Wed 5th Oct, 10-4pm, Channel 4, London (Workshop)

Thu 6th Oct, 9-6pm, Covent Garden London (Conference)

We're happy to plug an event organised by our friends at Chinwag as they have offered our clients and readers of our blog a £100 discount - see below

This new conference from the organisers of Social Media Week London, comes to London on 5th and 6th Oct 2011. Delving deep into all aspects of Facebook Marketing, from developing an effective strategy through to tactics that work (and don't), looking at advertising, games, mobile, apps, engagement, metrics and a glance into the future. 

Hear from Facebook and brands including Dell, Channel 4 with case studies, expert advice and the wisdom of experience from leading agencies 1000heads, W+K London, SocialOptic and “Me and My Web Shadow” author Antony Mayfield. With more top brands still under wraps this is one conference you don't want to miss out on.

For those in need of some hands-on practical experience, there’s the Facebook Marketing: Bootcamp kindly hosted at Channel 4’s offices in London. The day led by Lauren Fisher of social media experts, Simply Zesty the day will provide an in-depth tour of the tools and techniques to get you started.

Early bird conference tickets start from only £199, so don't hang around to get yours!

Discount code: markettiers4dc

http://chinwag.com/insight/facebook

With 500m active users, a Golden Globe winning movie and a valuation of over $50bn, we thought perhaps Onward could afford to dedicate a little bit of editorial to Facebook.

Whether you think we’ve seen this all before with the likes of Friends Reunited, Bebo, MySpace and the many social networks that have been the darlings of the market and media in the past, one thing that is very evident with Facebook, in terms of brand communication, is that it delivers. And at markettiers4dc we’ve experienced the benefits first hand.

Last year we achieved a number of firsts within Facebook that really excited both us and our clients; and this year we’ll be pushing further ahead with how we integrate our broadcast campaigns into this important communications environment.

In 2010 we broadcast a live and interactive whisky tasting show via satellite from Jerez in Spain into our client’s Facebook fan page which was viewed live and subsequently on demand by tens of thousands of users all over the world.

We were also appointed by Hill & Knowlton to help leverage Castrol’s sponsorship of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. A live interactive WebTV show was produced for their Facebook fan page, giving football fans the chance to put their questions to brand ambassadors Alan Shearer and Ronald Koeman, as well as view a selection of greatest World Cup moments and the latest Castrol Rankings data. As part of the campaign, we also set up separate video interviews with The Sun Online, Telegraph TV and ESPN. Fans of the Castrol Football Facebook page rose by over 20% in the fortnight around the live show.

markettiers4dc also worked with fashion client Gray & Osbourn to embed video content into their Facebook wall, allowing users to interact in a much more engaging way and add featured items into their shopping basket on the client’s website using LinkTo(TM) technology.

This year, we will be making the watching and sharing of videos in Facebook even more seamless as we look to stream our live webTV shows into users’ walls, giving them the ability to join the show using Facebook Connect and easily share the experience with their friends in their news feeds.

This is an incredibly engaging use of broadcast within Social Media for brands to produce their own content and talk directly to their advocates who have chosen to ‘like’ them; and something we encourage you to get involved with in 2011.

Today the IAB hosted their annual Engage Conference and I was invited to write one of the Official Dossier Case Notes that was handed out to delegates. Before you think I've gone all geeky on you with my references to Marvel Comic characters, the theme of the day was about Supercharging your brand, and I was asked to look at how brands can reach super hero status. Enjoy!

With great power comes great responsibility

So wrote Stan Lee for his creation, Spider-Man - a great line and one that should be considered carefully by brands trying to use social media as a route to elevate themselves to superhero status.

The Internet has a tremendous ability to influence, especially through peer-to-peer recommendation. Brands that can provide a platform for conversation in the social space can therefore create a distinct advantage over their competitors. However, the responsibility lies in ensuring the messages they deliver are clear and transparent as today’s marketing savvy consumers will be quick to share their opinions on Twitter, Facebook or their personal blogs if they thought otherwise.

That said, asking for an organisation to be transparent when comparing them to becoming a superhero is a bit of a contradiction. For example take the late David Caradine’s Superman monologue as the character Bill to Uma Thurman’s Bride in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol.2:

“Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is, there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us.”

Bill’s point about superheroes wearing a mask or costume to hide their true identity is something a brand simply can’t do in terms of online marketing as it would probably fall into the unethical and illegal area of ‘astroturfing’ - where as an organisation, you are pretending that the planned and often paid-for online buzz of a campaign is spontaneously generated by the public.

So how can brands therefore change the way they look to make people view them in a better light without hiding who they are?

An excellent example is Prudential’s NMA Effectiveness Award winning campaign, also shortlisted for Brand innovator of the year by Marketing Week Engage Awards. In this instance, Sound Creative revolutionised the traditional communications in annual pension statements, breaking the mould of regional 'pensions seminars' for Prudential by targeting customers approaching retirement using video in the form of a live and interactive webTV show, positioned as a ‘Pensions Surgery' to deliver advice and drive enquiries. By replacing the old style country wide hotel road show that took time, resource and a lot of money, and required customers to be willing to leave the comfort of their own home to listen to a dry discussion on personal finance, Prudential tried something new, offering a more engaging, plain speaking way to talk to their clients over the web instead.

Viewers sent in questions before and during the live broadcast, which was streamed on Prudential’s website and featured consumer finance personality Alvin hall, alongside a Prudential pensions expert.

Prudential also worked their database well before and after the broadcast to drive questions, create an appointment to view and remind them the show was available on demand and it’s since been viewed 30,000 times.

There’s even more that can be achieved with interactive video now that you can stream through Facebook, which is what markettiers4dc did for whisky maker Laphroaig in their recent online whisky tasting event, broadcasting live via satellite from Jerez in Spain to their Facebook fan page. Using Facebook as the media platform enabled viewers to share the link to the broadcast in their newsfeeds so that friends could join in the experience, whilst following tweets about the show from all over the world.

These are just two examples where brands have used video in an innovative and engaging way to elevate their status to their customers - simple, effective and engaging, and by adapting a quote from another Stan Lee superhero creation, The Hulk, I’d recommend embracing your customers in the social media space:

“don’t make them angry, you might not like them when they’re angry.”

Last Tuesday I was kindly invited by Webgains to present at the a4uexpo London show to discuss how our work in using live online broadcast and interactive videos can add value to affiliate marketing programmes.

My presentation is now available to download at Slideshare -

http://www.slideshare.net/russg/a4uexpo-using-broadcast-and-social-media-to-acquire-customers-in-affiliate-marketing

As a member of the IAB Social Media Council, I posted the following entry on their blog this week - www.iabuksocial.co.uk . . .

Earlier this week I checked into Sa Fàbrica de Gelats on Foursquare to let my friends know that I’ve just bought one of their speciality Orange ice creams whilst in Soller in Mallorca on holiday.

Now, why they would care to know that is another debate! The reason I did it, however, is because as part of my job, I’m still trying to understand the benefit this latest alleged Social Media star can have to my clients, and at the moment, I’m still struggling to find the answer.

I’ve spent a good six months ‘playing’ on Foursquare, going through the similar patterns as many others – checking in to everything I could, realising that on some occasions, I’m not checking in to the official pages of said venues, taking pleasure at becoming mayor of my company, and even the IAB for a day, and then realising the few friends I had in the game are people doing something similar to me for a living, i.e. those in the industry trying it out too, and I assume, similarly getting bored, by the frequency of their check-ins drying up! In fact, the lack of interest from those outside of the industry highlights half the problem. Back in April, I had the unfortunate pleasure of going to support Spurs in the FA Cup semi final at Wembley and watching them lose to a bankrupt Portsmouth. I checked in to the Stadium on Foursquare to see how popular it would be from a decent sample of 90,000 people in one location, and there were a total of 7 players checked in, one was me, and 2 others I knew! The warning signs were there already.

However, as I’ve read with interest the stories about Foursquare looking to raise money, I’ve continue to think there must be a benefit to it to a brand’s marketing. So it was that I recently tried to claim ownership of a page that had already been set up for my company – misspelt I might add - and set up a page of our own for Studio1 in our office. In fairness, Foursquare were quick to respond that I now managed the page I set up, but the one already in existence – an unofficial page for my company markettiers4dc – still exists and still has someone unconnected to my company managing it.

With this in mind, I then looked at testing how to monitor and moderate any comments/tips that are added to my page before recommending it to a major client of ours for a campaign we were planning. After all, given another flaw in the Foursquare game being that one doesn’t even have to be in the venue itself to check-in, any passer-by to my office could add any tip they want about Studio1 – positive or negative. Now I know the whole point of social media is to allow a freedom of dialogue, but I’m only interested in what actual visitors of ours have to say about their experience in our studio, not any random person who hasn’t even stepped inside our reception. I therefore contacted Foursquare to ask about how I could moderate my official page. Here’s the official response:

Only we can delete tips and will only do so if they are using profanity or for another misuse. You can bring those to our attention at bizhelp@foursquare.com always.

Are you kidding me? I have to send comments that I am not happy about on my own page to Foursquare to decide if they should remain on there or not!
Decision made! Foursquare, you need to seriously consider your strategy if you want my budgets. Quite timely, therefore, that this week I’ve read more and more stories about Facebook setting itself up as a geolocation challenger - http://mash.to/2nZKq. Oh dear Foursquare, if Facebook really did offer you around $120 million or so to acquire you, why oh why not take the cash and Foursquare off?

Russell Goldsmith
@russgoldsmith