Posted by: igsegma on: December 22 2010 • Categorized in: Facebook
Audio and video of the December meeting of Conversion Thursday in Madrid. In this case the title of the lecture was: Creating and Measuring Campaigns on Facebook.
There are several reasons to this: the content of the paper (listen to the audio) (in Spanish), the atmosphere in which the meeting took place at the auditorium of the EOI (filled to the brim), the comments of the audience (a different discourse seems to be arising in the Spanish market), and the opinions of all participants in their own blogs. The three layers of Marketing on Social Networks. (in Spanish)
I saw The Social Network on the cinema. I liked it a lot. And I mean a lot, a lot! I liked how they recreated the atmosphere of a successful dot-com company.
The film has scope for intense debates in several different areas, but in this post I’d like to focus on the importance of Mark Zuckerberg’s helpers in making a success of the project.
In the movie, a close friend of Mark’s, Edward, helps him at the beginning and stumps up $18,000; and Mark behaves rather badly towards him – his best friend! In any case, I think that even if Edward hadn’t helped him with the money, Mark wouldn’t have had any problems finding someone else.
Then there are the giant twin rowers from Harvard, who hire him to design a web page. Mark was thinking about a similar idea, but something about the twins’ idea makes something click in Mark’s head. The twins’ idea also helped him, though it was only a matter of time before he found the way.
Then there’s Sean Parker, the creator of Napster. He was someone who could think big and who upset the music industry quite a lot. He didn’t earn a single dollar doing that, but he did create the biggest all-time stir in the music industry!
When he meets Sean, he realizes that what Sean’s saying to him is just what he needs to hear. He’d have managed to carry on without Sean, but of all the people he comes in contact with, Sean is the most influential – because he makes him realize how big and fantastic his project is.
All of the above is just to say that an idea can be as fantastic as you like but it’s not worth anything there’s no one there with the ability, energy and motivation to make it a reality.
This week I heard a really good saying, which is also short, wise and true: “Experiment and you will triumph” ,from Pilar Jericó in EBE.
What does one need in order to experiment intensely? Motivation! And motivation comes mainly from the ability to see your success.
I don’t know if I’ve convinced you, so here’s another example:
Christopher Columbus made four trips to America, and I suppose that one would have had to be very daring and adventurous to join up for the first trip. I also suppose that that it would have been much easier for someone to join up for the second, third and fourth trips, knowing that the first was a success.
The tools we all have available to work with in Social Media are mostly free. Many small and medium sized companies decide to go into Social media without any support from professionals with experience in the sector. At the most they might give the job to an intern or to some other employee with little or no experience.
Y sin embargo ningún gran anunciante se plantea entrar en Social Media sin estar asesorado por una buena agencia de Social Media. ¿Son tontos los grandes anunciantes? ¿Se gastan el dinero de forma innecesaria? Yo creo que esos grandes anunciantes han entendido que para tener éxito en Social Media es imprescindible tener muy buen producto o servicio y ser muy buenos comunicando por Internet. Considero además que la cualidad que más valoran en la agencia que contratan es la de saber que la agencia tiene muy claro qué pasos tiene que dar para conseguir éxito en Social Media, porque ya lo han hecho en otras ocasiones.
Funnily enough, no large company gets into Social Media without hiring one or more professionals. Are these large companies crazy? Are they throwing their money away? I don’t think so. I think that they’ve realized that to be successful in Social media you have to have a good product or service to start off with and be very good at communicating over the internet. I also think that the qualities they value when hiring professionals is that they have a proven track record of similar successes in the past.
As Sean Parker said to Mark: “I don’t need to imagine what success will be like if FaceBook succeeds. I don’t need to because I already know! I lived it with Napster. Let me show you the way to heaven”
I’m not Sean Parker, and I didn’t create Napster, but what I’d like to say to the Wineries out there is “You want me to show you how to succeed?”
I recommend you all to read it very carefully and visit all the links it offers, as it may be seen as a masterpiece on how a brand can make its way in the Internet through Social Media.
What does success mean for the Repsol Guide? I guess success means gaining more and more Internet users accessing their web page when organizing their trips, searching for accommodations, or choosing restaurants.
In a different stage, it also means attracting Facebook fans to participate in the Guide’s suggestions.
In my opinion, the Repsol Guide has found the best way to keep their paper-format guide alive. I am completely sure the sales of the guide have not gone done, but increased. This is certainly a lesson to be learnt by the rest of media written in paper, although Iguess the situation is different if compared to general information newspapers.
I feel the Repsol Guide has understood it is difficult to stem the tide. It must be the user himself the one deciding whether he prefers written or digital information. I believe the profile of both types of information is totally different, although changes are expected in the future.
The Repsol Guideoffers users the possibility to reach interesting information that could be once checked in the written version, although now it is accessible in a more efficient and enriched manner; that is to say, in a more internet-like way.
The Repsol Guide website has the same type of problems any website has. You may access fantastic content, but users will not surf your website just because you offer loads of information and services. People don’t have time to surf the net, or they simply don’t want to. When visiting a website, we just consult the info we are looking for. People need to see a whole, piece by piece. Most people are not interested in the Repsol Guide in the whole, as they are just looking for specific information. There is so much high-quality content to visit that it is impossible to check everything. Users often check the links they have been recommended. This is what Social Media are all about. Forget about Internet searchers. People use other people they trust to filter the things they are really interested in. The Repsol Guide shows different proposals and games to prove how useful and interesting their contents are.
The Repsol Guide is becoming a referent in the blogosphere as it has slowly and quietly got into this world, trying to understand how this environment works, and adapting to it by encouraging bloggers participation.
As a result, it is not a surprise they get more benefits than Movistar or El Corte Inglés.
One of the most interesting things I have experienced in the world of wines was that in 2005 a man called Hugh McLeod, who worked in a small winery in South Africa called Stormhoek, sent a bottle of wine to all French and English bloggers who could prove they had been participating in his blog for at least three months. The results were impressive. This is what I call understanding the essence of the Blogosphere.
I believe guiarepsol.com understands and handles the blogosphere nowadays in Spain the way Hugh did back in 2005 with magnificent results.
