blog
Here you will find the genius, insightful, sometimes random musings of the Cerebra crew. Everyone who works here blogs so the topics are often varied but they’re always worth reading. We also take requests so send in your topics or share your thoughts in the comments.
SXSW: How Brands Survive In China
Submitted by Keenan Harduth on Tue, 2013-03-12 12:02
After 6 years of research into why businesses succeed or fail in China, Emily Chong, the AVP of Design and Marketing for Frog innovation specialists, tackles the subject of survival strategies for brands in China. The parallels and differences in marketing to South Africans were startling.
Here are some of the insights for anyone thinking of taking their products or services East, or for anyone venturing into new territories.
Stop thinking these are nascent markets
SXSW: Lessons from the Shanzhai – how we can innovate better
Submitted by John Beale on Mon, 2013-03-11 14:27
Lyn Jeffery from the Institute Of The Future has drawn fascinating correlations between the counterfeit goods industry in China and how their approach can help western businesses innovate faster. Their most lucrative market at the moment is technology, where the counterfeit mobile phone market is said to be worth $15billion, and the Shanzhai produce all of these handsets.
The Shanzhai (A collective network of counterfeit goods manufacturers in China) get products to market faster, in bigger volume and cheaper than anyone else, but how do they do it?
The Shanzhai work in highly effective agile networks, and there are five rules they apply to innovation:
- Never build anything from scratch
SXSW: Social Media and TV
Submitted by John Beale on Mon, 2013-03-11 13:57
A big discussion point at SXSW is the learning and innovation around social and television. The US pretty much leads the entertainment business and their social media integration into their television series, reality, sports and news has been quick to market. Stepping back to look at trends and what has worked shared her insight, as well learning’s from the social team at WWE.
The most tweeted about categories are still Reality TV, Sports, Series and One time special events. Interesting insights:
- Reality TV & One Time Events – The selection of hosts and the conversations around them show there to be more conversation on social media than the actual contestants. This could be a strategy from the producers
Google Tips To Yield Better Results
Submitted by Claire Volker on Wed, 2013-03-06 10:00
We’ve often heard that if it can’t be found on the first page of Google, then it doesn’t exist. Believe it or not, it does. I have identified several ways to optimise your searches on Google – through Boolean Operators, Phrase Searching and Google Search Tools.
If you’re searching for something specific the following tips will yield better results:
1. “Word word word”: This search will yield pages containing the exact search phrase you have placed in inverted commas. For example, if I had typed “Panda bear on a tree” into the search bar, only items with that exact wording would have shown up.
2. ‘-word’: The hyphen lets Google know you want this word excluded. I wanted to search for pandas, but I didn’t want to search red pandas, so I added the ‘-‘ before the word ‘red’.
Death Of The Mobile TweetDeck
Submitted by Zahira Kharsany on Tue, 2013-03-05 17:21
If you use TweetDeck via your mobile device or through an app, take note: Twitter announced recently that they will no longer be developing and updating their TweetDeck mobile and computer apps using the API version 1.0 . In other words, use the web-based version or the latest and PC version or nothing at all.
Social Media Cheat sheet
Submitted by Cerebra on Tue, 2013-02-19 17:42
It's sometimes tricky to keep up with the sizing conventions on the different social networks. How big is a profile pic vs an avatar? How much of my content will actually be seen? How should I design a Twitter background etc etc.
Never fear! In the interests of reducing stress levels and making all community managers smile, the Cerebra team have produced a social media cheat sheet for Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
It has all the pic, avatar and background sizes as well as associated text limitations. Print it, stick it on your wall and smile :)
You're welcome.
Download the full pdf here
The Account Manager becomes a Conductor
Submitted by Heike Meyburgh on Tue, 2013-02-12 13:45
In a previous post I shared my revelation on how an agency is similar to an orchestra. This is still very relevant, but I felt the need to dissect and delve into the role of an account manager more.
Account Managers. Client Services. Slave Drivers. These are all terms associated with those that sit in meetings for hours on end, write briefs, shout if deadlines aren’t met, and slay emails amongst various other tasks that they do. But seriously though, what do account managers actually do?
The time is here: Timelogging
Submitted by Kellen Rodney on Tue, 2013-02-12 10:25
Towards the end of last year I wrote a post on Timesheets in a Digital Agency. We were tossing around ideas of time logging on our accounts and after several trials were set up, training workshops conducted plus some testing and feedback sessions (cue tears, frustrations and also joy) we finally partnered with a company who we felt suited our agency culture and workflow the best.
Enter Magnetic.
What we're learning
From Facebook, To Beyond
Submitted by Kate Kearney on Mon, 2013-02-04 11:12
Last week, Twitter wished me a happy 4th birthday. 4! That’s like 100 in social media year’s right? It was this 140-character message that made me realise that in social media years, I am getting old. If I’m already four in Twitter years, then surely my Facebook profile must be reaching its retirement age?
As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But being a typical generation Y gal, I thrive on all things new, fresh and exciting and therefore decided it was time to scope out a batch of new social media platforms to play around on. I’m not saying goodbye to the original Big 5 (according to socialbaker.com Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Linkedin, Pinterest are the most popular social networking sites) I’m just suggesting we see what else is out there.
