Good morning & welcome to day two of Social Media World Forum N. America 2011!  We’ve got another action packed day ahead. Big thank you to everyone who came to the SMWF party last night at Studio 21 and helped make it a night to remember.

In the SMWF workshop this morning kicks off with social media and brand management with Coca-Cola’s Director of Worldwide Interactive Marketing, Michael Donnelly. Michael will be giving the keynote Q&A covering building brand loyalty and engagement through social media. Here are a couple of articles you may find interesting.

-          The Next Web – Brand Loyalty in the Age of Social Media

-          Forbes – How to build loyalty in a digital marketplace

Later in the afternoon we a series of interesting panel discussions covering social media and PR including representatives from brands such as LEWIS PR, Hersheys, mBLAST, CNN, New York Times Brandwatch and WIRED.com.

Mashable – How social media pros are using social media for real results 

Social Media Explorer– PR pros must know social media 

In the Social Media Hub today we will be looking at key platforms in-depth with tips and tricks on how to make the most from the leading social media platforms.

-          Social Media Examiner – 13 Facebook marketing tips from the pros

-          Mashable – The top 10 twitter SEO tips

-          Social Media Today -5 top tips for successful social media marketing

We hope you have a great second day, we look forward to receiving your feedback on the event. Don’t forget to tweet any questions you have during the day to #SMWFQ!

Day one of Social Media World Forum North America 2011 is finally here. Over the next two days we’re presenting some of the leading figures in social media for sessions, discussions panels and workshops around harnessing the power of social media.

In the SMWF workshops, we’ll be exploring the broader impact social media is having on consumer behaviour examining the use for this new channel in marketing and PR, as well as monitoring ROI and building online communities. We’ve got some great speakers, with Joshua March, CEO of Conversocial chairing the action.

Here are some handy links to a bit of further reading around the agenda.

The workshop’s keynote panel session, social reputation, will be kicking off the conference at 0910 with representatives from Klout, Collective Bias and Constellation Research.

-          SMWF Blog – Three steps to help manage your social reputation

-          Marketing Tech News – Monitoring your online reputation with social networking

-          IB Times – 10 ways to build your brand reputation online

Later at 1050 we will be joined by top advertising agencies Saachi & Saachi, Ogilvy 360 and Tri-Ultra Media who will be discussing how paid ads fit within social media. Here’s some food for thought before this session:

-          Social Media Explorer – How to integrate social media with traditional media

-          Blue Glass – Paid advertising with social media sites

-          Search Engine Land – How to make paid social media ads effective and engaging 

After the networking break at 1120 it’s straight back to business with the 2^nd session of the day, Communities. Match.com, Radian6, Mashable and Yelp.com will join for a discussion on the best strategies for developing online communities at all levels.

-          Online Community Report – Developing an Online Community Strategy 

-          Mashable – HOW TO: Create a world-class online community for your business 

The afternoon will focus on applying social marketing for B2B business and will feature the keynote address from Tibbr’s CMO and Executive Vice President, Ram Menon.

-          Top Rank – B2B social media, Infographic

-          Social Media Today – Social Media for B2B marketing – how to get started 

-          Clickz – 10 steps to use social media for B2B lead generation 

Closing the SMWF workshops on the first day will be case studies from global brands Bloomberg, Dominos and Diageo covering their experiences in the social world.

- Bloomberg 

- Dominos 

- Diageo 

And of course we have our free-to-attend Social Media Hub which will be over following with top-class social media advice and insight.

We’re starting off at 1015 with our chair Greg Cargill, VP client Services, Social & Media at BLITZ  followed by a 10 minutes speed networking session to help you get to know the people around you.  Greg will then continue with a workshop on the fundamentals of social media providing direct value to all listeners no matter what level of involvement they currently have in social media.

-          The Next Web – Fundamentals of Social Media 

-          Social Media Today – Back to the Basics

Later in the afternoon we’ll be on our best behaviour, when delving into at social etiquette with Sarah Carter from Actiance. Sarah will be looking at the risks posed by real-time communications on social networks and the best practices for mitigating risk.

Techipedia – The Ultimate Social media Etiquette Handbook 

Business Know How – Top 12 Rules of Social Media Etiquette 

So there are some things to think about today… If you’ve got something to add to any of the sessions you see, or harbour a burning question that needs answering, you can tweet it into the #SMWFQ hashtag; our panel moderators will be keeping an eye on this. Or you can earn maximum kudos by asking it directly over the Q&A mic.

Don’t forget about the official show party later this evening at Studio 21 in Chelsea. There’ll be dancing, complimentary drinks, networking, general merriment and special guest, hip-hop rapper Fabolous. Doors open at 7.30, come along: http://www.apps-world.net/northamerica/event-info/networking

Fundamentals of Social Media 

Greg Cargill, VP of Client Services for Social & Media at Blitz and founder of the bigMETHOD opens this year’s free to attend Social MediaHub with the ‘The Importance of Process in Online/Social Marketing’ Research, Strategy, Creation and Measurement’ workshop. Focus will surround how to effectively engage with all relevant communities, to maximize your awareness efforts as well as how to keep your brand in the conversation between major announcements.

Day One, Social Media Hub, 10:30am

What’s your social reputation?

As social media moves from just another facet to mainstream marketing, more focus is being put upon social reputation. But what is social reputation and why does it matter to business? We gathered together leading thinkers from Klout, Collective Bias, Constellation research and Peer-Index.com to delve into the subject of social reputation, sharing their strategies and experience along the way.

Day One, SMWF, 09:10am

Image via Wikipedia

Keynote Q & A with Coca Cola

This year we will be welcoming Michael Donnelly, Director of Worldwide Interactive Marketing, at The Coca-Cola Company. Michael is responsible for increasing the understanding, testing, adoption and effective use of digital marketing and emerging media amongst Coca-Cola marketers throughout the world. In recent years we have seen Coca Cola take on a progressive digital strategy which has involved the launch of ‘My Coke Rewards’ in the US and a simple but effective social media policy. Michael will be giving a unique perspective on how brands can utilise new digital and mobile marketing outlets to their advantage.

Day One, SMWF, 09:10am

Social media means business

Managing your business across the social space is a little more complex than simply having a facebook page or twitter account. Much of social reputation comes down to educating internally and ensuring that those within the business are aware of the core values and key messages that should be portrayed. Session four, Day 1, will probe into how brands are implementing enterprise social media strategies to align with their business objectives starting with a discussion panel including BBVA Compass, Scholastics and News Corp. Closely followed by a presentation by Robert Harles, Global Head of Social Media at Bloomberg. Robert will be discussing how to integrate social media into a traditional organisation.

Day One, SMWF, 16:00pm

Case study: NASA and location based marketing

Back in 2010 NASA rolled out a new branded partnership with Foursquare straight off the heels of announcing the space agency was teaming up with another geo-location based social platform, Gowalla.The partnership features a customised section on the Foursquare website, where NASA provides official information about the space program in locations throughout the US and encourages users to “explore the universe”. Stephanie L. Scheirholz leads NASA’s social media activities and will be discussing NASA’s relationship with location marketing, covering topics such as:

• How location based marketing platforms can bring value to your brand

• Analyse of consumer behaviour – who are the consumers of location based marketing

• Predicting behaviour through geo-tagging and marketing from it

Day Two, SMWF, 09:40am

Social Sharing: The ultimate form of distribution

This panel aims to delve deeper into the benefits of Social Sharing, arguably one of the most influential behavioral shifts of the 21st Century. With insights from the key players in Social Sharing, join this interactive discussion and get set ready to share….

• Recognizing the behavioral shift and adapting accordingly

• The power of the ‘like’ button

• Creating sharable content

• Personalisation: Going beyond creative expression – why are we so keen to share so much.

• Pitfalls and perils: Is it possible to over share; What can businesses learn from over sharing.

Day Two, SMWF, 10:10am

To view the full agenda please click here.

At Conversocial, we spend a lot of time working with companies who use our software to boost their customer service offerings on Facebook and Twitter. We’ve learnt quite a bit about the challenges they face along the way.

Two thirds of customers want to use social media to communicate with companies about customer service issues,an inevitable consequence of opening up real two-way conversation. Yet brands managing to bring the same level of service to the Facebook wall as traditional communication channels are in the minority.

Here are a few tips on how to deliver great social customer care, taken from our research into the performance of top international retailers. We’ll be releasing our US-focussed study “Who’s ignoring their customers” at the Social Media World Forum on Tuesday.

Face customer service on the wall head on

It’s tempting to respond to customer complaints through Facebook by redirecting them to private channels. The public nature of a complaint on Facebook, a customer kicking up a fuss in front of millions of fans, puts companies off engaging with customers on the page. But your customers know the power of public grumbling, have likely exhausted other options, and won’t be discouraged. Use your Facebook wall to come back at this negative PR with comprehensive support. Showcase your company’s care for its customers and reinforce trust in your brand

Get serious about social customer service

Ignored complaints and slow responses do not make for good customer service in any medium. Most retailers are missing a vast proportion of complaints altogether. Inconsistency makes you look unprofessional, leaves your customers confused about what they can expect from their social relationship with you, and encourages them to repeat their complaints until they’re heard.

But not too serious…

Take the best bits of traditional customer service to social networks. But social media is all about breaking down boundaries.  Make sure you know your audience, and that the tone of your response is appropriate. Corporate lines look stilted and insincere on a Facebook page, and you only have 140 characters to win round your customer on twitter.

Make responses personal.  Try to sign off with something a bit more personal – let your customers feel as though a real human is taking care of them, and not a nameless page.Leaving the name or initials of the customer service advisor is a really simple way to do this.

Stay in control

Keeping track of all wall posts and comments is a challenge for larger pages with several active posts on different parts of the page. Once your conversation grows, (a good thing!) software becomes an essential to pull together all enquiries into a centralised place. This makes it easy to keep track of which agent is dealing with each complaint, and allows marketing and customer service to work together on social communication.

Conversocial’s CEO, Josh March, will be chairing discussions at SMWF New York – so make sure you keep an eye out for him! If you’d like to get your copy of Tuesday’s research release, you can swing by our stand; number 27. We’ll be available to discuss how to make customer service in social media really work, and what Conversocial can do for your business.

Social Media World Forum and Apps World N. America is nearly upon us. Registration for the conference will open at 8am and exhibitions/workshops later at 10am on Nov 1st to one of the year’s most eagerly anticipated conferences; offering four packed conference tracks, a bustling exhibition space and a raft of industry professionals.

We’ve put together some important information for anyone planning to come along…

Where, when & how?

Here’s the where, when and how page giving you all the information you need about what time you should come along and transport links to the venue.

Twitter

Twitter will of course be the order of the day, here you can find a list of many of our speaker’s and special guests twitter handles so you can get the conversation started ahead of the show. If you have a question for one of the speakers don’t forget to use the #SMWFQ and #AppsWorldQ hashtags.

WiFi

Wifi will be available throughout the conference but please make sure you disconnect when you are not using it so others can connect.

Exhibitors and Agenda

We really want you to have at good time at SMWF, and make the most of the workshops, presentations and exhibition. We don’t want you to miss anything, so here’s the event agenda covering the next two days.

Our exhibitors will be on hand to discuss virtually every aspect of the social media and apps industry we’ve put together a handy floor plan so you can find the one’s you want to meet.

Party!

We are delighted to announce this year’s NYC Social Soiree will be hosted by Digital Mind State.

The  ”I AM DIGITAL” Reception & Party will be kicking off from 7:30pm, after the first day of Social Media World Forum and Apps World N. America (November 1st) at Studio Twenty One, Chelsea. Click here for more info!

Tweet us if you have any more questions and we’ll do our very best to get back to you as fast as possible!

Have a great show!

The SMWF and Apps World Team

We are delighted to announce this year’s NYC social soiree will be hosted by Digital Mind State.

The  ”I AM DIGITAL” Reception & Party will be kicking off from 7:30pm, after the first day of Social Media World Forum and Apps World N. America (November 1st) at Studio Twenty One, Chelsea.

The Apps World & SMWF Networking party is a great way to unwind after an action packed day at the show. An evening designed to bring together event delegates for some chilled networking while enjoying a beverage or two.

Studio Twenty One is a brand new lounge located in the heart of Chelsea, designed as a homage to the vintage recording studio. Fantastic street views which by day showcase the charm of the neighbourhood, dramatically illuminate the space in the evening.

Digital Mind State will be bringing along hip hop rapper Fabolous who rose to fame in 2001 with his hit single ‘Can’t Deny It’. During his 14 year career he has worked with artists such as Ne-Yo and Lil’Mo and Jermaine Dupri and we’re very excited to welcome Fabolous to the party.

So get your glad rags on and come along, the party will be free to attend for all sponsors, exhibitors, speakers and paid delegates and will run until late with complimentary drinks on arrive.

Studio Twenty One
59 West 21st Street
New York,
NY 10010
Time: From 7.30pm til late
Dress Code: Smart Casual

Social media is a new and exciting world, especially if you’re a business just beginning to explore the space. Because it’s still a relatively new space, no one has definitive answers on what kinds of goals, tactics and measurements work best. However, there are a lot of people who have some great ideas.

Some of these people just happen to be part of a Twitter chat and community that I co-host known as #SMmeasure. #SMmeasure is a weekly Twitter chat that happens at 9am(PST)/noon(EST) every Thursday where myself and some very smart Twitter users get together to discuss and share our ideas on social media and social media measurement as it relates to a variety of different subjects.

The hashtag has also turned into one to follow all through the week as our community regularly uses it to share new and interesting articles they find that relate to social media metrics and measurement. After co-hosting this chat for over a year, I’m happy to say that there’s more than a few things I’ve learned from this community.

 I can start with a list of 20 important things that I’ve learned from hosting the chat and interacting with the community that can be of use to almost any organization who is already in or even just thinking of entering the social media space.

I’ve broken the list up into two “top ten” list installments for easier reading and to leave a little digestion time in-between. The first 10 of 20 tips learned from the #SMmeasure community are:

Start with the Basics of Social Media Measurement

1. As part of your social media strategy, tie your social media goals with your company’s mission. Once you and executives understand the social media goals, define your measurable objectives in social media that coincide with those goals.
2. Stay focused. You have set your social media goals and objectives and have gotten executive buy in and approval. Now is the time to keep your measurement objectives aligned to the strategy. Don’t measure any metrics that are not part of your social media goals and objectives.
3. When creating your social media objectives, make it S.M.A.R.T (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time based). Examples of SMART social media objectives:
a. Increase our Facebook Fan Page community by 20% to 2,500 fans by end of the year

b. Increase referral traffic from social media sites to target website by 10% in Q4 c. Select channels where you’re customers and prospects engage.

Select channels where you’re customers and prospects engage.

Image by Sean MacEntee via Flickr

 4.Just because everyone else has a Facebook page, doesn’t mean you should create one. Do your homework and participate in channels worthwhile to your organization and its prospects.

Select Tools to Measure Social Media Success

5. [Free] Track your links using Google’s URL Builder to track your social media links in Google Analytics or use an URL shortener like bit.ly to track analytics

6. [Paid] Use a social media monitoring service like Sysomos to monitor conversations across social networks, blogs, news sites, and forums and access metrics to track campaigns. You know the old saying, you get what you pay for and there are no free equivalents to what you get when paying for a dedicated social media monitoring and analytics platform.

Measure Online and Offline Efforts

7. In today’s world of multichannel marketing, mix your offline and online promotions and tie measurements of success to your analytics tools. Use trackable URLs, campaign specific landing pages, QR codes and social network icons on print material.

Choose What Social Media Metrics to Measure

8. Traffic – take note of the referral traffic you get from social media sites to your target website. Use Google Analytics to separate your social media traffic from your other referral sources. You can then do more advanced analytics by tying in time on site and bounce rate metrics to show that social media traffic produces more quality and more engaged users than your organic search traffic.

9. Interaction – count the number of mentions (of your brand and competitors) and number of blog post comments, comments left on news sites, forums, and Q&A sites like LinkedIn and Quora.

10. Leads and sales – converge your marketing campaigns with your social media campaigns by using unique tracking codes to merge with your CRM database and analytics. Keep track of the leads that you bring in through social media sites (a good one to use is the lead source field in CRM databases), but follow through to the end to make sure revenue is being tied to the leads that you bring in.

Number eleven to twenty will follow shortly – they are not to be missed. In the interim you can find additional insights into social media on thesysomos blog or by joining the #smmeasure chat, every Thursday at noon EST.

This post has been contributed by Sheldon Levine, community manager for Sysomos. You can see Jeff Cann of Sysomos speak at the Social Media World Forum, N. America event.  For more information please click here.”

Related articles

• Marketwire Sysomos adds Google + functionality (webmetricsguru.com)

Strategies that enable brands to effectively engage their customers through social media channels were one of the key themes at SMWF Asia 2011. We met a number of companies that are right at the top of the curve in terms of understanding not only where and when to engage, but how.

We caught up with Evelyn Wee, marketing communication manager at Panasonic Asia Pacific;  flushed with the success of her team’s recent social media efforts on two fronts. Their objective was two-fold, gain buy-in from consumers around the company’s core activities; while at the same time engage them with the somewhat more complex ideas around Panasonic’s Corporate Social Responsibility message, Eco Ideas.

“We wanted to establish a communication channel that we could use to convey our Eco messages to our consumers in a relaxed, conversational manner,” says Wee.

Inviting users to design their own eco-advert, Panasonic embarked on the ‘Make a Change” (MAC) campaign, a strategy involving a whole spectrum of social media channels, centred on Facebook, to grow massive online communities for engagement and education.  Once users had designed their advert, compiling their own pro-environmental ad copy, they were invited to share their creation, spreading their eco message. The most popular submission not only earning a prize, but was also published in print.

Aiming to generate around 5000 fans, in three months the campaign Facebook page generated almost 20,000, growing rapidly by 290 people a day, every day for three months; exceeding its eventual target by 290%. Perhaps more importantly, users were actively engaging with the campaign, generating around 362 posts daily, generating an overall reach of around 2.5m Facebook users across Asia.

That was in 2010. Evelyn Wee says her Asia team had a lot of best practice guidelines to follow from Panasonic teams in the US and Japan. But with their subsequent campaign, Channel-e, she says they have now exceeded the achievements of their counterparts.

Building on 2010’s successful Make a Change campaign, Wee’s Asia team wanted to evolve the engagement of their fans and drive recruitment, encouraging ‘richer’ user generated content around the same CSR eco philosophy.

For Channel-e, they wanted to spark the community into a life of its own – self-generating content from the community and leveraging YouTube as a viral video platform. The solution aimed to leverage a number of social media channels for optimum effectiveness.

The team drafted in TV celebrities and influential bloggers to help invite users to make three different types of submission, Beauty Photos, picturesque images of their environment; Beast Photos, images depicting how the environment was being threatened; and Environmental videos, 30 second skits about the user’s environmental dedication.

The winner from each category gained the status of being Panasonic’s very own EJ (Environmental Journalist) or PJ (Photo Journalist) and was given the opportunity to post eco-content over 6 weeks on the Facebook page. This allowed other fans to gain a deeper insight into environmentalism through the eyes of another fan.

The Channel-e campaign netted 91,650 fans to a total of 111,150 fans, exceeding the set KPI of 70,000 fans by 41,150 fans. Close to 500 new fans joined the page daily, contributing to an average of 500 posts per day with each post, garnering 17,000 impressions and reaching 33.4 million Facebook users in Asia, daily.

Evelyn Wee says the thing that surprised them most was the passion with which users took up the campaign message. “It’s so refreshing as a very Eco driven company to see our passion equalled if not sometimes surpassed by our fans, it’s amazing,” she says.

So what did they learn? “I think probably the one thing we’ve learnt is to acknowledge that you’re engaging your audience on their ‘time off’ their ‘personal’ time and to keep that in mind when doing so,” she adds.

“Take a step back, relax and then re-approach it in a casual, personable manner… As soon as you try to force it they’ll shut you out.”

SMWF and Apps World have teamed up with the Hilton Garden Inn Chelsea, NY to offer all SMWF and Apps World N. America visitors discount room rates for the duration of the show.

Please note: Rates are only available until the 14th Sept, so if you would like to stay at the hotel we recommend booking ASAP before allocation runs out!

Room Rates:
Single & Double occupancy $299 excluding tax
Triple occupancy $329 excluding tax

To take advantage of the above discounted room rates simply click here.

121 West 28th Street

New York, New York

USA 10001-6102
Tel: +1-212-564-2181
Fax: +1-212-564-6581

Other recommended hotels:
The Roger Smith Boutique Hotel in New York City
501 Lexington Avenue, New York, New York 10017 USA

To brands Facebook isn’t about playing games, it’s all about starting new relationships as well as building and supporting existing ones. With over 550 million users Facebook is something at brands cannot afford to ignore, but with over 3 million fan pages how do you stand out from your competition?

Pagemodo have created the fastest and easiest way to customize a fan page and make it stand out from the crowd. The Pagemodo’s Pagebuilder provides businesses with everything they need to create page that will:

1. Engage visitors from the moment they arrive with a dazzling welcome tab that tells your story.
2. Promote a business in a fun and effective way with video.
3. Hide special content behind a cover to entice visitors into becoming fans of your Facebook page.
4. Brings your Twitter feed to your Facebook page.
5. Make it easier for fans to reach you with questions and comments. Plus, those who submit a form to you are hot, new leads for your business!

You can learn more from Pagemodo’s co-founder Jakob Lykkegaard at SMWF Asia’s free-to-attend Social Media Hub at 1300 on the 2nd Sept who will be covering the benefits of creating a compelling facebook pages, using tabs and templates.
To register for day two of the SMWF Asia please click here.