At a conference of 300+ industry folks, you quickly discover that most of us, from in-house marketing pros to agency wonks, are facing the same strategic challenges. How do we show the value of social media? What does being a social media expert mean these days? Does my content resonate? Am I making an impact on consumer spending decisions? Thankfully, many of the panelists at Spredfast Summit provided great insights into how they’re currently thinking about and solving these questions.
In part 1 of our Spredfast Summit coverage, my colleague, Gabriel Rosenberg, elaborated on Arianna Huffington’s keynote, discussing how “the greatest value of social media is that it encourages and amplifies relationships.” Likewise, I’ve outlined some of the additional overriding topics the panelists discussed as important takeaways for big and small brands managing B2B and B2C campaigns.
Humanize and Develop Trust
Blake Chandlee, vice president of Global Partnerships at Facebook, made a blunt but poignant observation during his panel: “People don’t hate advertising. They dislike bad advertising.” He went on to discuss how important it is to humanize content, translating the human touch for social, because as humans we crave interaction with people and not things.
A good example is REI’s 1440 Project, a campaign that celebrates every minute of every day spent in the great outdoors, through user-generated content displayed across an interactive timeline. The photos and videos collected are prominently featured on REI’s social channels. Paulo Mottola, on the REI social team, says that the planning process involved questioning whether the brand was the best mouthpiece for REI’s products or if someone could say it better, specifically, REI members. The decision was made to tell the brand story through people who love REI, giving the outdoor brand and its products a human element that otherwise may have been diluted.
Give Meaning to Messages
It’s crucial to remember that when it comes to your message, one size doesn’t fit all. Segmentation can be a social media marketer’s best friend. This could mean restructuring targeting on Facebook and A/B testing parallel posts for similar audiences but with slightly different demographic profiles. Understanding who your audience is and on which platforms they best consume messages can also help lend meaning, and ultimately context, to your social posts, and paid and sponsored advertising.
Social Is the New Front Page
Arianna Huffington touched on this point in her keynote speech, which resonated in many of the other panels. Arianna mentioned that her reporters package their stories for social. They’re trained to focus on wider consumption beyond the front page of the site, and how to most effectively use all the channels at their disposal to amplify awareness and action.
That means making sure the content can work across platforms (desktop, mobile, tablet), and equipping all in-house content creators with the know-how to understand how their content can and should resonate. This relates somewhat to being platform agnostic, a term bandied about for years, but also understanding the ever-evolving role social plays in dynamically shaping how a piece of content is broadcast, consumed, and shared.
Predicting the Future Is the Future
As marketers, we’re constantly tasked to forecast the future, to circumvent the same ol’ same ol’ and instead, anticipate and intercept consumer behavior, delivering our brand message right to where they’re sitting. We want to develop content that relates to what our audience wants and needs at that moment in time.
It’s our job to ensure our content is interesting and relevant for the audience, and that the stories we’re creating and telling are authentic and timely.
Looking Ahead …
One, agencies and brands alike need to ensure social media people are stronger business people and more clearly articulate how social impacts the sales funnel. Two, as Adam Kmiec (head of digital/social worldwide for Campbell’s) declared, we must continue to help battle the notion that social media is in its infancy and thus, tolerate mediocrity. And three, it’s time to stop thinking that social media teams have the only keys to knowing how a message should work on social media channels. Rachel Caggiano, VP at Social@Ogilvy, stated that everyone on her team owns the message in one way or another, from the account team to the creative director. Focus more on better training and equipping members of the team to develop content for the front lines of social as part of their job.
