spreading jam

Once again social media week has come and gone in London.

In no particular order here are a few of my observations on some of the big themes that emerged …

1. The role of social is to inspire

With a bit of imagination, social media can be about so much more than listening, customer service, community management and pushing out content.

Social media is about the ability to spark and inspire. To find that social dimension which lights a fire or celebrates a mood. Sharable and memetic ideas that can define and bond a community.

As the social space saturates, competition fizzes and the march of algorithmic marketing increases it’s worth pausing and putting in the work to find that great idea that can inspire your community.

2. Move over social business, culture eats strategy for lunch

If you want your business to change and flourish in the social era, you have to lead from the front – social business will only ever become a reality if business leaders drive the cultural adoption of social business practices.

The best-laid plans will never work unless the working culture is actually prepared to embrace change. You need to constantly push the culture forward, target the sceptics and work on a binding cultural glue. Eventually the cultural values of collaboration will overcome any resistance.

3. There are two very different social marketer worlds

The world of social media marketing and social business are still worlds apart. The 1% of client marketers who are launching cars on Facebook, connecting social to CRM programs and adopting social business strategies are very much in the minority.

It’s clear that the other 99% are still figuring things out and haven’t quite passed the experimentation phase. The CIM #smbenchmark research launched last week paints a very sobering and real picture of how nascent the UK industry still is.

4. The Olympics will crown social mobile as the true king

London 2012 will be the biggest social media event ever. We learnt that there could be 2 billion social media users and more than 12,000 tweets per second at peak times.

With champions and losers travelling the social graph at lighting speed and terabytes of citizen journalism reporting every athletic heart beat, this will be the first Olympics where the audience is empowered to truly take part.

The mercurial mix of smartphone and social media will remind the world of how far we have come. The personal, local and global will combine to bring the audience to the event in ways unimaginable at Athens or Beijing.

5. Social analytics is booming, but are you asking the right questions?

This is the area for investment right now. Judging by my colleagues’ observation at one event, the quality and detail of the questions by the audience suggested there are many keen buyers out there for new social analytics platforms, enterprise social media management tools and measurement dashboards. They’re just waiting for the right honest advice and insight to come their way before they starting writing POs.

6. The measurement conundrum continues

Social media measurement is growing up, but incredibly slowly. It was disappointing to hear very little about measurement practices or stories of ROI in any of the events I attended.

The reality is social media marketing measurement is still struggling to find its feet when linking to business metrics. In many of the events I attended it was the last topic to be talked about and when it was talked about there were the usual bland statements of obfuscation.

7. Get a strategy

It came up repeatedly in all the events I attended, this weird contradiction of trying to do too much in social and at the same time not having clear strategic goals. A deadly cocktail.

I was left with a feeling that many see social as a ‘final destination’ rather than what it really is – a long and detailed process that demands long-term commitment and strategy.

8. Social CRM is getting real

The reality of Social CRM is inching forward. I spotted quite a few suppliers showcasing direct social messaging software on platforms like Facebook and some compelling case studies. I was pleased to hear marketers wanting to move away from a broadcasting mentality to a more targeted and measurable content strategy. Of course there are still issues about linking social profiles with customer profiles, and issues around time and scalability, but the signs are looking good.

9. Target the emerging influencers

The established influencers are still important, of course, but it’s ‘the magic middle’ who best represent emerging influencers and potential brand advocates.

Find the bloggers who are eager and motivated to be tomorrow’s stars and nurture your relationships with them. These bloggers are more likely to have a network of an early majority that can take brands into different places, and they’re more accessible than the vaunted “A-List”.