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…)

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…)

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…)

We are pleased to announce that Immediate Future have joined  the Social Media World Forum on the 15th & 16th March. Immediate future is at the heart of social media pr, releasing a study of the top 100 brands in social media, and recently using google trends to compare leading social networks in terms of traffic. (more…)