Social Media World Forum: Keep focus on the consumer, not the idea or the platform
Speakers at today’s Social Media World Forum at London Olympia urged marketers to take an integrated and customer-focussed approach to social media marketing.
Kevin Eyres, MD of LinkedIn Europe, pointed out that the drivers of social media are all fundamental human needs: to interact, to be part of a tribe, and to evolve together. People are using social media as a knowledge filter to cut through the information overload that characterises the internet. Social media isn’t just about who you know and what you know, but also who you know and what they know.
Katy Howell, MD of Immediate Future, said that social media marketing is far more labour-intensive and difficult than the easy technology suggests. The sheer volume of noise means it’s hard to stand out: a video on YouTube has only a 3% chance of getting 1,000 views. There is also great risk in focusing on the platform rather than the customer, with no contract between a marketer and the social network, and the data being owned by no-one. So it is easy to spend time and money developing something which can disappear overnight or be left on a platform deserted by its users.
Social media can be much more efficient as a platform if marketers target the right amplifiers for their message, and understand whether these offer effectiveness through the authority or the popularity of their personalities, or their ability in connecting people.
Facebook’s Trevor Johnson emphasised the importance of “identity and authenticity” in social media marketing. The market leaders have some great case studies and data to support what works well, for example the ROH may have only 20k FB followers but sells some 30% of its tickets through marketing via this route.
Simply badging social media content is far less effective: Facebook data suggests that ads on the site with a social context enjoy a 68% uplift in brand ROI measures and 25% uplift in response measures. And the power of implied endorsement by your friends do means that “organic” impressions (ie, FB reports that your friend has done X) are four and a half times as effective for brands as bought ones.
The advertisers’ panel urged insight beyond the basic numbers, and obsessive integration as the ways to make social media work. Sienne Veit of M&S said that despite their large numbers of Facebook fans having a relatively youthful profile, the ones who regularly engage with the brand on Facebook match the store’s traditional customer base more faithfully. To ensure social media drives brand loyalty effectively, they are looking at ways where individual stores can interact with their community and use the in-store environment, combined with the increased mobility of social media, to stimulate this.