“Knowledge is power is outdated – now sharing knowledge is powerful”
The above quote came from Kevin Eyers, MD of LinkedIn Europe, on the opening day of the Social Media World Forum at London’s Olympia.
Eyers also warned of an information overload – 76million emails are sent every day, and a quick search on the term “future of social media” provided him with 150million results in Google. How many people, he asked, would go beyond page one? But, importantly, he posed another question: “Just because it’s on page one, is it the right result for me? Or have they just got great SEO?”
Despite this overload of information, Eyers views social media as being very much in its infancy, with green fields of opportunity all around. The key to getting the most from this wealth of opportunity is to “make sure you’re innovating, not just following.”
The opening day of the SMWF met with a lukewarm reception from many, with a flurry of negative tweets particularly early on. Part of the problem was that some of the speakers weren’t abiding by the golden rule – repeated numerous times throughout the day – know your audience. The assumed knowledge gap between delegates and speakers was somewhat narrower than anticipated.
From my own observations, the conversations of those around me and the grumblings on Twitter, most delegates had at least a basic grasp of social media, and many of the criticisms being levelled were that the content of some presentations was too entry level.
That wasn’t to say, however, that there were not valuable insights to be gained. Many of the first half speakers provided useful refreshers, including Katy Howells, from Immediate Future, who urged brand owners to be aware of the “hidden costs” of Facebook, Twitter and the like – the investment of time has to be a substantial one.
This was a point echoed by Muhammed Karim, senior brand manager for Mars, who said that it was vital for businesses to be aware of the costs of long-term social media strategies. Setting up a Facebook page or Twitter feed is not enough – these will need constant monitoring and prompt answers to customers’ questions, which is where, Karim said, employing a social media marketing agency might prove beneficial.
Freddie Laker, from SapientNitro, provided one of the most interesting talks of the day. “Everyone’s already told you about Facebook and Twitter, so I’m going to talk about digital billboards, online commerce and product design – social media data is in many places,” he began. Laker went on to say that he hated the term “social media” because “Digital media is inherently social. The internet is the world’s biggest community.”
Customers, Laker added, don’t see the barriers between traditional, digital and commerce. They come to your product or service at any touch point, and social media is the main connector, through conversations being held.
A quick poll of the room revealed not many delegates used paid-for social media monitoring tools. Laker recommended them because they will help you find that many conversations about your brand are occuring on many different websites.
Laker took things a step further by advocating digital billboards driven by Twitter. A question he was often asked, he added, was what if a “bad” tweet about your business appeared in the feed. “[negative comments] on a website get more eyeballs than a digital billboard,” Laker said. “But things that are physical feel worse.”
The immediate future, Laker said, was social mobile. Brands were beginning to embrace Foursquare, which awards its members badges for visiting certain locations. If you go enough to a particular location, you become its Mayor, and brands were now starting to offer physical benefits for majors – discounts or free products.
Looking further ahead, Laker invited delegates to go “beyond nowness” into the world of the semantic web. In the future, search engines will look at all the things we’ve created about ourselves and will use it to anticipate what we as consumers want.
That might sound somewhat scary, even intrusive – but so did social media a few years ago.
