The Future of Digital Marketing… is Social & Mobile! Twitter Slides + Pictures of the Econsultancy Event

I was delighted to participate to Econsultancy’s ‘the Future of Digital Marketing‘ event. Ashley and his team put together a great event with some inspirational speakers as well as a savvy and participative audience of over 300 digital marketers. It is pretty outstanding in the current market, congrats Econsultancy!

The innovative format worked well with two keynotes sessions and 4 industry focused sessions: Travel, Retail, Publishing/Media and Finance.

The first keynote was delivered by an inspired Eric Frenchman, Chief Internet Strategist at Connell Donatelli, from New Jersey. Eric shared with us his experience in digital marketing and politics gained while he was working on the John McCain’s campaign last year. Needless to say that Obama and his team put social media on the radar after such a successful presidential campaign and an outstanding amount of money raised viamy.barackobama.com. But if found it Interesting to see the campaign from a different angle.

As far as I am concerned, I enjoyed the publishing/media session the most and it is not only because it was the only (!) session with a female speakerLouise White, Group Marketing Director at Incisive Media. She did a great job by the way. Jonathan MacDonald‘s “stand-up act” was entertaining, creative, and disruptive. The future is mobile!

Ian Jindal, Editor in Chief at Internet Retailing‘s closing keynote presentation was packed with insights, humour, innovations… the perfect way to end the day.

A special thanks to the awesome audience, and congrats to my fellow speakers!

Social Media in Banking & Financial Services
My goal for the FODM was to make people realize that financial institutions are already trying to engage with people via social media. Nevertheless, very few are doing it right.
And it gave me the chance to clarify a few things and share with the audience some of the topics we covered the night before with some prominent bankers and industry bloggers during our (at some point heated) conversations at the latest event organized by Chris Skinner’sFinancial Services Club “Do Banks get Social … and understand 21st century?”

Twitter is Not the Ultimate Answer but it is Definitely Not a Stunt
I focused on twitter to make people realize that loads of financial insitutions are already engaging on this popular micro-blogging platform.
Is Twitter the answer to all our customer service inefficiencies? No. Is it here to stay? I am not sure it is going to be around forever. But it is certainly not a stunt.

Please find below a tweet I found today: #barclays couldnt withdraw money, online banking down. customer announcement on site? no. searched twitter to confirm it wasnt just me  Not convinced yet?

You can’t argue that Twitter is an amazing tool for real-time market research. It would be foolish not to start monitoring the popular micro-blogging site now. As a brand, it is extremely valuable to know what people are thinking about you, your competitors, the industry, the regulation, in real time.

Moreover I really see twitter as an excellent way to give further exposure to your other social media initiatives like a blog, a facebook page or a YouTube channel.

Forget the technology, focus on People!
But at the end of the day, I believe social media is all about people not technologies or platforms.

It is important for me to track what people are making of twitter, facebook, YouTube, blogs or any kind of other relevant web 2.0 platforms. We need to understand how they engage on those networks.

But I have never advised a client to do launch a blog, an online community or a virtual island for the sake of it. It would be a mistake. First, I need to understand your business objectives and see if and how social media could support them. It is critical to find the best way to REWARD your members.

Must do, whether you like it or not!
Even if you don’t want to engage with your detractors, you don’t believe in social media or you think it is not for your well-established brand, there are a few things you can’t afford not to do in 2009.

1. Learn about social media in your industry
2. Listen to what people say about your brand, your product, your industry, your competitors
3. Increase your official presence on all the most popular social media sites to prevent brand hijacking and start building an audience (start now, it takes a lot of time and effort)

Social Media: Different Projects, Different Challenges
In banking, there are four kinds of social media projects:
* Social Media for your employees (intranet)
* Social Media for your clients (online banking)
* Social Media – Open B-to-B
* Social Media – Open B-to-C

Common Questions and Concerns
* Why isn’t the UK banking industry more advanced?
* Why do you blog on Visible Banking?
* Do people really want to join a bank’s community?
* How can banks start building trust with social media?
* Concerns – Social Media is not scalable!
* Concerns – We must provide a consistent customer experience even on sites like twitter!
* Concerns – Limited Resources. We won’t be able to contact everybody and match their expectations

You are looking for answers? As a first step, I invite you to read one of my articles and interviews published in 2009. Then I invite you to call me on 07736 446 357 or send me an email.