Social Media Marketing needs to socialise..

Last month I was invited to participate in a VideoEgg Think Tank about Social Media marketing strategies around the World Cup.

Last month I was invited to participate in a VideoEgg Think Tank about Social Media marketing strategies around the World Cup. It turned out to be a really surprising and thought provoking discussion.

Far too often social media conversations centre on the hype around how it is set to conquer the world of marketing and how it is going to signal the death knell of every other channel. It was nice to have a conversation around how it plays in the wider mix.

So news flash - social media is important but other channels still have their purpose. It all depends on the requirements. Social Media will become/already is a key channel in marketing - just thinking about the basics:

1. Social Media is very much about digital conversations. Bringing those offline conversations that were already happening into the digital world. Lack of conversation about a brand can mean indifference in your target markets. As the old saying goes.. the only thing worse than negative press is no press.

2. Not participating in conversations (in an engaging and relevant way etc) can mean you are only reactive in the social media space - that usually means dealing with something negative.

So what that means is whilst hopefully you already have a core conversation you can have with your loyal followers; you almost certainly want to have something more to talk about. There is nothing like a World Cup year to help with that right? Well sure - but before continuing it is worth pointing out that you really should only be using it directly if there is a fit with your brand. Maybe I am jaded but World Cup sponsorships on their own strike me as a waste of money. It would be better if the sponsoring brands built up more of a story around why they are involved with the World Cup as opposed to just a sponsor. I am not sure I could tell you the various sponsors after the World Cup with the possible exception of Nike. Oh no hang on. They are not actually a sponsor. It is Adidas! If there is any recent research around sponsorships of big events I would be interested in seeing them.

Anyhow, getting back on track, the World Cup generates conversations and plenty of them. One thing we all agreed on in the discussion - interrupting World Cup conversations is not a good idea. The trick is to identify something that will generate conversations on their own. One great example was the live TV ads that are planned on ITV during the World Cup - I am sure those will generate conversations. One advert that has already generated conversations - albeit for the wrong reasons - was the Nike ad which ITV cut short.

That was one of the key takeaways from the morning - using other channels to help facilitate or create conversations is an excellent way to generate coverage for your brand and hopefully in the process create more brand advocates in the process.

Just to be clear - I don’t mean using things like football hoardings saying “follow on Twitter”. I mean seriously..

Get your creative hats on.. and thanks again to the guys at VideoEgg.