Ciarán Norris is the Head of Digital for Mindshare Ireland, as well as holding a global role for the media agency as Director, Emerging Media. At Mindshare he works with both local & multinational clients, helping them to integrate on & offline, and to utilise search, social, mobile & video in their broader marketing mix.
Social
During the 2010 U.K. general elections, I, like thousands of others, was glued to my various screens as I kept up to date with one of the closest contest in living memory. This included the first ever televised leadership debate in a British election, during which Twitter acted as a default running opinion poll. At […]
Social
Last week’s F8 conference was full of news about where Facebook is heading, and how it intends to get there. It highlighted, for anyone who wasn’t already sure, that Mark Zuckerberg’s ambition for his company is huge: he want to be the glue that binds the Web together, in the same way that Google was […]
Social
Last month, I talked about how marketers need to distinguish between interactions and true engagement*. As part of that, I referenced the fact that Facebook and Twitter had been written about in relation to events such as the death of Amy Winehouse, the massacre in Norway and the Egyptian revolution. But since writing that, social […]
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If there’s one thing that the social media sector has in spades, it’s statistics. We’ve all seen the videos, most, it seems, with a Fatboy Slim soundtrack, that list the mind-bending figures about the continued growth of social platforms and devices. Facebook has over 750 million active monthly users Those users share over 4 billion pieces of […]
Apple
Is there anything else that this week’s column could have been about? After months & months of rumours, leaks, presentations and high-profile talent grabs, Google finally launched its Facebook competitor™*. After the farce that was Wave, and the let-down that was Buzz, Google+ seems to be Google’s big push to date to get into social. […]
Apple
The biggest news in the world of social media over the last few weeks has been the IPO of LinkedIn, the upcoming Groupon IPO, and the slew of floatations these two are likely to herald. And, of course, underpinning all of this has been the simple question of whether the valuations these companies are receiving […]
1
A couple of weeks ago, I spoke at the excellent SMX Sydney conference. As usual, it was a great show with any number of fantastic speakers. Before my last session, I was preceded by the also very excellent Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz; his presentation on Social Media For SEO was, as with most of his content, must-have […]
Social
Anyone willing to bet on Google’s attempts to get social would have to have deep pockets and a short memory. For years, Google crowed about the fact that Orkut outweighed Facebook in two of the most important developing markets (Brazil & India), but that is likely to change soon (Facebook is gaining in both), whilst […]
Social
Every month, I get a reminder email from the team at Search Engine Land to tell me that my post is due. Most months I already have a clear idea of what I want to cover, but some times I find myself staring at the screen, not sure where to start. And in many ways, that’s […]
Social
One of the disadvantages of being a digital marketer outside of the US, as I’ve said before, is that so many great new innovations take months to be launched in other countries. A case in point is Facebook Places, which, despite the fact that Facebook’s EMEA HQ is based in Dublin, has only just been […]
Social
In my last post, I suggested that Groupon would be 2011’s Twitter, by which I meant that it would start attracting more and more media attention, as well as big brand dollars. And I stand by that. However, if you’re a frequent reader of Techcrunch or many of the other big tech-blogs, particularly those based […]
Apple
Another year is almost over. The Christmas Number 1 song has been decided (in the UK at least); the web has proved that even after a brutal recession, people still need to shop; and, after a year in which Facebook & Twitter became (if they weren’t already) true phenomenons, we had the interesting experience of watching […]
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Earlier this month Microsoft and Facebook announced a new partnership that essentially makes Bing a social search engine. Danny Sullivan has written a great overview, but basically if you’re logged into Facebook and use Bing, you’ll now see results which are based on content viewed and shared by your Facebook friends: in this way, “Likes” […]
Social
Twitter’s recent interface update is probably the single biggest change to the site since its launch. By expanding its columns to see multimedia content straight from tweets, it shows that Twitter is looking at how to engage a wider audience, and to provide a richer experience for advertisers. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIpD7hfffQo[/youtube] By keeping the roll-out to Twitter.com, […]
Apple
Dear Facebook, A couple of weeks ago you launched your new location service, Places. We all think it’s great and are really excited that you’re opening up the world of location to a whole new audience. We can’t wait to start finding new and exciting ways of using Places to connect consumers and brands. But […]
Social
There can be no doubt that social marketing has been the hot topic for the last few years, but many marketers still have reservations about seriously investing in the space. Whilst many of the reasons for such reticence can be quickly brushed off (it’s just for kids, it’s a fad, etc…) some deserve more attention. […]
Social
One of the challenges that bloggers face, compared to ‘real’ journalists, is that we’re not conditioned to churn out stories, no matter what. And so with a deadline looming for this post, I wondered what to write about, but nothing really grabbed my attention. But then I got to thinking – maybe I should write […]
Social
At its recent F8 developer conference, Facebook announced a raft of new developments which have been causing ripples in the worlds of technology and marketing ever since. The one that arguably has the biggest implications is the roll-out of social plug-ins and the Open Graph API (you can read my thoughts on that here if […]
Social
Having spent 2009 being beaten in the hype stakes by Twitter, Facebook has started off 2010 with the last laugh. While Twitter’s growth is apparently stalling, Facebook goes from strength to strength and is now, arguably, the world’s largest digital media ‘owner’ other than Google. Its audience is now a very international one, with 70% […]
Social
Until very recently, research company Forrester had been one of the poster-children of people wishing to show how companies have grown their business on the back of a deep understanding of social media. Its analysts, including Groundswell author Charlene Li, not only produced research on how businesses and consumers were using social media, but also […]