Mike Stopforth, founder of social media consultancy
Cerebra and co-founded of blog aggregator
Afrigator is doing the invisible presentation routine, after a few technical glitches. So lots of hand gestures :)
Mike is talking about social media from a consultant-brand point of view and sharing his insights based on the work he's done with brands like Samsung, Toyota, SAB, Hollard, Converse, Calvin Klein and Standard Bank.
He tries to help his clients get around the hype of new media. Mike believes 'new media' is a misleading term; it's not 'new media', it's 'media that is new'. So he goes with social media as a description. We happen to agree. But all these terms are pretty synonymous these days anyway - as long as the person who hears them gets the point, the description has done its job.
Mike asks his clients why we don't see advertising agencies advertising themselves using the huge budgets they propose to their clients. Is it because above-the-line (TV/Radio/Print) is so expensive? Or because it lacks measurability? Or because there's no real point-to-point return on investment? Most agencies and clients simply go with what they've always done because that's the way they've always done it. Mike questions this with some stats: if 8% of the SA population is online, why are you not spending a proportionate amount of your marketing budget online? Good question, I think.
Some lessons Mike's learnt (AKA advice to brands):
- Be yourself - don't be geeky and exciting and young and fresh, because if you're a bank, you're a bank. Samsung failed miserably trying to do this with a fake blog made to support their phones, which came across as fake, because it was.
- Be honest
- Be quick
- Link to existing above the line campaigns
- Don't reinvent the wheel: if you can or need to, use Twitter, Facebook or other existing social functionality, networks and services
- Find influencers - get brand advocates to come out of the woodwork; social media offers ways to do this
- Involve influencers
- Give them schwag (freebies)
- Sponsor them
- Don't get hung up on technologies
All of this said, Mike suggests that brands should't measure social media campaigns by quantity. They'll be disappointed if you're hoping to see thousands and thousands of signups. But if you're Toyota and you start a blog that attracts someone who's chosen to only drive Toyota cars for their entire lives, then there has to be value for the brand, and the consumer. Mike describes this as a new kind of LSM. How influencial people are, and how much impact they have on their networks.
