The campaign, which begins in October, will include targeted interactive display ads on women’s portals Bounty, Made for Mums, Mumsnet, Netmums and Parentdish. The ads will feature product videos, blogs and competitions, replicating mini content hubs that integrate with social networks.

The move marks the first step in Lego’s strategy to boost mothers’ engagement with the Duplo brand via digital and social networking.

Claire Dorrington, Lego Duplo brand manager, said, “This campaign almost represents a relaunch for the Duplo brand and shows how much focus we’re putting on ramping up our marketing, including digital.”

She said mothers portals are one of the best places for the Lego brand to be, given “it’s where mums meet to form and share opinions, which means it’s a rich channel for us”.

A new study from Pew Internet found that between April 2009 and May 2010, social networking site usage grew 88% (from 25% to 47%) among Internet users aged 55-64.

The 65 and older group’s social networking presence grew 100% in the same time frame (from 13% to 26%).

Young people still dominate social networks like Facebook, but their usage only grew 13% during the year covered by Pew’s report. Although it certainly seems as though older adults are catching up at an incredibly quick pace, it remains to be seen whether they will outstrip youth usage or hit a ceiling at or below the usage levels reported by young adults and teens.

The pet-food brand said it did not use on-pack donation invites or TV ads to promote its annual Pedigree Adoption Drive campaign this year because while traditional channels deliver reach, they don’t encourage engagement or direct action.

Instead, Pedigree chose to use social media to encourage interaction with content and to invite people to carry out tasks in return for which the company allocated money to its charity. Pedigree said it had taken a big risk in moving from traditional channels to social media, but the good results meant social media would now be a central part to its marketing activity.

The campaign message was spread using YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. To encourage people to participate, Pedigree unlocked videos for every 25,000 views and pledged to donate £25,000 for every 25,000 views of the YouTube channel. In one month, the campaign generated 100,000 video views and 27,192 ‘likes’ on Facebook.

The campaign centres on four videos, posted once a week, which will show a set of mums, dads and grandparents being challenged to create a recipe which is then judged by a panel of nine-year-olds. The current video shows a “snack off” between mums to see who could make the tastiest picnic food.

The recipes for the ultimate burger or the best packed-lunch will be posted for others to copy, with the supermarket hoping parents will think more creatively about the food they give their children.

It’s engaging, informative and fun. Good work!

1. How to add ‘a dislike’ option to your status update

‘Like’ buttons are all over Facebook. But what if you’re having a grumpy day and don’t feel like ‘like-ing’ everything all the time? Easy, use the Status Magic Facebook app to add a dislike button to any status updates posted via the app. However, if you’re feeling really grumpy, you can also add a custom option.

2. How to hide status updates from certain people

Bit naughty this one, and while we’re not condoning its use for sneaking out on a school night or pulling a sickie at work, it’s a nifty little trick to use when, say, organising a surprise party.

Using Facebook’s general privacy settings (find these by hitting “account” on the top right of a Facebook page) you can select whether everyone, just friends or friends of friends can see your status updates. However, there is a way to narrow those options down even further.

To take advantage of these options, click the padlock icon just below your “what’s on your mind” box on your wall and a drop down menu should appear. Selecting “customize” will bring up more options such as “make this visible to” and “hide from” with the option to make your selection a default.

3. How to tag people in your status updates

To mention someone in a status update just type “@” in the status bar and start typing their name as it appears on Facebook. An auto-generated list will then come up with friends whose name starts with the letters you’ve typed. The feature also works with pages, brands, events and companies.

Hit the name you want, complete the update, click share and the name will become a hyperlink (you won’t see the @ symbol) and will appear in blue text.

4. How to share Flickr photos to Facebook

Found something really cool on Flicker? You can share it on Facebook using this unofficial bookmarklet Flickr2Facebook which allows you upload photos to Facebook from Flickr.

5. How to download Facebook photo albums

Most of our best photos are on Facebook, shared by friends, friends of friends and those random people you met while traveling Eastern Europe. FacePAD: Facebook Photo Album Downloader allows you to download your friends’ facebook albums, Events albums, and Group Albums, en masse, with the click of a button.

Enjoy!

Graphic Alliance – specialists in eCommerce for luxury goods and fashion brands – seeks a bright allrounder with a passion for the internet to help us extend and optimise our clients’ social media strategies.

This combined role involves a mix of editorial, social media, SEO and PR, and is primarily intended to help our clients’ marketing teams to improve the merchandising of its products in the digital space. This is a great opportunity to work with A-list clients like The Conran Shop, Vivienne Westwood, Silver Cross and Temperley London. Perks include a competitive salary, offices in Covent Garden, health insurance, monthly nights out, the legendary summer party, cookies of the edible variety, beers on a Thursday……

Day-to-day tasks

• Blogger & journalist communication
• Influencer engagement
• Social media management
• Reputation monitoring and management
• On and offsite community engagement
• Editorial / production tasks
• Press release writing and distribution
• Website content and copywriting
• Strategic SEO initiatives
• Measurement and analysis of results

Candidate requirements

• Excellent writing skills
• Attention to detail
• Passion for the internet
• Understanding and experience of SEO, PR and social media networks
• Excellent communication skills
• Ability to work autonomously
• Commercially astute
• Able to work in Central London
• Sense of humour
• Experience in online PR, SEO or social media role
• Digital marketing expertise
• Solid grasp of Google Analytics
• Onsite optimisation experience / knowledge
• Production skills (Photoshop, Word, Excel, multimedia etc)
• Experience of blogging
• Copy editing / proof reading skills
• Entrepreneurial flair
• Statistical analysis skills

Brownie points

• Relevant degree or higher
• Retail / merchandising experience
• More than three years experience in the internet industry
• Graphic Alliance facebook fan / twitter follower

Salary: £25-£35k depending on experience
Contract type: Permanent
Country: United Kingdom
Location Details: London WC2
Start Date: August 2010
Application Deadline: 8th August 2010

Please email CVs to Alison Young – alison@graphicalliance.co.uk

PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE TO THE AMOUNT OF APPLICATIONS RECEIVED IT IS NOT ALWAYS POSSIBLE TO REPLY.

Ford has been using the Ford Explorer Facebook Page to drum up excitement in anticipation of the launch day event. The automaker surpassed its goal of 30,000 fans prior to the reveal, which means that the company will be giving away an Explorer to one random fan!

However, just bear in mind that while Ford have done a great job, launching on Facebook only will not necessarily work for all brands – it really depends on your product or service. Nevertheless, do take note of Ford’s marketing activities and try taking a gamble – it could pay off if executed correctly.

Facebook is launching an online campaign to celebrate reaching 500m global users.

Facebook Stories will be a visual representation of members’ stories about how the social network has impacted their lives. The site will sit within Facebook, with users able to filter stories by date or theme, such as ‘coping with grief’, ‘finding love’ and ‘natural disasters’.

Randi Zuckerberg, marketing director at Facebook, said:

“As we anticipate our 500m milestone, we wanted to find a different way to announce and celebrate it. In the past it has been all about the numbers and milestones, and we realised we had never taken the opportunity to celebrate users.”

Members can already submit stories in the User Stories part of the site.

Now, six months later, almost half (47%) of 18-24-year-olds use real-time search results. However, just 8% of these users find them useful (according to research by Tamar).

But what about other types of search results?

Interestingly, by looking into the search habits of 2,210 people, Tamar’s report also showed that just 4% of people would choose paid search results over natural search results, down by 1% on 2009 and down 6% on 2007.

The research found that people over 55 were the least likely to trust paid search as a trusted source with just 3% choosing it over natural search results.

Younger people are increasing their use of mobile to search as 14% of both 18-24-year olds and 25-34-year-olds use mobile search every day.

Neil Jackson, search strategy director at Tamar, said, “Consumers have decided that natural search is the route they trust more and this defines the strategic starting point for all brands, which need to focus on being highly visible ‘naturally’ through campaigns that reach effectively across a wide range of media and devices, especially mobile – a huge growth area for the search engines.”

If you’ve been keeping on top of all things digital, you may have come across something called Foursquare.

Well, if you’re wondering what Foursquare is, what it does and how to use it, then look no further, because our handy GA guide is here to explain (in plain and simple English!).

A bit of history

Foursquare is a location based social networking game co-founded by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai. It was launched in 2009 at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas.

Prior to the launch, both founders were heavily involved in geolocation based games and apps. In fact, Crowley even sold a Foursquare predecessor called ‘Dodgeball’ to Google for an undisclosed sum in 2006. Dodgeball sent text messages to friends when you checked into specific places and was described as “a networking service that helps co-ordinate location based social interactions between mobile users”. However, in 2007, Crowley quit Google and met Naveen shortly after.

What does it do?

Foursquare allows you to share your location with friends. So, when you walk into a bar, cafe, restaurant or shop, you “check-in” (Foursquare’s term) on your mobile device, and your friends will see where you are on a Foursquare map. It’s also a game too as you earn points and “badges” for checking-in frequently, or at a certain time. If you raise enough points you become “mayor” of a certain area.

How many people use it?

Foursquare has surpassed 500,000 registered users, and had its biggest day ever on March 11th, with more than 275,000 “check-ins.”

What do users get out of Foursquare?

Users can connect with friends, earn badges, and various perks from the places where they check in. Foursquare also gives you access to your check-in history, which gives you a snapshot of where you go, who you meet there, and what you’re spending money on.

How does it relate to other businesses?

Foursquare is being taken very seriously by big name brands. Starbucks is the latest and most prominent company to sign a deal with Foursquare — you can earn a “Barista badge” by checking in five times at the coffee retailer.  Starbucks is testing Foursquare as part of its customer-loyalty program, and other companies are also using it to reward frequent visitors. Foursquare is rolling out a free analytics program that will give participating businesses detailed information on who is checking-in to their locations, and give them the ability to communicate with the visitors.

Foursquare says it now has 1.4 million venues logged in its system, with 1, 200 businesses offering special deals to people who check-in via Foursquare.

Is anyone else doing something similar?

Yes. Geo-location based games are massive right now. Gowalla is foursquare biggest competitor and Yelp, Twitter and Facebook are also vying for a piece of the “checking in” market.