marketing

Come along to Chinwag's Careers Day at Digital Shoreditch next week (23rd May), where you'll be able to meet the industry's leading employers including agenices, top brands and exciting start-ups.

If that wasn't reason enough, you'll be able to improve your job-hunt with a brillant programme of advice sessions, with Portfolio Reviews from Vitamin T, CV Surgeries with Chinwag Jobs and Creativity & Ideas Workshops by Hyper Island.

There's limited space, so make sure you book now!

Traditionally if a brand wanted to test a new campaign or product it might turn to in-store promotions, sampling activities and surveys, or it might organise a series of focus groups bringing people face-to-face to talk through their thoughts and opinions and gather valuable insights.

Now, in the social media age, it’s possible to cut out the legwork and project our new ideas online, utilising the immediacy and connectivity of Facebook® to formulate a virtual focus group, probably the world’s biggest and most efficient group imaginable.

Taking place from 21st May to 1st June 2012, the second annual Digital Shoreditch Festival celebrates the world-class expertise within East London’s vibrant digital community.

The festival promises to showcase the most talented companies and brightest individuals within the digital and creative technologies sectors bringing together some of the best local, national and international minds. Speakers will include Andrew Gilbert, Executive Vice President, European Innovation Development at Qualcomm and Simon Acland, venture capitalist and author of the acclaimed Angels, Dragons and Vultures.

The terms “Luxury” and “Exclusivity” are often used, if not interchangeably, then at least with a high degree of overlap. Social networks, on the other hand, are all about openness and sharing. Shouldn’t luxury brands shun social marketing?

The experience of luxury brands like Tiffany & Co and Burberry suggest otherwise: social and mobile marketing have paid enormous dividends for both of those brands, so why the apparent contradiction?

Thank you to all that attended the long awaited Chinwag Insight: Psychology of Online Influence conference yesterday.

The afternoon was jam-packed with brain-busting insight from some of the leading experts from both academic and marketing worlds, bringing together theory and practice to build on the debate from the first event that took place during Social Media Week London in February.

Amongst the sea of information, here's a few of our favourite pointers on tackling online influence:

• 1. Know your target, 2. Communicate persuasively, 3. Sell with integrity.
• Relate to what bonds people and drives them to share: shared history, attitudes, society and culture.
• Identify the 5 types of influencers: idea starters, amplifiers, curators, commentators and viewers
• Provide 'social validation': ratings, reviews and pictures bump up effectiveness by 20%

Thinking Digital are holding their first ever Thinking Digital Startup Competition, chaired by Paul Smith (of the Ignite100 startup accelorator programme) and supported by Northstar Ventures, at this year's event.

To enter, the startup needs to have been created or started operating after 1st Jan 2011 and applications need to be in by Friday 11th May.

There'll be a total of 5 startups pitching for 3 minutes on Tuesday 29th May during Thinking Digital University (TDU). Chosen startups will get a free pass to Thinking Digital 2012 (or 2013 if you already have a 2012 pass).