Media140 – has real-time social media got the X factor for brands?

Thank you to Media140 for having me to speak at their event on real-time social media today. It was a pretty daunting prospect to get up in front of a room full of social media experts, all of whom were sending their every thought on your words and ideas to a massive screen with a rolling Twitterfeed. (It felt a bit like being on The X Factor where everyone watching is Simon Cowell with access to a keyboard.)

Luckily, not too many people abused me. And I learnt some interesting stuff:

• ASOS’ number one referrer is Facebook. Its second-largest referrer is Twitter.

• The number of referrals at ASOS that convert into sales is twice as high from Facebook as it is from Twitter. Does this mean that Twitter isn’t a good sales tool and it’s better for customer service enquiries? Or does it simply mean that more people who will actually buy from ASOS use Facebook? Or people who use Facebook are more likely in general to buy stuff than those who use Twitter?

• When creating the Compare the Market meercat campaign, VCCP claim that the social media element was not the initial intention of the client. It was to be largely a TV-based campaign but VCCP felt that the character of the meercats lent themselves so well to social media that they took on that aspect anyway. A bit further down the line, this has paid off as this has been the element of the campaign that has really resonated with consumers.

• Innocent created a nice little customer-focused iniative by getting customers to send them amusing messages to go on the bottom of the brand’s bottles. The firm then picked eight messages, including “Help! I’m trapped in the Innocent factory!” And even funnier, the company actually had people calling them, saying “Er, I think you might have a problem at your plant….” after reading that one. A nice touch, consistent with the brand.

• Companies are really struggling with whether to have one sole corporate voice that acts as the official mouthpiece for the business on Twitter; or whether lots of disparate voices from various areas in the company “humanising” the firm through tweets is worthwhile.

Thank you to my fellow panellists:

Richard Baker, general manager for Virgin Trains

Will Mcinnes, managing director of NixonMcinnes

Candace Kuss, director of planning, Hill & Knowlton

Drew Benvie, managing director, 33 Digital

and our chair, Gordon MacMillan, who is social media and international editor at Haymarket.

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