Covent Garden based specialist marketing and design recruitment agency, Aquent, supported the Institute’s Women in Marketing Conference this year. Here they talk with Dave Kerpen, CEO, Likeable Media, on why the only choice is to be likeable on Facebook.

In the four years since Dave and Carrie Kerpen formed their company, social media has exploded to become a central element of word-of-mouth marketing, and much of that activity takes place on Facebook. In a recent Aquent webinar, Dave Kerpen demonstrated the myriad ways for organisations to use Facebook marketing to expand and extend their reach.

Word of mouth “has always been the best and truest form of marketing,” Kerpen said. “We all do business with people and businesses that we know, like, and trust. People trust their friends.” But he said Facebook has changed the definition of friendship to take in a far wider network of connections. The average Facebook user has 130 friends, and “that’s drastically different from how word of mouth could travel just a few years ago.”

The other advantage for marketers is consumers’ willingness to hear from companies and organisations via social networks. “Take your marketing hats off for a moment, put on your consumer hats, and think how you feel as a consumer about telemarketing, television commercials, and direct mail,” he said. Despite that sense of inundation, 85% of social media users are actually putting their hands up and saying, ‘I want to interact with you using social media.’ This means it’s no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when and how you will join the conversation, and how effective you will be on Facebook.

Tips to get ‘liked’ on Facebook

• Have a great profile picture and a welcome tab that will grab attention on your fan page.
• Utilise the five most effective ways to engage your fans: Use Photos, video, links, questions and interactive applications (including polls, quizzes and virtual gifts to your advantage).
• Set up a content calendar and provide useful content.
• Share your content. Ask your fans what they think. Develop a news feed to share comments, gain attention and attract likes.
• Understand how Facebook works and target your perfect customers using Facebook ads.
• And, most importantly, make the conversation about your customers, not your organisation.

Facebook reported 500 million users in early autumn and is growing at a rate of 750,000 to one million users per day. It will likely reach one billion users in 2012 out of the 1.8 billion Internet users worldwide.

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