Last Tuesday, thousands of people descended on Kensington Olympia for Social Media World Forum – a gathering of some of the top thinkers, personalities and executives in social media today.
Over this two day conference, attendees were treated to a host of workshops, talks, networking sessions, cupcakes, massages and racing game time trials. Synthesio was at the Social Media World Forum in full force this year as a Gold Sponsor, with an exhibition stand and two speaking slots in which we traded knowledge with other great speakers around the issues of social CRM, the voice of the customer and PR in social media. And whilst we didn’t indulge in any massages or eat any cupcakes, our own Barry Furby finished top of the Buddy Media Rally Time Trial game leaderboard by a formidable 8 seconds. Take that, Olympia. Here’s what else we took from the event.
Our favourite insights
“Everyone is in sales” – Chris Brogan – everyone in your organisation is responsible for the company’s reputation, and for bringing in leads; it’s not just up to the Sales, Marketing or PR guys alone.
“Brands have always been in the hands of consumers – you can either listen and participate in the conversation, or let the masses dictate the reputation of your brand” – Debbie Weinstein, Director of Global Media Innovation, Unilever – social media belongs to the consumers, and if you don’t get involved, you’re ignoring the power of word of mouth. This means both listening to them, and engaging with them.
“Allow people to be involved with something bigger than themselves – make a difference by simultaneously giving them a voice and speaking their language” – Scott Monty, Global Digital Communications Manager, Ford – on how to effectively create advocates from consumers.
“Key steps in social media monitoring: Have a long term goal, agree on work streams, and be clear on what success will look like” – Vaqar Khamisani, Customer and Partner Experience Manager, Microsoft UK – social media monitoring is important, but you need a strategy to know what you’re looking for, and what you want out of it.
“The basis of a good community is great content, presented in the right way” – Kurt Lane, Head of Digital, Domino Records – as long as you have interesting/exciting/relevant content for your community, they will continue to share it and as a result, grow organically.
UnityChat
In support of the forthcoming release of the new version of our engagement platform Unity – many of you saw the beta preview in action on our stand – we conducted a tweet chat featuring questions around the themes raised at Social Media World Forum. The potential prize for participants? A bottle of champagne! We had a few great responses and have since awarded bottles of champagne to the winners. We also awarded champagne to speakers with most liked/inspiring quotes. Here they are:
Luke Knight @luke_4ps – on the most important metric to measure when trying to understand your online audience:
“Demographics! Without knowing demographics or interests you can’t tailor content”
Sasha Taylor @Sasha_Taylor – on who should be responsible for managing a company’s online reputation:
“Managing reputation should be corporate comms – but all staff have responsibility for company’s reputation IMO”
Vikki Chowney @vikkichowney, Guy Stephens @guy1067, Amanda Webb @spiderworking – on best insights around social for business:
@vikkichowney “My 20 key points about social media measurement and metrics http://bit.ly/HsxgIX”
@guy1067 “Being customer centric is not about technology but about cultural shift in the business”
@spiderworking “Top tips from Chris Brogan at #SMWF: http://ow.ly/9YeRg”
Craig McGill @craigmcgill – on the most compelling speaker at #SMWF:
“@dcoplin for making @binguk & SEO/search human and interesting!”
Al Tepper @altepper, Head of Digital & Marketing, EMP plc – “The computer can’t tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what’s missing is the eyebrows” (a Frank Zappa quote) and “Imagine your brand is the host of a party” (initiate the discussion and contribute, but don’t shout too loud, or just sit back)
Lars Silberbauer @larssilberbauer, Social Media Director, Lego – “Sort the insights from the noise by focusing on what you can act on”
Henry Juszkiewicz @henryej, Chairman and CEO, Gibson Guitars – “Delight your fans and turn them into superfans by continuously engaging and stimulating their senses”
Our UK MD Catriona Oldershaw spoke in two sessions during Social Media World Forum; our favourite quote from her first talk?
“If you want to understand the tiger, don’t go to the zoo, go to the jungle”
Other assorted thoughts
-> Always come prepared with sweets to give away – and make sure they’re wrapped; Maltesers disappear suspiciously quickly.
-> Bottles of champagne on your table may be an eye-catcher, but they’re not the easiest things to hoard at a two day event.
-> We should definitely invest in Fatboy bean bags for the office.
-> If in doubt, think “What would Bowie do?”*
*courtesy of Kurt Lane, Domino Records
Some exciting news from the Synthesio newsroom – the forthcoming launch of the new version of Unity, our online engagement platform! Unity is a powerful tool for community managers, customer service teams and marketing managers alike, that allows streamlined engagement with consumers wherever they are online – be it social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube; or specific forums, blogs, and mainstream media sites. Look out for our demo video and official announcement coming soon.
To celebrate, we’re giving you the chance to win a bottle of champagne! In fact, we have 6 bottles of champagne to give away on both days of the Social Media World Forum in London on the 27th and 28th of March. You don’t have to attend to take part in the competition – it’s open to everyone – but if you are there you’ll be able to come along to Stand 41 to pick up your bottle of champagne in person!
To be in with a chance of winning, first make sure you’re following us on Twitter @Synthesio. We’ll host a Twitter chat in the late afternoon on each day looking at the themes of social CRM, social media monitoring and online consumer engagement for brands. You can respond to our questions by sharing something you’ve learned on the day, or an article/case study you’ve been inspired by (make sure you link to it), as a quotable insight, along with the hashtags #UnityChat and #SMWF. The people with the most interesting contributions to the Twitter chat will win a bottle of bubbly! We’ll also be awarding bottles to the speakers whose insights or quotes are shared the most throughout each day.
Besides getting involved in the Twitter chat, you can come and see our UK Managing Director Catriona Oldershaw speaking in two different sessions on Day 1 of the event. She’ll be speaking alongside Microsoft UK’s Vaqar Khamisani at 11:45 in the Marketing Tech Tool Box, and she’ll also be part of a panel at 3:50 in the Social Media Marketing theatre.
Even if you can’t make it to either of those, come and see us at Stand 41 in the main hall, where you’ll get to see a preview of Unity in action. We look forward to meeting you there!
Another half year passes, another Social Media Week comes and goes! From Hamburg to Hong Kong; Sao Paulo to Singapore; Tokyo to Toronto; the week went by for all of us in a whirlwind of discussion, discourse and debate on the social media zeitgeist. And this time round, more people joined the conversation on Twitter than ever – to the tune of a 270% increase on last year’s event! With a theme of Empowering Change Through Collaboration, people gathered at over 1000 events worldwide to discuss how the present and future of social media will have an impact on our everyday and working lives.
We monitored Twitter buzz for all Social Media Week locations, starting on the 9th February and finishing on the 19th, in order to capture the build-up and the aftermath as well as the week’s noise. Following on from last week’s infographic – where amongst other things we showcased the top global influencers (as determined by our proprietary SynthesioRank influence ranking system) – we present you the full report! As always, congratulations to the top influencers on our list; it was a close fought race between some big names!
Enjoy our Social Media Week infographic below – click the image to view it in full.
Yes it’s that time again! Social Media Week 2012 launched this past Monday, 2/13, and is now in full effect worldwide. Now in its fourth year, and currently being hosted within 12 cities across the globe including Hamburg, Hong Kong, London, Miami, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Sau Paulo, Singapore, Tokyo, Toronto and Washington DC – Social Media Week has become one of the largest recurring global conferences around, with some of the brightest minds convening to discuss the latest trends and innovations concerning social media, as well as its impact on our society, both professional and personal.
According to SocialMediaWeek.org: “Annually, SMW attracts more than 60,000 attendees across thousands of individually organized events, with half a million connecting to the conference online and through mobile.” This year’s event is estimated to be the largest yet with over 1,000 events across the 12 global cities, and now has a unifying theme – Empowering Change Through Collaboration.
At Synthesio, we focus on global social media monitoring & engagement, so naturally we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to analyze an event of this magnitude. We’re tracking all Twitter conversations pertaining to the event worldwide, and will be contributing our part to the conversation with insightful infographics, displaying the impact of the event online, and praising the top influencers driving the conversation. We also happen to be sponsoring and attending one of the #SMWnyc events called the Social Media Action Camp (#SMWsmac), so stop by and say hi if you’re in the area!
So now it’s halftime, and once again we invite you to stand up, stretch, take a break and enjoy our latest SMW report! Congrats to the top influencers, and don’t forget to check in next week for our Post-Game Analysis as well!
A winter classic for Italian petrol heads and the last big event for the automotive industry before the end of the year, Bologna just hosted an intense 9-day motor show featuring lots of racing, fun, beautiful women, gadgets and of course, shiny new cars.
Synthesio analyzed the buzz from 3rd to 11th December
With 48 new cars premiered at the event, Synthesio analysed who won the hearts of the crowd, at least on social media. We analysed the buzz from 3rd to 11th December around all the new production and concept cars presented in Bologna and at the earlier Frankfurt motor show only 3 months ago, and the results don’t show a clear winner, although we would pick Smart and Fiat, ahead of Audi, Ford and Volkswagen.
Audi received the highest number of brand mentions
It’s interesting to note that, although Audi received the highest number of brand mentions (possibly a factor of the numerous new production models, facelifts and concept cars), none of their models made it to Top 5 for either production or concept cars. In fact Audi A1 Sportback ranked 7th among the production cars, just behind Toyota Prius+ and ahead of Mazda CX-5, while none of Audi’s concept cars attracted significant buzz.
Fiat Panda took the first place for the production cars
Fiat on the other hand placed its evergreen Panda model up to the top spot of the most talked about production cars, and despite having an individual 8% brand share of voice, the broader Fiat Group attracted over 20% of the overall conversations.
Smart is the true winner
However, in our opinion Smart is the true winner of this Motor Show. Although the brand had essentially one new production and one concept car only, the Daimler-owned brand managed some enviable consistency in terms of ranking. In fact, with its electric version of the Fortwo Smart took the 4th place of the most talked about production cars, and with the Forvision they took the second place for the concept cars, which led to an overall 6th place at brand level, just behind Fiat. A closing note about those supercars we would all love to drive around town: the Lamborghini Gallardo came on top, ranking 10th in the overall league table, a few positions ahead of Ferrari 458 Italia.
This week the socialmedia worldforum stopped by NYC for a 2 day event at the Javitz Center. Thousands of people from around the globe attended – in person and virtually – to discuss the latest in social media and its impact on business and our daily lives. Throughout the event there was a seemingly endless lineup of exciting speakers from the likes of JP Morgan CHASE, Hershey’s, Hilton, Nike and many more.
Some highlights that generated considerable buzz with the audience: CocaCola’s Michael Donnelly discussed their social media and Facebook strategies (CocaCola currently has the most popular page on Facebook). Ted Rubin of Collective Bias who never fails to entertain, generated fun response in the audience and on Twitter when he offered a fool-proof solution to the blues – “whenever you’re unhappy, just go outside and skip!”. Even NASA stopped by to discuss their fascinating approach to social media. Did you know that they currently have astronauts tweeting from space? Check out @astro_aggie and @astro_satoshi if you’d like to follow.
At Synthesio, we’re always interested in analyzing the online impact of global events, so we analyzed all event-related tweets (2,500), and created an infographic with some of our findings including the geographic breakdown and top 10 global influencers driving the Twitter conversation. We utilized our proprietary SynthesioRank influence ranking system, currently being used by clients including Microsoft, Nissan and Johnson & Johnson to identify influential sites, online communities and individuals, and optimize their marketing and engagement efforts.
Click on the image below to view the infographic, and congrats to the top 10 influencers!
Yes, it’s hard to believe but Social Media Week has come to a close. It was an exciting 5 days of thought-provoking discourse concerning the latest in social media, and its impact on business and our society. This truly unique event spanned across 12 cities worldwide, and sparked a global conversation covering a variety of topics…and what a conversation it was! 40,000 tweets, across over 20 countries and 20 languages. Truly impressive numbers, and another successful event for Toby Daniels (Founder & Executive Director), who incidentally ranked #28 on the U.S. influencer list… 
Last week we posted our Social Media Week Halftime Report analysis, in which we provided a global breakdown of all Twitter chatter surrounding the event up to the midpoint, as well as a scoreboard of the top influencers driving the conversation in each country – based on our proprietary SynthesioRank influence ranking system. So it’s only fair that we follow up with the final numbers, and reveal the select few who have prevailed as THE top influencers of Social Media Week.
Click on the image below to view the full global analysis infographic, and congrats to the top influencers!
Social Media Week is a “global celebration of the best of what’s happening in Social Media; a series of interconnected activities and conversations around the world on emerging trends on social and mobile media.” as stated by Toby Daniels, Founder & Executive Director, and Arvind Salwan of SMW Glasgow.
It’s been an exciting week so far with inspiring, thought-provoking discourse taking place in 12 cities and spreading throughout the world. People are joining the global conversation to learn about the latest in Social Media, which is undoubtedly changing the paradigm of how we communicate, work and live, and to get a peek at what’s coming next.
At Synthesio, we specialize in analyzing global online behavior, so we conducted a worldwide Twitter analysis to find out just how large this online conversation has become so far, how it breaks down geographically, and who are the top influencers driving the conversation around the world.
So now it’s Halftime! We invite everyone to take a break, stretch your legs, grab a drink, and check out our SMW Halftime Report Infographic. Enjoy!
P.S – Don’t forget to check in after the event for our SMW Post-Game Analysis!
Click on the image to see the entire info-graphic.
Click on the image to see the entire info-graphic.
Synthesio is delighted to welcome you this week at the Social Media Marketing & Monitoring 2011 as a gold sponsor and at the Social Media for CEOs, events organized by Our Social Times, one of the UK’s leading Social Media consultancies.
Social Media Marketing & Monitoring 2011
Catriona Oldershaw, Synthesio Managing Director UK, participated with other industry specialists in a lively discussion about Monitoring, Measurement & Engagement.
Photo credit: Naomi Bullivant / Viadeo
Topics covered during the event :
• Social Commerce – Innovative sales tools & techniques
• Location Marketing – Case studies & mobile apps
• Social Search – What it means & how to use it
• Social Media Monitoring – Influencer analysis & ROI
• Facebook – Sponsored stories, Ads, Apps & more
• Social Media Management – Dashboards & workflows
• B2B Social Media – Engagement & social CRM
• Integrated Marketing Campaigns – Offline, digital & social
Social Media for CEOs
Loic Moisand, Synthesio CEO, will be giving a presentation about Social CRM.
The event will be covering the following topics:
• Social media business strategy
• Leadership and innovation: “The Social CEO”
• Enterprise social networking (internal communities)
• Customer engagement and advocacy (external communities)
• Brand and reputation management
• Talent retention and recruitment
If you would like to have more information, don’t hesitate to contact us. We will be pleased to make a presentation about Social Media Monitoring and Customer Engagement at your office, and provide with best practice case studies.
