The Social Media Revolution Gains Pace

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The Social Media Revolution Gains Pace A review of SoCon2011



Introduction

7 Themes to Help Guide You Last month Gravity Thinking were lucky enough to be part of SoCon2011 which bought some of the best thinkers in the social media space together (Mathew Hawn from Last.fm, Anthony Mayfield from Brilliant and Will McInnees to name a few) to share their views and opinions on the impact that social media will continue to exert over the coming years. The day was packed full of great information, inspiration, comment and discussion so we decided to distill this down into 7 key themes including transmedia, uncovering hidden insights, monetisation and measurement. Read on to get an overview of what’s going on in the social media space. Theme 1 - Social media is not just another channel

Theme 2 - Harness the largest research group in the world

Theme 3 - Resourcing effectively for social media

Theme 4 - The evolution of social media measurement

Theme 5 - The monetization of social media

Theme 6 - What’s the role of the marketing agency?

Theme 7 - The future’s bright, the futures social



Theme 1

Social media is not just another channel A transmedia approach is something that is certainly being talked about a lot however it’s proving more difficult to execute in a traditionally silo’d marketing industry. Simply put social media should not be treated as just another channel. Social Media should permeate everything that we do. As Rich Sibthorpe from Warner Music put it ‘social is part of everything that we do, we think of it as having a seamless digital dialogue with the fans’. Proven by the fact that TV is still powerful medium for Warner Music when used to drive traffic to social spaces. What will be no surprise to anyone is the rise of the smart phone and how this previously ignored device should now be everyone’s primary digital platform (realising a website isn’t optimised for mobile after the event is clearly a huge faux pas). If you’re not convinced, over 30% of Qype’s 20m users access the community on the move (that’s over 6m people) and 85% of Warner Music’s audience follow them on a mobile device. What was also interesting was how social media should play a role in connecting people in the real world. After all we don’t live in a virtual world (well most of us don’t) and so when the virtual world enhances the real world it has the potential to have a more positive impact on the audience as you’ve created a real life experience (they’re generally more valuable and memorable than virtual ones). Brands like Foursquare, Facebook and Qype do this everyday as a core part of their proposition however we’re starting to see examples of this from other brands including The FA’s promotion on Facebook to win tickets to a game at Wembley Stadium. What was extremely clever was that they branded the area and seats at the game. Do you think that everyone at the game suddenly wanted to join the group on Facebook? Probably. So other than thinking about the role of social media in everything that you do also start to think mobile and about connecting to people in the real world.



Theme 2

Harness the largest research group in the world It’s become more important that ever to start with consumer insight and understand the social and digital space before kicking anything off and certainly before selecting your technical and social solutions. As we tell everyone we meet, the digital space really is the largest unbiased research group in the world, you simply need to know how to mine it. Karl Havard at Wunderman was surprisingly aligned to how we like to work with clients. Aggregate conversations in order to make sense of them, harvest all the data points using modeling to make them actionable and use findings as a research and insights tool. What was also interesting was how we need to think differently about consumer behaviours within the social media space. Nick Bennett and Mathew Hawn bought up some interesting insight that we should all probably think more about; Don’t do ‘marketing’ do ‘socialising’ was Nick’s pont of view. When engaging consumers we think about being relevant, interesting and creative. However what about ‘sharing’ and ‘letting the consumer get involved in the campaign’. Nick’s expression ‘leave space for the consumer’ was spot on and his main point was that we need a change in mindset from a traditional marketing approach to a more social approach that leads to having a genuine dialogue with the consumer.

Social media reflecting real life was Matthew Hawn from Last.fm’s thought for the day. His take on your social profile mirroring your real life profile was most interesting. In life we act differently with family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances etc… and we do the same within social spaces or do we? Is Facebook actually creating one ‘homogenous you’ with all these contacts in one place? Is Google + circles the better solution that let’s us express ourselves in different ways to different people? Our point of view is that you have to start with insight and understanding and as part of this process start to challenge the status quo and think differently about engaging with consumers – socialise with them and treat them as individuals.



Theme 3

Resourcing effectively for social media When it comes to social media there’s just not enough time during the working week to get everything done let alone the evenings and at weekends. Businesses clearly need to rethink their strategies and create processes and resource plans so that they can respond as quickly as the consumer does. Now how many resource plans for 2012 actually accommodate these requirements? Not many we bet. That said some companies do now have some specialist social media resources and it never ceases to amaze us how much just one motivated individual with a focus on social media can achieve (hats off to Andrew Smith at The FA who is single handedly taking their social media on to a whole new level). Although recruiting social media specialists does go some way to resolving resource issues it often doesn’t get to the nub of the issue. Which is that businesses need to resource and recruit with social media in mind throughout all aspects of their operations. Social is not just about marketing it permeates many other aspects of the business – corporate governance, investor relations, customer service, product innovation, research and insight… Nokia seem to be setting the benchmark here with the integration of social media technology, systems and processes within the heart of the business. They’ve a long way to go before every member of staff has live social media feeds on their desktop (or indeed a mobile device) however the fact that they monitor the social space in real time, proactively manage issues to named staff and have response guidelines is a big step in the right direction. The next time you write a job spec or interview someone make social media knowledge, capability and curiosity is a key element. Only then will you recruit people that are going to provide genuine competitive advantage within your business.



Theme 4

The evolution of social media measurement Measurement is still a bit of a hot potato, which is not that surprising in the current business climate with eyes firmly on ROI and the bottom line. However we are starting to see our way through this with immediate measures of reach, brand engagement, data capture and so on being taken care of and getting some traction within the boardroom as evidence of success. What was interesting though was some of the different and changing points of view on measuring the impact of social media.

• Nick Bennett at Steel’s take was the value of ‘time spent with a

brand’. What is the value and impact of 10 minutes of pure brand engagement on Twitter?

• Matthew Hawn at Last.fm used an interesting analogy ‘think of social as qual not quant research’. It’s soft, disparate and therefore hard to quantify.

• Finally, Karl Havard at Wunderman opened a whole can of worms when thinking about the layering of different media and the combined impact on purchase behaviour. Clearly a big challenge for Karl and we’re genuinely interested in where purchase funnel 2.0 goes.

Our approach is to be rigorous in our approach to measurement. Define KPI’s, set up measurement infrastructures, manage expectation and get on with it. Accept that in some instances you’ll track social media to purchase and that in others you won’t. However in all instances it will add a level of quantifiable business value that’s been agreed up-front.



Theme 5

The monetisation of social media This is always a difficult topic with social media still being in its infancy and with established models lacking, however some interesting stats were shared. • Nokia have directly attributed €10k to the value that an advocate brings

to the business per year via seeding.

• John Horsley of Ace-A-Metric did some pre event research on Linked In and found that only 11% of people felt that social was integrated into the sales process within their business (this actually seemed quite high to us).

• Someone from the audience brought up the cost of not doing social with the Sony example of $420m lost revenue for not reacting within social media.

What was clear was the perceived importance of social media in driving business performance and the increase in budgets being allocated to it. Nokia’s commitment is a great example of this with their impressive systems and processes having cost a small fortune - there’s got to be a strong business case there somewhere. John Horsley (Chief Networking Officer, Ace-A-Metric and Founder of the Digital Marketing group on Linked In) had an interesting take on himself and the power he had as an influencer as well as realizing the commercial reality of that power (his group now has over 116k members). He certainly wasn’t shy in pointing out that he expects to be commercially rewarded for any recommendations and endorsements that he provides. Now that’s monetising social! For us monetisation of social media is closely linked to how you define its role and measure its impact. In some instances it clearly pays back directly, and we’ve seen impressive results from targeted outreach to influencers. However in others the impact is less quantifiable as it permeates other media and enhances the overall consumer experience.



Theme 6

What’s the role of the marketing agency? This is one that’s obviously very close to our hearts and for the foreseeable future marketing agencies that know what they’re doing are critical. Not only in helping define the role of social media for their businesses, but also for developing effective strategies and providing expert resources to execute social media activities effectively. The level of input from the agency is of course still dependent upon the clients objective, existing resource capability and desire to embrace social media, however we have to be honest and understand that most clients do not have the resources in place to embrace social media alone. That said the general consensus was that companies should focus on getting their own houses in order and work towards self-sufficiency in some aspects of social media – especially live consumer interactions on social networks. They need to… • Understand the role that social media plays for their specific needs

• Define their objectives

• Develop their strategy

• Create a roadmap and plan

• Allocate resources (internal and agency) to execute that plan

• Look, listen, learn and do it all again as the landscape evolves

But they shouldn’t do all this in isolation – it should become a natural part of the business planning process and should seamlessly integrate into all their other plans. Within an evolving space like social media where most companies are at a standing or slow start they’ll need some help from – yes you guessed it - the agency. However not just any agency but agencies who genuinely understand social media and the role it plays.



Theme 7

The future’s bright, the futures social So looking to the future (and at this pace probably the not so distant future) what does social media have in store? Well according to two of the thought leaders in this space Anthony Mayfield and Will McInnes it’s going to get even bigger and more important to our very being. According to Anthony Mayfield the Author and Founder of Brilliant, social media is not a marketing phenomenon it’s a huge change in society and therefore has an impact in the way that we live our lives, the way in which we do business and the way we market brands. Just think about managing your own reputation online. What can people see and how does this influence them about you and your business. Does it convert or put prospects off? It’s the same principle whether dating or looking for new business. Now translate this principle across your whole workforce! Teaching your staff to manage their own reputations online has got to be a priority for most businesses in the near future. Will McInnes the founder of NixonMcInnes took the social business concept on to a whole new level focusing on the global shift across all aspects of life. A new age for democracy where participation and openness between brands and consumers / between countries and residents / between world powers and every single one of us happens in real time. Where global movements are created and news passed along in a matter of seconds. We’re seeing this right now – big businesses, personalities and nations toppling under the influence of social media and the pace at which news travels. So an interesting and pertinent final thought – if you were starting your business today in the current media landscape what would you do? Most probably not what you’re doing right now! So challenge the status quo, ask questions, be curious, be creative and think differently. And if you’d like some inspiration visit these websites (courtesy of Nick Bennett at Steel) who are modern day commercial businesses inspired by social media and the possibilities it provides - kickstarter.com / fashionastake.com / kiva.org



There are still lots of questions and not many definitive answers What this new world holds for us is not really that clear however thought leaders, creative thinkers and most importantly you and I as consumers and marketers are going to help define it. In fact we already are whether that’s as individuals or as a members of a group or community. The rate of change within this space is amazing and this will only continue. What we all need to do is find the time to think about it, understand what it means to us and our businesses, and look for the opportunities that it offers us all. No one person can see the social media future however we can all be part of it. As a start point here are some tips…

• Integrate social media into all aspects of your business • Start to resource and recruit with social media in mind • Measure social media in a meaningful way – not just ROI • Utilise social media for insight and understanding • Think carefully about which aspects of social media you can monetize • Define the role of your agency and use them effectively • Be brave, think differently and be open minded

Resources Presentations: http://www.slideshare.net/TheDigitalMarketingGroup/ Livestream; http://socon2011.com/live-stream Blog: Part 1 - http://bit.ly/srAJEK Part 2 - http://bit.ly/rOd1Me If you’d like to talk to Gravity about your approach to social media then call us on 0207 654 7693 or email [email protected] Find us http://gravitythinking.com Like us http://facebook.com/gravitymarketing Follow us http://twitter.com/gravitythinking Connect with us http://linkedin.com/company/gravitythinking