Digital Boom

Author: Fatima Abou Nassif

  • ‘Before the Flood’ Review: Going Viral Before TV Debut

    ‘Before the Flood’ Review: Going Viral Before TV Debut

    After a few years of static buzz on the matter, climate change is back on our feeds. This time around, Leonardo DiCaprio is directing the conversation with National Geographic.

    He narrates a documentary – with an IMDb rating of 8.4/10 and a cast lineup including Elon Musk, President Obama and Pope Francis – that culminates in a straightforward CTA: “Learn more and take action at: www.beforetheflood.com”.

    GOING… VIRAL?

    Know your audience, know your audience, know your audience is one of the key mantras of any marketer. Whether or not you are an avid TV consumer, it’s worth noting that ‘Before the Flood’ hit over 15M views on Facebook and 8M views on YouTube. This could be attributed to the fact that National Geographic was able to leverage the presence of its viewers on digital by rolling out the documentary online. This strategy aligns with the holistic campaign’s aim to facilitate proactive action through maximized reach.

    The core message of the documentary transcends the audiences of National Geographic. It is a message potentially targeted to every human being in an attempt to awaken our innate concern regarding the future of our planet. The message was embodied in a tone of pleading and delivered by a charismatic messenger with high influence. These two elements paved the way for its viral path.

    Credit: National Geographic

    VIRAL FOR A CAUSE

    Climate change is an overwhelming issue. After watching a whole production highlighting the actual and potential consequences of global warming, it would be normal to feel paradoxically empowered and powerless. However, the documentary outlines a road map for change and its website actually provides visitors with a one-step tool to make an impact – a hashtag.

    As simple as that, a hashtag that drives action.

    National Geographic and 21st Century Fox vow to donate $1 to Pristine Seas and $1 to the Wildlife Conservation Society for every use of #BeforeTheFlood on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. They capped the donations at $50,000 per organization, translating into 100,000 mentions of the hashtag.

    THE BOTTOM LINE LESSON

    From a communications standpoint, the #BeforeTheFlood campaign can be flagged as a successful case study of storytelling. Content drives action. Dissect this rule of thumb and you can trace the trajectory drawn by the campaign: Relevant content, compelling messenger, simple plan of action.

    If you scroll down beyond the landing point of the ‘Take Action’ tab, you will encounter two prominent Take Action buttons. These are part of two of the main pleads in the documentary. They allow site visitors to act upon their urge to make an impact.  

    And below these two grids, there is a collection of hyperlinked photos that redirect viewers to external websites where they can sign petitions and join movements by #BeforeTheFlood partners.

    ‘Before the Flood’ is the tangible product of a three-year journey by Leonardo DiCaprio. Fueled by a self-proclaimed pessimistic outlook on climate change, the Academy Award-winning actor, environmental activist, and UN Messenger of Peace allows viewers to shadow him through his investigative talks with world leaders and specialists — making it an immersive experience.

  • Meltwater Partners With Sprout Social To Offer Intelligent Social Engagement

    Meltwater Partners With Sprout Social To Offer Intelligent Social Engagement

    SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 17, 2015 – Meltwater, a global leader in media intelligence solutions, today announced a partnership with Sprout Social, a leader in social media management and engagement. The new partnership will enable businesses to engage intelligently with their audience based on insights extracted from news and social.

    Meltwater, an industry pioneer with 50 offices on six continents, has the market’s most comprehensive media intelligence platform. Insights from Meltwater will power Sprout Social’s widely recognized social engagement platform and help find the right message to reach the right person at the right time. Deep insights can expose the path to influence and purchase and change the way decisions are made, not just in marketing or sales, but also across the organization.

    “Meltwater’s core expertise is to extract insights, and we made a strategic decision to partner with a top player for social engagement,” said Jorn Lyseggen, CEO and Founder of Meltwater. “We researched more than 100 companies and chose Sprout Social because it has one of the strongest social engagement products in the market with an unrivaled user-friendliness.”

    Earlier this year, Meltwater announced it invested $25 million and 100 man-years on reinventing their flagship media intelligence product. Meltwater Buzz has been Meltwater’s main social offering. Its listening functionality is now integrated into the new intelligence platform, and going forward it will leverage Sprout Social for social engagement.

    Sprout’s engagement tools help users discover, respond to, and interact across Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, and Instagram from one interface. The team at Sprout has been recognized numerous times this year including being named one of America’s 100 fastest-growing companies by INC. magazine and winning the 2015 G2 Crowd award for Top Social Media Management Tool for Customer Satisfaction.

    “Engagement through social channels is increasingly critical for brand success,” said Justyn Howard, CEO of Sprout Social. “Our partnership with Meltwater brings world-class capabilities together to create remarkable customer experiences and further promote meaningful engagement.”

    Together with Sprout Social, Meltwater will offer three different packages – enterprise, team, and basic. All products are available from today.

    About Meltwater

    Meltwater helps companies make better, more informed decisions based on insights from the outside. More than 23,000 companies use the Meltwater media intelligence platform to stay on top of billions of online conversations, extract relevant insights, and use them to strategically manage their brand and stay ahead of their competition. With 50 offices on six continents, Meltwater is dedicated to personal, global service built on local expertise. Meltwater also operates the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), a nonprofit organization devoted to nurturing future generations of entrepreneurs.

    About Sprout Social

    Sprout Social is a social media management platform for businesses. Sprout powers smart social communication for over 15,000 leading agencies and brands, including Anthropologie, GrubHub, Hyatt, Spotify, and Zipcar. A powerful platform for social business available via a web browser, iOS, and Android apps, Sprout enables brands to more effectively communicate on social channels, collaborate across teams, and provide an exceptional customer experience. Headquartered in Chicago, Sprout is a Twitter Certified Product, Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer, LinkedIn Company Page Partner, and Google+ Pages API Partner.

  • Huawei Joins Ramadan Advertising Race

    Huawei Joins Ramadan Advertising Race

    The beauty of Ramadan advertising is that you don’t always need to get overly creative to come up with an effective marketing campaign. By emphasizing the spirit of Ramadan, you are presented with an endless pool of ideas.

    Going down the memory lane and reminiscing on our Ramadan experiences is the main concept of Huawei TVC for Ramadan this year.

    The TVC showcases details that evoke positive and happy feelings from our childhood. From the first time, we started fasting to Ramadan decoration through different social gatherings and dinner parties.

    Watch Huawei Ramadan TVC 2015

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgSdKcQmDrA

    Simplicity is power, and with the tagline “الكلام يحلي في رمضان مع هواوي,” Huwaei succeeded in producing a campaign that capitalizes on family, friends, and togetherness in an easy, unpretentious fashion. With 2.14 minutes, the TVC, however, risked being too long, too detailed. Huawei TVC this Ramadan also missed a hashtag to help create buzz on social media and integrate between its offline and online advertising campaigns.

    Huawei got my attention last March with its Mother’s day advert, a huge hit on YouTube. Read here my review on Huawei Mother’s day TVC. Let’s wait and see how Huawei Ramadan TVC will be received this year.

    Ramadan Kareem!

  • How PR Benefits from Social Media

    How PR Benefits from Social Media

    Social media has dramatically changed how we communicate and provide us with untraditional ways to deliver our message. PR is arguably one of the main disciplines that can benefit from social media’s various opportunities. Here is how:

    Create Content for a Wider Coverage 

    Social media is where traditional PR tools are transformed into new formats of interactive content. A press release, PR’s main communication tool for decades, can be turned into a video, a presentation, or a series of tweets and status updates. Thanks to social media’s instant and widespread nature, PR profs can nowadays deliver news and content using different formats across multiple social channels. This enables you to reach a larger audience, resulting in wider coverage of your news and ensuring it reaches a larger target group.

    Your Broadcast Channel at Events

    Events are another area where PR profs can optimally use social media. Using social media in PR connects between your activities on the ground and your virtual community. Be it a conference, a trade fair, or a client’s’ event, social media can be used throughout the event’s different phases from planning to execution and thereafter. Twitter is one of the major social media platforms that provide you with an instant and easy way to communicate with your audience, from announcing your participation and booth details, promoting your competitions and prizes to sending images and live updates. Monitoring the event hashtag can be an effective way of identifying companies and individuals at the event, making networking a lot easier. All you need to do is check that person’s Twitter account, and you will have enough basic information to engage with them virtually and in real life.

    Enhance Your Brand Awareness

    Being active on social media helps improve your brand perception and the overall image of your business. Publishing relevant news about your company, blogging about topics that matter to your audience, and sharing it on social media helps keep yourself in front of your current customers and attract new ones. When you establish an online presence, your company will get noticed by more people, promoting your business. The more followers you attract, the more readers you will generate for your news, enhancing your relevance and target audience reach.

    Improve Your SEO

    Search engines formula is pretty straightforward; the more mentions, links, and backlinks you have in the digital sphere, the higher you appear on search rankings. It is, therefore, important to back your content with relevant links and keywords. Equally, associating your web presence with high authority websites through backlinks will lead to better web ranking and scoring high in search rankings. To ensure you do well in search rankings, you need to make sure that your content is relevant, topical, and offers value to the reader. Although not confirmed, but it is believed that “likes” on Facebook and links on Twitter are recognized by search engines, another helping hand to improve your search rankings.