How to engage your audience

The IAB's first event to focus on how brands can use social media to engage their audience was today hailed a glowing success, with 99% of the audience at the sold out conference rating the event 'very good' or 'good'.

Thursday, 26 February 2009

Is it possible to hold a social media conference without someone mentioning Barack Obama? Of course not. Unsurprisingly the poster boy of social networking was a feature of most of the presentations at today’s IAB Engage for Social Media conference held at the Imagination Gallery. Thankfully Obama’s journey to office was not the only topic of discussion however as speakers shared their thoughts on how marketers can look to use social networks to communicate effectively with customers.

The four Rs

First up, the IAB’s marketing director Kieron Matthews explained that one of the key issues for modern marketers to deal with is the fact that “a lot of what we do online hasn’t been set up for advertising. Social networks tend to be born out of the fact that people like to share. It’s when they need to monetise it that brands sweep in”.

For Matthews there are four principles that brands hoping to use social networking successfully should follow: brands should ‘respect’ their audience; ‘respond’ to their customers; keep their communications ‘real’; and always strive to be ‘relevant’.

New world order

Next up, Emily Dent, head of content and community at St Lukes, outlined her principles for successful engagement. Opening up with a discussion of Obama, Dent argued that the new president’s digital campaign was indicative of a new world order. For Dent there are three key features of this new order: we’ve gone from a deferral to a referral society; we’ve gone from conflict to consensus; we’ve gone from pessimism to optimism. As a result of this new world order, Dent argued that there are new rules of engagement for brands to follow:

• It’s about knowing what you want people to do

• It’s about standing for more than just making money

• It’s about respecting the intelligence of your audience

• It’s about harnessing their creativity too

• It’s about rewards

• It’s about people power

• It’s about relinquishing control

• It’s about conversations

• It’s about authorship

• It’s about content

• It’s about being helpful

• It’s about being opportunistic

• It’s about being useful

• It’s about being courageous

• It’s about being passionate

• It’s about being a smart company to work for

• It’s about inspiring people

• It’s infectious

The web is social

With rules proving to be the order of the day, next up, Antony Mayfield, head of social media at iCrossing, kicked off offering some of his own:

• Understand your networks

• Be useful in those networks

• Be live in those networks

The guiding principle for Mayfield is that the social aspect of the digital experience is not merely limited to social media. “The web is social,” argued Mayfield. Another key for Mayfield however is that social media should be measureable and accountable. “ROI is our highest priority,” said Mayfield. This is perhaps no surprise given the current climate of course. “Digital clients are much more ruthless about tracking ROI”, said Mayfield. “The ‘measurement conspiracy’ in traditional advertising would never be allowed in digital.”

Yum yum pig’s bum

Expanding on this theme, Mark Rogers, chief executive of Market Sentinel, sought to explain how Cadbury’s measured the campaign ROI for its recent revival of the Wispa. For Rogers, “the only real ROI metric for business is growth in market share”. Underlining this point, Rogers explained that for all the exposure, Cadbury’s lost share following its ‘Gorilla’ campaign. The reason for this was that Galaxy had an even better idea – linking up with the Sex and the City film. This, argued Rogers, is a stark reminder that no matter how memorable an ad, if it doesn’t translate into results then it should be considered a failure.

Turning his attention to the Wispa campaign, Rogers explained: “It is hard to remember now but Cadbury was an embattled company in 2006. Health scares and low margins had given it the reputation of being accident prone.” However the company picked up on some online chatter about the Wispa bar that had been discontinued in 2003.

In what is now regarded as a landmark case study, the phenomenon grew and grew. “This was a craze,” said Rogers. “It was something that had a life of its own”. Perhaps the most bizarre instance of the craze was an impromptu stage invasion during Iggy Pop’s set at Glastonbury with Wispa fans unveiling a banner that read: “Bring back the Wispa yum yum pig’s bum”.

For Rogers the phenomenon was fed by two themes: “One was the rise of Facebook itself, and the other was the idea that the social web was potentially a source of business advantage to those brands savvy enough to listen in to conversations there.” For him the real challenge was to stop Cadburys from getting too involved in the campaign – the key being that the brand was prepared to give away some of its control. The result was 20 million bars sold in seven weeks with a gross revenue to Cadbury of £25m. All this from a "campaign" that is estimated to have cost less than £250,000.

Participate authentically

Another cost effective marketing method made possible by social media is engaging with your audience – and critics – in the blogosphere. Ronnie Brown of Outside Line outlined some key principles to follow when seeking to develop a successful blogger engagement programme. Brown outlined some techniques employed by handset brand LG as it sought to engage with bloggers and spread awareness of its products online.

• Be up front and honest – it’s a legal requirement

• Treat them promptly, professionally and proactively

• Understand that this is a passion, not a job - they are not amateurs but not journalists

• Give them exclusive content - however minor you think it might be it will mean a lot if you can do this

• Read their blog, find out what makes them tick and always personalise the approach

• Participate authentically - follow them on Twitter, friend on Facebook, talk to them via comments, get involved

So good it’s a service

Next up, Sebastian Dreyfus, chief executive at Publicis Modem, called for "advertising so good it's a service". Dreyfus was keen to explore the concept of ‘social utility’ – “when a brand enables the ‘crowd’ to create, contribute and define a service that is useful to your customers” – and sought to explain how ‘disorganised complexity’ could become ‘organised complexity’ through a social media strategy.

Dreyfus advised delegates to "embrace the noise" and, true to the established format of the day, ended with his top tips:

• Be ambitious. Talk to the individual but aim to change the whole community. Be compelling

• People talk. Give your products a social life by giving all your communications social features.

• Harness the power and resources of pre-existing communities

• Encourage a remix culture

• Find the right people by seeding and connecting. Include PR and blogger engagement. Aim for people with real influence

• Be transparent. Run an open house. Take down the walls between producer and consumer. Co-create.

Not a linear conversation

Graham Darracott, managing director of Graphico, explained how his agency had helped Pepsi Max to embrace social media and mobile as part of an integrated campaign designed to make the Pepsi can - and therefore the brand - relevant and interesting to the target audience of 18–24 year-old males.

According to Darracott the campaign was a success as a result of a combination of joined up digital thinking - and Kelly Brook.

QR codes were placed on 400 million packs and, acting as "a gateway to content", were key to the campaign's success. This on pack work combined effectively with a video starring Brook which was shared via social media, effective PR and blog targeting, Facebook and Boreme takeovers and traditional online advertising.

Working across these different media on a variety of platforms was vital for Darracott: "This was not a linear conversation - this is about consumers taking control of the flow of conmmunication".

First month results were impressive with more than 250,000 new visitors to the pepsi.co.uk website with 40 million streams of the Kelly Brook viral film.

It didn’t take a genius to come up with a balloon race

To end, Alex Snape of Orange and Iain Tate of Poke explained how Orange successfully created a social media campaign – with balloons. Tate explained that Orange tasked Poke with creating a campaign that could engage and excite a youthful, social media savvy audience; build brand awareness of ‘animals’; and integrate the campaign with a TV campaign featuring balloons. From such humble beginnings was born the award winning Orange Balloonacy campaign.

“It didn’t take a genius to come up with a balloon race,” said Tait. The balloon race over the internet was “like having the Tour de France coming through your town,” he argued.

Crucially, the campaign was not afraid of breaking the rules though. “It flies in the face of a lot of the stuff we usually suggest,” said Tait. The campaign ran for just one week, and – contrary to a lot of the arguments from other speakers – it had no ‘useful’ purpose. “This wasn’t a useful thing,” said Tait. “This was pure entertainment and frivolity.”

The results, however, were not frivolous. An impressive 40,000 people singed up for the race, with 3,000 sites applying to take part and 15,000 player widgets installed, generating 3.2m exposures to the balloon race.

The only question remaining now is whether the campaign will be repeated this year. “There are discussions going on at the moment,” said Snape. “Many say ‘yes’, many say ‘no’”. It seems likely that those discussions will be going on for some time.

For more pictures from the day, click here.

Best practice advice from key speakers at IAB Engage for Social Media

Kieron Matthews, marketing director, IAB

• ‘Respect’ your audience

• ‘Respond’ to your customers

• Keep your communications ‘real’

• Strive to be ‘relevant’

Emily Dent, head of content and community, St Lukes

• It's about them not you

• Help people do things

• Be honest and transparent

• Social media is fun

Antony Mayfield, head of social media, iCrossing

• Understand your networks

• Be useful in those networks

• Be live in those networks

Ronnie Brown, Outside Line

• Be up front and honest – it’s a legal requirement

• Treat them promptly, professionally and proactively

• Understand that this is a passion, not a job - they are not amateurs but not journalists

• Give them exclusive content - however minor you think it might be it will mean a lot if you can do this

• Read their blog, find out what makes them tick and always personalise the approach

• Participate authentically - follow them on Twitter, friend on Facebook, talk to them via comments, get involved

Sebastian Dreyfus, chief executive, Publicis Modem

• Be ambitious. Talk to the individual but aim to change the whole community. Be compelling

• People talk. Give your products a social life by giving all your communications social features.

• Harness the power and resources of pre-existing communities

• Encourage a remix culture

• Find the right people by seeding and connecting. Include PR and blogger engagement. Aim for people with real influence

• Be transparent. Run an open house. Take down the walls between producer and consumer. Co-create.

Follow the IAB on Twitter