SES London 2012 Day 2: Social Media Marketing - Killer Advertising Tactics #seslondon #socialmedia

It's 2:15pm, the slot directly after a carb heavy lunch, and there appears to be a post-lunch induced Twitter lull in the room. Can the Social Advertising experts shake up the audience with their tough talking Killer Social Media Tactics?

Today's session hosted by Kristjan Mar Hauksson of Nordic eMarketing was split into two presentations with Henry Elliss from Tamar.com focusing on Organic/SEO Social Media Advertising, while Jonathan Beeston from Efficient Frontier concentrated on Paid; (specifically deep-diving on Facebook's ads platform.)

Why join the Social Media revolution?

• Facebook has over 800m users globally (50% of UK population are on it!)
• 1.3 billion visits to Facebook each month in the UK (Experian Hitwise)
• Twitter has over 200m users globally
• On You Tube 24hrs worth of video is uploaded every minute
• Over 4 billion images on Flickr

Why should a brand invest in Social Media today?

• Build communities
• Content creation & new ideas
• Relationship management
• Influence
• Easy to share
• Drive traffic & awareness

How brands can improve ROI and make money ($£?).

• Cross selling
• Attract new customers
• Drive traffic
• Build awareness
• Reward loyalty with discounts & offers
• Customer service & feedback
• Product development & Research
• Data capture
• Hone SEO/SEM tactics

Before diving in to Social Media Marketing a few things to consider.

Think about your strategy and set objectives; are you driving brand awareness or sales?

• What value are you bringing to your fans and followers?
• Measure, measure, measure: What KPIs do you intend to measure and what types of tracking and analytical tools are you going to use?
• Read Groundswell - and follow the POST strategy: (People, Objectives, Strategy Technology)
• Read Forrester Research Inc / Context Optional case study: "It's Time to Make Facebook Marketing Work"

Tools to help you keep on top of your Social Media activity.

• Conversocial, hootsuite, Radian6, Exact Target, followerwonk and TweetDeck are just some of the many great tools available to measure and implement your Social Media strategy.
• Remember: don't completely substitute human interaction for automation out of convenience. Nothing compares to the human touch of timely, topical and highly relevant Social Media updates to maximise on user engagement with your brand.

Henry's 7 top Organic/SEO tips for engaging with a Social Media audience

1. Communicate, don't broadcast: clothing retailer, Forever 21 engages with their loyal following through meaningful conversations via their Facebook fan page; be it when they are launching a new Glee clothing line or the latest style of skinny jeans.

2. Be different, be innovative: when Grand Rapids in the US was called a "dying city" by an influential website, thousands of its proud townsfolk came out to defend the town's honour by creating a lip sync video to American Pie which subsequently went viral after being uploaded to YouTube. Tourist and visitor numbers to Grand Rapids have significantly increased since the video.

3. Be aware of your perception: McDonalds recently got stung by thousands of negative tweets posts to their #McStories Twitter handle after they asked the public to submit their stories and feedback on the fast-food restaurant experience.

4. Build on your strengths: My Starbucks Idea portal gives customers the collective opportunity to feedback directly into the company and even make suggestions regarding product improvements and innovations.

5. Be topical: The latest Muppets Movie looked like it could have been overshadowed by allegations from Fox News that Kermit, Miss Piggy and Co were "Anti-Oil" AKA "Communists". The Muppets team in press conferences and through Social Media ridiculed Fox News and turned the story to their advantage.

6. Think of your long-term plan: shake up a familiar concept to keep it fresh and relevant. Old Spice recently pitted its hero, Old Spice Guy, against a sexy new rival in the form of the Italian male model, Fabio. The ensuing face-off drove conversations across all of Old Spice's Social Media channels.

7. Create a "buzz": Snickers recently hired model Katie Price and footballer Rio Ferdinand to tweet 'out of character' status updates to generate buzz and interest in the Snickers brand. It certainly got people talking however, many loyal fans felt misled and tricked by the Twitter stunt. Remember to tread carefully and not to offend or con your existing audience!

Jon's top 5 Facebook Ad tips for engaging with a Social Media Audience

1. Facebook Ads - a bit like conventional Paid Search but not: Structure, auction environment and quality being the same as conventional paid inclusion; however, where it differs is that there is no intent or keywords, with frequency being the key focus as you are targeting a set of people rather than an idea or a keyword concept.

2. Image is everything: Have a hero image that tells a story and don't rely on a logo or picture that contains text as your message may become lost with the description text.

3. Target out of the box: go beyond the usual targeting options of age, gender and location and think about events and devices. Facebook recently updated its targeting capabilities to focus on events such as birthdays, new home, new baby, new job etc. You can now also target potential new customers by the device they use to access Facebook.

4. Beat the burn: keeping on top of the management of your Facebook creatives is essential to ensuring that your message continues to be seen by your intended target audience.

• Devise a testing plan well in advance so you have a second ad queued up and ready to go when the existing ad runs out of steam (could take hours, days or weeks!). The image you ultimately choose drives the greatest CTR than any other part of your ad.
• Set a campaign schedule such as days of the week or day parting to maximise on your chosen audience. For example football fans looking to place a bet on the weekend games are best targeted on a Friday afternoon.
• Use campaign budgets to cap impression exposure so that your ads are been shown frequently (unique impressions) but not so frequently to cause fatigue with your chose audience.

5. Other Facebook innovations - Sponsored Stories: allows advertisers to surface word of mouth recommendations about their own brand. This ad format exists organically in the Facebook feed. Good value for money once brand has developed a following.

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