I’ve interviewed a few organisations who are completely disillusioned by social media because they have been advised that if they do X, Y will happen, and when it doesn’t they are put off digital media all together. This (bad) advice is typically based on the ‘one size fits all’ model of social media marketing, which is unlikely to work for the majority of businesses.

One of the common myths about social media for marketing is that there is a single ‘magic formula’ that, if followed,…

Video advertising is a constantly growing market and more brands are realising the business opportunities created by sites such as YouTube as a marketing channel. Old Spice is one of those brands that have opted for going viral to boost sales and its latest marketing push is already becoming popular with YouTube users.

Old Spice's new marketing…

In the ongoing battle for search engine visibility, there is a lot of debate over what exactly is the secret sauce. We all know that the search engines use social signals as a factor in their overall ranking algorithm, and as video remains such an important mix in social sharing, it follows that…

Have today's consumers seen it all when it comes to advertising? There are still ads that can shock people and the latest spot by Ikea that promotes its summer range of garden furniture has caused fury among consumers. The ad sparked a wave of complaints over accusations of being too violent and potentially scary to children, but Ikea managed to escape a…

At BlogStar we know full well that effective content marketing is something akin to genius, that is, 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Having a brilliant idea is just the beginning of a long process. The development and execution of superlative video marketing or blog activity, for example, largely comes down to hard graft. But let’s not undervalue inspiration, it is after all the…

Every industry is guilty of jargon. Hands up, the marketing, social media and tech worlds are up there with the key offenders.

The Cloud? Big Data? Both are topics being discussed a lot at the moment, but you’ll be hard pressed to find two people with identical definitions. Referencing…

In his blog Peter McNeile, Director of Sponsorship, Cheltenham Racecourse argues that there is now apathy or even negativity towards many of these tactics with some feeling they are detrimental both to the brand and to those who have paid for traditional marketing and branding campaigns.

He…

If we all believed all the hype about Twitter we'd all be rushing off to set up our Twitter profiles and start publishing out 140 character messages to the world. Yes, it has many strengths and benefits, but it is not always the right choice for businesses promoting themselves online.

A marketing review that I recently undertook for a client highlighted that businesses are taking to Twitter, when it is clearly not an appropriate marketing approach. In this case, they had no hope of…

Recently, we’ve been speaking to a fair few B2B marketers wondering how to take their content marketing to the next level to drive sales momentum.

At first glance, it seems that these businesses are doing everything right:

With dedicated marketing teams in place, their websites have been…

What should the marketing team do when a crisis hits? Unfortunately we collectively face acts of terrorism, natural disasters and all manner of terrible events on an all-too-regular basis.  World events are outside of our control, but it is the marketing and communications team’s responsibility to act when a crisis hits.

This week with the horrific bombs in Boston it reminded me of occasions when I have had to respond to a crisis, which prompted me to write this blog post.  Recent…

So you’ve worked hard to create a successful business blog, well maintained with a consistent flow of content and promoted well enough to reach a wide base of industry movers and shakers. Why then, would you allow, even encourage, guest bloggers to benefit from your efforts by piggybacking your…

How do you market a product like beans in an innovative way? Global food company Heinz has come up with a clever idea, aiming to engage all five senses in a brand new beans eating experience.



The new Heinz Beanz Flavour Experiences are specifically designed to provide consumers with a "multi-sensory, magical…

There exists a widely-held preconception that content marketing is all about the hard graft of creating original content. This is misguided on two levels. One: creating content needn’t be hard work. Two: by churning out created content alone, you run the risk of becoming a “me, me, me”…

An introduction to Pinterest

If you are familiar with mood boards, then Pinterest won’t be too difficult to get your head around.  It’s essentially a digital pin board, a place where you can collate and categorise anything visually appealing that you come across online.

You can take a look at my own Pinterest here as an example – you’ll see a wide range…

I read an article the other day called “How to manipulate people for fun and profit”.  I’m not going to link to it because in my opinion, the advice it provided was utter garbage, highlighting the ease with which one can tout themselves as an ‘expert’ but in reality, prove they are anything but by giving not just poor, but potentially damaging advice.

The article states that action occurs as a result of inducing a high arousal state – a well known concept in…

When you consider that more than half of all web traffic last year was video, it follows that companies are scrambling to create and optimise their own video marketing content.

Not only is video a powerful tool when used on your own website, driving page views and evolving your site into a dynamic,…

March 18, 2013



Engaging consumers and establishing a valuable relationship with them is key to successful marketing, as many major brands are aware. One of them is Puma, which has recently launched a new integrated marketing campaign, introducing the strapline "Worn My Way," targeted at young consumers and encouraging them to embrace their own…

Keeping up with the continual updates to Facebook can be a full time job. The latest change, announced last week, will significantly affect the way in which fans engage with brands and their content on the network. In case you missed last week’s…