The SEM Post

Latest News About SEO, SEM, PPC & Search Engines

You are here: Home / Social Media / Where is Social Content Going – The Web Summit 2015 Recap

Where is Social Content Going – The Web Summit 2015 Recap

at PST By

motoko hunt web summitLast year, when I attended the Web Summit (Dublin, Ireland) for the first time, I was not fully aware of what was happening. The event was much bigger than I expected, and there were so many sessions going at the same time. The biggest challenge of all was that many stages were far apart from each other, you could not get to the next session in another area in time. With more than 30,000 people and hundreds of exhibitors, it felt like I was in some types of strange dream.

Web Summit 2015This year, I was better prepared. By consulting an event app and a map of the venue, I was ready for Thomas Crampton (Global MD, Ogilvy & Mather) to appear on the Marketing Stage on day 1. He was going to talk about how gathering social media data and knowing how to use it effectively are two very different activities, and showing us how using data effectively could drive a brand’s online content strategy.

First, he showed us a campaign video by Visit Britain targeting Chinese tourists. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdlEakyRLzU) The idea was to name tourist attractions in Great Britain as Chinese people describe them. It was probably more fun than the practicality, which of course became very popular on social media networks, resulting in a 27% increase in Chinese visitors. The campaign was a success in the way it made this far away country feel familiar and a bit closer to Chinese people.

Thomas stated that for self-preservation, people are retreating into smaller, private networks and blocking ads, while social platforms tighten their filtering algorithms. You can see the trend in data such as mobile messaging app usage growing by 316% year-on-year worldwide, and at the same time, the organic search in Facebook has declined by 50%.

Although the Internet, and the web, are making more content and information available, everyone is filtering more and actually seeing less. People only look at what they want, when they want it. According to Brightedge’s content engagement report (2015), 80% of B2C content goes unnoticed by consumers.

Thomas pointed out that Brands were challenged to break through the clutter.

  • In order to maintain relevance and resonance at the speed of culture, brands must move from a marketing mindset to a publisher mindset.
  • The great stories and experiences, and not superficial content, are what excite potential customers in the era of distraction.
  • As customers are spoiled for choice and holding little loyalty, brands need to shift from aimless connections to meaningful conversations and advocacy to stay engaged and bonded with customers.

He offered the follow ways for brands to actualize the previous above points in order to break through the clutter:

  • Transform brands to culturally relevant publishers
  • Build brands through a strategic approach to content development and engagement
  • Use data and social analytics to ensure strategies are brand-driven and audience-informed
  • Use data to help brands connect naturally with the right audience in the right place at the right time
  • Inspire customers through creative and effective culturally relevant storytelling and experiences
  • Do things first or differently to be innovative
  • Move to micro targeting at scale
  • Focusing on revenue opportunities through customer bonding instead of community management
  • Measure the success through relevant and harder business metrics such as leads, sales, and advocacy

It felt to me that the overall theme of this year’s Web Summit was about how you integrate “content”, “marketing (including search and social)”, and “data” to bring the success to the company by moving away from focusing each area separately. At the end of the day, it does not count if a win in different departments doesn’t translate to company’s success.

The following two tabs change content below.
My Twitter profileMy Google+ profileMy LinkedIn profile

Motoko Hunt

President, Search Marketing Consultant at AJPR
Since Motoko established AJPR in 1998, she has been providing the online marketing services targeting Japan and Asia to companies from around the world, helping them to enter Asian market using the Internet. Her search marketing consulting services with her extensive knowledge of Asia and Japanese market have been highly valued and made big impact on some of the world’s popular multi-national brands’ search marketing campaigns. A number of her articles have been published on industry websites and printed media, and she is a frequent speaker at search marketing conferences globally, and gives seminars and trainings about search marketing targeting Japan and Asia, In-house SEO, and Enterprise SEO. She has been serving as a chairman of SEMPO APAC Committee. She also served as a member of the SEMPO Board of Directors during 2010-2012.

Sign up for our newsletter