Below Huzu asked brands and agencies from the Social Media World Forum March just gone ‘Why Are some brands still reluctant to put spend into Social Media Marketing?’

The Brands’ Perspective

Huzu is a social media technology company. Licensing its white-label social media platform to brands and agencies. Allowing them to provide their customers with an engaging community and reducing the cost of building the technology in – house. The platform is flexible and can be customised for each brand, with functionality that includes profiles, forums, video, blogs, picture galleries, friends network, calendars, instant chat, plus Facebook share and connect, amongst others. Designed with easy-to-use administration and content management tools, Huzu also benefits from fully controllable ad space. TUI, Eircom, Racing UK and Durex have built successful communities using the Huzu social media platform.

Social Media World Forum Asia is back for 2010!  The event  will be taking place at the larger venue – The Suntec Conference Centre on the 22nd & 23rd of September 2010, before the F1 Singapore night race, allowing people to stay over the weekend and visit the race, and enjoy the parties

New look website launched

The team have been working hard over the last few weeks and have just launched our new look website www.socialmedia-forum.com/asia

The website has a vibrant new look, new content, significant updates and features to provide a more engaging and interactive platform for event attendees to network and connect before and after events.

So who is going to be speaking?

Some of the speakers already confirmed include:

•             Blake Chandlee, VP & Commercial Director, EMEA, Facebook
•             Lito S German, Marketing Director, BMW
•             Jeremy Khoo, Deputy Director, Marketing Communication and loyalty, NTUC Fairprice
•             Derek Yeo, Head of Corporate Marketing & Ancillary Finance, Tiger Aviation
•             Argha Sen, Head of Marketing & CRM, Toys R Us (more…)

Over a week ago since the event and the team are starting to catch their breath!

All delegates will have now received an email containing login details to access all the event presentations.

Courtesy of our exhibitor John Cassidy Photography, we have a selection of event photos ready to view here

http://www.johncassidyphoto.co.uk/clientgallery.php?z=smwf18854z

If you would like copies of any of the photos, please contact John directly at johncassidyphoto (@ ) mac.com

Interview with Freddie Laker, Director of Digital Strategy, SapientNitro

Freddie Laker from Sapient Nitro will be keynoting at the social media world forum on the 15^th March, and we caught up to ask him a few questions pre event on his tips using social media.

1. From your experience, if you had to recommend one tip for using social media what would it be?

So many companies are excited about their first corporate blog, viral marketing campaign or Facebook group, yet the pioneers and the bold are those already looking ahead at what’s next. To maintain hard-won, relevant profile and share of voice in a world of increasingly fickle consumers, marketers need to understand how social media is going to intuitively evolve and anticipate how to make existing and new tools and strategies work harder and smarter to keep the conversation going. I’d even go as far as arguing that in a couple of years only ‘silver surfers’ will still be referring to online collaborative tools as ‘social media’.

2. What do you think is the biggest thing that marketers fail to realize about social media? (more…)

We are pleased to welcome back Wiley to the Social Media World Forum – this year Wiley will be bringing along some of the top Social media books currently avalible.

Wiley was Founded in 1807, John Wiley & Sons Publishers has been a valued source of information and understanding for more than 200 years, helping people around the world meet their needs and fulfil their aspirations.

Wiley is proud to have Guy Clapperton, authour of  ‘This is Social Media‘  chairing the conference Monday 15th.

As a special promotion Wiley will be offering 20% discount on all books at the event. This book as well as other new exciting books on the world of social Media will be available to purchase from Wiley’s stand (Stnad number. 14) during the two days of the conference.

Other books which will be avalible at teh event include:

(more…)

Eight months after Nitro Group acquisition, company adopts one brand to represent its fully integrated, multi-channel marketing and commerce offerings to clients

Legorburu and Clarke share leadership responsibilities worldwide

LONDON – 19 February 2010 – Sapient (NASDAQ: SAPE) today announced that its Sapient Interactive and SapientNitro divisions will go to market as a single brand, effective immediately.  The strategy is designed to capture increased demand for the company’s comprehensive multi-channel marketing and commerce services. The unified SapientNitro offering will be co-led by Gaston Legorburu, former head of Sapient Interactive group, and Chris Clarke, founder and former head of Nitro Group (now SapientNitro).  More details about SapientNitro are available at the new www.sapientnitro.com. (more…)

We are pleased to welcome buy.at Affiliate Network as a gold sponsor for our event.

buy.at is a global Affiliate Marketing network and a leading industry player in the UK market.  A wholly owned subsidiary of AOL Advertising, buy.at designs campaigns and tools that add value to our client’s current marketing strategy and drive maximum online results. Each client benefits from a bespoke package of industry leading commercial and technical innovations, supported by a responsive account management team of marketing and technical experts. Our company leads the market with unrivalled technology, an ethical approach, and a commitment to developing long term strategic partnerships.

buy.at works with several of the biggest High Street and Online brands across multiple verticals as well as a wide range of affiliate webmasters and publishers.  As the market continues to evolve, buy.at is providing innovative technologies and expertise to help bloggers and social media marketers to monetise content more effectively. A few of our top clients include Marks & Spencer, O2, Ticketmaster and Expedia. Our high quality publishers include social media, incentive, email, PPC and content affiliates, such as Adknowledge, Myvouchercodes, Moneysupermarket and top10 broadband.

Chris Tradgett F IDM, will be presenting on day two at 10.10 – “Monetising Social Media & Social Networks”

Chris Tradgett F IDM – with over 20 years in marketing, Chris has over 7 years experience in Affiliate Marketing having been one of the original team at buy.at. Chris’ experience covers all aspects of the industry from business development to operations and now runs the Partnerships side of the buy.at network. Chris has spoken at a variety of industry events including Internet World, Ad:Tech, Econsultancy forums as well as representing buy.at at a4uexpo and Affiliate Summit.

Visit buy.at on stand no. 21

Penny Power, Author, International Speaker, Entrepreneur and founder of Ecademy talks about the role of social networks for modern professionals. Penny Power is a published author, a highly engaging speaker and one of the UK’s most inspirational and successful female entrepreneurs. Penny founded Ecademy, the UK’s first social network for business, in 1998 at the age of 33 with her husband Thomas Power.

Penny will be speaking and chairing at the Social Media World Forum event taking place at Olympia, London in March.

How important is understanding social media for modern professionals?

I often think about how executives feel about all the noise going on in the world of social media. The desire to see it as a fad, or as something not relevant to their business must be very strong for some. Many will say, and I have heard it said “oh, that is something my kids waste time doing, I am a busy person, I don’t have time for that stuff”. I wonder if I might have felt that if I had stayed in the old world 12 years ago. (more…)