On June 18th and 19th, the international Social Media Strategies Summit 2014 (http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/amsterdam-2014/) was held in Amsterdam at the Mercure Hotel Amsterdam City (@MercureAdamCity). Here you will find the learnings and takeaways of Day 2 that State of Digital assembled for you.
KEYNOTE Case Study – Cloetta, A Conversation Company – Bas Komen (@BasKomen)
Social Media & Digital Director a Cloetta, a leading confectionery company in the Nordic Region, The Netherlands and Italy.
Bas’ mission is to turn Cloetta into a conversation company. Cloetta is a fun business. Cloetta sells candy. With a lot of strong local brands with long traditions.
Steps in building the Cloetta digital strategy:
Build reach – Fast moving consumer goods
Collaboration – more fans will talk about your products
The result? A conversation company.
Cloetta started to listen to consumers to know where they were as to compared to competitors. And they conducted a consumer consulting board and a customer survey. Their findings: a lot of competition.
Cloetta has the advantage of an easy starting point to converse since children en elderly people get excited by this product. Of course it wasn’t all fairytale-like. What were the social media challenges?
Social media wasn’t optimal used in marketing
Scattered approach across countries
No unified KPI’s and tracking
Online conversations insights were not generated
Online conversations were mostly one-way without a dialogue
Community Managers are the spokesperson of their brand. They’re like a bartender. This should also apply to the internal community management. Then technology came in. Cloetta needed monitoring software, apps etc. And set up some partnerships with advisors who helped with Facebook, YouTube and so on.
Board members are 50+ and they are not on Facebook. So it’s tough to sell your ideas. Thus you need to have these internal proofs.
Consultants know a lot, but it’s also only one opinion. And they are expensive. The Cloetta consumers also know a lot. They are always right. So Bas started a consumer consulting board by listening to consumers, co creating with them and gaining insights.
Now, this is all very nice but in the end Cloetta also need to proof. So they measured. Cloetta uses the Digital Sentiment Index (DSI) and want to be leading in DSI 4 times a year.
The software being used did not just monitor. Conversation online was also tagged by a human. Are they talking about the package? The flavor? Reviewed quarterly and also compared to the Cloetta competition. This together with monthly KPI’s (reach, engagement and fans) and web traffic numbers (although not as important as social), delivered actual data.
Case: Alhgrens Bilar
The typical Swedish candy Alhgrens Bilar (in the form of a little car) Fruit Hatchback was introduced by the very popular but retired anchorman of a local Top Gear show Carl-Ingemar Perstadt. The Swedish answer to Jeremy Clarkson. Or perhaps the other way round. The Swedish people went nuts since they thought he would return to the show. And online conversation started. This was all a gimmick of course. Pretty successful. As in award winning campaign worldwide successful.
Case: Läkerol, a Danish refreshment candy developed a new taste: raspberry lemongrass.
The Danish office sent this product to new young and promising photographers and asked them what their interpretation of this new taste was. Their ideas were put online. This co creation resulted in a lot of very nice photographs. Beautiful content for the social channels. Since the target audience was “working women”, a prize contest was also set up on Instagram. The ladies could win a bag. And finally signed posters could be won. The numbers? The Facebook posting was seen by 500.000 unique visitors, 9% engagement rate within the fanbase and a fan growth of 6,5%.
You can find Bas’ presentation here.
KEYNOTE: Humanising your Brand on Social Media – Ramon de Leon (@Ramon_deLeon)
Sr. Social Strategist at Rise Interactiv, a digital marketing agency that specializes in traffic generation and web analytics. Keynote speaker at RamonWOW Inc.
Ramon used to be responsible for social media and marketing for 6 Domino’s Pizza franchises in Chicago.
When Ramon enters the stage, I can feel something happening in the audience. Clearly a lot of people are looking very forward to his talk. Understandable, Ramon is a true entertainer.
His first statement: a logo is not real, not huggable, and not human. But some brands do reach that state. True Disney fans have spent hours to meticulously polish matching Disney images on their nails. Some people have Harley Davidson tattooed on their back. What makes people do this?
It has to start with empathy. Imagine yourself in the shoes of your customers. Be willing to fail and learn. Don’t pitch, but think why a customer needs your product. In The Wolf of Wall Street Leonardo di Caprio has the perfect example in the Pen Selling scene. His team members have to sell him a pen. The successful sale doesn’t come from pitching all the unique qualities of this pen and so on. You’ve got to focus on their demand and then supply it. Curious what’s the golden ticket question in the Pen Sale? Check it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPKm-dIIIkY
Customers are an investment. You should treat them accordingly. When Ramon managed the socials for Dominos and a customer would tweet him about a pizza he just ordered, then Ramon would reply with a #videoselfie (already in 2011). The customer of course replied and thanked him. That’s personal attention. Being around customers is like dating. Be thoughtful and attentive. Actually talk to people, reply in a human way with them. Care more about your customers than your competitors.
By the way, without women social media would not exist. We women get the metrics 
How can I inject LIFE to my brand? Is it harder to sell to your boss than to your customers? Yes? Then your budget will be 0. Would you follow you? No? Then your budget will be 0.
Read YOUR content on your CUSTOMERS devices. And use digital. It allows you to be a fly on the wall of your followers, your fans, your friends. So, read their blogs, click on their links in tweets etc. Treat customers like friends.
Start with a plan. Forget about followers, likes etc. but think about relationships that you intend to create. Don’t make a social/digital checklist. Train, inspire and educate EVERYONE around you. Manage the micro interactions. Work, play and create with a passion of a child.
Math does count (breakdown is important). If you don’t know how to do it yourself, hire someone. And choose your words carefully, because someday you may have to eat them.
7 Steps to a Successful Facebook Strategy – Zoe Cairns (@zoe_cairns)
Social Media Strategy, Speaker and Consultant at ZC Social Media
Step 1- Setting your goals and objectives
Build an influence and brand awareness
Create communities
Generate traffic
According to Zoe, Klout is a fantastic tool for for measuring influence.
Step 2 – Define your target audience
What do they like? What do they watch on tv? What magazines do they read? Which blogs do they follow? Otherwise you might be dealing with the wrong message and/or the wrong people. Find your audience on Facebook by the search facility and Graph Search and break it down.
Step 3 – Who are your key centres of influence?
Find people who are influencers in your channel and start a conversation with them. Answer questions, share posts etc. so they will do also in turn. But beware of spamming.
Step 4 – Competitor analysis
Make a chart and scan your competitors. On which platform are they? What do you like about them and what do you dislike? How big are their communities? What brands grab your attention. Why? And how do they do that? With videos, pictures? How often do they appear in your timeline?
Step 5 – Content Strategy Plan
Conversation, Articles, Tips, Promotion
It’s about conversation building and let people know they can trust you. Content is conversation, articles, tips and promotion. Pre Plan your content and fill in a content calendar. Think about relevant holidays and events throughout the year. Use e.g. national-awareness-days.com http://national-awareness-days.com
How can we be involved in society’s conversation like the World Cup. Think about that. With http://Trendsmap.com you can zoom in at local level languages on trending subjects. Use infographics for 10 best tips in YOUR industry. Or make a series “A day in the life of…(our chef, our secretary)”. All it takes is an interview with 5 questions, nice picture to go with it and voila. And be careful, Zoe says. Only 1 of 4 postings should be promotional.
Step 6 – Satisfy Facebook algorithm (Edgerank)
The more you end up in the timeline, the more weight the posting has. If you want to know more about this algorithm, check Whatisedgerank.com A picture has more weight than a link. So use tools like Canva.com (for infographics) and Buzzsumo.com (what is everyone talking about, just type in your tag word)
Edgerank doesn’t like 3party apps. So don’t schedule your postings from Hootsuite or SproutSocial but use the FB functionality. Insidefacebook.com keeps you up to date with algorithm changes.
Step 7 - Measure
Zoe mentions a number of tools (e.g. Facebook Insights, Hootsuite and SproutSocial) you can use to find out how you engage with your fans. SocialBakers provides you with a comparison of your numbers against the average engagement rate on Facebook.
Step 8 - Analyse
Try and analyse these numbers. Why wasn’t this post not popular? Was it because of text? Wrong image use? Etc.
You can find Zoe’s presentation here.
Twitter: New Creativity, New Formats, New Genres – David Levin (@davidlevin123) and David Schneider (@davidschneider)
CEO’s at ThatLot, a Twitter agency working on targeted virals, digital Twitter campaigns and timeline management.David Schneider is an actor and comedian and David Levin twitters as a profession for a.o. UKTheVoice
Both of them will be explaining to us how to through the noise on twitter.
Create your twitter garden and make it as attractive as possible.
Interact and get mentions. People are like bees and will follow you if you tweet.
Your twitter name should be as close to your own name as possible.
Your ava should be like you.
Use your twitter header for a subtle message.
Fill your bio in a professional way.
When you tweet as a brand, keep these 2 key elements in mind.
Keep it short (100 characters) for easier RT-ing
Be human.
Cutting through:
Other important elements in your tweets
Information (like stats, facts);
Insight (glimpse of the guy behind the curtain, wizard of oz);
Humour;
Good images are great and provide more interaction;
Think about your text if you want to share links. Don’t give everything away at once, but just show some ankle. People will get curious so you can up your engagement.
Serendipity. Not all content has to relate directly to your services. If it’s a genuine smile, it’s worth the tweet.
Don’t just plunk your tweet and get on with daily life. Carve some time out of your schedule and monitor. You can also generate engagement by questions. Like #myparentsarecoolerthanme.
Use actual news, trending topics, instant response
Monitor when people are talking about your brand (in a negative way) without directly addressing you. Find them and reply to them in a funny way. People will notice, conversation will start and your follower base will grow
Their presentation is packed with lots of examples of (un)successful tweets, so definitely worth the time spent.
You can find the presentation of both Davids here.
The Future of Social Platforms – Remco Janssen (remcojanssen)
Awardwinning PR Consultant and Founder of Proudly Represents
Remco announces this will be an app-only talk since apps are the future of social media. It’s the age of mobile. Hyves (a Dutch social network, FBstyle) started out same time as Facebook. Hyves had 10 million users in 2010. And now? None. Too many platforms, so Hyves got killed.
Apps:
Snapchat is also used by brands. Like Microsoft and Evianwater (who showed a preview of their new campaign film) and also DJs like DJ Tiesto who launched a new campaign this week on Snapchat.
Slingshot (sling.me), people you “sling at” can only see your post if they sling something back at you.
Secret, anonymous secrets can be shared and commented on.
Wechat, messaging app (very popular under Chinese users), packed with emojis. Oreo did a successful campaign with Wechat.
Ukky combines storytelling with your photographs
CityShare, leaves you with loads of social travel tips about your favorite cities.
Jelly, a research app. Ask a question and your network will help you.
Tinder, a popular dating app
Trends:
Future lies in bundling of apps and in niche apps. Apps like Ukky, CityShare and Tinder are like an “it’s hot or not”. Remco sees this easy “thumbs up or down” trend as the next big thing.
Wazzup Doc, a Dutch clinic facilitates contact through Whatsapp which is immensely popular in the Netherlands.
Brands will be posting more contextual content about their product on networks like Vine, Instagram and Pinterest.
Sharing myths: 72% of all shares comes from copy and paste and 80% is being shared interpersonally (e.g. Whatsapp)
Next Generation Brands:
Mobile First
Secret
Private
Personal
Local
Niche
Next Generation Postings could/should contain:
Help
Inspiration
Vouchers
Previews
Behind the Scenes
Fun
You can find Remco’s presentation here.
KEYNOTE: Social Media Strategy built for ROI – Roy Jugessur (@rjugs) and Jason Potter (@jason_CP)
Roy is Head of EMEA at Shoutlet,s a leading cloud-based enterprise social marketing platform. Jason is Social Media Manager at Corinthia Hotels & Resort.
Roy covers the first part of this presentation and will hand over the mic later on to Jason Potter of Corinthia Hotels, one of Shoutlet’s customers. Shoutlet is also the main sponsor of this summit.
Social for Business:
The definition: the concept that social learnings from online engagements with communities can be applied to all parts of the organization.
The numbers: 82% of CMO’s feel unprepared to deal with data marketing and 63% doesn’t have a cohesive social media plan.
When we utilize data, we know the importance of this data. And the influence the organization faces because of these data. So we need to predict consumer behavior, understand this data. Only then we can monetize.
Jason Potter enters the stage. Corinthia Hotels & Resorts is a 5 star, family run hotel chain from Malta. It’s small and individual with 9 hotels.
So what is social data? It’s the key to individual marketing. Ask yourself, how can we use this data in our service, our marketing etc.?
We can mine down to smaller segments to campaign specifically. Breaking it down into interests is very helpful for more successful targeting. Old school is one campaign only. New school is one campaign subject addressing different types.
Effective ways to use social data
Find out who your customers are.
Target them before, during and after the sale (follow them in what they do)
Use buyer history to target future audiences
Create social specific Call to Action’s
Reward your brand advocates
Increase service value (e.g. reply back within the hour)
Localise content
At one of Corinthia’s latest data campaign, buyers had the opportunity to win their stay back. Objectives of this data campaign were e.g. to localize their customers on social, drive buyer interactions and upsell. The campaign resulted in a new targeted audience, added brand reputation and a consumer retention opportunity.
You can find Roy’s and Jason’s presentation here.
My personal takeaways during this summit:
First always set your goals. And start with your business ones. Social goals will come along the way.
Klout is obviously still in the game. I heard 3 speakers mention it, where one of them was an absolute fan of this tool. In my experience, Klout is not to be taken too seriously. That is, here in the Netherlands.
Always ask yourself “the Big Why”?
Content is king, but only for 10%. Interaction is queen and takes up 90%. Behind every great man stands a powerful woman
Favoritizing tweets is the new retweet on Twitter.
Post from Fatima de Vos on State of Digital
Social Media Strategies Summit #SMSSummit – Learnt Lessons Day 2