April 21, 2015

Social Media Seminar Round-up: 16 April 2015

The Figaro Digital Social Media Seminar took place on 16 April 2015 at The Hospital Club, Covent Garden. We know there’s no single path to social media success. So this seminar looked at everything from developing socially-engaged brand partnerships to understanding the nuances of individual social platforms. Insight this week came from Branded3, Adaptly, Great British Chefs, Hootsuite Media and WAYN.com. 

Before we heard from our speakers, we grabbed a couple of delegates to get an idea of the challenges facing social media marketers.

“As a manufacturer, our biggest challenge in social media is how to market effectively to our B2B customers and our consumer end-users through the same channels, without diluting our message.” 
John Hubbard, Director of Operations at KeraStraight

“Our biggest challenge is to transform social initiatives into a concrete source of business. The nature of social marketing makes this especially difficult for B2B organisations. The approach of providing content for continuous discussion instead of targeted campaigning means that social marketing is now the responsibility of the whole team, not just marketing departments.”
Sharon Kauffman, Marketing Manager UK at BOARD International

Powering Campaigns with Social Media
Laura Crimmons – Social & PR Manager, Branded3

“Don’t just look at social media engagement and metrics. Think about how you can use social to power other campaigns.”


Laura at Branded3 took delegates through the different ways social media can be used to boost campaigns across your business, generating results beyond engagement. Social media can fuel PR coverage and prompt interactions that can be used for content marketing purposes. It can be an effective advertising tool. It can power experiential advertising by getting people excited by less interesting topics and providing a chance to interact. Anyone can create a hard-hitting social campaign, but there needs to be a robust strategy in place. Define your desired outcome, says Laura. Have a point to your campaign—what will motivate people to get involved? And, importantly, have a distribution strategy. 


The Autonomous Future
Frank Martin – SVP Revenue, EMEA, Adaptly, Inc

“The era of mass media is coming to an end. If brands want to succeed, they have to be relevant.”

Users have to want your content and it needs to leave them in a better place, explained Frank at Adaptly. The average user spends almost half their digital time on autonomous platforms such as social media networks. The impact of these channels extends to your mobile and video strategies. To make the most of them, marketers should plan and measure against tangible business objectives. They should match marketing investment with consumer behaviour. And most of all, they should stay agile.

Recipes for Success in Social Marketing
Ollie Lloyd – CEO, Great British Chefs

“Somewhere out there is a publisher who is your gateway to the consumer space you want to work in.”

The partnership between brands and publishers is invaluable, says Ollie at Great British Chefs, and social media is an integral part of this. The aim is to ‘own’ a conversation, behind which social media is the driving force. By working with a publisher that has already established its authority within a conversation, your chances of reaching a relevant audience are greatly improved. Before entering into a partnership, says Ollie, define your brand objective, then enter the publisher’s world to explore how the conversation can be effectively influenced.


Unlocking the Power of Social
Dan Spicer – EMEA Community Lead, Hootsuite Media

“It’s not survival of the fittest anymore, it’s survival of the fastest.”

A quarter of businesses will lose custom through social media incompetence, said Dan at Hootsuite. Social media is becoming a business-wide responsibility, so Dan offers three tips to excelling in social business. First, respect the platform—there are nuances to each individual platform that must be taken into consideration when posting. Try to do one or two things really well, rather than four or five averagely. You don’t always need to grow the audiences; do some research and go to where your audiences are already hanging out. Next, advises Dan, remember that we’re living in an “era of bite-size communication”. Lastly, consider the fact that people engage on social at every stage of the sales funnel. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and use that empathy to design experiences. 

A Trip Plan is No Longer Just A-to-B
Peter Ward – Co-founder and CEO, WAYN.com (Where Are You Now?) 

“When you’re looking for some measure of success, it usually comes down to clicks, or last click attribution. Is that really what’s creating the value?”

The trip planning process is deeply fragmented, so marketers struggle to know at which point to target users, said Peter at social travel network WAYN.com. The majority of travellers will post travel-related content on social channels, or write reviews after their trip, so this is a key time to engage. Be relevant and contextual to each customer segment, and make sure you’re personalising your communications. Travellers want a unique experience. And offer an incentive for sharing content. Your customers want to be recognised as influencers, so play to this. To measure, don’t just look at last click, says Peter. The value comes from investment over time, so engage customers post-trip. Their interactions are valuable. 

Round-up by Estelle Hakner