It’s December and the festive season is upon us. So, I’m pretty sure you’ve already attended at least one Christmas party – and not feeling your best after one too many mulled wines. But don’t worry if you’ve found it especially difficult to juggle work, parties and keeping up with the latest B2B news this week because we’ve made a quick summary of the most popular stories to save you some time scrolling through the web.
Here are the top five stories for this week:
The UK’s most influential brands revealed
Microsoft was revealed as the UK’s most influential brand, according to a recent poll by The Guardian.
The list was determined using the impact of the four pillars of influence: commercial, societal, audience inward and audience outward.
The tech giant was followed in second-place by TripAdvisor and Amazon in third place.
Interestingly, Pinterest was the highest ranked social media brand (in 30th place on the full list), with Facebook in 46th place and Twitter in 122nd.
To find out who made the top 10 most influential brands in the UK click here.
UK publishers experience revenue growth in online video
UK publishers have experienced significant growth in online video: 23.8 per cent in Q3 2015 when compared with the same quarter last year, a new report by Deloitte has shown.
In addition, the research also shows mobile advertising revenue for portable devices continues to experience year-on-year growth of 16.2 per cent, with all growth being attributed to phone display advertising.
Tablet advertising revenue, however, maintained its decline with a 23 per cent decrease in Q3 2015 compared to the same period in 2014.
When asked about sources of future growth, nearly all participants (91 per cent) cited introduction or expansion of products and services as their focus, additional to a continued overall focus on advertising revenue.
South-East Asia has highest social media usage in the world
South-East Asia boasts the highest social network usage in the world, according to an eMarketer forecast.
The report focused on countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Indonesia was ranked highest when it came to social network penetration rate, with 77.4 per cent of internet users visiting a social media site at least once a month in 2015.
The forecast also revealed that Indonesia boasts the largest social network, attracting 72.3 million people per month this year.
Furthermore, eMarketer projects this will climb to 109.8 million (82.2 per cent of internet users) by 2018.
Pressure on budgets B2B agency’s biggest challenge
Pressure on clients’ budgets has been revealed as a major pain point for agencies, according to B2B Marketing’s B2B Agencies Benchmarking Report 2015-16.
It was the most commonly cited hurdle, with 35 per cent of respondents listing it as their single biggest challenge as an agency at present.
Other stumbling blocks included the ‘ability to attract/retain quality staff’ (23 per cent), the ‘role of procurement and purchasing departments’ (11 per cent) and ‘clients’ appreciation of creativity’ (seven per cent).
Surprisingly, the pitching process was the least frequently cited challenge, with only three per cent of respondents stating ‘badly organised or time-wasting pitches’ were a common pain point.
For more information, including definitive league tables and in-depth analysis, access the report here.
LinkedIn reveals ‘most engaged marketers 2015’
This week the world’s biggest professional social network announced the 10 most engaged UK marketers using their platform.
The ‘Most Engaged Marketers List for 2015’, features UK marketers working across a wide range of sectors, from computer manufacturing to energy specialists.
To find out who made the top ten click here.
The list indicates the increasing importance of social media marketing across the board. Marketers are clearly using the social network as employee advocates, as well as promoting their own personal brand
