10 digital marketing highlights

If the world’s major news events are anything to go by, you might feel that 2016 year has been a difficult one and that “highlights” are a little thin on the ground.

But for us here at Empower, we’ve been continuing to work on some of the biggest and best digital marketing campaigns for people trying to change the world for good.

With so much happening throughout the agency in 2016, we asked the Empower team what their digital marketing highlights from 2016 were to pick out the best. We’ve also looked back through the Empower blog to find the most read and most shared articles we’ve published in 2016.

Here are our favourite digital marketing highlights of the year, with plenty of links to help you with your digital marketing into 2017.

Do you fancy being one of our digital marketing highlights of 2017? Get in touch to arrange a call or a coffee and we look forward to working with you next year.

team refugees

1. Team Refugees

One of the most uplifting moments of 2016 was watching the Olympic Refugee Team walk out at the Rio 2016 opening ceremony. It was an honour to be part of Team Refugees social media, working through the UN Refugee Agency, to deliver a campaign that did the Olympic athletes proud.

Empower Digital Marketing Team Photo

2. Empower grows and grows!

Empower made not one but two key hires in 2016, with Amanda and Bethany joining the team. Amanda started the year in San Diego but is now with us in London, while Bethany works out of beautiful Bristol, so we’re all working remote first but have monthly in-person catch ups. This remote working approach has meant we’ve stepped up our internal processes as well, becoming more secure and reliable partners for our clients in the projects. We’re always looking for the best in digital marketing talent, so if you want to work with us in 2017, get in touch and send us your CV or portfolio.

3. Reinvigorating Amnesty’s UK social media activity

Amnesty UK approached Empower to revise their internal strategy during a time of transition for their growing digital team. The Empower team spent several weeks at Amnesty, studying their current process and creating a 360-degree view of how their team approaches digital campaign work. The project culminated in a detailed playbook for their team, which can be used by anyone in their organisation to help plan, produce and execute social media content. Read the case study.

4. Guide to Social Video

The explosion in video on social media has meant that brands of all shapes and sizes have had to create or evolve their video strategy. Rather than see this as yet another thing to add to your already extensive social media marketing list, the rise in social video has created fantastic opportunities to grow and engage with your audiences across social media. That’s why we wrote this social media video guide to help you get the most out of social video, learn how to reuse your existing video content for social and how to increase your video views using subtitles. Download your guide to using video on social media now.

5. “Be a virus, not viral.”

That was our favourite takeaway from the YouTube for Social Good event that took place at Google’s new offices in Kings Cross, London. The event brought together guest speakers from channels that have been successful in using YouTube for social good to discuss storytelling, audience development, social movements and power of video. Check out the write up of the event, which includes plenty of ideas for how you can use YouTube to create social good.

We Mean Business Tweets

6. We Mean Business @ COP22

Providing a positive note at the COP22 UN Climate Change talks in Marrakech, with We Mean Business. Empower helped deliver fighting talk to the newly elected Trump, working with the We Mean Business coalition team to deliver a letter from 360+ US businesses ranging from Kellogg’s to Levis, demanding the US economy continue the low carbon transition.

Twitter users love video

7. Posting longer videos to Twitter

One of our most-read articles of the year shows that we solved an issue that lots of people clearly struggled with in 2016. Twitter video is limited to 30 seconds long, if you upload directly from your mobile or by using twitter.com.But there is a way you can upload much longer videos to Twitter, and it’s completely free to do so. Read the post to find out how to post videos longer than 30 seconds to Twitter.

pokemon go

8. Gotta catch ‘em all!

Pokémon Go, the augmented reality-infused Pokémon app for iPhone and Android phones, was one of the biggest stories of 2016 and saw millions of of eager pokémon trainers taking to the streets to try to catch ‘em all. So we asked ourselves: How can charities and non-profits get involved in this latest gaming phenomenon?

Get started with Snapchat

9. Snapchat – A guide for older people

For those of us who are over 25 and consider ourselves technically savvy, not knowing how to tackle the most basic functions on a hugely popular app can leave you feeling like you’re a dinosaur (No, you’re not alone!). But don’t worry – Empower wrote up a post to help you learn the basics and get started with Snapchat. Read the Snapchat guide and you’ll be snapping away your weekend adventures along with the kids soon enough!

beoplay case study

10. A pleasing project for B&O PLAY

We love Bang & Olufsen’s high-end music products, so when their B&O PLAY brand needed to increase their social media activity to match their customer’s’ expectations as a leading sound and audiovisual brand in the world, Empower were more than happy to help. Find out how a new social media strategy helped grow their Facebook page by over 178%.