Since publishing my first two posts on the Social Networking World Forum, I have been impressed with just how on the ball these social media folks are when it comes to their web presence. I’ve heard from Alex Halliday of SocialGO and Ivan Croxford of BT Tradespace here on the blog and Jackson Bond of Xing via Twitter.
I will be condensing Monday’s afternoon session into one last post.
The session after lunch was most enjoyable for me. It focused on building a brand around Social Media and we heard from Coka-Cola, Cow, British Airways and Cadbury among others.
The session from Michael Donnelly, Coka-Cola’s Global Director of Interactive Marketing, was easily the most interesting of the day. Coka-Cola seem to be as ubiquitous online as they are off it, the presence of their virtual vending machines in ‘SecondLife’ and their Facebook apps (that I hadn’t even realised were anything to do with Coka-Cola).
As a founding member of the corporate blog council, Coke obviously knows the value of sharing best practice when it comes to Social Media. Michael shared with us some detailed case studies of their successes, from having the second most popular Facebook Page (only behind Barak Obama), to their blog, Coka-Cola Conversations.
They might be a giant brand, but Coke really ‘get’ the way the social web works. They are playing in every space, being where their customers already are and engaging in the conversation, not just being some big corporate running advertising.
I drank two cokes on Monday.
Next we were asked to question orthodox methods of advertising by Cow, the PR people behind the world’s most expensive burger. I think this little video describes their approach better than any words I can write here:
This is Cow from Cowshed on Vimeo.
I think Cow made two very important points. Firstly, Social Media ticks a lot of marketing boxes; it’s measurable, cost effective and strategic. The cost effective angle is very apparent. £100k will buy you 2 slots on ITV Drama (you then have to add on the cost of producing the advertisement). On the other hand, £100k will buy you a GOLD standard Social Media Strategy, all in. It’s a no-brainer really, don’t you think? Especially considering the fact that later in the day we were all asked if we had watched TV with lap tops on our laps in the last month and 80-90% of the audience raised their hands.
Secondly, if you want to be there, engaging with your customers online, don’t spend too long thinking about it, or someone else will have moved in and usurped your brand presence, and it doesn’t always work out well. Just look for South West Trains on twitter to see what I mean.
If you need further convincing about the power of social media for advertising, Cow tells us that the UK and Canada are the two territories spending most time online. In the UK, the average housewife spends 47% of her time connected to the internet.
British Airways then came along with their site MetroTwin and showed us that we didn’t need to be selling anything to be engaging our customers in a meaningful way. British Airways most staple rout is London to New York. MetroTwin allows its users to discuss these two cities. What a creative, yet simple angle that captures an audience that is your biggest potential customer base. And as British Airways run the site, they get all the good advertising and its users get all the best deals.
Next we had another panel discussion, this time on integrating social media into a traditional marketing strategy.
After Dirk Singer from Cow had asked us all “When the last time you visited a company’s website, just for fun?” it made a lot of sense when the panel told us not to build a website for an advertising campaign. Instead,
make an outpost for it on a site where your customers already hang out. In one advertising campaign, Unilever highlighted a bebo URL, not their website.
I would also like to mention the excellent presentation In the second afternoon session from Danny Meadows-Klue of Digital Training Academy.
Danny’s presentation was broken down into 10 digestible tips when it comes to promoting a brand using Social Media.
- Stay – Just look at the BBC News twitter feed. It might be just a regurgitation of BBC articles from their RSS feed but it has 12,659 followers and 41,828 updates (at the time of writing this). It’s got to be there for the long haul. Once you set up a presence somewhere on the social web, you can’t simply walk away.
- Think Webspace, not Website – build outposts for your brand across the web, getting it more exposure. Take a look at Sure’s “What makes you sweat?” campaign on bebo.
- Make it Easy – It only takes one click to become a friend on Facebook. Much easier than signing up for a newsletter or other subscription service.
- Initiate – Start a conversation and then let the community run with it.
- Release – Make content available
- Share – Like TV commercials, once they are made, it makes sense to let as many people see them as possible. They are short and make ideal YouTube content, easily shared between friends. Just like when I wrote a post about Compare The Meerkat.com
- Tools & Content, Not Marketing – People have to want to consume what you are putting out there, it can’t all be perfectly written copy from your marketing department.
- Encourage – Make yourself a network of advocates.
- Amplify – Use the social web to take your offline advertising further. Like Marmite have done on Facebook.
- Honesty – Be yourself and be transparent. Look at Trip Advisor; Hotels have nowhere to hide from these reviews. It’s not really possible to portray yourself as something you are not online anymore.
That just about rounds up the Social Networking World Forum from me. Unfortunately I could not spare the time out of the office for the second day of Social Networking World Forum. If you would like to find out more about what happened, Josh Chandler has a selection of video interviews conducted at the event on his blog.
Also See:
Social Networking World Forum Part 1: Social Media Today
Social Networking World Forum Part 2: Social Media as Part of Your Marketing Mix
