Social Media World Forum Europe – Preview
Next Monday and Tuesday, March 15 and 16, sees the Social Media World Forum Europe event in London. LexisClick will be attending and I can’t wait to spend two days immersed in the social media world.
Social media is a tricky thing for companies, with many not knowing exactly how to use it to best benefit their business. I spend much of my day immersed in social media strategies, but still think I’ll learn a great deal at this event.
A good starting point, the opening session will look at the current state of social media, including what is popular, predictions about social networks of the future, and the growth of mobile social networking. A panel of experts from companies including M&S Direct and Virgin Atlantic Airways, will then attempt to define social media for the next five to ten years, and explore the changing role of social networking’s influence on other media forms across the world.
The second session of the day will look at how to evaluate and integrate social media marketing campaigns into your current marketing strategy. Building and engaging with a community of clients and fans is a key factor in the success, or not, of your social media campaign, and the first afternoon session looks at how social media can help your brand beat the competition, and what future developments in social media mean for your brand. There will also be a panel discussion providing valuable, practical tips for launching, building and managing your brand on a variety of social media platforms.
An often overlooked aspect of social media, games are nevertheless incredibly popular – I know from personal experience that I lose count of how many of my friends and contacts send requests for barns, bricks, cakes etc from popular social media games such as FarmVille or MafiaWars. Apps are another rapidly growing market, both on such sites as Facebook and also for mobiles.
In a session on Niche Networks, Games and Applications, the market for virtual goods and services will be explored, along with how you can use apps to your brand’s advantage.
Day two of the conference examines how social media can generate revenue, how social media can be monetised, and how advertisers can make best use of social networks in their advertising strategy.
The impact of social media for public relations, business to business relationships and in politics will be the focus of the afternoon sessions, and the conference concludes with an attempt to define what social media will be like in the future – will interactions in virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft or Second Life become as important as other social media platforms? What will social networking be like five years from now?
With more than 4,000 attendees already pre-registered, this event is one not to miss if you want to learn more about how social media can help your business.
You can find out more about the conference by clicking this link, and don’t miss our review next week.
