Pet Peeves and Great British Geeks

In amongst all of the evolutionary and market-making news of the last few weeks, it’s good to know that the traditional light-hearted approach of the press in the summer months continues to this day.

Pet Peeves
One lovely example is the recent coverage in Marketing Magazine about what we all hate most about brands’ social media updates. While it is not the most weighty of stories, it still offers some useful intelligence and insights that can help marketers achieve their goals. Here’s the infographic created from the research:

Social Media Annoyances

Disruptive Communications, a new social media agency, researched the core peeves consumers have about the social media updates they see from brands. Here’s our take on their findings, and how we’re addressing them:

1. Know who you’re talking to: people coming to read the Magnetise blog are predominantly over 30, working professionals and know their digital from their donuts.

We try to match our knowledge levels with theirs, and then look to learn and evolve together.

2. Know what you should say: if you spend half your working week sharing jokes with clients, by all means continue this in social channels. Saying something for the sake of it has never been the Magnetise way though.

We are of course chatty and sociable too, but we never forget that we provide business information and insights to busy, professional people and so focus our efforts and their attention accordingly.

3. Know how you should say it: while txtspk (that’s text speak by the way!) and ‘grammar-lite’ might fly with the Gen Y hipsters, most of us, and most of our readers, remember the days of proper English grammar and will see only too quickly the tiniest typo or error.

We already know the language and tone of the industry we live and breathe and don’t put on a fake voice just because we’re ‘talking’ in a channel that also includes the odd lolcat!

We sometimes feel a little old fashioned in our approach – we weren’t the fastest into social, nor have we changed our DNA to suit the more informal conversational tone – but looking at the above infographic, we’re actually ok with that! We’d love to know how you’re walking the line between corporate and social – and whether your own internal findings stack up against this research.

Great British Geeks
The other story that caught our eye recently was from Newsworks which has launched a fantastically fun quick quiz to show you how you shape up in the new Tech Nation we all live in.

Today’s Tech Nation

Apparently people in the UK fit squarely into 1 of 5 categories comprising Quality Seekers, Social Addicts, Tech Rich, TV Worshippers and Price Pragmatists, based on both technology ownership and lifestyle choices. As the marketing body for national newspapers in the UK, Newsworks conducts lots of research and studies into media consumption to support and inspire advertisers and agencies optimise their use of news brands.

The questions you need to answer are both interesting and based on weighty research carried out by Kantar Media. So far, the Magnetise office seems to be full of Tech Rich and Social Addicts… which is hardly surprising considering that we live and breathe digital every day!

The Magnetise Office!

What do you think about the research? Do you think it includes all the variations and nuances of living in such a digital country? Take part in the quiz on Newsworks website, read more about the research on BrandRepublic and then let us know your thoughts in the comments below.