Volunteers in the East of England region hosted The 4th Cambridge Digital Marketing Conference to explore what matters and what distracts in the world of digital marketing.

It covered everything digital; from mobile phone and smart technology, to social media and search. There wasn’t a stone left unturned.

When examining social media, a key message is the volume of online users of social networks. Mark Cook of Further Group talked about speed of change; quoting the much used statistic that radio took 38 years to get 50 million users. In comparison television took 13 years and Facebook took just 5 months. This rapid take up proves that organisations need to at least consider a social media strategy to make sure they’re reaching these online users.

Facebook. LinkedIn. Flickr, Twitter, blogs. The list goes on. Sometimes, it seems like social networks are taking over the world. And, let’s face it, people enjoy using them. Facebook has 200 million users – more members than some countries have people. Social networks give people a chance to communicate, share ideas, state preference and also do a lot of silly things like find out what great dictator they most resemble. But all joking aside, social networks are growing – and they’re clearly important.

We can agree that people use them. But they generally use them to connect with other people. Not look for products. When you’re sitting down for a drink and a chat with friends, the last thing you want is to be advertised to. Maybe a social network just isn’t the right place to get customers interested in your latest offering. Maybe they’ll too busy talking among themselves to listen to you.

On the other hand, people use blogs, Facebook pages and twitter to talk about products – whether they have negative things to say or positive. So there are important conversations happening. Customers and potential customers could be talking about your business and its products or services without you actually knowing. So, it’s probably a good idea to see if an I-hate-XYZ-widgets page exists on Facebook. And if it does, you might want to find out why, especially if you’re the Marketing Director at XYZ Widgets.

But running a campaign on social networks takes time and money – both of which are in short supply. After all, finding out what’s going on in your industry takes time and research. And blogs don’t just write themselves. When all is said and done, how can you prove your social networking strategy is successful? By the number of hits on your blogs? By the number of fans on your Facebook page. Or, is it the number of people who arrive at your e-tail site from a comment you dropped on your favourite forum? And how do you add all that up? Is one appearance on a popular blog equal to the same amount of space in a magazine?

So, the problem with social networking isn’t just how do we use it, but deciding how we measure its value.

Any successful social campaigns you’d like to discuss?

Philip Preston

Six months ago I left my job in publishing to become The Institute’s new Regional Director for Greater London and the East of England.

It’s a great job with the added advantage that I now work from home. I have everything I need in my home office including a Dilbert desk calendar, a state-of-the-art staple remover and a record player so that I can play my old LPs as I work.

There are only two slight drawbacks to working from home. One is that I get to hang the washing out every morning and the other is that sometimes I can go all day without seeing anyone apart from the postman. Fortunately this has turned out to be the exception rather than the rule.

One of the plus sides of this job, and it’s a big plus, is that I get to attend all of the “Meet with drinks” networking events that take place across London organised by our fantastic team of volunteers.

For example on Monday I was at the Old Nick in Holborn chatting happily to marketing folk from the Central London branch, all enjoying a bowl of chips, a glass of wine and good company.

Then on Wednesday I had the pleasure of doing exactly the same at the Hop Poles Bar and Pub in Hammersmith, demonstrating my support for the West London team of volunteers. It’s a hard job, but someone’s got to do it.

Now call me old fashioned if you like but I think it’s much more fun to meet people in the flesh than spend several hours a week in front of a screen glued to Facebook, Twitter or any other online social network.

Don’t get me wrong, they have their place and even I’m on Facebook, but for anyone who really wants to exchange ideas, network and make friends with other marketers at all stages of their career then “Meet with drinks” is the answer.

So let’s start a new social networking revolution, one that doesn’t end in dot com. You never know it might catch on. You can find out more here on the GLR website