eModeration @ SNWF

Last week was crammed with conferences... Tamara Littleton (CEO) and Rebecca Fitzgerald (Account Manager) were at SNWF in London, Ashley Cooksley (Account and Community Manager) was at Engage! Expo in New York and Suzanne Leichter (Director of New Business Development in the U.S.) is still at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

In case you couldn’t get there, we thought you’d like some feedback from each of them.
Impressions of SNWF first. What were the hot topics? Well, unsurprisingly, the buzz on the floor was all about whether and how to adopt social media to support your brand or organisation. How can it be monetised? What role should it take in the marketing mix? The speakers from Qube suggested that companies shouldn’t wait for proven measurement, but should ‘get into the mix’ and develop and learn as they go. What about pages on social networking sites like Facebook? Opinion here was sharply divided, between those who use it well, who are making content adaptable and mashable with offerings like avatars and skins as apps, interesting games. But then there was the other camp, convinced that it’s simply a waste of time. We suspect this debate will rage on for a while yet.

There were a couple of particularly good speaker sessions we thought. Tony Douglas, Innovation Manager at BMW group gave a talk entitled: “How should brands behave in social networks and what's the opportunity if they get it right?” Tony showed how competently BMW are using the web to extend and maintain their brand and presented a strong example of clear strategic thinking and use of new channels at SNWF.

In amongst other nuggets of wisdom were these points we thought worthy of note:

He suggested that companies use formats that are mobile compatible right from the beginning, as users WILL access content from their phones.

Like Coca Cola, BMW has fans that put up fan pages on social networking sites and follow all updates/news as to new cars/company developments. BMW put a link to Facebook on their company site - this caused much internal argument, but has provided a really good user experience and user view of the brand.

Tony identified that new channels required new skillsets, such as writing successfully for sites such as Twitter and Wikipedia. How important it is to get the tone right and not sound purely 'sell, sell, sell'. You’d think this was pretty obviously, but we all know examples where the brands have got it completely wrong.

BMW have dramatically changed their approach to new car launches in the light of new media and user behaviour. The run up to new car launches used to be top secret until the actual day. However, BMW now 'seed' content on the web before the launch date so that when users search for updates on the launch, content is already available and (initially) written/controlled by BMW.

"Getting something to go viral isn't that hard, it’s making it worthwhile and on message that is the challenge"

You can see a video that Tony Douglas played at SNWF on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI32B0jinGA. It’s a delightful engaging snippet, aimed at internal managers to try to explain how online content works and how it can be a useful tool for brands.

The other presentation that struck a particular chord was from one of our clients and partners, Reality Digital, providers of the Reality Digital Opus UGC platform. Robert Proctor, Director EMEA, gave the keynote speech on Tuesday, entitled: “Creating revenues from brand safe UGC environments.”

Amongst other good points he made was the importance of planning, and finding out everything you can about your niche segment. Take the time to research your target advertisers/sponsors and set your goals. Get the technology and the build of your community set up correctly from the very beginning. Once that is done, the rest can follow amazingly fast. Reality Digital typically spend only 10-14 days adding functionality to a site.

Brand protection is obviously paramount, and Proctor had a special word to say about the role of moderators. "Moderation is key" he said (to our satisfaction, obviously: we currently moderate the award-winning Hyundai Genesis Coupe site, with over 38,000 videos onsite at date of writing). Proctor feels that the moderation team hold the day to day knowledge of the community and are a valuable resource which can be used as a customer service tool.

Highly rated also were Natalie Johnson (Manager Social Media Communications, General Motors) and her informative presentation on GM’s use of social and mobile media, and Michael Donnelly from Coca-Cola (Group Director, Worldwide Interactive Marketing), whose summation included these salient points:

• These platforms change frequently, and can be very disruptive and unannounced –be vigilant in maintaining your presence and updating your strategy
  
• 3rd-party app networks can deliver efficiency and flexibility
  
• Get beyond the “Build it & they will come” mentality…because they WON’T just come
  
• Keep it simple and intuitive –fewer objectives is better, and shorten users’ paths at every opportunity


• “Viral” shouldn’t BE your strategy –just part of a comprehensive plan


• Clear the legal hurdles first


• Always work with pros…There is no “just sticking your toe in the water”
  

Thanks to all the speakers for their input.

As to what we thought of the organisation of the Social Networking World Forum .... well, we liked the fact that everyone was gathered in the same central area – that made networking easy. However, some workshops were difficult to hear as they were located in this crowded space and this reduced their effective communication. There was also perhaps a little too much self-promotion during some of the presentations. Obviously, everyone has their case to put forward, but it’s very important to add value and share knowledge which is new, relevant and interesting to the audience (who have paid not inconsiderable sums to attend and really deserve more than to be seated in front of what (in some cases) was effectively company advertising.) That being said, we thought that Six Degrees, the event organisers, did an excellent job with this first conference and we look forward to the event next year. And next time we’ll make sure we’re not too exhausted for the party too ...