15th – 17th November 2010 SkyCity Convention Centre, Auckland

Social Media Junction Conference – Securing ROI in Social Media Marketing

Posted by bulletpr on Tuesday, November 16th, 2010 in Uncategorized

Six international speakers from varied marketing and communication backgrounds came together in Auckland today, to present their perspective on acheiving ROI from social media activity. For those who attended the conference, you can access their presentations here

ROI is maybe the wrong phrase to use for what was discussed. With the benefit of hindsight, it was more about content marketing. In other words, you’re on social media platforms, but what are you saying and how are you saying it? And when are you saying it? And are the customers listening and then actually buying or recommending to someone else who buys? Anyway, enough with the questions, let’s try and disseminate what was said by the speakers.

Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing was first up. One of the main points made by Lee was that KPI’s are not the end goal. This is because social media is a communications tool, not a tactic. Delegates often expect a silver bullet to take away from a conference and implement with immediate social media success. This doesn’t happen because there are no secrets to great social media practice. It’s simply the one of the best ways for brands to create loyal customers, get instant feedback and spread/develop content. If you have an idea about what to do in the social media space and it gets re-affirmed by speakers and other delegates at a conference, that is a valuable takeout if you use it when you get back to the office.

Next up was Louise Denver from Deloitte Australia. She talked about capturing and sharing innovation within the organisation through tools like Yammer and also how to tell social media to people outside the marketing team. Yammer is not as sexy as Facebook, Twitter and the like, but it’s just as powerful. It allows a company to be more connected whether they are in the office or not. And it’s not just for large corporations like Deloitte. Smaller companies who have employees spread around the country (and planet) can use Yammer as a cost-effective platform for collaboration, staff retention and staff recruitment. It’s surely something on the rise over the next few years as we start to see an even more mobile, more fluid workforce.

Simon Wakeman, from Medway Council in the UK followed Louise. Simon discussed similar topics to his day one workshop presentation, but with an ROI focus. One of Simon’s key points was that all brands need to do a proper online audit and understand their keywords and the fact that they change as products and perceptions of the brand change over time.

Michael Fox, one of the founders of ShoesofPrey.com, which makes custom women’s shoes then held the attention of at least every woman in the room as he spoke about social media and fashion. Michael talked about Seth Godin’s ‘Purple Cow Theory’, whereby you create something that has huge talkability. The social media part is kind of easy after you have a product or service that is interesting and different. It may not be unique (what’s truly unique these days?), but it could be a unique take on an existing concept or a better designed brand.

Darren Whitelaw from Department of Justice, State Government of Victoria then took to the stage for his speech on crisis communication using social media. Darren was at the communications helm during Australia’s worst ever natural disaster – the Victorian bush fires. An important point from Darren’s presentation was that phone lines normally get jammed during a crisis and social media is the best additional resource for handling queries and information distribution.

We then had a Kiwi brands blog, Chaired by Michael Carney of the Marketing Association, which I (Alex Erasmus of Bullet PR) joined for an agency perspective. We also heard from Telecom, ASB Bank, Hell Pizza and Tui. Telecom has used social media mainly as a customer service channel and it’s been a great way of finding brand evangelists within the company to represent Telecom online. ASB Bank launched the innovative Virtual Branch through its Facebook page. This has increased the options for customers (and non customers) to interact with the bank, which is great ROI. Hell Pizza spent $80,000 on a YouTube campaign – Deliver me to Hell – that delivered millions of views. Tui has used social media (Facebook) as a more of a supporting mechanism, rather than a stand-alone channel. So, for the ‘Yeah right’ campaign it tests which ads are most popular on Facebook before using on billboards. For my two cents, I talked about how the future of PR agencies is going to be about content creation. We need to be the idea generating, campaign driving social media go-to guys for our clients. The day-to-day stuff should stay client side.

Cliff Rosenberg, MD of LinkedIn for Australia and NZ then shared stats and trends in online networking with the delegates. It’s interesting to see the niche that LinkedIn has carved out in terms of recruitment in particular. Surel, we will soon see the day when everyone is recruited via platforms like LinkedIn. Cliff made the useful analogy that engaging with people on personal social media like Facebook is like approaching a CEO who is with his kids at Disneyland – i.e. possible, but not very useful.

The day was rounded out with a panel of the international speakers, chaired by Vincent Heeringa of NZ Marketing Magazine.