Revolver

It’s been a rough few weeks for the videogames industry in Scotland.  One of the country’s largest developers – Realtime Worlds, shed jobs, then appeared to be in far more trouble, before abruptly going into administration.  Then one of Dundee’s other developers announced redundancies and it all looked rather bleak.

Some of the world’s biggest game publishers and developers swooped in looking for talent – of which there was a fair amount – holding mass interviews and open afternoons to cherrypick the people they wanted. However, that’s a lot of talent leaving the country.  Talent that could perhaps be persuaded to stay and even start the next generation of games studios…

Starting a company is a daunting process so Revolver PR decided to host a workshop to support and offer practical advice to the games community. The event was held yesterday at the Scottish Enterprise office in Dundee, the workshop covered a huge range of topics, from how to start a limited company, through to digitally distributing your game  to creating and implementing a PR campaign off and on-line.

Speakers from across the UK  including Revolver ‘s own Iain S Bruce,  Business Gateway, Interactive Scotland, Games Consultancy, Ludometrics,   Abertay University, Game Ops, Blitz Game Studios (who kindly drove all the way up from Leamington Spa to participate), MBA Law and Dundee College.

The structure was ‘informal’, with a quick 10 minute introduction from everyone – questions from the audience and then breakout groups, so people could ask questions and focus in more detail about the topics they were interested in.

The feedback so far has been very positive. The speakers were great.  The audience was engaged.  We had space for 50 people, but in the end 60 showed up.  Elspeth Badger and the team at GMTV Scotland showed up to feature the workshop and Revolver filmed the event which will be available to view shortly.

Only time will tell if it leads to a whole new generation of smaller, more agile developers, who understand digital pr, digital distribution, IP protection,outsourcing and the value of a well ironed tie.

Thank you to all of the speakers, participants, attendees and Interactive Tayside.  Apparently the sandwiches were lovely…

If you’d like to find out more or would like to take part in any of our future events please send your details to:

wanted@revolver-pr.co.uk or contact me directly at brian@revolver-pr.co.uk

In a world where brands are battling for space in the market how far will you go to stand out from the crowd? Digital PR, traditional PR and social media all have a role to play in raising brand awareness and our team are always happy to go the extra mile for our clients. We’re sad to report that there is a limit to the number of letters you can spell whilst jumping out a plane so on this occasion the Revolver team will be keeping all feet firmly on the ground. This clip takes a while to get going but it’s worth the wait.

Digital puzzle.

Hark back to those fond younger days, puzzle inhand. Lasting words of wisdom for puzzle making, start from the corners building the frame and work your way in to create the desired image.

A valuable lesson as a child and one which comes around again in adult life which can be successfully adapted to work in the digital world.

I sense some raised eyebrows. Well, let’s take for instance social media. It shouldn’t be seen from just one angle but part of an integrated campaign, or puzzle if you will. 

Once successfully created, the pretty picture or social media campaign can now be explained and walked through for the decision-maker’s sake, answering all those lurking questions as to why you’ve spent such time and if there is even a return on investment. Afterall, time is money.

Here’s the thing, at Revolver we can tell you this. We are well aware of  a company’s need to justify and show direct ROI for such endeavours. We also recognise the need to complete the digital puzzle, combining the benefits of Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube to create the overall perfect brand image through digital pr. Each contributing in their individual way to complete the pieces of the digital puzzle.  

With this in mind, all you need to remember is that in Revolver HQ the kettle is always on so please pop in, say hello and if you feel inclined, consider how to build your digital puzzle piece by piece.

A viral victory?

That’s the idea anyway. Coca-Cola is set to launch the UK version of its successful Happiness Machine viral, hoping to replicate their success in the US.

The gist of it is a vending machine giving out an assortment of items to surprised students in a university campus. Along the same lines, the UK version will see the addition of UK-specific items such as strawberries and cream or the board game Monopoly.

Quite a big deal really as the US version is now Coca-Cola’s most successful viral campaign and achieved over 2.5m views on YouTube.

From this, the drinks giant is obviously hopeful of repeating the same level of attention in the UK but it still remains to be seen of the actual added value of using virals in the first place. Can you really link it back to sales or should it be viewed as more an investment in building positive feelings towards the brand and spreading the message? In Coca-Cola’s case “happiness to all.” Cough.

For them, they can toss up the value of this investment in comparison to say, TV ads, and consider how many people viewed it to give them a cost per minute of engagement, which can then compare to other activities.

In this way, virals can be of use to companies and can be further supported by blogger outreach and traditional PR, not just digital PR, whilst viewers can be encouraged to add comments on the video and share through social media channels.

All talk-nae trousers. Substance Matters.

It sure does. In fact, a recent survey found that 60% of global journalists believe that their content has actually improved with the rise of digital media. This can be attributed to a number of factors but 48% surveyed explained that their publication offered journalist authored blogs on their site, along with 40% using Twitter channels to disseminate content.

So the journo’s have got it right. You’ve got to put things out there for the taking. By “there” I mean the online environment, from social media sites to platforms and forums. And by “things” I mean well constructed, beneficial information that will engage and entice readers and followers to interact with your brand offering.

There is apsolutely no point in congratulating yourself over regular digital content updates if they don’t actually attract and speak to the people that matter. Understand where and what they would be interested in reading and that will send you down the right path.

Becoming digitally snap-happy

In a significant cultural move, the Royal family has opened a Flickr account to share rare pictures of the Royal family on the internet after Buckingham Palace joined the photo sharing site.

The images include recent royal events alongside archive pictures of the Queen, Prince of Wales and other members of the Monarchy. More than 600 photographs have been added and new additions will be uploaded as new engagements and events take place.

The developments follows the launch of the updated royal website, British Monarchy Twitter account last year and the Royal channel on YouTube in 2007.

This savvy tech move is timed to coincide with the summer opening of Buckingham Palace, as it displays photographs commissioned for the exhibition The Queen’s Years, opeing at the London Palace next Tuesday.

So there you have. Do you really want to be left behind? Cautious as ever, the Royal family have waited until the time was right and have committed further to a digital Britain. They are aware of the outreach and engagement possibilities of these digital platforms and see no reason why they can’t be part of it. But are you aware of it?

Companies who continue to lag behind in this respect are only failing themselves. Embrace the digital world and find out how it can best support your brand (just like the Royal brand) and engage with your potential audience through some perceptive digital pr support.

Who’s in the money on Facebook?

With Facebook users totalling a whopping 500 million users recently its little wonder that thousands of companies are now vying for a little slice of the Facebook ecommerce pie. But just who is cashing in?

One of the ideas adopted by a particular brand marketer uses Facebook to create buzz for its clients, which range from solo bloggers to megabrands like Coca-Cola. The aim is to win “fans” who, with one click, opt into further interaction with the advertiser.

Wildfire, who launched in summer 2008 and who won a grant from the Facebook Fund, has another little trick to hand by building marketing campaigns that include contests, coupons, quizzes and virtual gifts. The ultimate achievement for them is to get a campaign going viral, spreading brand recognition like, well, wildfire, says co-founder Victoria Ransom.

Companies can really benefit from viral channels but perhaps not all of them have the expertise to do this well. The key is not to be rash, take time to consider a strategic digital pr plan.

Engagement, connection, whatever you want to call it, get to know your customers to build and enhance your following by extending conversations into something meaningful.

Are you a follower?

There are many theories that circulate in industry circle over consumer behaviour but of particular interest is one of recent which suggests that people are more likely to buy brands their friends like. And from this, is tracking their social interactions the most effective way to target them accurately?

Let’s face it, if you need it it’s probably out there. The web has become so profoundly social and consumers share increasing amounts of information across various websites, that you can forgive marketers salivating at the power that’s possible.

Now, it would seem, a new sort of US companies have emerged who feel they have finally found a method of tapping into this wealth of data through a process of licensing data from third parties, largely social media sites, and tracing consumers’ social connections in order to target ads towards those most powerfully connected to brand fans (as touched upon in the last blog update).

It’s pretty easy to work out what they can then do. Marketers have begun to let the data tell them who to target, as opposed to past methods of them telling the the data who to target. They have apparently proven that by understanding who’s purchasing and who’s a fan of the brand, people strongly connected to it socially are highly likely to share the same interests, to purchase those same products and have the same gender, income etc. It appears that the social connection could be a very powerful predictor indeed.

However, unlike current ad platforms offered on the likes of Facebook, where companies target individuals based on their profile, social targeting focuses on targeting people based on their friends, not their interests.

Nevertheless, there is a certain amount of skepticism that surrounds this. There are those who feel that 99.9% of what we browse on the web does not fit into any commercial or behavioural category, meaning attempts to scale that inevitably include a load of irrelevant information.

Irrespective of either of these standpoints, what nobody can deny is the fact that online engagement can be extremely beneficial and enlightening for companies who wish to develop or maintain a strong brand culture. Don’t shy away from an online presence, understand and engage with it by developing a well-thought out digital pr strategy for the future.

Success in social media.

You can’t ignore it, it’s mentioned virtually everywhere. So why do companies continue to overlook its importance and not grasp its importance? Well frankly, they just don’t get it.

To understand social media means you can use it to your best advantage so become part of the culture. Increasingly, what’s becoming clear is that brands which are having success in social media have always been in touch with culture.

Popular culture, it’s inclusive and representative of people’s changing interests and quite simply another channel within which popular culture expresses itself. And so, brands that have achieved cultural legacy have been woven into people’s online conversations without having to work hard at it. People appreciate transparency and can see the difference between brands that are forced on them and those that have organically become part of our culture. 

The people are of course as much a part of the cultural legacy as the company itself, as they fuel the brand. Companies aware of this have welcomed this not faught it. Allowing fans to become influencers in the future of the brand through content creation for example, companies can help stimulate this cultural community.

And so, before investing time and money in building your social media strategy through measured digital pr, first ask what your brand cultural legacy is that people connect to and want to be part of? Also, what are the behaviours and motivations of your fans that you can harness through social media?

Click-through rates - oh so important?

Apparently not so much. In fact, they continue to decline in the UK and Europe despite interaction rates continuing to perform well, according to the latest DoubleClick online advertising benchmark report.

But is this such a huge issue? Not really. Whilst this change in users’ behaviour might encourage advertisers to devise new methods of assessing the effectiveness of their campaigns, interaction time among UK web users is above the European average.

This just means that click-through rates (CTRs) are becoming a less relevant measurement tool for the industry. Where once they were a benchmark for measuring success, a rise of Flash and rich media interaction could be deemed as fast becoming an alternative method of engagement.

With a huge growth in such rich and exciting media, it gives the audience a new choice of options in how they interact with companies. Industry insiders explain that a rich media unit can inspire a range of responses from users and therefore not every click in this environment produces a click-through. When a viewer clicks on a rich media unit, a number of outcomes are possible, including exapnding the unit or watching a video.

Some have found that for brand campaigns, click-through rates is often not the key metric, yet it is still important for performance campaigns. So what we’re finding is that a vast amount of time should not be spent stressing about the decreasing rate of click-throughs but instead spent on considering the rich media methods out there that could intice audiences further. Work out what form of digital pr would be best suited to your company and then get to work.