Five tips for a great digital campaign

Digital campaigns are interesting because they’re so instantly measurable – and yet so unmeasurable. Moreso when you enter the social space. You can drown in data, but how much of it is actually meaningful? Sure you can get 10,000 people ‘talking about’ you on Facebook – but what does that mean, and does it even matter?

The following are five topline tips to keep in mind when planning a digital campaign.

1. Know your end goal and work backwards
Look at where you want the campaign to go, then add milestones from the end back to the start. You want users to be positively contributing to your website? It’s not as simple as displaying a call to action and then sitting back and waiting for the compliments to roll in.

2. Research your target audience
Learn about your audience. Which digital platforms do they prefer and why? What are they using those platforms for?

If your Facey page is getting a lot of viral action, but it’s happening amongst 50-year-olds in Texas, and you’re a children’s dentist in New Zealand, it’s not really doing the trick. You will focus on the wrong things if you’re looking at the wrong metric.

3. Keep it flexible
You can plan, plan, plan as much as you like, but digital media is about context. Social media even more. If everyone is talking about a tragic event, and you bulldoze your brand in there, you’re going to cause some damage.

This is also a key when researching campaigns from outside your culture. You can’t roll out a plan from overseas and expect the same results in the local market.

Always have a plan B. And C. And D. If something doesn’t work with your audience, don’t force it. Change tact.

4. Think about the environment
With digital marketing, you can buy great reach for very small cost. The temptation is to stick your ad in every available cheap space, but you need to think about it in terms of partnerships. Just as a TVC can add weight and legitimacy to your campaign, so can digital ads in various spaces.

Also if you’re putting video advertising into a space people are likely to be accessing via mobile or while at work – tread with caution. No one wants to use their expensive 4G data on your ad, trust me. And if they’re sneaking around when they should be at work, having your ad blaring at them is probably not what they were hoping for either. But later on, at home and on wifi, you can go for your life.

5. Help your fans become advocates
Advertising is like a baby. You think yours is the best, the cutest, the smartest. It’s probably not. You need to give your fans a better reason than that to share it, or to get involved. And you need to keep it simple!

An easy way to help pave the path is to demonstrate the behaviour or action you want fans to take by showing someone else doing it – better still if that someone can be a community leader, celebrity, or aspirational person from the demographic.

All of this, though, comes down to one basic principle: Know your audience. Take your marketing eyeballs out and really think like a person in the demographic you’re trying to reach. Don’t bullshit about the state of the market, your ad, or get caught up in the Next Big Shiny thing. Audience first and center.

Meet Todrick Hall: Your next top YouTube star

If you like Disney, and you like pop music, it’s time to get amongst Todrick Hall – if you haven’t already!

The first Todrick Hall video I ever watched was Beauty and the Beat. No, not the Nicki and Justin song. This is much, much better.

Then there’s CinderFella, featuring Janice Dickinson and Lance Bass. Hello!

Inspired by Beyonce’s Pepsi commercial…

His Once Upon A Crime series is funny, but this one is the best: (NSFW)

So subscribe and enjoy!

Five of the best one-shot music videos you’ll ever see

I love a good music video, and the below are some of the most technically interesting ones you’ll ever see!

OK Go’s The Writing’s On The Wall:

This is the latest offering from OK Go, who hit the media landscape with that amazing treadmill video for Here It Goes Again.

Walk Off The Earth’s Red Hands:

These guys make great, ingenious videos, but the thing I like about this one is the amazingly careful planning that went into breaking the song up, then editing it all back together again.

Taylor Swift’s We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.

It’s cutesy schmaltz, but I like it.

blink 182’s Always:

This is three one-shots tied together. Must have taken so much planning and some careful editing, but the end result is awesome!

Reece Mastin’s Rockstar:

I’m biased cos I was working on this show, but this was a very cool bit of choreography.

Bonus: God Lives Underwater’s From Your Mouth:

Okay so maybe not as technically brilliant as the other ones, there’s still something crazy facinating about watching Hirofumi Nakajima uneat a lot of food.

Stuff I like: June 2014

It’s time for another edition of Stuff I Like!

Balloon lamps

I stumbled across balloon lamps on a blog I frequent, and tweeted about them.

Judging by the response to this tweet, you all like them, too! Unfortunately, they’re pricey. Like, 400 Euro pricey.

This YouTube clip

Maleficent

maleficent-playbillOther than Girl, Interrupted, I’m not a huge Angelina Jolie movie fan. However, I had heard good things about Maleficent, and being a Wicked fan, I was interested to see how Disney would present the other side of the story.

This movie was great. She was convincing, the fight scenes were strong, but most of all it told an interesting story of a woman wronged who didn’t need no man to rescue her, which is a very unusual bent in Hollywood, let alone Disney.

Anyway, I won’t say too much on the subject, other than I really, really liked this film and will be getting the DVD when it’s out.

Painted Plates
I’ve been collecting upcycled/repainted plates from Niki at Odd One Out for a while now. These aren’t your nana’s wall-hangings! I really love her style, and if you get in touch with her directly she can design something just for you. I’ve had her put friend’s tattoos onto plates before. They make great pressies and look amazing!

Tiny Houses

tiny-house-1

Some of you know I’m obsessed with tiny houses. I’ll blog about them later, but if you’re interested to know more, especially the tiny house movement in New Zealand, check out this website.

This Anderson Cooper burn

‘Nuff said.

#MeanNats are the only political tweets you need to read this year

The hashtag de jour, ladies and gentlemen, is #MeanNats, and it comes courtesy of one @_surelymermaid.

It began simply enough

Gold.

Best Kiwi Tweets of May 2014

Compiled by Kat Jenkins

[Keep reading after Kat’s made her pick for tweet of the month because there’s a special something going on that I don’t want you to miss out on! – Cate]

Domestic gods and goddesses
@TophHooperton I fixed the dishwasher. I pulled it out of the thing and I followed the cable and I wiggled it and it works. #HellaManly
@josiecampbell Being a woman with multi-tasking abilities is awesome. I just simultaneously burned toast and let the fire go out.
@beekaynz 4pm me is super grateful to 9am me for having put dinner in the crockpot. I’m going to make 7pm me an apple crumble as a reward.

Born this way
@aberopitini I finally found the courage to ask about LGBT acceptance in China and my new friends smiled and started singing “Born This Way” and I cried.
@not_friends “Do you want me to turn on the tv?” “No I just want to stare at you. I have strong love feelings for you.” #druggedFrith

The problem with 2014
@Megapope How the hell do you put the Facebook Android feed to most recent and why can’t I explode Mark Zuckerberg with my mind?
@giselledraws The year is 2014, I’m trying to buy envelopes on the internet but can’t because I don’t have a fax machine.
@lmfbs Earlier today I mocked a colleague about having a paper dictionary. Internet went down at work so I shamefully had to ask to borrow it.
@Robbo_Junior Autocorrect and I like to play a little game called Duck Duck Fuck.
@behathrills There’s a kid in Haeata’s class called Kale. Central Auckland, we need to talk.

You can’t choose your family
@annagconnell Dad just called me a wussy liberal pinko for suggesting that someone might let him in if he put his indicator on. Gonna be a long day.
@rosieiscool Miss 9 out of bed. “I’m getting a dictionary to see what porn is” Me: >___< Sit down, I’ll explain, it’s tricky. Miss 9: OK, what’s p.a.w.n
@Tweet_Ti My husband has run out of songs to entertain our demanding child during her bath. He’s currently singing Wilson Philips “Hold On”. Badly.

Procrastination
@nintendoug Now my desk is clean, I’m going to have to deal to this beard. Can’t write an assignment with a shabby beard.

Gluten is still a thing
@tobiasbrockie assuming “gluten tag” is a great joke among the bakeries of germany
@mcquillanatorz My gluten-free banana loaf is many things, but “delicious” or “cooked through” or “tastes like banana” are not among those ??

Stay classy
@Vegrandis I’m really glad pointy cone boobs aren’t in fashion this decade, my boobs only know one shape and that’s a parallelogram.
@Adr1anaDeMarco You ever do that thing after you have a shower, when you just casually laze around in a towel and surf the web. oh yeah ‘surf’ that web
@pinkdeedle I sat on my hand for ages and then picked my nose a bit and it was the weirdest feeling. Like someone else was picking it. The end.

Do I get to choose who wins the Z Energy voucher? If I do, I choose @TophHooperton because he might need some supplies to keep on being MacGuyverlicious.

– @katjnz

BNZ-Literary-AwardWell, about that… This month’s TOTM are brought to you by BNZ, more specifically the BNZ Literary Awards. The BNZ social media team love writing, they love Twitter, and want to encourage all you clever wordsmiths to think about entering the Literary Awards, which celebrate short story writing. To say thanks to our usual sponsors Z Energy, Kat and the Twitter community for letting them hijack this month’s TOTM, they’re doubling the prizes across the board!

BNZ also have a fun Twitter-related announcement coming next Monday morning so keep an eye out on their Twitter account @BNZ to find out all about it. I already know what it is, and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun, and make choosing June’s TOTM that much harder!

Bring on Monday! x

My favourite Maya Angelou poem

Today I woke up to learn that Maya Angelou had passed away. She was a remarkable woman, not least for her poetry. It was her words that first drew me into the art form beyond childhood rhymes.

Here she is, reciting my favourite, And Still I Rise.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

She had such a dignity about her, and was a woman of courage and honesty. She saw potential in others and didn’t stop hoping for better things, despite seeing the very worse. May she rest in peace.

Find out more about Maya Angelou on Wikipedia