Do you know who’s secretly working together?

Sometimes the best business partners are the ones you’d never have thought would be a good match for your company.

Shopping centres working with zoos, zoos working with jam makers, you’d be surprised how such different businesses can support each other in surprisingly effective ways.

I’ve been utilising some professional relationships recently to add an interesting new element to a large-scale campaign I’ve been organising for intu Lakeside. I won’t reveal too much but I will say that local locations such as Colchester Zoo and the infamous Sugar Hut in Brentwood have given the campaign a real point of difference to anything we’ve done before. Here’s a sneak preview…

While I was working with Colchester Zoo on my project, I also found out that they’ve formed some other unusual partnerships: local preserves producer Tiptree Jam has been providing the zoo’s new Sun Bears with the honey they love so much; the local fire service has also been donating old fire hoses to be turned into balls and tight ropes for the animals to play with!

So, the next time you’ve got a project that could do with an extra twist, why not have a think about the local businesses near you and whether working together could lead to something a bit special?

Addicted to social media statistics

I have to admit, I’m one of those people who loves statistics, especially ones about social media as they change (and get even more interesting) all the time.

I recently stumbled across a site which is crammed full of them so I’ve selected two of the best for my favourite platforms to share with you on here. Full credit to socialmediaslant.com for the compilation of these gems…

Facebook

– Facebook has the highest conversion rate for all social media e-commerce traffic at 1.85% (Shopify)

– Average organic reach for brand pages is now at 6.2 percent. The number is even lower (2.1 percent) for pages with more than 500,000 followers (Statista)

Instagram

– The top Instagram brands generate an average engagement rate of 5.34 percent per post (Socialbakers)

– The Adidas Football account dominated January 2014, with an engagement rate of 15.3 percent (Socialbakers)

Pinterest

– A pin averages three repins and four clicks (BornToBeSocial.com)

– 57 percent of user activity is food related (BornToBeSocial.com)

Twitter

– Fastest growing demographic: 55-64 years old (Neotericuk)

– Lack of engagement with new followers leads to massive unfollows within three weeks: 15 percent for companies and 40 percent for regular users (SocialBro)

WhatsApp

– 70 percent of users are active every day (We Are Social)

– 600 million photos, 200 million voice messages, and 100 million videos shared daily (We Are Social)

YouTube

– YouTube and Netflix make up half of all web traffic in the U.S. (BuzzFeed)

– 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter every minute (BuzzFeed)

Know somewhere ever better to find stats? Let me know!