An update on the IAB Ireland Social Media Council workings and some tips for Social Media success
In my last blog post, I marveled at the increase in Social Media usage during the world’s biggest sporting event – World Cup 2014 in Brazil. Many records were broken during the world cup final, Facebook recorded 280 million interactions during the match, with more than 88 million people getting involved in the conversation. This made the game the biggest sporting event in the platform’s history. Meanwhile, Twitter was also reporting new records, with a peak of 618,725 tweets per minute being sent at the final whistle – surpassing the previous record of 580,166 set just a few days ago while Germany thrashed Brazil 7-1 in the semi-final.
IAB Ireland’s Social Media Council’s objective is to further educate the Irish Marketing Community about the potential and effectiveness of social media and its role in a full channel online marketing mix. The Council is a made up of practitioners from leading social media networks, agencies, suppliers and brands. Recently, the Council conducted a survey among Brand Marketing Managers to understand the extent of use of Social Media by Brands and also the challenges they are facing. Feedback on measuring the impact and ROI of Social Media activity was common, when asked the question: What are the greatest challenges within your organization with regards to Social Media? The most common response was “Measuring the effect of social in general – reporting to my board”
Also, in the new and challenging world of Social Media what are the benchmarks for success for marketers, is a common deliberation. When respondents were asked what could the Council do to support their Social Media activities, the answer with the highest response was: “Guidelines on Benchmarks for success – what should you be measuring?”, emphasizing the lack of clarity to many in the industry.
In the early days after the introduction of the Social Media platforms (remember, Facebook is only ten years young!) there would have been an element of protection and secrecy in relation to what was effective, increasingly there are signs of sharing on best practice. Case-studies and success stories are now common – Twitter and Instagram have examples within their business sections. Moreover, there are now even Irish based examples of good practice available, thanks to Facebook for Business – Success Stories (where you can search by region, business size, industry etc.), enabling Irish businesses to search and read about relevant and comparable examples which should inspire.
I particularly like the Bunsen Burger example (picture from their marketing campaign above), which championed “strong content, led by thoughtful, high-quality visuals, has been Bunsen’s magic ingredient”. Good news for us all, as there are more and more examples of the recipes for success in Social Media.
Author: Rowena Hennigan is the Communications Executive at IAB Ireland, email: rowena@iabireland.ie