Many thanks for this article. As you know a blog would be an useful tool for our business, but as mentioned does involve alot of work. In your opinion is a blog best hosted as a separate domain/microsite or as a subfolder within your existing site.

Also with the growth of facebook connect, this would be an ideal tool for people to be able to log into your blog and post comments with their facebook profile, which in turn will promote your brand / product. If i have flown off at the complete wrong tangent please tell me !

Danny Meadows-Klue comments...

Blogs can be a great way of helping brands connect with consumers. They present a really powerful way that the barriers between companies and their customers can be removed, but they only work when the firm has something to say. So blog when there is a reason for people to listen and when the brand has something to say. Be cautious about the role of the blogs as simple corporate tools (there’s nothing worse than recycled press release fodder going through blogs). But as you’re aware Dave, blogs are just a small part of the social media jigsaw.

With the explosive rise of Facebook and other tools, there are new ways to connect your content together. For example, your blog could be connected to Facebook with their APIs that can suck in the RSS feed you’d already be producing. These techniques mean that what you publish in one place can be quickly syndicated into others, saving your team time and energy.

Blogging: We're a bit late to the party on social media. A b2b brand that is not the most on the ball. Too late, missed the ball, pointless?

HELP

Danny Meadows-Klue comments...

Blogging’s had pretty bad press, but that stems from implementing it without a messaging strategy that fits the brand and the organization. If the firm has a voice customers want to listen to (and if it has the resources to tell an interesting story) then reaching consumers with blogs can be exceptionally powerful. Blogs can cut through corporate hierarchy and make the most senior people readily accessible, they can build brands and deliver thought leadership – just in the way columns and conferences did a decade ago.

With the mainstreaming of online social networks there’s added value. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Linked-In etc give company blogs an immediate syndication channel to reach new audiences and more people, amplifying the effectiveness of the messaging and reducing the cost per impact. It has to fit with the strategy but still plays a powerful role.

Is it a good idea to have separate Twitters for separate areas of the RSA? We currently have RSA_Events which is quite active. Also if we were to have a "central" RSA one, it'll be more of an announcement tool like BBC (http://twitter.com/bbc) - would that work for us?

Danny Meadows-Klue comments...

Twitter is fun, but still early days for many brands to figure out the real model for how it fits into their business. If there’s a strong stream of content you have then Twitter is creating that extra channel to market, but be wary of diluting the messaging you have. As a Fellow of the Royal Society I’m conscious that my interests in what the RSA does are broad; if I defined them around one particular Twitter feed I’d probably miss the serendipity of the other content. The Marketing Society would probably expel me for suggesting a focus group of 1 is solid for decision making, but by diving into your customer insights you’ll be able to build a picture of what works for your audiences, how and why. Just be cautious about over-segmenting at the start – build up the critical mass and then let the markets decide for themselves.

Should we launch a company blog? We're a sports clothing manufacturer and I can't see how it would help us sell more lines. Am I a luddite who's past his day, or actually seeing through all the hype? What's your take?

Danny Meadows-Klue comments...

Most company blogs are little more than poorly recycled press machines, either regurgitating announcements nobody wanted to read in the first place or the directionless ramblings of senior management desperately in need of an editor. But in the right hands they can be beautiful tools for telling powerful stories. I’d need to know more about your brand, but think about the stories your customers could tell about the sports they take part in and the experiences they have. If there are events you sponsor then can your act as the framework for those athletes and their online social networks? If you’re on one of the global brand teams in a business like Nike or Adidas then your research team could be the perfect source of stories for the issues their latest products are tackling. Dig into the strategy, uncover the stories you want to tell and then evaluate the blogs – but blend video and images with simple text. If you need more then email us for access codes to the Blogging Marketing Academy pages.

How do Facebook and others intend to prevent themselves from imploding?

It seems to me that once the advertisers and marketers start manipulating sites to promote their stuff the users lose interest (Friends Reunited? What happened to that?!) and once the novelty of new sites has worn off they lose their cool and fade away. I also wonder how social networking is going to maintain integrity as a news source - unlike the press and rather like malicious gossip, there is no control or restriction over content. Is this not more of a threat to social networking than an opportunity?

Danny Meadows-Klue comments...

Strong observations Kate. Yes, the first generation of social media failed to capture the right formula or maintain the innovation. Remember the time when AOL was the internet’s biggest online community? But Facebook, Linked-In, Bebo and MySpace are different: each has crossed a threshold in terms of critical mass and created such brilliantly compelling platforms that their use accelerates over time. The novelty risk remains large for any me-too wanabee that is trying to catch up, and while Twitter proves that there is still space in the market for innovation, it’s by doing something fundamentally different rather than providing more of the same. In terms of social networking as a news source my hunch is that it will be the news brands (eg BBC) rather than the platforms (eg Twitter) that consumers figure out provides the differentiation.

Social Media platforms seem to be more easily utilised by B2C businesses (not saying they cannot be used for B2B without some imagination). Are there best practices B2B marketers can employ to increase the success of campaigns incorporating social media functions?

Danny Meadows-Klue comments...

Thanks Jonathan. It’s a familiar question, but one I’m going to challenge on, here’s why….

I’ve worked with B2B marketing since the start of online media and the differences with consumer marketing are tiny compared to the similarities. Many of the 10 steps will still hold true, so here’s some practical ideas to apply:

- If customers want to talk about your service then give them a space to do this. Have customer service advisors on the website to help them and be transparent with the comments. Not only will other customers be impressed, but your team’s answers to a previous question may be exactly what the next guy is looking for.
- Search marketing: Use social media to boost discoverability in search engines by applying the same thinking in the way you respond as you would in traditional search engine optimisation
- Look for the networks: Reach out to where your customers are. If they’re in an online B2B forum then enter and chat with them. Just always be yourself, have something (useful) to say, and be prepared to follow through on what you find.
- Listen: Social media churns up a wealth of brand discussion – find out what people are saying and reflect on what this means for the business.

If you’re coming to one of our breakfasts in Soho then we can look at this further. Here’s more… http://www.digitaltrainingacademy.com/socialmedia/2009/02/training_and_coaching_for_mark_1.php

Alison Woolven from DRINKiQ.com:

"We have recently launched DRINKiQ.com, a global online resource promoting responsible drinking and sharing best practice of responsible drinking programmes. It is intended for parents, teachers, retailers and law enforcement as well as consumers. There is a global site and country sites for communities eg GB, Australia, Ireland. Do you have any thoughts about how we use social media for social marketing objectives and raising awareness of such a significant and unique site?"

Danny Meadows Klue comments…

That’s a really interesting question. It echoes many of the emails I had as part of this lecture series so I’m writing this up a more extended answer that can act as a useful guide for people in other sectors. Here goes…

Drink IQ is great idea. It’s a powerful creative concept and one that invites engagement. Social messaging can be incredibly hard to get right in terms of tone of voice and key messages, but there’s a good fit with the marketing principles and the way the web works.

If the target audience for the site is a clearly defined group such as teachers, then the marketing plan needs to hinge on this. By treating the site as a brand, or an online publication, it can help unlock the right type of thinking for achieving a stronger strategy. It forces teams to think about how they build sustainable audiences to the site which is a far more complex, and important challenge than getting simple search engine optimisation in place.

Here are some starting points that can be a useful checklist…

• Set the commercial objectives of your social media marketing Is this about reach of a message, dissemination of materials (probably powerful for classroom based learning), forwarding content online, or building discussion and engagement? As you work through your planning, refine the objectives and settle on a small number of key performance indicators that will be how you measure your success. Many web publishers fail to get this right and as a result don’t have a sense of what success (or lack of it) looks like.
• Build out the profile of your target consumer Think about where they go online, what they do when they get there, and what they want.
• Tone of voice - Think about how to engage, relating the style, tone and structure to the consumer. In your case there are two separate ‘consumers’, there’s the teacher and then their students, so that means two sets of messaging with very different language structures.
• Develop the content strategy - It’s all about the content. Get the content right and you have a framework to build discussion around. Find out from your target audience what they want and how they would use it. Do they need materials that can be downloaded and printed, forwarded to friends or added to a group on Facebook? We’d suggest you look at creating a brand on Facebook that the teachers themselves can become ‘fans’ of. Without a big marketing budget, you’re relying on one teacher to tell another so by investing in the content you have something that they’ll want to pass on.
• Test the thinking - This isn’t just a way of de-risking projects and protecting your brand, it’s also a way of building smarter ideas. Time for some focus groups, or the cheaper ‘online panel’ alternative. (Email me for more on this). What you’re looking to do is refine the content before you commit to the big build. This is the point where you find out if your idea really has got the potential you’re hoping for, and if not then ask those consumers what would be more useful for them.
• Roleplay - Social marketing has some very specific challenges. There are brand adorers and brand vandals out there and eventually they’ll see the messaging you’ve developed. What happens next can’t be stopped, which is why we’d encourage marketers to be one step ahead. This is a technique we’ve seen work well: run a risk assessment, take a couple of cross discipline teams inside your business and give them the challenge of being adorers and vandals. Run those workshops internally and see what comes out – I normally find that what happens next is quite clear from the findings.

With social media the genie gets out of the bottle straightaway. The bigger the brand, the more risks there are, so spending time on the strategy at the start not only gets you on the right track but also derisks the project.

If you need more on strategies for using non-advertising techniques to drive traffic to websites, then let me know. We’ve been coaching marketing teams on this for almost ten years and have strong models for building repeat audiences. Best of luck with the site and let us know how it goes.

Mike Taylor from Online marketing jobs:

"It seems that there is too much choice with social media which in turn causes confusion for people as to how and where to get started?What would you recommend that a company looks into first when looking to get involved with social media as presunably what suits one company in one industry will not suit another company?"

Danny Meadows Klue comments…

Choice is one of the biggest challenges in digital marketing: too many things to consider and all to often it’s not clear which will work. First up make sure the business has Web 1.0 right: a good site, strong content, effective SEO and an ERM programme. Then look where your customers are and head there with the messaging. For a business like yours Mike, that’s less Facebook and more about the industry sector newswires and media I reckon.

Leonard Rees, Quality cottages:

"We are a holiday cottage letting agency we have a site with 900 pages and 9000 pictures. We have satisfactory SEO rankings for over 1000 key phrases, but our conversation rates are disappointing low. In 2007 only 0.75%, in 2008 only 1.123%. 325,000 unique visitors in 2008 and 3500 sales, although our company is 47 years old we are in our infancy in blogging, social media and video. Where should we turn for expertise to help our development team improve our conversion rates?"

Danny Meadows Klue comments…

It’s hard to get started Leonard, but remember that the path you decide will be one you live with for a long time. If you don’t have a big full service agency on retainer then talk with some people who offer different types of approaches before deciding the route. If your SEO is strong and you have high footfall through the sites then you’re already achieving strong online marketing. Your social media needs to build on this, and accelerate discovery of the brand and repeat sales to existing customers. My starting tips…

• Find out more about the customer discovery process and their buying behaviour
• Uncover what messages will help create conversion: stories of how great the holidays are, places people visited, trip advisor style ratings.
• Develop a commercial objective for social media (sales / views / brand discovery / SEO page rank etc)
• And from that the route forward should emerge.

Drop me a line at Digital if you need some agency partner suggestions.

Patrick Napier from Rock Sound magazine:

"We use all the leading social networks to interact with our audience. Right now we're most excited about Twitter (micro blog / presence application) http://twitter.com/rocksound which is fantastic for interaction and showing explosive growth. Does Twitter offers the most potential of the social media tools: how can you best use it?"

Danny Meadows Klue comments…

Most brands struggle with Twitter. You guys have it cracked Patrick. For a media brand with strong content you’re producing a great following. That’s why we showed your Twitter pages at the conference. If you’re not already doing these things then try out a couple…

• Follow your followers to see what they’re up to
• Link the Twitter feeds to Facebook and other platforms
• Break some of your stories on Twitter and build connections to the website and then to the magazine
• Use Twitter for promoting ticket sales to the bands you see coming up
• And link to the music itself: for your audience the music’s the hero and Twitter could be their gateway.

Let us know how it goes

Rupert Potter from Doctors.net:

"With Facebook finding it hard to produce significant revenues from advertising on the site and having to diversify into market research. Are Social networking sites a very expensive fad or a real sustainable digital marketing tool for the future?"

Danny Meadows Klue comments…

Really important question Rupert. Because you’re right: when the revenues don’t match the market capitalisation, something feels wrong. But in Facebook’s case it’s just the timelag. Their massive reach means the ad revenue will follow. Over the next couple of years they’ll be earning way more than national TV networks just through their graphical formats. They’ll unlock ways to earn more from the brand pages once every brand becomes addicted to having ‘fans’, and my bet is that Facebook today is where Google was in 2000. We really ‘ain’t seen nothing yet’.

Mark Read from WPP:

“We're seeing increasing use of social media like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube by our clients. And we think this will grow. However this isn't yet generating significant revenue, let alone profits, for many of these platforms. What do they need to happen to change this?”

Danny Meadows Klue comments…

This is one of the most fundamental of challenges in the ecosystem of social media and advertising. The commission based media buying model simply doesn’t reward agencies the right way for much of their online work. Unless they’re buying mass reach banner campaigns, the agency is disincentivised to recommend the web. That was one of the structural barriers the UK hit in the late 90s that held back the online advertising industry and we’re hitting it again with social media. The panel agreed at the conference debate, but the solutions are elusive.

PR agencies have a huge role to play here in taking their clients online. Social media is digital PR and the skills of those teams can let brands leap forward in Facebook or MySpace. The problem is that in the PR sector the massive number of tiny agencies find it hard to get their skills up to speed: it feels like there’s a skills crisis similar to web publishing in 2002.

For the media agencies they can get some payback in extending duration, moving to year long media buys for the right target consumer rather than short term campaigns, but the volume of throughput needs to move an order of magnitude for it to make sense. Social media is still painfully young, but there is a structural challenge here that the online ad industry has seen before. That’s why I’m bullish about them getting the revenues right and the commissions flowing to agencies.

Ross Bailey:

"What do you think are the best metrics for media planners/buyers to assess the impact of social media?"

Danny Meadows Klue comments…

Great question Ross. I’m conscious that at the debate the panel dodged this one, so let me come back to you directly.

It varies for every brand based on what they’re communications objectives are, but when I’m teaching web analytics there are likely to be some common starting points every time:

• Reach: monthly / weekly or daily number of unique viewers seeing the message
• Effective reach: how many of them fit target audience profiles
• Brand salience: What their experience of the brand is
• Buzz: Volume of posts (too quiet to be worth listening to or an explosion of discussion), and volume of interactions with web apps
• Viral metrics: Pass on rates, tearability scores, and repostings of content elsewhere
• Critical issue analysis: The really smart brands watch for key issues their consumers are talking about and then act. It still amazes me how few brands listen to their online communities

Martin Palin - consumer FMCG brand director:

"YouTube: love it in my personal life. Terrified of it in the business. When our customers start creating content, some of it's fantastic, but some of it does real damage to a couple of our brands. We've been online with the site and ad campaigns since 2000, but I still can't figure out the right approach for how we police / protect ourselves in youTube, Flickr etc."

Danny Meadows Klue comments…

You’re right on the money here Martin. Every brand needs a policy on this one. We’ve helped quite a few firms on it already so I know some of the challenges you may have but the key issues are:

• Some consumers will certainly do this
• As a brand you have limited effective ways to stop it
• Not creating the opportunity is the only solution: which means being honest and transparent with consumers
• Set up a mechanism so that if there is something out there you can hear about it quickly.
• Build a strategy for commenting and intervention now, before it happens. Get the mostsenior stakeholders in the business briefed. Involve PR and technology departments as well as marketing
• Have the action plan sitting on your laptop, so wherever you are you can lead your team quickly

Try the 10 Golden Rules tips we developed from our review of casestudies for leading social media marketing. It's a great quick healthcheck for your own plans.

10 Golden Rules

EXTRA TRAINING DATES ADDED FOR SOCIAL MEDIA

>> Breakfasts in March

Many brand teams asked us to run some of our breakfast briefings about social media marketing techniques and we have new dates in London (March 10th/13th).
Tuition fees: £45 per person and there are 15 places free for TFM&A show participants.
Location: Soho
Timing: 8:30-10:00
Places: Strictly limited

>> Full day deep dives on social media

Overview of tools and techniques in social media marketing

An intensive full day examining the tools and techniques for effective social media marketing
17th March
Location: Soho
Places: Strictly limited
Tuition fees: £395 for TFM&A attendees, £795 standard rate

Writing a social media marketing plan

An intensive full day writing the social media marketing plan for brands of all sizes and budgets. This intensive management strategy coaching session is designed for experienced marketers with at least 18 months in online marketing.

18th March
Location: Soho
Places: Strictly limited
Tuition fees: £395 for TFM&A attendees, £795 standard rate

PRICES AND AVAILABILITY
Prices are excluding VAT which is charged at 15%. Because these small-group coaching sessions sell out quickly, places are strictly limited.

TUTOR
Danny Meadows-Klue will be leading all four of these sessions.

BOOKINGS
These are all additional events to our standard in-company training programme.

For a detailed prospectus on the coursess, to reserve a place or make a confirmed booking, email the Academy Managers Admissions@DigitalTrainingAcademy.com

We look forward to seeing you!

Martin & Claire

TRAINING NOTES AND BEST PRACTICE TIPS

Thanks to everyone who joined the panel debate today. And our sincere apologies to the 1500 people who couldn't get places (the organisers were atthe limit of the fire regulations).

We asked many of the questions you sent in, but there's never time to answer them all so here's what we're doing, and here's how you can get more value:

Training notes: We're putting together a write-up of key points. If you email me directly (Danny@DigitalStrategyConsulting.com) then I'll ensure you get a copy.

Video stream: Look out for details when the videos are processed and ready.

Casestudies and videos: The social media trainers are adding new material to the online classroom overthe next few days. Bookmark this page and you'll see more.

Training courses and breakfasts: There are 4 sessions that accompany the conference debate. The Academy Managers will post details on this page.

Hi Danny

How can the pharmaceutical industry and medical social networking sites manage the implications of doctors posting discussions on forums about off-license use of prescription medicines and also adverse effects so that they do not fall foul of legislation?

Hi Danny

How can the pharmaceutical industry and medical social networking sites ensure effective management of the implications of doctors posting discussions on forums about off license use of prescription medicines and adverse effects so that they do not fall foul of legislation?

Question:
Was the recent reversal of Facebook's terms and conditions changes typical of UGC changing company policy, and assuming so, what advise would you give to companies who are reluctant to engage in Social Media because of 'relinquishing control' issues?

Danny Meadows-Klue comments...

Good point Gary. Let’s face it, most companies can’t even process the idea of relinquishing total control. They really struggle with the attitude that marketers are not in the real driving seat, and that they’re only part of the story. As a search business you’ve seen first hand the challenges brands have in thinking digital and social media today is where search was in the very late 90s. For me, Facebook’s changing Ts and Cs are just part of the changing landscape and it will take another two years before things settle down among the publishers.

We have recently launched DRINKiQ.com, a global online resource promoting responsible drinking and sharing best practice of responsible drinking programmes. It is intended for parents, teachers, retailers and law enforcement as well as consumers. There is a global site and country sites for communities eg GB, Australia, Ireland. Do you have any thoughts about how we use social media for social marketing objectives and raising awareness of such a significant and unique site?

Question for Danny Meadows-Klue

We are a holiday cottage letting agency we have a site with 900 pages and 9000 pictures. We have satisfactory SEO rankings for over 1000 key phrases, but our conversation rates are disappointing low. In 2007 only .75%, in 2008 only 1.123%. 325,000 unique visitors in 2008 and 3500 sales, although our company is 47 years old we are in our infancy in blogging, social media and video. Where should we turn for expertise to help our development team improve our conversion rates.

I work for an international not for profit aid organisation that has not traditionally had a public membership profile. So despite being quite large organisation, we have yet to properly engage with the general public on our issues. This is something we are planning to address and I would very much like your thoughts on where social marketing could fit with this new strategy, especially given that we are going in 'cold'.

Danny Meadows Klue comments...

Social marketing is made for social media. Being able to tell powerful stories of how charities are helping people is the perfect content for catalysing discussion. First up, get the strategy in place. Decide what the objectives are and be focussed about either building awareness among clients, donors or stakeholders. Then get the communication model in place: find the stories and get them into a format you can work with. They could be delivered through blogs, Facebook, YouTube or any of your own sites, but the key thing is the strategy. Pilot with a couple of messages, throwing energy into the analytics so you can measure exactly what this is doing for the business. Let us know how it goes Diana – you guys have an incredible brand and the most compelling of stories from out in the field. Lets tell them.

We publish Rock Sound, a rock music magazine aimed at a 15-24 year old audience and we use all the leading social networks to interact with our audience.

Right now we're most excited about Twitter http://twitter.com/rocksound which is fantastic for interaction and showing explosive growth. Do you agree think that Twitter offers the most potential of them all and what do you think are the best ways to use it?

Danny,

It seems that there is too much choice with social media which in turn causes confusion for people as to how and where to get started?

What would you recommend that a company looks into first when looking to get involved with social media as presunably what suits one company in one industry will not suit another company?

Thanks

Mike Taylor
Director

OnlineMarketingJobs.com

Question one.

With Facebook finding it hard to produce significant revenues from advertising on the site and having to diversify into market research. Are Social networking sites a very expensive fad or a real sustainable digital marketing tool for the future?

Question Two

How do the panel see social networking helping doctors to improve healthcare in the future! And what can the pharmaceutical industry do to help this process?

Question:

1) What do you think are the best metrics for media planners/buyers to assess the impact of social media.

2) What's the most innovative use of social media you've seen by a client or agency.

Danny Meadows Klue comments…

1) Great question Ross. I’m conscious that at the debate the panel dodged this one, so let me come back to you directly.

It varies for every brand based on what they’re communications objectives are, but when I’m teaching web analytics there are likely to be some common starting points every time:

• Reach: monthly / weekly or daily number of unique viewers seeing the message
• Effective reach: how many of them fit target audience profiles
• Brand salience: What their experience of the brand is
• Buzz: Volume of posts (too quiet to be worth listening to or an explosion of discussion), and volume of interactions with web apps
• Viral metrics: Pass on rates, tearability scores, and repostings of content elsewhere
• Critical issue analysis: The really smart brands watch for key issues their consumers are talking about and then act. It still amazes me how few brands listen to their online communities

2) Really interesting question. In terms of scale the whole US Presidential campaign has to be the exemplar. Brilliant social media that created change and a new type of thinking. Even now as they follow through with daily messages from the president to millions of citizens it’s a type of direct relationships with government that hasn’t been seen before and is all about inclusion and discussion: brilliant. In terms of integration between platforms, the Orange Wednesday’s work (running for five years now?) feels like the strongest example of tying mobile and direct response together. In the sports sector the Nike Run London platform still leaps out, but it’s often not the big budget stuff that catches my eye. The profile page of Marmite on Facebook is simple, clean and a great catalyst for discussion. Would be interested to hear yours’ Ross. You guys have been in the game since before it was called social media!

YouTube: love it in my personal life. Terrified of it in the business. When our customers start creating content, some of it's fantastic, but some of it does real damage to a couple of our brands. We've been online with the site and ad campaigns since 2000, but I still can't figure out the right approach for how we police / protect ourselves in youTube, Flickr etc.

Good solutions to that one get more than a good lunch on us!

We're in the process of rebuilding a web marketing strategy. With £750k of budget in the UK market we have some provision for social media, but my agency are unclear about costs, returns and how this fits in. If we get this right it could mean I should stop my online ad budget (normally a million a quarter) and switch it all. But our marketing team are not seeing the same type of media plan and confidence the agency has in more established online media. Am I a nervous luddite or a seeing the thing they're not?

Danny Meadows Klue comments…

Planning the returns in social media is more complicated than simple search marketing or banner advertising, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. The starting point is to set the communications objectives and then design the campaign around those.

Typically in social media, those are likely to be more about branding than direct response, so here are some starting points…

• Building discussion about the brand
• Building brand image
• Raising brand awareness, or awareness of a product variation
• Building purchase intent

But direct response metrics can work well. For retail and entertainment brands I’d suggest they look at the models of couponing online, but for your team data capture to build a good eRM database is probably the key. Those can be woven into the links from social media tools. Let me know how it goes.

What's the role of social media in the pharma sector? Should I be on Facebook or in the blogs? And operationally how do we deliver a strong quality experience to our customers and for our brands?

Am in Palo Alto so won't be able to join you in London, but...

We're seeing increasing use of social media like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube by our clients. And we think this will grow.

However this isn't yet generating significant revenue, let alone profits, for these platforms. What do they needs to happen to change this?

Hope it goes well.

The trick lies in integrating all the different "social media" available online into your website? Creating a community around your product/brand./content(for publishers)... whether that means integrating Facebook or MySpace or not.

Am I correct?

Can't make the session in London but PLEASE HELP: Am thinking about creating a facebook group for our customers. We're a fashion brand with a big youth following. Thing is that once we're on Facebook we lose control of the wall. Can't afford the resources of an army to police Facebook so wanted to get the Training Academy view on how we approach all this. If you're running classes in London let me know!

We are the leading Antipodean publisher in the UK. Our target audience are heavy social media users and we are always looking to channel our marketing efforts around where our audience lives.

I have two questions

My first question is; When will we start to see more integration of social networks across different digital platforms such as interactive TV and gaming?

My second question is; Sony has produced there PS3 'Home' network and Microsoft 'Xbox live' with a TV service for europe in the pipeline. BBC addressed that they were looking at ways of creating your own online HUB by using such technologies at Silverlight

So does this mean that my Instant Messenger / Skype / Yahoo Messenger address will become my new social media hub in its own right a Phillip Ludgate / Facebook where I can share my likes / dislikes / photos / videos / ? if so could this be the death of you?

Facebook and MySpace: Either, or, or both? Music studio with about 20 bands. trying to figure out where to put our energies.

Thanks!!!

Do they think that Miniweb’s view that connected TVs in the home will be the next big social media platform is correct?

Do they agree with Miniweb’s approach to making all TV platforms, devices and TVs interoperable so advertisers can reach an audience irrespective of which TV service or STB their audience buys?

What new business models do they feel are going to work for connected TVs or should those in this space just look to extending the existing web models onto the TV like Miniweb are proposing?

Danny Meadows Klue comments…

The connection between TVs and the internet has been big on hype and low on results. Fortunately that’s now changing. For many consumers over 30 there’s still a mental disconnect between their expectations of content on one screen or another. There’s a real challenge in getting over that and it’s only by making the web easy that the social effect will drive adoption. Back in 1999 I was lucky enough to lead the team that put the first newspaper onto web TV. It was a crazy experience with a struggle to find the right interface, get the content working correctly and build something viable. That was a decade ago. Today the TV is still the dumb box in the corner of (most) living rooms. A few of us have made the transition, disconnecting our media channels from the delivery devices, but the mass market hasn’t taken off yet. This year should be the year of change, but in practice the collapse in consumer confidence will see much of the C1C2 market hold back on their spending for home electronics, delaying this another year. My hunch is that there will be growth this year for sure, but the big switch will be summer 2010 when consumer confidence picks up.

I can't make it to London, but shouldn't my business just be advertising on Facebook. Simple, no risk and people see it? I'm in a travel firm and what scares me is the wastage - too broad an audience.

You guys are the experts - what should we do?

Aaaahhh! I get terrified when I think of my brand going onto Facebook. Lots of energy in our marketing team but terrified about the risk. How do we minimise it?

What are the biggest risks in social media? I understand the power of getting it right, but most brands must be risking their reputations when they go into FaceBook or start blogging. What's your take?

What's the business to business potential here - apart from networking. We're a business services firm and just can't see the connection to sales...

Let us know more :-)

Our clients all want social media but I'm not sure if it makes sense. Are we holding them back?

We're about to build some Facebook applications. I'm in the music business and other record brands are doing this. What sort of response should I expect - agency answers seem unclear. Thanks!

We're a business services company doing about £80k a year in online advertising. Social media seems exciting, but do we need to be there if we can't build our own social media?

I'm a marketing manager on a consumer brand. We don't have any social media at the moment but we do have strong brand websites. Our web agency wants to add social media to those - creating profiles for users. Good, bad? Love your views.

QUESTIONS

Use this space to post your questions before our annual Digital Social Media Academy discussion at the TFM show.