ONLINE SHOPPING, BRANDS AND SOCIAL MEDIA: WHAT CAUGHT OUR ATTENTION THIS WEEK!

Can your picture be worth 1000 social views? Is online shopping more common this holiday season over in-store shopping? And are brands gaining momentum with multi-screen programs? You can discover the answers to these questions in our weekly roundup of our favourite communications and PR stories of the week.

Social Media:

Today communicators need to understand how to create content that reaches our clients’ audiences both on an emotional level and that can actually be delivered through many popular social networks. Yet with the countless social platforms, browsers and devices through which consumer and corporate audiences engage our brands, can one picture be optimized as a tasty digital morsel for our PR targets through this vast, virtual social schmorgesborg?

“How to optimize you image to work across all social networks” (Social Media Examiner)

Retail:

A new report from Google Canada says that online shopping is more common this holiday season, but in-store shopping will still be fairly prominent. The report was released on Google Canada’s Think Insights website this week; the research was provided by Ipsos Reid, who collected responses from 1,054 holiday shoppers (this took place between Sept. 10 and 17, 2014).

Below are some highlights from the report:

• Online shopping – 34% of Canadians will both do their research and make their purchases online this season; this is a 23% increase from last year.
• Smartphone use – 59% of holiday shoppers plan to use their smartphone for holiday browsing; 62% doing this from home and 48% doing this while they are in a store.
• Although, holiday e-commerce is on the rise, Canadians will still make an average of five trips to retailers this holiday season to purchase gifts.

“How Canadians will shop this season” (Strategy Magazine)

Brands:

Even though there are many media options to choose from these days, television continues to be a powerful source to reach the mass market. Traditional television reaches 98% of Canadians per week, with Canadians watching an average of 27 hours of television per week according to Numeris’  latest data. As many PR companies have experienced and noticed, television broadcasters have become more aggressive in charging for any PR/promotional opportunities. This makes it more difficult to secure earned media content on this platform.

Toronto-based content marketing firm, Fifth Story, launched a television and digital content marketing program called For Your Life to help brands tell impactful stories through video and across multiple platforms. You can read more information about the For Your Life program in the article link below as well as see some of the videos included.

“Brands gain momentum with multi-screen program” (Marketing Magazine)

Thought of the week:

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.  – Henry David