used his Reporter app to achieve this. My life tracking stops way short of his, but he represents the high water mark of this space. One of the main benefits is adjusting your sense of how and with whom you spend your time, compared to the unarguable reality the data shows. What did it show? Selected ‘highlights’: A third (34%) of my waking time is spent working More of my time was spent watching TV and drinking than I’d like, whilst reading and exercising were lower than I’d hope. I send one email for every 6 mails I received, and read 2.5 of those. I get through 165,000 pieces of content in the year, which is the same as 460 pieces of online content a day, spending 3.3 hours per day in total, and 26 seconds per item (clearly not everything is read in full…). I spend most time with my wife, followed by being by myself (i.e. without anyone I know, rather than in isolation!), my business partner, and then the more exuberant of my cats. Overall a satisfactory mix… I exercised 217 times, with two thirds being running, rowing 10% of the time, and lifting weights once a week (typically). My happiness doesn’t correlate to how hard I work, but to how well I look after myself whilst working hard (being outdoors, exercising, eating well) What will I do differently in 2016? Well, there are a few things which are fairly apparent from 2015’s data, which I should continue: I do a pretty reasonable amount of exercise. It’s a lot less than I’ve done in the past, but a medically responsible amount. The happiest months of the year also correlated to those I exercised the most. (Although correlation and causation are not identical: less busy months also saw more exercise) Reading more = more knowledge. I’m pretty effective at getting through a lot of info, daily, which I want to continue. That’s both digital content (blogs etc) but also books. One of the ‘benefits’ of 3 hours a day commuting on trains… Continuing my eclectic music habits. Seriously: variety is the spice of life. My overall alcohol consumption sits round about the recommended weekly amount (2015 figures) – although i could lower it – there are c.5 days a week on which I drink, albeit very modestly. That could drop. And some which I should, or want to, change: I’ve recently had a baby (well my wife did the work, but you know what I mean), and run a business. I need to use time more effectively. “Baby care” was 12th on my list of how I spent my time, and I only had 5 weeks of the year at that one… So, given working less isn’t an option, I need to be a) more productive when working, and b) cut the TV & drinking time in favour of ‘baby care’. Continue to reduce the amount of email in my life. We use Slack , which helps a lot. But there’s more to be done. If I’m not even opening two thirds of messages, there’s something wrong, for everyone. Less carbs. My absolute protein/carb/fat levels are OK – I eat enough of all of them, and absolute calories are fine (+100 on what I need per day to maintain weight, but exercise offsets this), but as a relative amount, carbs are 20% higher than I’d ideally have them. The easiest way to improve this is taking my own food to work – I don’t eat meat, and shop-bought non meat options tend to be carb/fat heavy, without sufficient non-animal protein. Use Twitter more effectively. Refine the accounts I follow, and proactively engage more. The months I used Twitter most intensively I derived a whole lot more value. It remains the most powerful social media platform for digital marketing insight, in my opinion. Note: if you’re tempted to do any of this, a) do it! but b) do it over an extended period – I see reasonable amounts of variance month-to-month. Sources Reporter app Spotify Year In Review My Fitness Pal Strava Feedly Twitter analytics Gmail  NHS Unit tracker app The stats in detail Communication Emails read: 59,900 Emails sent: 9,750 Emails sent vs received ratio: 1:6 Emails deleted without opening: c.35000 Emails sent vs received & read ratio 1: 2.5 My ACTUAL Twitter reach: 297,900 Content Content I created: 1222 Content I consumed: 165,888 or 460 p/d 34 books Hours spent consuming content: 1210 or 3.3 hrs p/d 26 seconds per item consumed Time How time was spent: Time spent not working 66% Time spent working: 34% Listening Talking The internet watching TV Travelling Email Drinking Meetings Eating Reading Exercise People I’ve spent time with: My wife No-one I know My business partner The friendlier of my cats A former colleague The less friendly of my cats My newborn son (He was only born in late November) A former colleague My parents Nutrition Calories consumed:1,069,450 Avg per day: 2930 Protein: 13% Carbohydrate: 58% Fat:29% Highest net calories consumption day: Friday Lowest net calorie consumption day: Tuesday Exercise 217 exercise sessions 144 running 23 rowing 50 weight lifting/core strength Distance run: 668 miles Time spent exercising: 89+15+33= 137hrs or 23 minute p/d Music Hours spent listening: 37000 minutes / 26 days (11% more than 2014) Most popular genres: Country / pop / EDM Most popular artists: Luke Bryan Weezer Florida Georgia Line Kanye West Most popular songs: Kygo, Firestone Drake, Forever Porter Robinson, Language Lilley Wood &Robin Schulz, Prayer In C Carley Rae Jepsen, I really like you #data #dataanalysis #Reporter #Insights

Social data can feel abstract. Numbers, spreadsheets, APIs. The preserve of the rational, the scientific, the abstract. But social media and ‘big data’ can drive competitive advantage. That’s what drives Daryl West, Social Media Insights Manager, at O2. His story is not that of the typical researcher. A serious footballer, who played at semi-pro level, he worked his way through the marketing ranks, working in sports media analysis. A passion for sport shapes both his lifestyle, but also outlook. This year’s challenge is his debut at the London marathon (a prospect he wasn’t relishing when we met, limping through O2’s atrium, after a long-run). This love of competition is what ties his personal and professional lives together. He sees the role of social insight and data as bringing a competitive advantage to the P&L of a business. “Whether it’s identifying customer experience learnings, or points of passion for products, through to lifestyle insights to build propositions around, the whole point of our existence is to bring advantage to the business, in the purest commercial sense. “People busy running P&Ls don’t want to know there were x thousand tweets about something: they want to know what they can do to improve customer experience, and therefore the business. It’s an important distinction that can be easy for researchers to forget.” Being closer to the commercial reality of the business also requires pragmatic, less purist ways of communicating. “My role is to tell stories with data, which allows me to provide the business with the tools they need to be customer-led. No-one gets excited about slide after slide of statistics, but they do if you can tell them a story – albeit one which emerged from data.” Identifying opportunities is key, in his mind, to being closer to the business. “It moves you beyond being a reactive measurement function. For example, over the next couple of years I think social image analytics will come of age. To date the success rate of image identification has been too patchy, but we’re starting to move into a world where we can have some confidence, via machine learning, in what the contents of an image are, without human analysis. That’s increasingly crucial as we see a shift in consumer behaviour from primarily text-based to primarily image based.” The future of social data and business innovation lies, as Daryl observes “not in being the best mathematician, but in being the most competitive – the person, team, business, who can most create opportunity”. He cites Paddy Power’s social marketing as a prime example of this approach – again reflecting a love of sport, but also the belief that the role of an insights team extends beyond the functional, into the emotional territory of creative, humour, and brand. “I get excited about seeing the results – an improved product, enhanced marketing effectiveness, socially-informed business decisions. That’s when you know you’ve made a difference.” If you’d like to sponsor Daryl’s London marathon effort, which is in aid of NSPCC, you can do via his Just Givin g page . If you want to get ahead, read/do: Top Twitter follow: @TextsFromMum – this used to be just like my Mum but now she uses terms like ‘lol’. I’ve hidden her from my Facebook news feed as a result. I’m ruthless. Sorry Mum! Top Instagram follow: bbcnews . The bbc instafax 15 second news updates are brilliant. Top blog: The Secret Footballer Productive habit: I only take on the important tasks that aim to drive business change. Unproductive habit: Poor document housekeeping. My desktop is a maze of random stuff. Favourite brand: Adidas Originals. I like the way they bring sport, music and entertainment together seamlessly. This is the third in our series “#architectsofnext’ which profiles the people on the frontline of building what comes next, through social media. #O2 #ArchitectsofNext #Socialdata

There’s a pretty standard joke between social media marketers, who have all, at some point or another, been requested to produce a ‘viral’. Cue eye-rolling. But over the last eighteen months or so, that’s changed. It is possible to ‘order a viral’. Why? Well, a lot of it comes down to the changing definition of ‘viral’, combined with changes to the social media landscape. So, what does ‘viral’ now mean? Well, a viral used to refer to the ‘natural’ spread of a piece of content within connected networks. The very term has its roots in its academic origin – the spread of infectious disease within social networks (populations). The adaptation and embracing of epidemiology is most evident and accessible in Barabasi’s seminal ‘Linked’. But now viral is coming to refer to social-first content distribution, reliant on high volume captive audiences, and (then) their shares. Some of the characteristics of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ viral are the same – for example the prominent role of an emotional and/or behavioural hook to the content, which compels people to share with peers. But differences are also evident – in the old ‘viral’, the origins were within niche, tightly knit communities, or even from totally disconnected individuals across a wider network. The spread was often slow, until it hit critical mass (contagion, to use disease terminology). In the new world there’s nothing accidental, or serendipitous about its discovery – it is deliberately manufactured or distributed by organisations (Buzzfeed, Upworthy, College Humour, amongst others) which are premised on serving emotionally attuned content to very sizeable social audiences. It’s 1980’s MTV alive in the Facebook age in its cultural relevance and size of audience with peer-to-peer digital distribution. As our understanding of online networks continues to grow, we gain in understanding of how to capture and exploit the unique properties of online networks. Especially key in this has been exploitation of ‘betweenness’ of nodes in networks – or, to put it less technically – the shared affinity of you and others in your specialised networks, based on factors such as location, upbringing and jobs. (Think “ten things you only know if you’re a barista”, “You’re a child of the eighties if…” and others). Yet many marketers miss the difference between paid social distribution (which is not viral in the ‘old’ or ‘new’ sense of the term), and earned (albeit sometimes ‘boosted’ with paid seeding) ‘new’ viral distribution from Elite, LadBible and others. Whilst the dynamics of the origins of the spread of the content are new, the patterns and reasons for its subsequent spread are the same as they always were. Or, put another way, ‘old’ viral was about unexpected, unpredictable events. They provided exceptions to the norm. ‘New’ viral could be categorised as ‘expected’ – it’s known and predictable when the content gets thousands of shares, fast. Where does that leave original (‘old’) viral content? Where do the cat videos and Charlie bit videos of the new era reside? Is it possible to have a breakout hit anymore, without the clout of a major social publisher? Well, ‘pre-viral’ might, ironically, prove the best label (lovingly borrowed from NewsWhip), for what we once termed ‘viral’. That’s because the threshold for viral has changed from thousands to millions. Things which we once described as ‘viral’ are now merely ‘trending’ – too ephemeral and small in their reach – only blessed with the approbation of ‘viral’ once they hit the millions, propelled by content factories like Huffington Post or the Daily Mail to a greater stratosphere of reach and social shares. Or perhaps the term ‘viral’ should be abandoned. An aphorism left to describe content which is advertised heavily within social networks, and/or shared heavily by the content factories. Totally natural peer-to-peer content,with discovery originating in niche communities and isolated individuals might be rebadged. The evolution of language might be to name it ‘chained’ content, describing the daisy chain like effect of organic content distribution. It would need to meet certain technical characteristics: as a starter, a high number of connector nodes, and a low ratio of distributing nodes vs edges on the first 5% of shares, might ensure that anything originating by a major social publisher wasn’t mis-labelled. Does the drift in the term ‘viral’ matter? Not enormously – as long as everyone is clear in what they are requesting, and receiving, when they ‘order a viral’. The halo of the great virals of the noughties ought not be attached to the evolution of paid marketing tactics now represented by large scale ‘viral’ marketing campaigns, but having done too poor a job of explaining the difference, a new form of language is required to describe the ‘pre viral’ or ‘chained’ content strategies of modern social marketing. Ultimately the ‘viral’ appeal of the very term ‘viral’ sealed its own confuscation. Thanks and credit to Andrea Lopez, who had a recent Twitter storm on the evolving meaning of the term which sparked our thinking on this topic, and has also provided valued input on this. She also, rightly, points out that one can still have an ‘old’ style viral, when a teenager gets 400 RTs on a photo of them + celeb, seemingly from nowhere. Maybe we’re becoming nostalgic too soon… #socialnetworks #socialmedia #content #communities #viral #trending

“Unicorn” is an overused word in the digital sphere these days. Now applied to startups passing the $BN valuation mark, it used to be reserved for people with special combinations of talents, who were near mythical in their breadth of skills. People like Vikki Chowney. Vikki’s career has spanned journalism, blogging, PR, community management and content strategy. It’s rare to meet someone who gets words, numbers and people. Now she’s driving content strategies across Hill+Knowlton’s sectors and clients, and evangelising a different organisational model globally. That alone is a sign of someone who’s an Architect of Next, but it’s the sparkle when enthusiastically discussing the year ahead which is the giveaway of someone focussed on progress in the digital landscape. When it comes to 2016, she’s clear on what’s getting her attention, and excitement: “Firstly, changing influencer relationships have been part of my career for twelve years now, and it’s interesting to see how they’ve evolved. They started very much as a PR thing, with the dynamic of ‘send them this, invite them to that event’ and hope they write about it. That has evolved into something so much broader, because of the huge amount of reach they’re gathering. In the last 12 months we’ve seen Google putting its YouTube superstars onto the sides of buses, brands realising that ‘we have to be smarter and do things differently’ and influencers saying ‘we don’t want to be told what to do by brands, we want to do things which allow us to change the world and chase our dreams’. It’s been fascinating. As such, brands are changing the model to look at how they can fund, in a complementary way, these partnerships. “Secondly, the way data is being used more appropriately is a big focus. Big data has been a buzzword for some time – but it has been used sparingly by comms professionals, largely because of the technical skills needed to analyse it. Now though, data is more easily accessible even to smaller brands and agencies. Usability has improved in the backend of social platforms, and tools like GWI and Brandwatch have made it easier for us to access better information on audience behaviours in a way that’s straightforward to digest.” “Thirdly, the switch in management of media spend is exciting. It’s been said for a long time that ‘anyone can own the idea’, but now we’re really seeing assessment of ideas based on whether they’re good or not, not who comes up with it. Brands are now starting to say: “I’m not using the traditional model, we’re going to award work to agencies who come up with the best ideas’.  For me, that means comms professionals are getting more control over publisher platforms – like Buzzfeed, or Conde Nast globally – beyond the classic media relations perspective. We’re now looking at how to build something experiential or data-led, with proper budget, not just classic advertorial campaigns.” But if all this sounds wonderful, Vikki does see some related challenges: “From an influencer perspective, it’s about the fact people are lazy (cue laughter, not least from the rather sleep-deprived interviewer kept awake by a baby)! “It’s really easy to assess influencers based on whether you know them, have worked with them before, or have a lot of followers. Even the biggest brands and agencies are doing this, and there remains some reeducation needed. The stakes are higher and the impact you can have by working this area is great, but it can be wasted if you continually chase after big numbers and low ROI figures based on potential eyeballs alone. “Equally, ensuring that you can actually access the right data in the first place is still a challenge. If you can’t get hold of it; you can’t measure. “Then there’s supporting clients to be braver, but doing it in the right way. If they’re redistributing a portion of budget from one agency to another, this doesn’t have to mean moving the entire pot and destroying inter-agency relationships. My favourite phrase is ‘ring fencing’. So you direct and advise where spend may be placed, but not always manage it. “Lastly there’s the skills challenge. Finding people with data experience, analysis or strong multimedia content creation skills is hard, but when you then have to find those that can also handle the agency environment – account management, awareness that there’s not always a right way to do ‘it’, client pressure, constant change – then that’s really tough.” We close out our conversation by assessing what would make 2016 really great, for Vikki: “I hope that we see virtual reality come to fruition in a way which takes advantage of what it could be. Facebook is in a phenomenal position to do this, and just imaging the applications for sports, media, and entertainment gives me goosebumps. If Facebook do it right…” This is the fourth in our#architectsofnext series, which profiles the people on the frontline of building what comes next, through social media. If you want to get ahead, read/do: Top Twitter follow: @psfk  – still the best source of new ideas Top Instagram follow: @thenigelslater for full on foodporn on a daily basis Top blog: Seth Godin  – the original and still the best Productive habit: maintaining both inbox zero and Evernote; I have spent years trying to work out how to capture my to-do lists properly; and this is the absolute best combination for me Unproductive habit: Agreeing to too many meetings and then having to cancel them. It’s a terrible habit that drives people crazy Favourite brand: I have much love and respect for Pret. They are a brand with purpose, which exists with quality and design that makes you feel warm inside – and excellent digital comms. Can’t beat that combination in my eyes This is our #ArchitectsOfNext series, where we aim to inspire others with firsthand insight into how people shaping innovative digital engagement models think and deliver their work. #comms #data #bloggers #effectiveness #dataanalysis #communications #ROI #socialinfluencers #socialstrategy #influencers #content

We’ve bee delving further into this month’s trend, using social media to try and identify whether craft beer has been a central component in encouraging women to drink and talk about beer. Turns out, you can find some answers at the bottom of the bottle! Beer itself is ‘ technically’ female since only the female part of the hop plant is used in brewing and yeast is all female… So it seems odd that beer is distinctly more popular among men than women, and is perceived by 44% of women as a man’s drink. Also (strangely) only 44% of mentions of beer and women come from women; men dominate the conversation. Attempts to market beer to encourage women to choose a pint over a Pinot have varied, with many identifying sexism in beer adverts as an issue. While 73% of men and women asked, felt that brewers’ approaches to women have improved over the last decade, there were still 320 mentions of sexism concerning women and beer on Twitter in the UK over the past year. In March, the Brazilian beer manufacturer Skol decided to address this by hiring 6 women to redesign several sexist adverts they had previously used. The video of the reposter campaign has over 38.6k views and 50 UK mentions. The Czech brewery Aurosa took a different approach and launched their ‘ beer for women ’ only 2 weeks ago in the UK.  They haven’t quite hit the mark though and it’s sparked considerable outrage with their hashtag ‘BeerForHer’ and the beer’s small, pink, marbled bottle. Jess Devonport , Sue Perkins and Lauren Laverne were amongst hundreds on Twitter who criticised the implication that beer is inherently male and needed feminising. Rather than pink packaging, it’s craft beer’s extensive range of flavours that appeal.  57% of women voted that they would prefer a selection of craft beer and ales behind the bar than of gin, whisky or soft drinks. According to Facebook Audience insights, the typical female craft beer drinker is an educated, middle-class mum who has disposable income and is 122% more likely to have completed a postgraduate course than the average Facebook user! Social mentions of women and craft beer are lagging behind the general beer conversation. Of the 20.4k Twitter mentions of women and beer in the last year, only 400 were specifically about craft beer. This was lower than both lager (670 mentions) and ale (1,240). However, craft beer and its female fans are on the rise; 260 of these 400 mentions occurred in the last 6 months. Brands such as the Vocation Brewery are also bringing branded discussion to the craft beer conversation (with 20 mentions in relation to craft beer and women). While social media responded disparagingly to beer specifically for females, a focus on beer brewed by females seems to have emerged alongside the revelation that craft beer and ales are popular among women. 10% of all the mentions of women and craft beer on Twitter were of female brewers. The Fem.Ale festival , which celebrates exclusively female brewers, returned for its fourth and biggest year yet. In the past year the festival has received 58 mentions on social media. With the rise of craft beer and increasing numbers of women drinking and brewing it seems beer is now making its way into the female market. I best go and try some out…  #craftbeer #consumertrend #socialtrend #2017trends #beer #Socialdata #trends

This month we have been living ‘life resets’, and as a keen gym goer I jumped at the chance to try out the most up and coming socially recommended gyms. The gym is a hot topic of conversation on social media; over a 90 day period the ‘gym’ was mentioned a whopping 1.3 million times in the UK across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook! Unsurprisingly January dominates this conversation with 496,700 mentions although, September comes a close second at 447,000 mentions in total. I mean what’s the point in going to the gym if you can’t take a good gym selfie and share it with everyone? I then set about researching which gym is the most up and coming gym for September to try out and fully embody this month’s trend. This was done by examining which gym has seen a growth in mentions across different social media channels, compared with January. Here are our top 4: F45, specialising in high intensity workout classes. Bannatynes, a health club complete with spa and swimming pool. Curves, a women only gym which specializes in workouts designed specifically for women. Energie, a gym which prides itself on being reasonably priced in London. Surprisingly, no one type of gym was favourited and the data showed a full variety of gyms. F45 saw the biggest percentage growth when comparing January and September with a 133% growth in social mentions. This was closely followed by Curves with 125% growth. Energie (45%) and Bannatynes (23%)  also showed a decent increase in mentions. The majority of the gym conversations for these brands was centered around special offers and new gym openings however, each gym had its own hook to increase mentions… Energie utilised 'NationalFitnessDay' to successfully generate online conversations between members. Bannatynes increase in mentions seemed to be linked to the overall lifestyle the club has to offer: gym, spa and smoothie. Notably for Curves and F45 the conversation was between members celebrating an individual’s fitness success and different types of workouts. The next step, was for me to see if these socially recommended gyms are all they’re cracked up to be. I was able to visit Bannatynes, Energie and F45. Unfortunately Curves only operate in fairly select regions of the UK and so I was unable to get to one. To examine how good these gyms really are I created a rating system (1 was the lowest and 5 was the highest) and scored the gyms across a number of categories – although note this is my subjective judgement as a gym-goer!: GymEquipment and Facilities SociabilityValue for moneyAtmosphereTotalEnergie21328Bannatynes323210F45351413 So the scores on the doors: F45 has come out on top; although the most expensive at £150 per month you do really seem to get what you pay for. The main attraction to this gym for me is that every session is like having a personal training session. Every class you are encouraged to improve and your successes are really celebrated by the trainers – it feels like a real community unlike the other 2 gyms I tried. This is reflected in the online conversations; F45 members are constantly encouraging one and other. Turns out the social data is correct on this occasion…. All I need to do now is find £150 a month to join! New company perk? #september #workout #gym

This is the first month of our year living social trends  and we’re going vegan for January. By ‘we’ – specifically Alex  and Olivia. We have very different lifestyles, and typical food intake. Alex is already veggie (with occasional bits of fish), whilst Olivia is a committed meat eater. But, why vegan? Well, it’s seeing explosive growth in social interest. This is 2017’s dominant food-trend. Search volumes have increased fivefold since 2011, and the intent-based interest seen in search saw veganism exceed vegetarianism in mid-2015. What’s especially interesting is this level of interest, compared to those more passively engaged. Facebook estimate 8.5m are interested in vegetarianism, compared to 6.5m in veganism, in the UK, for example. The scale of the interest is also notable: over 50k Instagram images tagged every month in the UK, for example, and over 120k social conversations. Veganism sees five times the discussion of Atkins or 5/2 diet, for example, and 20% more than gluten-free. Based on the nature of the conversation, the majority is about a vegan diet – i.e. the food itself. Relatively small volumes (<50%) are about the principles and values which sit behind an ethical decision to be vegan. Which doesn’t signify these values are not part of people’s decision – but they don’t form the basis for the majority of conversation. Those socially engaged around veganism are typically educated, female, and most often 25-34. Conversations often overlap with paleo diets and gluten-free. Alpro is the only mainstream brand to feature heavily. Joe Wicks (The Body Coach) also gets a look-in. We’ll be updating further on the vegan social trend, and our experiences, as the month progresses, and sharing progress on Twitter and our Instagrams ( Alex and Olivia ). #vegan #veganism #trends