Blog : social media

What’s the deal with clubhouse?
Andrew Jennings

What’s the deal with clubhouse?

There’s a new app in town and its creeping up the app charts as it blooms in popularity.

Could it be the antidote to lockdown loneliness and the desire to connect after a year of networking drought amongst the business community?

Clubhouse requires a nomination or referral from an existing member via their in-app invite list, or you can sit on a waiting list to get vetted by their team to bag a username, so get buttering up your friends who are on the app, they might just give you one of their limited golden tickets.

This Soho House style, member-get-member growth hack and exclusivity-tinged approach to community really drives desire amongst friends and colleagues to learn more and want to share the app once you have the keys to the door. It might be that there isn’t much going on in my personal life at the moment – I get excited about the weekly shop these days – but I was excited when I received the notification to know I was invited to join by a member of the community.

The combination of App-FOMO and kudos of being able to extend the golden tickets to your network is a power-move to grow a relevant and engaged base for the app.  There’s also an element of community moderation in this approach as the person who nominated you stays on your profile, a social media safety net to ensure members don’t misbehave on the platform by policing behaviour through those that know and endorse them.

Also, sorry Android users, its only available on iPhone at the moment.

 

So
what is Clubhouse?

They categorise themselves as a new type of social network using voice rather than the usual image and video supported by text that we have become accustomed to thumbing at all available moments of the day including second screening in the evening.

I described it as a podcast mixed with a live conference panel mixed with a WhatsApp voice note group of people you don’t know.

Members are able to host their own room with the topic of their choice with other members, and by other members I mean anyone on the platform to drop in. Rooms can be made private and by invitation only if you want to keep things limited.

Attendees listen in to the rooms speakers, hosted by moderators and raise their hands to join the stage to speak from a holding-pen on the apps screen, aka the audience.

The chat is managed by this host of the sessions, with attendees having the opportunity to chip with their point of view.

Those who aren’t that actively engaged, or shy, have the opportunity to listen on topics in rooms.

On setting up your profile you are asked to select from a long, and by long I mean long, list of interests. Hand over your data, they’ll be able to segment you later by your connections and listening habits.

There’s a calendar of pre-scheduled rooms based on this list and who you are or aren’t connected to. It very easily links with your calendars so you can be reminded when to join or schedule attendance into your day.

The schedule of room topics is varied, but there’s a lot of click-bait in the app at the moment around making millions and entrepreneurial self-optimisation. I attended a session about desk snacks on the platform which went from one recommendation for dried mango (organic, naturally), to experiments with nootropics after a stint on prescription drug Adderall, not recommended for coherent emails.

I have however joined sessions that are both interesting and valuable, talking about trending news topics for the day amongst social, digital and communications professionals. Social media tips from a group of social media managers with different backgrounds and perspectives with quick fire analysis of SME social.

Clubhouse is all about self-promotion at the moment, with people sharing their own expertise and hot takes on ‘of the moment’ topics.

Clubhouse is set up for executive profile and personal brand building for those looking to extend their reach or widen their knowledge by listening in. As with all social networking apps and networks the community will drive the content and there may be some interesting creative applications to the app on the horizon. I’m imagining a major integration with LinkedIn or twitter and their recent foray into audio tweets.

Clubhouse is tapping into something that we are all (is it just me?) longing for at the moment; watercooler chat about new news and serendipitous connections that we are all so desperately craving in a pandemic world. The familiar echo chamber of the social giants is out of the window here with the happen stance nature of people coming into rooms to share.

Can’t wait to see how the app develops in the coming months.

Social Media News: January 2021
Johannes Haider

Social Media News: January 2021

A new year means new news, so let’s kick off by looking at our favourite moments from the world of social from January.

 

Soon May The Wellerman come! 

Image: Polygon

In January the Sea Shanty took TikTok by storm! Started by Scot Nathan Evans, with his cheeky rendition of the Scotsman, TikTok users began to duet and remix the aged sea shanty and just like the crew of a ship would join each other in song to keep up their spirits on a long, isolated journey.

Don’t be surprised if you see one of the Stripes on your For You Page giving their best rendition. We simply can’t get enough of Sea Shanty Tok! 

 

Platform Updates of The Month! 

Instagram kicked off 2021 with a fresh start overhauling the layout for Stories on its desktop version 

We all got virtual runway ready with the new expanded Snapchat Bitmoji wardrobe. The platform was also trailing a new feature where more information on events can be activated through a sticker.

TikTok announced that all accounts of under 18 year old users will be private in an effort to protect their large community of teenagers on the platform.

 

A Fashion Icon is born! 

Image: @vulture

Cozy, casual and definitely iconic. Bernie Sanders made a fashion statement at the US Presidential Inauguration and we can’t get enough of the memes ever since. We might have also ordered our very own mittens…

 

Follow @StripeCom on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn to keep up to date with what’s happening in the world of Stripe. To stay on top of the latest news from the world of social subscribe to our weekly newsletter here: https://confirmsubscription.com/h/i/70D14C4CE95D6F6F

Social Media News: December 2020
Johannes Haider

Social Media News: December 2020

Welcome back everyone and a Happy New Year from the Stripes! 

While we are all excited to leave the last year behind us, we can’t resist a look back at our favourite social moments from December 2020.

 

THANK YOU NHS! 

Image: Campaign

We can all agree that there was a certain group of people, we were all really thankful for in 2020 and that was everyone working for our NHS. 

It seems we were not the only ones who wanted to share this sentiment as aside from offering free rides and discounts to NHS staff members Uber UK launched its #GratefulUK campaign on Instagram and Twitter to spread the love for the NHS and all they have done for us this year. Truly one of our favourite moments in the last year.

 

Platform Updates of The Month! 

December has been an exciting month for updates to our favourite platforms. Instagram added new creative tools to Reels and Stories, while Twitter returned retweets to the way they used to be. Facebook announced they will launch Facebook News this month and we can’t wait for the new feature.

No platform changed the world of social media in 2020 like TikTok. From the best dances to political activism you can read about it here.

 

All Hail Our Queens! 

Image: @bbcthree

Twitter was shook  when the cast of the second series of Drag Race UK was announced and to be fair so were we! Can we stan them all?  (Asking for a friend)

 

Follow @StripeCom on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn to keep up to date with what’s happening in the world of Stripe. To stay on top of the latest news from the world of social subscribe to our weekly newsletter here: https://confirmsubscription.com/h/i/70D14C4CE95D6F6F

 

Influencer culture in Lockdown: where do we go from here?
Kirsty Grierson

Influencer culture in Lockdown: where do we go from here?

A lot has been said about COVID-19 marking the end of influencer culture as we know it. Consumers are tired of seeing social stars brag about their lavish lifestyles or preaching from their #gifted million pound home, promoting products that we ALL know they don’t and would never use – Khloe Kardashian and Febreeze, what?!

I get it and we have felt the same. Particularly as we navigate what is going to be an incredibly difficult few months for everyone.

However, for all the covidiot influencers who have got it seriously wrong, a lot have also risen to the occasion, helping to spread important messages to otherwise hard to reach, younger audiences.

As these uncertain times continue (sorry!) and conflicting messages and cluttered news just gets worse, audiences are desperately looking for people who they can connect with, trust and rely on – the micro influencer. Those who are genuinely experiencing the same things their audience are and who can share real content their followers can relate to.

In Finland, social influencers have actually been defined as ‘critical operators’ throughout the pandemic. They have used their platform to communicate Government guidelines and speak to a traditionally hard to reach audience. And what better way to reach your audience than working with the people you are trying to reach?

Influencers are always a key part of our campaigns and although the big names out there will always be big, it’s the micro influencers who are coming out on top for our clients at the moment.

Throughout lockdown, we’ve run influencer campaigns for the Scottish Government, Young Scot and Baxters to name a few – all of which have been used to spread a message quickly and efficiently, something a traditional media campaign just couldn’t do.

But why micro influencers?  They are the most flexible and can create content quickly that is authentic and believable. They are close to their audience and know what they respond well to. With fewer followers, they are much more likely to engage and respond to comments – they genuinely care and want to help their followers, which reflects well on the brands we work with. Finally, they are real. Without management teams, ulterior motives or big production budgets, their content is incredibly personal and personable and resonates with their audience better.

Post-pandemic, I think we can expect to see all influencers take a step back and take stock of the content they’re sharing. The high profile, aspirational type content still has its place but moving forward, honesty and authenticity is going to be key.

Merlin Entertainments appoints Stripe Communications London as retained PR and social media agency for all London attractions
Stripe Communications

Merlin Entertainments appoints Stripe Communications London as retained PR and social media agency for all London attractions

We’re very proud to announce the expansion of our partnership with Merlin Entertainments as the retained PR and Social Media consultancy for the London portfolio of attractions including; Madame Tussauds London, The Coca-Cola London Eye, SEA LIFE London, The London Dungeon and Shrek’s Adventure! London.

We were first appointed as retained PR consultancy for Madame Tussauds in 2016, and our work with Merlin Entertainments now includes the entire London portfolio of attractions, providing domestic and international press office management, brand campaigns, news hijacking and all issues and crisis management for the London attractions. Our social media remit includes development and implementation of social media strategy for all attractions plus ongoing community management and influencer strategy and engagement.

Some of our recent work with Merlin Entertainments has included; when Madame Tussauds London displayed Donald Trump outside the US Embassy when the US President declared on Twitter that he would not be visiting the UK to open the new London embassy building in Vauxhall. Also, recently in December when the London Eye played host to the nation’s favourite nanny to coincide with the European premier of Mary Poppins Returns.

Our London Managing Director, Chris Stevenson, said, “It is a privilege to work with some of the UK’s most iconic attractions and a team with boundless ambition to produce bold and innovative work. It is a tremendous collaboration between the Stripe team and Merlin Entertainments London marketing team and we are confident 2019 will be another huge success working closely together.”

Gemma Cracknell, Marketing Director, Merlin Entertainments said, “Stripe have been a valuable agency partner to us since their original appointment and we are delighted to have expanded the scope of their role to include all of the London attractions. They have already delivered some outstanding results for us across our attractions and we look forward to continued success with Stripe as a key agency partner.”

Planning, managing and celebrating #TheMoment with Glasgow 2018
Emily Puddephatt

Planning, managing and celebrating #TheMoment with Glasgow 2018

After 11 days of incredible sporting action, the inaugural multi-sport European Championships drew to a close on Sunday evening. Titles were won and lost, world records smashed, and we were right in the thick of it.

Stripe’s work on Glasgow 2018 started way back in February last year. Our first task after being appointed as the Championships’ digital agency was to set out a unique strategy to reach sports fans, families and the local community in the run up to the Championships, to generate awareness and help people understand what this new event was all about. With a focus on organic and paid social we set this strategy in motion, engaging these audiences and encouraging them to help us bring #themoment to life, starting with the first of our key milestones: 500 days to go.

In the 500 days that followed we delivered some amazing work: created thousands of assets; planned and published posts across Glasgow 2018 profiles; produced films for online and TV; launched the official mascot Bonnie the Seal; recruited volunteers; live streamed with athletes and ambassadors; ran over 200 hundred social ad campaigns; measured and reported on all digital activity; and a whole lot more besides.

With Glasgow 2018 marking the first time that the six featured sports have come together to hold their European Championships, we needed to constantly analyse, evaluate and evolve our approach. Established multi-sport events like the Olympics or Commonwealth Games and recent single sport events here in the UK like London 2017 offered insight into what can work to engage sports fans and non-fans alike, but a new format presented new challenges.

We knew that the awareness and understanding piece of our work was going to be a much bigger challenge than that faced by other events and we weighted our strategic focus accordingly. This meant conducting a detailed research piece at the outset, really digging in to the conversation about other events, Glasgow as a host city, and the individual sports. We profiled our domestic and international audiences, segmenting our tactics for each based on all our findings to help us tailor both organic and paid social activity.

We also developed a bespoke measurement framework specifically for Glasgow 2018 that allowed us to evaluate activity in terms of not only the awareness and engagement benefits, but also hard metrics such as sales for ticketing campaigns. By combining in-built social platform insights, website analytics including UTM tracking, social listening tools, custom attribution modelling and enhanced ad reporting thanks to employment of the Facebook pixel, we’ve been able to accurately measure everything we’ve done and consistently deliver results.

Throughout the journey to the Championships, our priority was balancing of great creative with great insight: delivering brilliant ideas and content that really resonates whilst ensuring we were able to measure the value of what we do and provide genuinely useful insight that helped the combined Glasgow 2018 and Stripe team push things forward. As the Championships themselves kicked off two weeks ago, our day to day activity changed but not the way we worked.

On the 1st August we changed gear and moved to near round-the-clock measurement and monitoring of conversation surrounding the Championships, seven days a week. For twelve days we tracked key conversations, influencers, opportunities and issues. We watched Adam Peaty break another world record and set Twitter alight, we shared the home crowd’s disappointment when Ross Murdoch just missed out on a medal by the narrowest of margins, and we celebrated when Laura Kenny’s comeback led to a well-earned gold (and a mention from Elton John).

The Stripe team was responsible for gathering data and insight on all online discussion in real time and delivering reports at regular intervals each day, as well as spotting and working up reactive content and creative opportunities to maximise impact during the Championships.

Now that the event is over, all that’s left is to reflect on an amazing 18 months of preparation and hard work that resulted in one heck of a payoff. We’re still pulling together our wrap up report of everything that’s happened since that first milestone campaign, but we already know for sure it’s going to point to a hugely successful event and we’re so proud we got to be a part of it.

Who’s leading the way this International Women’s Day?
Stripe Communications

Who’s leading the way this International Women’s Day?

We are currently at the epicentre of a new feminist movement spearheaded by the #MeToo campaign, and as a result International Women’s Day (IWD) is arguably more significant than ever before.

Given the swell of conversation calling for gender equality, IWD presents the perfect  opportunity for brands to showcase their commitment to the solution by pushing for real societal and business change.

However, not everyone has hit the mark. Here’s Stripe’s breakdown of this year’s best and worst IWD campaigns and whether they really #PressforProgress…

Mattel, Inspirational Barbies

Here’s a great example of a brand identifying an issue and taking positive steps to address it, rather than just paying it lip-service.

When Mattel, maker of Barbie, found 86% of mothers around the globe are worried about the kind of role models their daughters are exposed to, they responded by marking IWD with the release of a new range of dolls celebrating inspirational, historical women. They also released a further 14 dolls in their ‘Shero’ range, including a doll version of UK boxer Nicola Adams.

While there are currently only three dolls in the ‘Inspiring Women’ range: Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo and Katherine Johnson, Mattel assures us there will be more coming.

For those of us who can think back to playing with anatomically impossibly shaped dolls and only really being influenced by how it looked, it’s nice to think this generation will be encouraged to think ‘Yes, I can be a successful boxer, mathematician, director, artist’
 the list goes on.

Well played, Mattel.

Luxor Crystal, Whisky glass ‘for women’

The Austrian firm, Luxor Crystal, known for making luxury glassware embellished with Swarovski crystals, has designed the Highlander Whisky Glass featuring ‘a new shape especially for women’.

Apparently our hand shapes are so delicate we require special glassware. Please.

The glass design itself is lovely, but the marketing campaign is misguided. Women do not need gender-specific drinking products – this condescension does not endear us to your brand. All Luxor Crystal has done is reinforce the gender stereotype that whisky is a man’s drink. Can’t women just enjoy a dram in whatever glass they choose?

Uber, #DrivenWomen

Uber’s #DrivenWomen campaign film introduces audiences to the brand’s female drivers, in a bid to challenge the oldest gender stereotype out there. The video celebrates the brand’s female drivers by showcasing their voices on how driving makes them feel and how it positively impacts on their lives – helping to actually drive change on the issue (pardon the pun).

We’re often surprised to be met by female drivers, simply because there’s less of them. And the #DrivenWomen campaign answers many of the questions passengers are afraid to ask. Why do they drive? What do they like about it? Is it becoming more common? Do passengers ever challenge their suitability for the job?

The drivers profess the benefits of being in control of their own schedules, and according to a recent global study 74% of female driver-partners cited flexibility as the key reason they drive for Uber.

The campaign has its finger on the pulse of a real issue – visibility – by showing the women behind the wheel. It’s a win for empowerment and equality, exactly what IWD stands for.

Next and Hello! Magazine, Star Mums

Unveiling an all-white, glamorous panel of celebrity mothers to judge Hello! Magazine’s ‘Star Mums’ competition, sponsored by Next, has succeeded in one thing – royally pissing off their target demographic.

The selected line up chosen to dub the publication’s Star Mum has resulted in national backlash for both brands’ ‘‘narrow view of motherhood”. Unfortunately for both Next and Hello!, they’ve managed to offend the people they were trying to empower with a poorly executed and thought-out representation of mothers in British society.

Albeit a misunderstanding, what was meant to be celebration of diverse mothers doing incredible things has gone down like a lead balloon by losing sight of the competition’s purpose.

When Style transforms into a Story
Rebecca McNaughton

When Style transforms into a Story

Today marks the start of London Fashion Week (LFW) which can only mean two things for the week ahead, stylish consumers will be glued to their phones and fashion brands will be working a lot of overtime.

LFW is the opportunity for journalists, consumers, buyers, celebrities and influencers to catch a glimpse of the next season’s collections six months before they hit the shelves – unless it’s Nicola Formichetti, then you can receive it within an hour from Amazon. But do not fret, if you are without an invite or ticket, this season, fashion brands and influencers alike will keep the FOMO at bay. And if you are within the 150,000 who are attending then well done, you’ve essentially made it.

Thanks to its audience of more than 500 million users, Instagram Stories has evolved to become the top choice for fashion brands to trial instant content. According to Instagram Advertiser statistics, 75% of Instagram users take action after viewing an Instagram sponsored post, and the number of brands using Instagram Stories is expected to rise to 70.7% by the end of 2017.

But how do Instagram Stories actually provide long-term value for a brand with content disappearing after 24 hours?

Fashion brands will benefit from this platform in a number of ways; whether it’s providing a countdown or showcasing their garments in action, it will create an impact. By inviting their followers to witness behind-the-scenes action of models getting fitted or practicing their walk pre show, this will provide an in for fans to what was previously an exclusive experience. This indoctrinates the viewer to become invested in the brand, becoming encouraged to view future posts and establishing longer term brand affinity.

You may have seen organic posts with ‘swipe up’ at the bottom that are reserved for users/brands with 10k+ followers. Most brands will have these verified accounts, enabling them to link out to their websites, landing pages or blog posts from within their stories – helping to provide a ROI for their short-lived stories.

A study from Rakueten Marketing has found that premium fashion marketers will pay up to ÂŁ93,000 per post, showing just how powerful influencers and their stories are to an event like LFW. This year Topshop have invited actress Sophia Brown and Women in Fashion co-founder Lily More to take over their blog and to involve them both in a live streaming via Topshop.com.

For the social media spectators like myself, it’s a long term benefit to the brands to provide access into the behind the scenes of the event and are exposed to every aspect of this season’s collection, developing brand ambassadors and fans and fortunately Instagram Stories provide just that.

Fortunately London Fashion Week lasts a full 7 days, unlike Insta Stories – which can only be a good thing for fanatics like myself! So before you tap through those #LFW posts, take a second to think about the lasting power of Instagram Story.