Live Blog – Manchester Social Media Surgery – 11 May

[Chi-chi Ekweozor]

This is a live blog of the May Manchester Social Media Surgery that took place at the offices of the Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA), Lower Ground Floor, 117-119 Portland Street from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.

If you were there and remember it different, please shout out in the comments!

As a reminder, the theme of the event was:

'What businesses can learn from how social media is used during the 2010 UK elections.'

Social Media Surgeons:

Adrian Slatcher, (@adrianslatcher) Senior Digital Development officer, MDDA – Chair

Katie Moffat, (@katiemoffat) Social media consultant, organiser of Manchester Twestival and Manchester Digital council member, trainer for eConsultancy

Nigel Barlow, (@nigelbarlow) Freelance journalist, co-founder of hyper-local news site for Manchester, Inside the M60

Matt Hackett, (@mattorchard) Manager, Digital & Marketing Recruitment Team at Orchard

Sarah Hartley, (@foodiesarah) Local launch editor for The Guardian

Chi-chi Ekweozor, (@realfreshtv), Event organiser, live-blogger and occasional interjector. Director, Real Fresh TV, the social media training and implementation consultancy

Adrian is introducing the panel.

Some of the companies represented in the audience:
Digital strategy consultant at Fluid, Cooperative group, engagement manager, Insider Media web 2.0 manager, Actors Centre, Manchester Museums.

Adrian now kicks off with a question for the panel: was it really a social media election?

Katie responds with it was much more of a TV election: much of the commentary around the elections happened on Twitter and Facebook but the real influence happened through the TV coverage.

Nigel adds that social media reflected the demographics of platforms like Twitter and Facebook, In the case of the former, it was very much a 'white middle class' audience.

Sarah adds that political blogs were given a legitimacy with lots of political bloggers being invited as pundits on TV shows.

Matt adds that it was a good way of getting a lot of input from a lot of people about the election rather than just including sound bites.

However, Nigel says the best Twitter event was the Bigot-gate thing. Twitter should actually listen to what the politicians were saying: Gordon Brown's 'resignation' yesterday was an announcement that he would step down. However, the headlines on Twitter said that he had already resigned.

As a real-time news source, Twitter didn't have the patience for the 4 and a half minutes of Gordon Brown's speech yesterday, Adrian argues. How many businesses need the almost instant gratification of news distribution on Twitter, he asks.

Sarah answers: media organisations and stock market updates the few places requiring this.

Chi-chi adds: perhaps wise to consider the possibilities afforded by being able to monitor conversations on Twitter and make direct contact with a brand's audience. In this aspect, Twitter's real-time news feature invaluable for brands seeking to build engagement with consumers.

A question from the audience about Twitter.

"I'd rather be outside than being sat at my computer all day. What's the general consensus? What are other people like about this?"

Matt answers that Twitter is actually a really good tool for marketing to people's pockets, a lot of people use mobile phones to access Twitter.

Nigel shares that compared to how things were when he started in business, we are actually living in constant information overload. However, Twitter and Facebook are tools that allow you to control all that information.

Katie expands on that, adding, it's your choice of who you accept connections from on Twitter, Facebook. Making connections with people in business is human, we are social beings. Social media makes it easier to make those connections with real people that live in different geographical locations around the world.

Another question on engaging an audience using social media:

"How do you make people view something? Why does one video get more views than another?"

Matt says that social media allows you to have a live and constant update about what you do and what you have done. It's the update on one-off 'user testimonials'.

Actors Centre is looking at expanding its web presence to use social media. Katie adds that from a visibility and awareness point of view, Actors Centre could gain a lot from using social media.

The reason why people would view a video or follow a person is about 'adding value', she continues. This can mean a myriad of things, being funny, sharing information.

The Actors Centre can share information it has of users who have interesting stories, are doing interesting work.

Adrian shares he follows The Stage, the news portal for the UK entertainment and performing arts industry. and they have an interesting Twitter feed.

Moving on... now for questions from the audience.

If you might not know what you want to do with a particular social media, the panel might be able to respond, Adrian begins.

The lady from Fluid asks, is Facebook useful for Business to business marketing?

Nigel answers that whilst there is a corporate market for Facebook, LinkedIn may be a much better platform for businesses.

Katie adds that if your objective is to raise the profile of the business, connect with potential clients, is it realistic to start on Facebook?

It might be better to focus on setting up on a fantastic blog that positions you as a thought leader or set up a Ning network for a niche community.

Start with the business objective rather than starting with the tools.

Matt adds that in the same way that many people seem to want to create a TV ad 'because everyone wants one' social media tools seems to be seen to be available and free!

However, without knowing what the objective is, it is not possible to build a credible social media presence.

B2B examples of business using social media effectively do exist. However, at director level, many businesses are at the place where they try it and walk away when it doesn't work without having done the necessary research to begin with, Katie continues.

The only social media campaigns that work for business to business are the ones that are being used for active campaigns, she adds.

Adrian says that he has seen examples of Facebook polls for Businesses that provide niche, practical use of a tool that provides market intelligence.

Overheard at Moo, have got the mix right, it doesn't feel like that you're following a printing company when you follow them on Twitter, Katie continues.

Someone asked for examples of successful examples of Twitter and Facebook campaigns: #moonfruit's MacBook giveaway is mentioned.

Dell's $3 million revenue from Twitter only happened after they'd done all the initial engagement work however, Katie clarifies. They had social media engagements projects like Ideastorm first etc. The point is that you can't jump in and start offering discounts. You have to build a relationship first.

The balance of power in that relationship doesn't rest with you, Katie adds.

Matt: The big thing with social media is you have to have a strategy... the key thing is to integrate your activity into a strategy.

Start by trying to get people to engage more with something... lots of marketing departments are using their customer base to create content for them.

The strategy side has to include what happens if a disaster takes place. Habitat's use of hashtags around the Iranian Election backfired quite terribly, Sarah adds.

If you want to actively go out and build this community, you have to go out and be there for people, Katie says.

Do a bit of research, choose one thing and then do it well.

Set expectations and let people know what you can manage.

Insider share about how they are using Twitter and LinkedIn but that it all feels very siloed. They have tweeted events and shared some blog posts on Twitter and received some good reactions but want to do more.

Sarah wonders about Insider's Twitter management, someone contacted her on Twitter from them with some information but didn't send a link.

The gentleman from Insider media says he'll look into it!

The surgeons go on. Insider Daily Newsletter content currently unlinkable but Katie, Nigel and Sarah encourage making it 'shareable'.

Katie advises that without the full budget for a dedicated social media employee, some initial training for the entire team dilutes the responsibility for the social media presence for the organisation.

Make it as easy as possible to share things. You can set things up to push content to your website and social media presence.

Matt adds that Orchard started using social media usage about 18 months and have now found it is the major driver of traffic to their website.

It's hard to imagine how a journalist would be able to further engage with a story without using Twitter, Sarah continues, encouraging Insider to consider sharing more information on Twitter.

Anything with a real-time discussion would work really well with news organisations, Adrian suggests. A Twitter-powered event in which real-time discussions with opinion formers as recently organised by Arts Professional could work.

What a news organisation would do by using social media is enabling connections with both journalists and stakeholders, PR people, Katie continues as there is mutual benefit in doing so.

It's about getting timely news content linked it everywhere, posting it on the website and pushing it into a Twitter feed.

Cross-platform media linking can be limited by the website architecture, Adrian adds. The website may not be set up to allow this.

Moving on... Adrian asks for one final question from the audience:

"How do museums become part of the feedback experience using social media?"

Nigel answers: tell the story. Chi-chi adds: this allows you to break things into chunks and set up a manageable strategy. Perhaps you decide on a weekly blog post with dedicated Twitter activity around certain blog posts. In essence, by having a clearly defined 'story', you have the beginnings of a manageable strategy.

Katie adds that collections at museums have really interesting stories. You have to start that conversation then they will naturally 'follow'.

It does take time, certain things don't work as expected. It pays to be flexible, Matt adds however the size of organisation and the number of people dedicated to supporting social media affects how flexible people can be.

It's all about letting going as well.

Katie says for museums it's worth looking at using curators for blogs. This needs to be managed however, as without active effort to share the content with the wider web, there's a danger it could become a conversation between curators.

Now for the final question for each social media surgeon.

What's next?

Katie says: Location-based apps.

Foursquare, Gowalla, mobile phone applications that let you check-in where you were. She says she saw the real value of them when at South by South West Interactive, the tech conference in Austin, Texas earlier this year. When there's enough people are using it, you see the value of it.

From a brand's perspective, consumers can receive customised information based on where they are.

Nigel says for him, it's down to content as we are rapidly approaching a period of information overload.

Sarah: watch what Google do next as they're looking to hire a new Head of Social.

Also, there will be tools for collaborative journalism, allowing journalists to work together with other journalists.

Matt: anything you're using in social media, once you start using improves so if you're not using it, you'll never know... how!

Adrian: video is to 2010 what text was to 2005.

Chi-chi: starts by saying she will create a couple of delicious links of useful examples of B2B to share with attendees tomorrow. Her advice/takeaway point: if you have more than two social media accounts put links to all on your homepage and allow people to organically fan/follow you on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.

Adrian and Sarah: invites everyone to come along to the next Social Media Cafe event.

And it's a wrap!

Where you there? Did you find it useful? How can we improve? Please share your thoughts in the comments. Thanks.

Wish you could have been there? Why not sign up to attend the June Social Media Surgery?