Social Media World Forum

Social media marketing to me is what direct marketing was in the 90s. A new medium comes into the foray and everyone jumps on it because it is new and sexy. Social Media consists of elements such as Facebook. Twitter, LinkedIn. Flickr. FourSquare, MySpace and Quora. Over the last year or so it has been taken seriously and more and more companies are using it as part of their marketing mix because it allows them to interact with their customers and get their messages out there. To meet this growing trend various events have been put on around the world to inform people on how to use the tools. In February there was Social Media Week which took place at various venues around London where I picked up quite a few tips. So I was pretty excited about the Social Media World Forum which took place last week at Olympia. The conference is produced by events company, Sixdegrees who put on the event in cities such as New York, Cape Town, Singapore and Dubai with the aim of engaging, debating and understanding the latest issues in social media marketing. The two days consisted of presentations and workshops with key speakers from huge hitting brands such as Facebook, ecademy, Klout, Microsoft and CNN and they explored issues such as trends in social media, integrating social media into marketing, monitoring and measuring, media and PR, applying social media marketing to B2B and social shopping.  Entrance to the event was free but there was a charge to attend each session but there was a Social Media Hub where was free for all where visitors could listen to companies talk about topics such as online privacy and security, social media monitoring and the impact of SEO. There was also an exhibition where a lot of companies were flogging there monetizing and measuring tools, recruitment consultants and social media agencies.

I attended the first day and I found it to be very insightful from a social media perspective and the amount of techie companies exhibiting various tools gave me an idea of where the market is going.  After a quick wander round the exhibition I had loaded myself down with an abundance of information. The event had a really nice vibe about it that had the sense that something new and exciting was about to take off. Also the talks in the Social Media Hub were very thought provoking; some were better than others but overall the quality was good. Social Media World Forum was indeed a very slick event that embraced the coming of age of the genre. Five things I learnt from the Social Media World Forum are below:

1. Location sites are going to be a real force over the coming years with the tie-ins to companies and incentives.

2. Your online reach will be invaluable in order to get the attention of advertisers hence the success of companies such as Klout and Reputation Online.

3. Listening to what people are saying about your or your client"s brand will be easier to do with the amount of tools that are now available on the market.

4. Facebook and Google will fight it out to rule the world and only the strongest will remain standing.

5. No-one really know what they are doing as the genre is so new so everyone is faking it.

You can get more information about the Social Media World Forum here.