FreshNetworks Blog

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We’ve spoken at more social media conferences and events in the last three months than in the first three years of FreshNetworks’ existence. One of the benefits of all the talking has been the opportunity to listen to other social media speakers and experts.

As a social media agency we’re often  asked to recommend a few social media speakers for events (particularly in London and the UK), so I thought it might be useful to note down  some of the people who have recently impressed us and why.

Neville Hobson @jangles – sage advice with a strong PR-slant on social media. I thought Neville was at his best when it came to social media disaster scenarios and social media crisis management.

Gary Veynerchuck – Gary was the highlight of SXSW for me. He’s brimming with passion and energy and has some excellent hands-on social media experience. He spent 10 minutes talking and 45 minutes answering questions. You can easily get a taste of Gary online – just search YouTube. Or submit yourself to the full experience by listening to him read Crush It, his new book

Michelle Goodall @greenwellys – from Econsultancy. Michelle is a great social media trainer. Especially good at educating an audience to give them a common understanding of social media. I’ve heard Michelle speak about social media at a couple of events recently – Technology for Marketing and Advertising and FreshIdeas Events – and both times walked away feeling the learning points were super clear.

Joanne Jacobs @joannejacobs is a force of nature. Guaranteed to wake up any audience, she combines years of  social media experience with a ferocious presenting style. I am certain there is no one more capable of keeping a post-lunch audience stimulated.

James Hart @ASOS_James is eCommerce Director at ASOS.com. James (and ASOS) have been among the early adopters in community building and social media marketing in the UK. He’s a wonderfully open and frank speaker (no social hype, just his practical experience). However, I am told he may have recently hung up his speaking boots.

Geoff Quinn, CEO TM Lewin – I was on stage with Geoff at a recent Retail Week e-commerce Conference. I think it’s hard to beat listening to a CEO talk about where they see social media fit in to their broader business goals. In addition to the fact that Geoff is really open and frank about the process, they have been  giving real ROI numbers and developing detailed plans for the future. You can get a sense of his style from this recent Radio4 Bottom Line interview (disclaimer TM Lewin is a client).

Brad Little @bradleyjlittle – Brad runs Neilsen Buzzmetrics in Europe. As a result he’s great on social media monitoring content and thinking. He’s also full of energy and enthusiasm, and a great speaker.

Anna Rafferty @raffers from Penguin Books. Anna has a great case study on building a community on a budget that really engaged Penguin’s customers. An engaging speaker who provides good takeaways.  Oh and Anna recently recommended Jon Davie from Zone as a great speaker.

Steve Dunn Steve is a very energetic performer. I spoke alongside him at a CIM event and he did a good job of covering off high-level social media basics. In particular he brought a PR perspective.

Chris Brogan – Chris is one of the handful of truly global social media gurus (although I am sure he’d hate the term). I really enjoyed his combination of a conversational and relaxed style with excellent story telling. Chris is particularly good on B2B and SME social media.

Steve Bridger @stevebridger has years of community management experience working with charities and membership organisations. Steve always brings solid, practical tips to his social media sessions.

Louise White @louisecwhite – I really enjoyed listening to Louise recently. She has a refreshingly honest and open style giving a no-holds barred account of life inside a publisher as digital and social are changing the world around them.

Paul Hopkins, Head of Customer Experience at easyJet – I was on a panel with Paul at the Call Centre and Customer Management Conference. As you’d expect, Paul is particularly knowledgeable speaker on customer service opportunities and issues arising from social media. He is heavily involved on a day-to-day basis with easyJet’s activity.

Martha Lane Fox – @marthalanefox – As Digital Inclusion Champion, Martha is clearly an expert on digital engagement issues. She’s also a captivating speaker, always good at pulling out key facts to get her point across.

Dom Sparkes @DomSparkes – Dom runs the moderation agency, Tempero. He’s especially strong on community management of children’s websites and the processes required to run them in a safe manner.

Thomas Power – I have not heard him speak myself, but heard a rave review from Neville Hobsbon on his podcast. Thomas set up Ecademy and is famous for being one of London’s great connectors. Whilst I don’t agree with all he says e.g. “the most important thing about your network is size, not quality” he’s clearly very enthusiastic and engaging.

Matt Rhodes – OK, so Matt works with me at FreshNetworks. I am biased. But time and again he gets rave reviews from his audiences whenever he’s asked to speak about social media. Matt is one of the foremost thinkers on social media in the UK (he’s the reason why this blog is consistently one of Europe’s Top 3 social marketing blogs). And despite being a Cambridge graduate, he generally has an insightful perspective on all social media topics.

Tim Hwang’s SXSW talk was one of the most entertaining in Austin. Not because of his speaking style, but purely down to the content: What we learned watching kids with homemade flamethrowers. You can catch a great video here.

Two more speakers
These two don’t fit into the social media speaker bracket, but they are two of my favourite business speakers ever:
Dennis Turner – Dennis is Chief Economist at HSBC. He manages to make macroeconomics both enthrawling and easy to understand. A delight to watch.

BJ Cunningham – BJ tells a fantastic story about Death Cigarettes – a brand he founded 20 years ago. He’s a superb speaker.

Your turn
Have you been struck by an excellent social media speaker? who was it and why were they good?

image via FlickR courtesy of LucyFrench123

“The problem with brands in social media is that they act like 19 year old dudes”.
Yelled Gary Veynerchuck at SXSW, excited as ever.

His point was that there is a tendency to approach every interaction with a single goal – sex for the dudes, sales for companies. And to rush towards that goal without pausing for breath.

I have been reminded of Gary’s comment a few times this week. Mostly by the economist, John Kay.

John has a new book out: Obliquity – why our goals are best pursued indirectly. And as a result he’s cropping up everywhere at the moment.

The premise of his book is that the greatest, most profitable companies achieve success as a result of focussing on higher ideals than cash generation. This is not an especially groundbreaking theory – I’ve rarely met a successful entrepreneur who was primarily money-motivated. However I do think he has coined a super phrase and one with a distinct social media relevance.

Obliquity – why social media goals are best pursued indirectly
Success in social media rarely comes from being the 19yr old dude. Sustained social media ROI relies on building realtionships, not converting one-night-stands. The tools of social media provide a new form of communication. As a result they can help you improve products, processes and customer relationships. An indirect, or oblique benefit, might be more sales.

However, obliquity is a tough message when you’re a nervous marketing manger who only likes to spend money on safe bets where ROI has been proven upfront or in advance.

The tragedy of social media is that “digital can be measured”. This drives a desire is to spend £1 and get £1 and 10 pence back before investing more. Whilst such an approach is fine for Google Adwords or other search marketing, social media plays by different rules.

Please don’t act like the 19yr old dude. Customers can spot it a mile off. You’re far more likely to achieve social media ROI if you focus on a different (oblique) business goal first. Use social media to engage customers. Use social media for deeper customer insight or to improve your customer service. The cash will follow.

Image from shutterstock

Should we give away free stuff on our stand? This question gets asked every time we attend a trade show.

After entertaining a little debate I always find myself answering “No. A bowl of Quality Street is not a differentiator and it’s probably not going to attract the right type of person to our stand.”

But last week in Austin, at the South by SouthWest Interactive Festival (SXSW), I found myself questioning my strongly held belief.

In Texas, everything is bigger and better. As a result the on-stand gimmicks were actually worthy of note. There were hot dogs and free beer. Free books and a well-thought-out hangover kit. There was even the opportunity to meet a pair of Cheerleaders from the Dallas Coyboys.

My favourite giveaway at the event came from a 10-year old girl on a street corner. She was standing outside the event, holding a huge plate and yelling “bacon, bacon, get free bacon.” It smelled fantastic, tasted even better and proved to me that the right promotion, in an appropriate style can elicit an action.

Now I can’t actually remember the name of the company involved, but I did give them my card.

Do you believe in giveaways at trade shows? has anything worked for/on you?

image from shutterstock

Social gaming is a hot topic here at SXSW. The industry has been growing at an incredible rate and traditional gaming companies have been caught unaware by a flurry of new market entrants.

Playfish was one of the 2009 success stories. Within two years of starting the company, they are attracting 60 million monthly players and are selling 90million items a day (virtual goods and unlockable gameplay). It’s also been a huge personal success for the founders, who sold the business for £240 million last year.

I noticed that Sebastien de Halleux, one of the co-founders of Playfish, was speaking on a panel this morning so I went along. It has been one of my SXSW highlights so far. Here are a few notes (NB comments are paraphrased).

How are social games different to what’s gone before?

SdH: The design of the games is the main difference. Rather than an immersive story-telling experience designed for gamers it’s a social experience designed for non-gamers.

ET: Story’s have endings so are not as scalable or well suited to social gaming platforms.

OA: It’s like going back to how we used to play board games with friends. From faceless gaming back to connecting with real people. There’s also a massive shift for the gaming industry; the economics of gaming is driving business model changes.

JD: Social has brought gaming to the masses. Facebook has also had a profound effect on what people are prepared to share online. People are open about their identity and that’s helped drive the big shift.

ET: The difference is that games can now transmit themselves through invites and gifting. So the opportunity is for a game to pass through recommendation not through marketing. As a result you don’t have to be a big brand or established business to have success. Just focus on creating good games.

Lessons you have learnt and surprises

ET: It’s useless to predict what will work in the future (social gaming) from the past (traditional gaming). For example, who would have thought a game about farming would be a runaway hit. You have to try a wide variety of things. Find a success and then drive hard into it.

SdH: Speed of the industry has evolved. Don’t even think about a change from time cycle in years to months to weeks. We think in evolutionary cycles – EA has published 17 versions of FIFA in 17 years, and our Pet society game has already been through hundreds of evolutions. It is constantly evolving with continuous feedback into each step.

JD: We’ve learnt that social games are living, breathing services. They are not stand-alone games or products. If you launch one, you are committed to it. The volume  of feedback, and the emotion behind it, is incredible.

ET: We’ve learnt that gameplay is there as a delivery mechanism for the content, or as a facilitator for social interaction. It’s not the reason for being

SdH: Launch early. We launch at a 10% completion milestone. We launch unfinished products and that’s fine as early feedback helps you get the game right.

Monetisation of social games

SdH: In-game micro-transactions are key. The game is free and we create emotional incentives that make people want more of the game. Audiences are ready to pay for good games, but in small chunks. Just don’t get fooled into believing that you need large ticket transactions. Try not to think in terms of a business plan based on: Price x Quantity. Instead, think about Distribution x Engagement x Lifetime User Value.

ET: we’ve found that there are two things that can have a disproportionate impact on profitability:

• Creativity / self-expression – allowing people to be creators makes them care more and increases their life time value.
• Competition – player vs. player conflict drives a willingness to pay for competitive advantage.

What’s the place for gaming brands in social?

There was some disagreement on this one.

OA: brands will take over this space. For an example, look at the success of Dante’s Inferno, an average game that got traction thanks to the brand.

SdH: The value of brands in a retail world was huge. It helped them fight for shelf-space and increased trust at the point-of-purchase. But there is no shelf space in social games [not sure I agree with this as we all look at the “top 25”]

Social gaming is driven by invitations from your friends. Direct emails into your inbox from people you know, alleviate the need for brands as a purveyor of trust.

But brands will be have a role especially in their ability to make you care more about a game by mixing offline with online. E.g. FIFA. There is a huge opportunity to innovate here as we move towards games with 1Bn players.

When it comes to other brands taking part (e.g. Coke) advergames do not work well as people see through them. However it is possible to create engagement models where brands add to the experience.

How will mobile gaming integrate with social gaming?

SdH: mobile is difficult to integrate. There are so many issues to balance if someone starts a game on the web then wants to continue playing on a different platform like iphone.

We are running a service. Running a service on the iphone is hard as they are built for application download. There are workarounds, but microtransactions in games are difficult (iphone does not allow individual item purchase, nor do they allow gifting). The factors that drive success on the web are difficult to replicate on mobile.

ET: The trick of getting social mobile to work will be hitting the union (think Venn diagrams) not the intersection of iphone and Facebook. There needs to be a synergy of multi-platform, not just a replacement.

Mobile is more like a way of making money out of what we already have.

Then it got controversial.

OA: we want Xbox and Facebook fully connected. Games will become fully transferable between the web, mobile and your TV screen.

ET and SdH: this has been forecast for years, but will not happen.

Things to watch

• The frictionless monetisation of Facebook credits is exceptionally powerful
• Location aware games like Gowalla and Foursquare.

Abbreviations:
SdH Sebastien de Halleux – Playfish co-founder
ET – Eric Todd, Playdom
OA – Omar Abdelwahed, Ubisoft
JD – Jon David, PopCap Games
GD – Gareth Davis, Facebook (moderator)

Read all our posts from SXSW

Another day at SXSW, and a good seminar on crowd sourcing and not-for-profits. The ‘Crowd sourcing innovative social change’ session saw Amy Sample Ward, Beth Kanter and others talking about how to use crowd sourcing in a not-for-profit environment, not for fund raising or marketing, but for service and programme delivery. One interesting distinction was between a ‘crowd’ and a ‘community’ and how this impacts the model you use.

As with other SXSW sessions, rather than reproduce the conversations after the event, here are the hand-drawn notes taken during the session itself.

SXSW: Crowd sourcing innovative social change session notes

You can also see Amy’s presentation from the session here:

Read all our posts from SXSW

Day Two of SXSW and one of the most interesting sessions we’ve been to so far was ‘Can the Real-Time Web Be Realized?’ including Brett Slatkin from Google, Dare Obasanjo from Microsoft and Scott Raymond from Gowalla among others.

Rather than regurgitate the content of the session, we’ve included our low-tech hand-drawn notes from the session below.

SXSW: Real-time web session notes

Read all our posts from SXSW

SXSW image by benjamin ellis

This week I’m going to be reporting from the South by South West Interactive (SXSWi) festival in Austin Texas. SXSW is World’s largest digital and interactive festival/trade-show/conference/party/event/get-together. Around 20,000 people will be joining me in Austin to uncover the latest thinking in digital and, I suspect,  to network like nutters.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to make it to SXSW for years. A few months ago my prayers were answered and FreshNetworks was picked by UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) to be one of 40 companies chosen to represent the UK at the festival. The grandly titled Digital Mission aims to help UK digital companies expand internationally and develop overseas business relationships.

The list of events is monsterous. It’s taken me a few hours to get my itinerary in order. I suspect I have fallen into classic SXSW-newbie mistake of trying to plan out a perfect route between each session to ensure a schedule that optimises my time here. I’ll probably find the plan goes in the bin half-way through day1 one.

Some frantic session planning on the plane

Here are just three of the sessions I am looking forward to:

• Time + Social + Location. What’s next in mobile experiences – Foursquare and Gowalla are hot properties inn the social media world at the moment. This session includes Naveen from Foursquare.
• Can the Real Time Web be Realised – a panel debate featuring some great speakers – Scott Raymond, co-founder of Gowalla, Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb and Bret Slatkin from Google who created PubSubHubBub which you will hear a lot about in 2010.
• Banking 2.0 – financial services driven by people and emerging technologies – as a social media agency, FreshNetworks has always done a lot in the financial services sector, so I am keen to test some ideas we’ve been discussing back at base.

And finally, one of the delights of coming to SXSW as part of the Digital Mission is the opportunity to spend lots of time with other UK entrepreneurs. I have always found that spending time with peers not only gives me new ideas, but also (because I’m rather competitive) it tends to raise the level of my personal ambition.

There are a few companies that I am especially interested in learning more about:

• oneDrum – embedding collaboration in Microsoft Office documents
• Silence Media – cost per engagement ad network for video banner ads
• Slicethepie – crowdsourced band/music funding

Let me know if you want me to bring you anything back from Texas.

Read all our posts from SXSW

Media140 Social meetup in London

Almost every event organsier talks about creating an engaged and involved audience. Sadly it rarely happens.

On Thursday I spoke at the Media140, a Social Media Meetup in London. The event was mostly dominated by Social Media agencies and consultants. There was a lively atmosphere, a loud shouty man and most of all, lots of energetic interaction.

I am still trying to work out exactly what the magic formula was. Perhaps because only a hardcore bunch made it through the snow; so they were determined to speak up. Or maybe it was the free drinks that created a positive and friendly Twitter back-channel from the off.

So what can event organisers, searching for elusive interaction, learn from the Media140 event? One factor that definitely made a difference was the style and approach of Guy Stephens (Carphone Warehouse) and Richard Baker (formerly General Manager, Virgin Trains). They kicked things off with an informal open conversation about Social Media. And they brought two key things to the debate:

1. A specific angle, social media for customer service, in which they had clear expertise

2. An openness to debate. Their style was non-lecturing, they didn’t pretend to know all the answers and it was clear they wanted to be challenged and learn from the audience.

Perhaps it’s something about Social Media – we’re all learning together – that makes interaction more likely. But clearly personal style goes a long way. And I suspect it’s especially important to make sure your first speakers have the right tone.

If you’re working in social media in London then I recommend you sign up for the next Media140 Meetup Thanks @andegregson and @KatePickering for organising it and for @Guy1067 and @Richard_Baker for the engaging conversation on Social Media for Customer Service.

Oh and my favourite Social Media takeaway of the event was that Social Media Agencies need organisational change management skills as much as they need marketing, PR or customer service capabilities.

Image courtesy of Iain Weir

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Presentations from Facebook and MySpace at the Marketing 2.0 conference caused something of a stir – first of all for getting both on stage at the same time, and second as Damien Vincent from Facebook, having only just joined them from MySpace, seemed to momentarily forget who he was working for.

But the content of their presentations was interesting, if only to see how both organisations approach selling their marketing potential to brands. Of particular interest was a set of statistics shown by Olivier Hascot from MySpace, based on surveys in the UK. They found that:

• 40% of Brand Friends remembered the advertiser when shopping either online or on the high street
• 22% of Brand Friends said that they spend more money with the advertiser

These could be impressive statistics for MySpace and would no doubt interest any advertise looking to raise both brand awareness and customer spend in the current economic climate. But I’d like to understand a little bit more about them. I’d like to know if the suggested cause and effect (that being a Brand Friend on MySpace led to greater brand awareness and higher customer spend) is actually the case, or if something else is at play.

As acquisition statistics, these do look impressive. If, as a brand, I could get 40% higher brand awareness among non-customers, and 22% higher spend from new customers by being friends with them on MySpace, there would be no question that this would be a good idea. However, I suspect this is not what’s happening.

Consider a brand advocate or even just a regular purchaser of your brand’s products. I imagine that it is these people who are likely to befriend you on MySpace. It is also these people who are likely to both have your brand at the forefront of their mind when out shopping, and spend more with you as a result. So rather than these two outcomes being a result of a consumer being your Brand Friend on MySpace, it could be that all three outcomes (higher brand awareness, higher spend and being a friend) are a result of them being a regular customer or even a brand advocate.

If this is the case, then it could be that social networks, at least the Fans and Pages bits of them, are strategies for retention of existing customers rather than acquisition of new ones. Would you become a Friend or a Fan of Nutella if you didn’t like that particular chocolate spread? Probably not. You are much more likely to join them in this way if you are already a customer, and probably one that is willing to attach themselves (and their social network profile) to your brand.

So from this perspective, activities in social networks are probably best focused on customer retention. Letting your most loyal or enthusiastic customers become your friend so that you keep your brand at the forefront of their mind and they ultimately spend more with you.

Of course, there may be some brands where social networks are a perfect hunting ground for acquisition targets, but I would expect this to be restricted to more aspirational brands or products. Whilst I might not become a fan of Nutella if I wasn’t already a customer, there is a high chance I might become one of the new Peugeot 308 before I have actually bought one. But this is because I am willing to attach the aspiration towards this brand to my profile. This is probably unlikely with most products.

Read all of our posts based on the Marketing 2.0 Conference here.

Some more reading

• Social network advertising wasted on millennials (thisisherd.com)
• Managing Your Social Networking Efficiently in 2009 (revenews.com)
• ‘Unmarketing’ and giving your community control (thisisherd.com)
• How to Choose the Right Social Networks for your Business (pajamaprofessional.com)
• Chinese Social Networks ‘Virtually’ Out-Earn Facebook And MySpace: A Market Analysis (tsurch.com)

It’s been a busy week at FreshNetworks, with Charlie on Web Mission 09 in San Francisco and me in Paris for the Marketing 2.0 Conference. A great chance to meet people and also to learn, and this week’s Required Reading for the team is one of the presentations given in Paris.

Wolfgang Lünenbürger-Reidenbach from Edelman presented about word-of-mouth and why it is important to brands. What I like most about this presentation is the emphasis that it places on word-of-mouth not being about technology. Too often, discussions on word-of-mouth revert to the mechanisms by which people hope this will be transmitted – by widgets, social networks or online communities.

Technology is, of course, important, but word-of-mouth is actually a social function. It’s about people trusting and respecting your brand so much that they are willing to put their reputation in line with it – recommending it to friends and peers. It’s about people doing your advertising for you and about helping you gain penetration in markets you could never reach effectively with traditional advertising. And perhaps most importantly, it’s about the outcome, not the process. Word-of-mouth is only useful when people act on what they hear.

Some more reading

• Branding in the age of social media (freshnetworks.com)
• Engage different consumers in different ways – why segmentation is key (freshnetworks.com)