By Kiron Mair, UK Community Manager for Synthesio

It’s no big secret that in 2012 social media is driving most of the world’s conversations about anything and everything. But it’s only been in the last three or four years that brands have cottoned on to the idea of social networks being places where their customers are gathering and sharing their opinions about products and services.

With this realisation came a need to listen and understand what these people are saying, and then to work out how to engage with them – otherwise known as Social CRM. This is where social media monitoring tools enter the fold; applications that scour the public spaces of the web to find where the conversations about given topics are happening, what they are about, and who is having them. (more…)

Retailers and brands are discovering new ways to gain valuable customer insight through their use of social media. By creating online social communities, retailers are not only able to build brand loyalty but receive feedback on their products and gain insight for future projects. A recent report found that 85% of marketers believed customer insight is one of the most valuable advantages of social media.

We decided to put the spotlight on the customer insight panel at this year’s SMWF. Lars Silberbauer, Social Media Director at LEGO will be speaking on the dedicated panel discussing how customer insight managers are using social media, and what the best approaches to using social media for market research are. We caught up with him for a chat ahead of the event.
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By Maya Grinberg, Social Media Manager, Wildfire Interactive

Summing up social marketing in 2011 and making predictions for the coming year is a daunting task! 2011 saw more industry growth than any other year; we saw the widespread acceptance of social marketing for B2B companies, and we witnessed moments that are likely to echo beyond 2011: the debut of Google+, the introduction of Facebook Timelines, and an amusing concession to social media silliness by the White House, via the now infamous rickroll. (more…)

Twenty years ago Gerald Ratner described the jewellery his stores sold as ‘crap’ at the Institute of Directors annual conference. Days later his organisation had seen £500m wiped off its value. It’s reputation unsalvageable. Had Gerald made the same faus pas today his company reputation would have been destroyed in minutes due to the instantaneous sharing of news, information and off the cuff remarks through social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube et al.

Social media has revolutionised the way that individuals, organisations and brands communicate with each other. Life is never going to be the same again. But while there are so many positives, potential disaster lurks around every social media corner. In the last year alone we have seen brands such as Dell, United Airlines, Chrysler and Domino’s Pizza fall foul of social media, so why do so many ‘marketing and communications professionals’ get it so spectacularly wrong in the social media sphere? (more…)

With spending on customer service processes and applications to assist sales expected to exceed $1Billion globally this year (Gartner Research),  the hype around Social CRM software is over and  companies are rolling up their sleeves and getting down to business.   While B2C markets have seen the biggest adoption of social CRM, B2B businesses are now aggressively investing in social.  By the end of 2013, it is predicted that organisations using social CRM applications will increase to 25% of all projects worldwide (Forbes). (more…)

By Anders Lundin, EMEA Digital Lead for Text 100

There is no doubt that LinkedIn has taken the position as one of the leading social platforms for B2B communications. LinkedIn currently has around 150 million users and the platform is used almost exclusively for business contacts and business communication, which makes it a very powerful tool for B2B communications. Further evidence of this is the report presented by HubSpot recently, which says that LinkedIn is almost 300 percent more effective when it comes to generating leads, compared with Facebook and Twitter. (more…)

We’re soriee’d out after a lovely night at the hospital club with Vitrue and friends of SMWF!  It was great to see everyone last night at the ‘Social Soiree’. The night at the Hospital Club was a facebook gaming, live art creating, ipad dj’ing &  social media chattering  networking night, even the drive back to Bristol didn’t damper our sprits on the evening.  We really enjoyed catching up with everyone at the event, and great to see many  of our speakers before our event in March.

We’ve compiled the evening’s highlights in pictures; see if you can spot yourself! Thanks to everyone who came along and look forward to seeing you end of March!

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This week we wanted to put the spotlight on the Mobile Marketing track taking place on day 2 of this year’s SMWF Europe (27th-28th March, Olympia London). According to a recent report by Berg Insight, the mobile advertising market is growing by over a third year-on-year, and is expected to be worth EUR 17.2billion by 2016.

The growth in this market is due to the surge in smart phone ownership, which has also led to a knock on popularity for location based services; creating a new frontier for consumer marketing. We caught up with Omid Ashtari, SMWF speaker and Director of Business Development for one of the trend’s leading services, Foursquare. (more…)

By Lloyd Salmons and Ronnie Crosbie from Outside Line

This is the year that the Superbowl got all social on itself. With an estimated 60 per cent of its 100 million viewers tuning in via a ‘second screen’, it’s no wonder the main players have woken up to social plug-ins.

The Superbowl has – until now – been the primary platform for blockbusting TV ads. So it’s interesting to see how the big 30-second spot is evolving in the era of social media.  This year’s event set two new records on Twitter for the number of tweets per second. During Madonna’s half-time performance Twitter traffic reached 10,245 tweets per second and after the Giant’s won, Twitter traffic reached 12,233 tweets per second. The relationship between an increase in tablet usage and social media this year, mean that major televised events are increasingly becoming a two-screen experience.

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We’ve teamed up with Vitrue to celebrate Social Media Week next week with a Social Soiree at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden on Thursday 16th February between 5 and 9pm. Come and join us and get involved over some networking drinks with social media enthusiasts and friends.

The event is free to attend and promises to be a fun filled evening and a chance to catch up before SMWF at the end of March. We’ve got lots of entertainment planned for the evening including an iPad DJ, Facebook games and the chance to win a piece of LiveArt crafted at the event representing a pictorial view of social media.

We’d love to see you there, so register to attend here, but be quick places are limited!

Let us know you’re coming – tweet us using the hashtag #SMW_Soiree