2012 review: a year in digital marketing

2012 was a busy 12 months for digital marketers. Let’s take a look back at some of the industry’s biggest stories of last year.

January

McDonald’s started the year by reminding marketers just how important it is to judge brand sentiment before embarking on a social media promotional campaign. Although intended to encourage diners to share their positive tales about the fast-food chain, #McDstories quickly became a #McFail when the hashtag was hijacked by critics. A series of devastating tweets followed, with customers letting-rip about their experiences of food poisoning, obesity and even fingernails in food at its restaurants.

In stark contrast, Google enjoyed a rather more positive month after being named the UK’s top-rated brand in the influential YouGov BrandIndex.

February

In February, social media got a facelift as Twitter rolled out the first wave of UK brand pages and Dove, Burberry and Manchester United became the first UK companies to launch Facebook timelines. Although Twitter’s brand pages were free in Britain, organisations had to commit to a minimum media spend of £25,000, with Facebook timelines available to all brands.

Search giant Google was not to be left out in the race for new releases, launching a mobile version of its popular browser, Chrome. Only available on Android devices using the Ice-cream Sandwich operating system, Chrome for mobile was designed for speed and simplicity.

March

This was the month in which confectionary brand Snickers was cleared by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), following promotional tweets from footballer Rio Ferdinand and model Katie Price. The regulator was called in after receiving complaints concerning whether tweets posted by the celebrities about the popular chocolate bar could be clearly identified as adverts. In its first investigation involving Twitter, the ASA ruled that the two series of tweets didn’t breach industry codes because each celeb used the #spon hashtag to indicate their messages were part of a marketing communication. 

April

In April, Google announced a landmark change to its algorithm. Known as Google Penguin, the update was an aggressive attack on spam, aiming to decrease the search engine ranking of websites that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Sites making use of ‘black-hat’ SEO techniques, such as keyword stuffing and deliberate duplicate content saw a dramatic fall in their Google positions.

May

The much talked-about EU Cookie Law came into force in May, a directive requiring website owners to obtain users’ permission before using cookies to collect data about them. Faced with strong criticism throughout Europe in the run up to the law’s enforcement, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) made a U-turn just 48 hours before the new rules were due to take effect, announcing that explicit consent (the main thrust of the incoming law) would now not be deemed essential. As long as British websites explain how and why they collect cookies, implied consent, in which a user has to actively ‘opt-out’ of being tracked, is now a valid form of consent.

May also saw Facebook float on the stock exchange in the biggest ever floatation achieved by an internet company and the third largest US IPO ever.

June

In June, Apple pushed out its newest operating system, iOS6, in which it ditched Google Maps. Despite initial excitement from Apple lovers across the globe, the new map software was met with contempt later in the year as angry users complained of inaccuracies and even misplaced towns and cities.

July

The Adobe Digital Index report revealed this month that search spend in the UK grew 18 per cent year on year in Q2, higher than figures in the US and Germany. Also in search, Yahoo! settled a long running patent dispute with social media site Facebook and announced it would be moving forward in an advertising partnership with the company.

August

August was another important month for social media, with pin-board site Pinterest ditching its invite-only status and opening its doors for all to join. Twitter launched Certified Products for business, Reddit had its busiest day ever as a result of its Barack Obama Ask Me Anything’ (AMA) session and Facebook bought photo-filter site Instagram for an eye-watering $1bn.

September

This was a month of milestones, with Google+ reaching 400m registered users and business networking site LinkedIn hitting the 10m UK members mark. The figure meant that four out of five UK working professionals claimed to be LinkedIn users, with the UK the largest global market for the site behind the US and India.

September also saw Facebook begin its battle with fake ‘likes’ to improve brand integrity. The tightened security measures were designed to put a stop to fraudulent ‘Likes’ caused by spam bots, malware and fake account users, allowing brands  to gauge a truer measurement of their demographics and customers.

October

The first ever 4G network was launched in the UK in October. The new “super-fast” network, named EE, was formed from a partnership with Orange and T-Mobile and left other phone service providers lagging behind by an expected six months. An advertising battle quickly unfolded, with the other major networks trying to play down the effect of their newest rival.

In other news, Google delighted SEOs with the unveiling of its new ‘Disavow Links’ tool, allowing webmasters to ask Google to take low-quality links that are beyond their control into consideration when assessing a site within its search engine. Facebook made an update to its Edgerank algorithm to place greater emphasis upon the percentage of users that respond to page posts through likes, comments, shares and other interactions and LinkedIn gave its profile pages a revamp.

November

November marked a major shake-up to the PR industry as the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) announced that it would penalise companies using Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) in awards entries. AVE had long been considered outdated, with the CIPR announcement putting the final nail in the coffin for this traditional form of PR evaluation.

Continuing the theme of campaign measurement, Google released the next generation of its analytics program, naming it Universal Analytics. The new collection of search technologies aims to shift the focus towards a user centric as opposed to a visit centric approach, closely aligning how businesses more traditionally evaluate their overall performance. 

In the world of social media, Foursquare crossed the 3billion check-in mark, Instagram expanded to a full web presence and Facebook began testing the water on placing non-social advert units into news feeds.

December

The final month of the year was by no means quiet in terms of digital marketing, with Google revealing the top search terms of 2012.  Whitney Houston topped the pile ahead of the Duchess of Cambridge, with the top search trend revealed as ‘Euro 2012’.

Finally, Twitter made the complete tweet archive available  and announced that all users would be forced to adopt its new profile format.

By Vicki Cole

Crafted Out and About in November

Throughout the next few weeks, we’ll be speaking at a range of local digital marketing events and we’d love for you to join us:

Developing Your Digital Strategy

Our Search Director, Ian Miller, will be talking Content Marketing at the Archant ‘Developing Your Digital Strategy’ event on 9 November. The morning will start at 9am at the Eastern Enterprise Hub, Ipswich, with talks on search, social media, email marketing and online advertising. If you’d like to come along to the free seminars, you can find out more on the event’s website.

CIM Digital Marketing Bootcamp

Crafted will be discussing some of Google Analytics’ advanced features at the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s latest Digital Marketing Bootcamp on 15 November.  PPC, social media, search and website design are on the agenda, with the event due to be held at David Lloyd in Ipswich.  More information can be found on the CIM’s website.

The Content Marketing Show

We’re delighted to be supporting the first ever Content Marketing Show on 20 November at Conway Hall in Holborn, London. Created by the founders of BrightonSEO, this new one-day conference sold out in less than five minutes and will explore the junction between social media, online PR, SEO and content strategy. You can read our round-up of the most recent BrightonSEO on our blog.

Prettys Business Academy

On 27 and 28 November, we’ll be guest speaking at the Business Academy, organised by solicitors Prettys. We’ll be discussing how companies can succeed at social media, with the Prettys commercial law team on hand to explore important legal and compliance aspects. The morning events, held in Ipswich and Chelmsford are free to attend and guests can sign-up on the event’s website. 

Crafted appoints PR Director to head up new service offering

We're pleased to let you know that we've appointed Emma Plummer as our PR Director.

Emma will head up our new offline public relations department, in recognition of the increasing need to combine digital communications with more traditional forms of marketing.

With more than 12 years’ experience in PR, Emma has worked across a wide range of industry sectors, from technology to finance and environmental to health services and beyond.

Armed with considerable knowledge of her field, she has delivered high profile communications for the likes of top city law firm Nabarro, Suffolk Criminal Justice Board and international commercial drainage company Environmental Biotec, to name a few.

Emma’s diverse background makes her ideally placed to handle communications for our broad range of clients.

In her role, Emma will provide media relations, event management, internal communications, awards submissions, and crisis management services, as well as seeking speaking opportunities for those she represents.

Marketing Week Live: a Crafted review

Last Thursday, I journeyed to London to attend Marketing Week Live, the UK’s premier marketing event hosted by Marketing Week magazine.

As Crafted’s recently appointed Marketing Manager, I was keen to go along to the show’s best practice workshops. The free half an hour seminars gave marketers yet another chance to expand their skills, offering inspiration to take back to the office. I’d planned my agenda before arriving at the show (I’d recommend this to anyone attending next year because there are just so many talks to choose from), and so arrived ready to make the most of my day.

Upon entering Olympia, as ever, the first thing that struck me was the size and scope of the exhibition. With eight individual shows under one roof, Marketing Week Live is certainly one of the largest industry trade shows. As a digital marketer, I stuck to exploring the Online Marketing Show on this occasion.

Content is king, but distribution is queen

First on the agenda was ‘Search in the post-Panda and Penguin World’, run by Neil McCarthy of I Spy Marketing. Neil argued that brands must see themselves as publishers, writing in plain, easily understandable, English, to their customers, who should be viewed as readers. He emphasised the importance of blogger outreach and an effective mobile search strategy, summarising with one of the best catchphrases of the day: ‘content may well be king, but distribution is queen.’

Relevancy, relevancy and more relevancy

Next I took a trip over to the Email Marketing Arena to listen to Andrew Bonar’s ‘Email Deliverability and Compliance – the news rules for 2012’, run by Emailvision. Again, content marketing emerged as a key theme, with Andrew emphasising that emails must be engaging to read, and, most importantly, relevant to the recipient. He advised marketers to continue testing what works best for them, making alterations to their emails and using an A/B test to get a feel for what their customers like to read.

Your content disgusts me

Then it was a short walk over to the Content Management and Marketing Arena for yet more lessons in creating engaging copy. The talk’s host, Joe Edwards of the IDM, illustrated his argument perfectly with his controversial workshop title ‘Your Content Disgusts Me’ (despite risking insulting his audience). Joe’s point was simple – it’s all well and good producing reams of content for your website, but it’s only ever quality content that will count. He encouraged his listeners to think about emotion in their copy, making their readers happy, angry, or, even, fearful. Why? Emotion drives sharing, and sharing drives deeper understanding of your brand or campaign.

Google + social = big things

After exploring some of the exhibitors’ stands, it was then on to the Search, Affiliate and Display Arena for my final talk of the day. Danny Hall of SEO Positive held a session on ‘Google Plus for your business’, running through his thoughts on why brands must embrace Google’s social network. Danny shared some examples of how brands have been successful at using the platform, predicting that if the network doesn’t yet have an impact upon search results, it’s highly likely that it will fairly soon.

All round it was a great day, and I left Olympia armed with ideas (and the obligatory bag full of freebies) to take back to the Crafted team.

Written by Vicki Cole 

Crafted shortlisted for mobile marketing award

Crafted's beaten off stiff international competition to emerge as one of the finalists in the B2B category at the Effective Mobile Marketing Awards (EMMAs).

Selected for our design of the anyspacedirect.co.uk iPhone application, we're hoping to emerge as a winner at the ceremony on 7th December at Vinopolis in London.

The app is a clever mobile marketing tool, which enables small to medium sized businesses (SMEs) to browse available commercial properties across the UK, all from the iPhone handset.

Powerful search functionality displays properties surrounding the user’s current location by either using the iPhone’s GPS or via a location or postcode search. Once a property has been selected, the user-friendly contact form allows users to make direct contact with the space provider to negotiate terms without the need to go through an agent.

The EMMAs are the most respected awards for the mobile marketing industry, so we are thrilled to have been shortlisted.