Facebook Marketing Conference 2012 - Check Out The Highlights

Last Wednesday Chinwag and Our Social Times held the long awaited Facebook Marketing Conference. The day was packed full with speakers, case studies, stats and quotes, our favourite still being from Tom from We Are Social, asking "are you a dipper or a smotherer" (in reference to Heinz ketchup that is).

The day was a huge success with over 120 people through the door, 22 speakers and a twitter hashtag that not only trended during the day but reached over 76,818 people (baring in mind we ended up with two hashtags being used #fbmk12 and #fbkm12)!

For those of you that could not attend the conference, we've done a recap of the event highlights with links to some of the presentations. It'll almost be as if you were there... just without the free chocolate (thanks again Cadburys Dairy Milk).

Session 1: Facebook: State of the Nation

Facebook Keynote - Andy Pang, Measurement Solutions Group Lead, Facebook

As the title kinda hints... this was a conference all about Facebook Marketing, so to kick things off we had a keynote from Andy Pang, the Measurement Solutions Group Lead at Facebook. Andy covered and explained 3 main topics within his presentation; how Facebook measures the three primary indicators of engagement – reach, resonance and reaction, the 3 ROIs of well run Facebook campaigns and the 3 M's of the marketing mix model.

Our Top 3 Takeaways: 

• Facebook stats illustrate that click through rates do not correlate to sales/activity
• Friends make ads relevant
• Deliver to the right audience and an ROI will follow

Facebook Beyond the Hype - Tom Smith & Brett Petersen, GlobalWebIndex

Taking the stage next we had Tom Smith and Brett Peterson from GlobalWebIndex, who wowed us with some impressive statistical analysis of Facebook and other networks across the globe. We learnt that, not surprisingly, Facebook users are the most active out of all social network sites and that the UK leads in Facebook activity, followed closely by the USA, France, Germany fourth and Russia sit in fifth - it's Japan who are trailing at the back in regards to Facebook population.

Tom and Brett then looked into the key consumer segments: passive vs active and found that in the UK, 4.6m are heavy FB contributors (using the sites 1+ times a day) and 3.6m were passive users of the site.

Our Top 3 Takeaways: 

• Increasing localisation means more local culture
• Don't forget about the passive audience - think content
• The biggest motivator for following a brand on Facebook is discounts on future purchases

Facebook Strategy: How Facebook Fits into a Social & Digital Marketing Strategy - Richard Ayers, Manchester City FC & BFI

Next up, we had the very interesting Richard Ayers, who manages social media for not only Manchester City FC but also the British Film Institute (BFI). Richard went into depth about Facebook Strategy and how Facebook fits into a social & digital marketing strategy. He explained how Manchester City uses exclusive, behind the scenes content to drive FB engagement and that the football club's social strategy is about engagement, not traffic. We also got a cheeky secret look into the BFI's Star Wars scrapbook.

Our Top 3 Takeaways: 

• Don't drive people to your website from Facebook, keep your content and your engagement within Facebook
• Rather than building the audience, make your pages better at engaging with its existing fan base
• Add a human face to the brand messages, this allows fans to feel more connected

Panel Discussion: Facebook Timeline and Marketing

Session one was brought to a close by the very lovely Kathryn Corrick moderating the first panel discussion of the day with previous speakers, Richard and Tom as well as Vincent Sider from the BBC. The panel looked at the Facebook Timelime and how best to use it.

 Session 2: Like it, Buy it, Earn it? Facebook Media

Edgerank: Optimising Position in the Facebook Newsfeed - Kelvin Newman, SiteVisibility

After a very deserved coffee break we were back into Session two, kicked of by Kelvin Newman from SiteVisibility who gave a very insightful talk on EdgeRank: Optimising Position in the Facebook Newsfeed.

Kevin explained "edge" and spoke about the main aspects behind it - affinity, weight and decay.

Our Top 3 Takeaways: 

• Simple but need to know - What’s an “edge”? - an action online in Facebook (e.g. tag, update, like)
• Whenever you create an "edge" on Facebook that's connected to someone else, that improves affinity rating
• You need an Affinity Acquisition Approach - do things that encourage affinity

Case Study: Yorkshire Tea's Little Urn - From TV to Facebook - Dom Dwight, Yorkshire Tea

Dom Wright from Yorkshire Tea was up next with learning and findings from their Little Urn case study. He started off explaining how Yorkshire tea, as he put it "fell into social" by getting the inside out, listening and gathering intelligence.

He shared with the audience what every brand learns; not everything works in social. His main findings - 1. video is tricky, 2. don't force it and 3. stay on the audience's level.

He ended with stories of their success, including the wonderful trips "Little Urn" is now making around the world, their love for One Direction and the heart-warming story of the day that Yorkshire Tea saved a lamb's life (check out slide 13 for the full story)

Our Top 3 Takeaways: 

• Stay on your customer's level (e.g. "Tipping it down outside, going to grab a cuppa" as a FB status worked really well for them)
• Fooling around with your FB audiences works - just have purpose behind it
• Tea can save lives ;)

Facebook Advertising Uncovered: Ads, Attribution and ROI - Jeremy Waite, TBG Digital

Facebook Advertising Uncovered: Ads, Attribution and ROI was taking on by Jeremy Waite, head of social strategy at TBG Digital. Jeremy spoke about the misconception that social is cheap and easy, going on to say it is hard and can be expensive, you need to be doing it right in order to reach the right audience. 66% of people follow less than 5 brands and 45% of those people don't want to receive marketing messages from them - you need to make sure your reaching the right people!

We then looked into the success of BT's "vote for the wedding dress campaign, where fans could get involved with Adam and Jane’s wedding by picking the dress, the car and the first dance song. Showing that telling stories on Facebook works, people share emotions - not facts.

Our Top 3 Takeaways: 

• 96% of people who like a brand only ever visit their page once
• Social media isn't an acquisition tool - it's an engagement tool
• Most Facebook advertisers don't think about contextual placement or social context when buying ads.

Session 3: Sharing the Love: Content, Community, Engagement & Loyalty

The Science of Sharing - Nils Mork-Ulnes & Judith Lewis, Beyond

After a spot of networking over lunch we were straight into session three and first up was Nils Mork-Ulnes and Judith Lewis from Beyond who gave us insights into the science of sharing.

They shared with us the rapid proliferation of sharing platform use, with 900+ million monthly active users on Facebook, 200+ million on Twitter and 250+ on Google+ and went into details about the 7 types of social shares and where they share.

We then learnt what the implications of these sharers are for Facebook marketers, learning that fans exposed to brand content on Facebook tend to buy more and that a huge 43% are prompted to purchase after online interaction.

Our Top 3 Takeaways: 

• 50% of sharing is through Facebook with four billion prices of content shared every day
• The majority of UK social shares are by altruists (39.6%) as opposed to careerists (2.5%)
• Fans exposed to branded content on Facebook buy more. For example, 38% more of Starbucks fans who'd been exposed to content made a purchase

Case Study: Cadbury's Dairy Milk - Sarah Lindley, Cadbury Dairy Milk, Kraftfoods

Next up we had Sarah Lindley from Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, who very kindly supplied the audience with some much needed chocolate. Sarah discussed how digital helps Cadbury's deliver their brand. Their social strategy is executed and amplified across social channels with creative ideas always being at the centre.

She talked about the Cadbury's 1 million fan campaign, which involved the world's biggest chocolate thumbs-up, built live on a 2-day stream on Facebook. The idea behind the campaign was get Cadbury's customers to engage and share content by offering different opportunities to interact.

The result was a highly engaged community ready for a new brand campaign and product launch.

Our Top 3 Takeaways: 

• Give your community ownership of ideas
• Build on existing communities
• Give your facebook page fans something to go back for, an incentive or opportunity

Timeline Meets TV: Engagement Through Live Broadcast and Interactive Video - Russell Goldsmith, Markettiers4DC

Russell Goldsmith from Markettiers4DC and Stephanie Conlon, MEC then spoke to us about engagement through videos and livestreams. We were told that video is the most shared content on Facebook but only 8% of brand posts are videos, the rest are made up of photos (10%), links (9%) and statuses (73%).

We moved onto talking about interactive videos and how they work well for brands and also chatted coupon usage and distribution.

Our Top 3 Takeaways: 

• Broadcasting live content onto your timeline improves engagement
• 32% of a user’s time on Facebook is spent on the Homepage 
• Social media is a digital advocacy platform used to share information

Quickfire agency insight: How Kellogg's, Dove and Xbox build community

Next up we had a quick-fire case study round from Dove, Kellogg’s, and Doco on how they build community.

Emma Gannon from Edelman spoke about Dove’s emphasis on community and the purpose behind their pages - "real women". Emma spoke about people being king, not content and that the success of their community remains driven by the voice of the "real women" in their ads and campaigns.

Katie White from Isobar Social talked about how each Kellogg's brand has a framework for tone of voice that is maintained for their social campaigns in order to try and keep people interested and retained. For example, Special K is about positive feelings towards healthy weightloss and Crunchy Nut focuses on obsession – lending itself perfectly to sharing. It's important to build a human persona and tone of voice to your brand, and maintain that personality over time. 

Maurice Wheeler from Doco highlighted the value of “Black Swan events" (totally unforeseen, very significant, have a big impact and can be rationalised retrospectively) and suggested innovation as a strategy - it's all about planning with a compass rather than a map.

Session 4:  If We Build It, Will They Come? Facebook as a Platform

Ringing in the tills: An introduction to Fcommerce - Dr Paul Marsden, Social Commerce Today

Onto the final session of the day and first up we had Paul Marsden from Social Commerce Today who gave us an introduction to Fcommerce.

Paul gave us an insight into selling on Facebook - "to sell something on Facebook you need to do something remarkable". Find out what interests your Facebook fans and try and give that to them. Facebook can also be used to enhance in-store experiences, for example, something very cool that Diesel have done is installed Facebook into their fitting rooms, allowing shoppers to photograph themselves in a new outfit and asking for advice from friends.

Our Top 3 Takeaways: 

• When we share something on facebook it activates the same part of the brain as when we have sex
• Look at facebook to help consumers solve problems socially and solve social problems
• Official definition of engagement: "turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounds content"...but engagement isn't what consumers want

Nokia and Fcommerce - Thomas Messett, Nokia

Next up was Tom Messett from Nokia talking selling things with Facebook. Tom talked about the fact that most Facebook fans will never visit a Facebook page once they have liked it - they consume content via their own news feeds. How to get round this - social proo, sharing and using Facebook as a platform.

Our Top 3 Takeaways: 

• Most people never visit your Facebook page after they 'like' it, they instead see it through their news feed
• Discounts cheapen brands, give exclusives instead
• Make things easy for people to share with their friends

Heinz: A Case Study in Fcommerce - Tom Ollerton, We Are Social

Nearly at the end of the day and we had Tom Ollerton from We Are Social talking innovations in social commerce. Staring things off with asking if the audience were "dippers or smotherers" got us well onto the case study subject - Heinz. Tom talked about a few of the Heinz campaigns, the secret ingredients campaign that ran from the Facebook conversations and the "get well soup" campaign that allowed fans to personalise tins of Heinz soup for friends.

Our Top 3 Takeaways: 

• Selling through facebook - there are issues with trust, it's not a site people feel secure using with payments
• Research customer behaviour before jumping ahead
• Grow awareness and visibility of your Facebook pages

Guardian Reader: Lessons Learnt from Leveraging the Facebook Platform - Martin Belam, Emblem (formerly Guardian)

To close the day we had Martin Belam from Emblem (formerly Guardian) who is the man behind the Guardian’s Facebook App, which launched last September talking about the lessons learnt from leveraging the Facebook platform. Martin's session explored the successes, the insight and the user interaction of the app.

Our Top 3 Takeaways: 

• Facebook open graph means stop thinking about publishing content and think about how people will use it.
• The Facebook Guardian app shifted the average age from 44 in print to 29 on Facebook
• Catchy headlines attracted users to stories years old, reigniting old stories with new conversations

So there you have it, a run down (although quite a long one) of the Facebook Marketing Conference 2012. 

A big thank you to all our speakers who contributed to the day and all the attendees who joined us.

// Check out our Storify with the day's best Twitter interactions & pictures

Photo (c) Jeremy Waite