MIKESTOPFORTH

There is much being said about how brands should engage with customers in social media. Words like “authenticity”, “transparency”, “immediacy”, “personability” and others are bandied about as we as consultants, together with our clients, figure out the rules of content and community online. This is a good thing. Brands tend to forget that platforms like [...]

As Cerebra expands its client base with big brands including the likes of Vodacom, Samsung and Toyota, we’re learning valuable lessons about what works when it comes to engaging customers on Twitter. No two brands are exactly the same. Every brand has a different message, culture, strategy and even audience. There’s no arguing that Twitter [...]

In the hope that they will one day evolve into something of substance, I have recently been scribbling down notes on some of the ideas I have around marketing, advertising and communication in general. Bear in mind I share these thoughts purely in my capacity as a consumer – I am no marketing, branding or [...]

Dave Duarte has grown the Nomadic Marketing brand into the definitive local social and mobile media education programme – nothing else comes close. The combination of excellent content, the backing of the UCT GSB and professional facilitation mean that it ranks among the best of it’s kind worldwide. And now Dave is bringing Nomadic Marketing [...]

I was privileged enough to receive an invite from Reuben Goldberg to join him on an episode of his popular talk show The Internet Economy which airs every Friday night from 7-8 on ClassicFM. We spoke about the broad subject of social media in South Africa, the article I wrote the other day (the Next [...]

The honeymoon is over. Much of the hype and noise surrounding social media and its meteoric rise (especially in the USA) has abated. Perhaps owing to the global economic crisis, arguably due to the apparent lack of sustainable business models and possibly as a result of some semblance of reasonable thinking, we’re no longer reading [...]

Big news from the Afrigator team today is the launch of AdGator – Africa’s first blogging ad network. We always envisioned Afrigator being a platform that bloggers could not only use to ‘market’ their content but also a source of revenue for them, and finally we have a model that allows us to do just [...]

I received an email from Shelley Wilson, an honours student at Vega who is doing her thesis on viral video. She’s put together this ’15 tips for viral marketing videos’ clip, with an accompanying article (quoted below) that she’d love your feedback on. I’m all for feedback, so let her have it! We live in [...]

This is a video of a recent talk I did at the exclusive Tintswalo equestrian estate (note the horse’s bum in the background) with the MasterMind Group of Professional Speakers, of which I’m a member. I decided at the last minute to ditch my PPT slides in aid of the old fashioned approach. Your critical [...]

Oops, stumbled in a bit late… freakin’ traffic. Thanks to Vincent Maher and Vodacom for my ticket – here are my observations: Rick Joubert: Vodacom Mobile Advertising “Mobile is the seventh mass media… Print, Recording, Cinema, Radio, TV, Internet, Mobile. Reach, targeting, frequency and response make the mobile medium so compelling. “Mobile has twice the [...]

…my book. But let me first tell you why. Quirk eMarketing have once again firmly established themselves as our country’s leading eMarketing authority with the release of their textbook eMarketing: The essential guide to online marketing. From their blog: eMarketing is a 300 page textbook aimed at tertiary education students, business owners and marketers who [...]

One of my professional speaking colleagues, Erik Vermeulen, forwarded a very cool email newsletter to me the other day. Normally that would tick me off but the newsletter, produced by Scott Ginsberg (check out his site and blog, they’re awesome), had an article titled 46 Marketing Mistakes Your Company Is (Probably) Making that caught my eye. I read it an thought I’d share it with you – some of it ought to be familiar already but there are a bunch of cool thoughts I thoroughly enjoyed…

I’ve just picked up on a fantastic post from one of my favourite bloggers, Lee LeFever from the Common Craft Show which is a must-read for all of us immersed in the Web 2.0 evolution.

I’ve often criticised advertising agencies of losing site of the bigger picture as a result of striving for bigger, flashier ads, edgier copy and design and of course, elusive awards. But Lee’s post has pointed my accusatory finger right back at me – do I have blinkers 2.0? Am I so worried about my traffic, Twitter replies and blog rankings that I’ve forgotten that the vast majority of my clients and their customers don’t know about, or don’t care about anything 2.0-ish.