Next month H&K will be presenting at Digital Now Australia or DNA://10, a conference in its second year with speakers from other WPP agencies TNS and GroupM and the local team from Google. The conference will be hitting up Sydney and Melbourne with the aim to take some of the hype and hyperbole out of digital and focus on the strategic direction required to achieve real results. With the recent release of TNS’s Digital Life – the most comprehensive study we’ve ever seen on digital lifestyles – it’s a great opportunity to demonstrate how each agency uses insights into consumer behaviours to develop kick-ass strategies across the marketing mix.
As we’ve constructed our presentation to represent integrated communications we’ve realised just how much there is to say on the subject. Unfortunately we don’t have all day. Fortunately I have this blog to explore all of the other avenues that pop up for discussion. Now all I have to do is find the time!
Here’s a teaser for our presentation How to win fans and influence people. We’ve broken it down into 3 key areas:
Know your influencers
PR has always been about finding and leveraging influencers. What we love about social media is that the shifting dynamics of influence has highlighted the importance of this skill. So why is your loyal PR team reeling off a list of unfamiliar names as your next campaign hit list? Your influencers may not be who you think they are but the journey to find and connect with them will give you a better understanding of your audience and the opportunities at hand.
Plan to give good content
So you’ve decided a Facebook page and Twitter are a great way to connect with your fans. Have you thought about what you’re going to say? Even the most enigmatic community managers would have trouble maintaining a daily conversation without some great content to share. Plan ahead and then plan to adapt that plan – often. And don’t forget to tuck away some extra budget and resourcing in case you need it when you least expect it!
Conversion is king
We’ve heard content is king, we’ve heard conversation is king. It’s time for the heir apparent to take the throne! Big ideas are great but not without reason. When you forget to focus on your objectives things often get complicated fast. Before you kick off that user generated content competition ask yourself why you need your audience to go to that much trouble. Will you benefit from it? Will they? We also make the distinction between outputs and outcomes. What are you measuring and why?
As you can see it’s fodder for endless discussion and the tangents – oh the tangents! – could fill whitepaper after whitepaper. For now we’ll be refining our thoughts into 3 key takeaways to get the audience motivated and inspired. And we’ll play a little buzzword bingo on the side just for kicks.
