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.

With the conference agenda really starting to take shape, we thought we would update you on one of the highlights taking place on day 1!

Argha Sen, Head of Marketing and CRM, for Toys R Us Asia – the world’s #1 toy retailer, will be sharing his experiences of how Social Media fits into the marketing mix at Toys R Us.  His 20 minute speech will be taking place at 1430, and will be covering the following points:

1430       Case- Study -Social Media Marketing @ Toys R Us: THE INTEGRATION STORY
•    Integrating Mass Media, Events, PR, CRM, Digital Marketing and Social Media to create the Toys R Us magic
•    Case Studies – Transformers Revenge of The Fallen and Lan Kwai Fong Carnival: Taking Social Media to the Streets
•    The Good, The Bad, the Ugly
•    What Next: The Future is Here

If you are looking to hear specific examples of how a global brand has been heavily involved in Social Media, then this is a session not to be missed!

Argha Sen is responsible for managing Toys R Us marketing programs across 8 countries, spanning more than 100 retail stores. He also directs the multi-country Toys“R”Us Star Card CRM program, which was recently named the Best Loyalty Program in the ASIAN BRAND MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS Awards for the third year in a row.

Now based in Hong Kong, Argha travels extensively both for work and pleasure, loves to explore new cuisines and tastes, and blogs about food, drink and travel in his spare time.

If you would like to be considered as a speaker at this year’s SMWF Asia, check out our speaker submissions guidelines here

For SMWF Asia 2010, we are looking to create a cutting edge, thought provoking, interactive conference line up covering the advances of Social Media in the dynamic world of online marketing.  In true Social Media style we want to hear from you guys, on your thoughts, ideas and views to ensure the event provides a fully educational and inspiring experience for all our delegates SMWF Asia 2010 will take place on the 22nd & 23rd Sept at Suntec Conference Centre Singapore.
SPEAKER SUBMISSIONS DEADLINE:  30th JUNE 2010
Conference Facts:

Day One         Social Media / Social TV stream (intermediate > advanced level)

Day Two        Social Media stream (intermediate > advanced level)

Each conference session will last between 20 mins > 50 mins depending on the content level and format of the sessions.  Conference sessions will have between 100 > 250 delegates in attendance.  Sessions can feature single speakers, co-presentations or panels.

If you would like to be considered for a speaker slot at this year’s SMWF Asia, take a look at our proposal guidelines here.

Good luck with your submissions!

Do you have a particular topic, subject or speaker you think would be a good addition to SMWF Asia? If so let us know!

We understand the importance of having the hottest topics and most interesting questions covered in our two day conference programme.

Our suggest a topic area within our new-look website, provides you with the opportunity to put forward your suggestions.

Our conference team will do our upmost to locate top industry experts to speak and co-ordinate panels and presentations based on your topic suggestions.
Our suggest a topic form can be found here

Alternatively you can email ian (@)sixdegs.com, call  +44 (0) 117 946 8870,  or tweet your ideas to @socialmediawf

We look forward to hearing from you.

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…)

Joe Hughes, Research & Insight Manager,Yomego

A large brand said to us recently that it wasn’t considering a social media strategy, because if you “get the product right, the rest will take of itself”. It was taking a ‘trust to luck’ approach, relying on spontaneous word of mouth recommendations to drive users of its product.

In one way, it has a valid point. If a product is good enough, people will recommend and promote it to each other – whether they talk about it online or offline. Equally, if the product isn’t up to scratch, no-one will buy.

But social media isn’t just about one-way promotion. The scope for customer engagement, and actively building reach, positive reputation and loyalty is huge. Social media is driving customers to consume more offline. (more…)

The Six Degrees team have just about recovered from the Social Media World Forum #SMWF last week. We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who came along, tweeted, networked and blogged.

Social Media World Forum 2010 video – can you spot yourself?

During the two days a lot of issues and topics were covered! below are some blog posts with some good overviews.

•    Viralblog Part 1 – http://www.viralblog.com/social-media/social-media-world-forum-part-i/
•    Viralblog Part 2 – http://www.viralblog.com/social-media/social-media-world-forum-part-ii/
•    Viralblog Part 3 – http://www.viralblog.com/social-media/social-media-world-forum-part-iii/

•    Top 5 trending and hot topics at #smwf 2010 – http://ow.ly/1nCpn

•   77Agency Roundup- http://lab.77agency.com/news/roundup-of-the-social-media-world-forum-in-london-5466/

With the attendance doubling from last year, our exhibition grew considerable and generally a lot more going on this year including some very popular workshops!

We would also like to say a big thank you to all the event sponsors & exhibitors (http://tinyurl.com/yj85h9x)
So what are we planning for 2011 we hear you ask? The team are putting their heads together to coming up with some buzzing exciting ideas for next year show, watch this space…
We are always looking for feedback and suggestions for next year…so if you have any recommendations, ideas or just comments please drop us a line and let us know!

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…)

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