Ideas from Social Media Summit Bucharest – the day after

Tuesday, at Howard Johnson hotel in Bucharest, Biz Magazine gathered together, for the 1st edition of Social Media Summit organized in Bucharest, people with extensive expertise related to blogging and an audience including bloggers, PR people and marketing representatives from companies.

After 6 years or more of participating to different conferences and events, yesterday’s event managed to surprise me twice: on stage, with professionals that were speaking their mind and sharing their knowledge and experiences, and in the room, with an attentive audience, grasping every info coming during the presentations.

What customers want and what they get from marketers

Bogdana Butnar came, as always, with a presentation explaining that there are discrepancies between what customers want and what they receive from marketers. As Bogdana explained, people are expecting brands to assume a position related to public events, to talk to them. Also, customers appreciate powerful images, humor, to be asked for feedback and messages that include calls to action.

People don’t need social media to be another marketing channel for companies, but a medium where they can receive a fast answer for their problems. When is about Facebook likes, people “like” a brand’s page because they already know or buy the product, not because of the content of the page.

The entire presentation, as posted on Bogdana Butnar’s SlideShare account:

Elementary rules in communication

Victor Kapra spoke about 3 elementary rules that must be followed when communicating to bloggers and journalists.

On press releases, he explained that, besides they must be news-ready (written like a news with relevant title, lead that includes the information to communicate and details) and sent to journalists and bloggers in 2 versions – with and without diacritics -, those documents must be accompanied by relevant photos, links to videos or relevant websites.

About social media, Victor urged people present at the event to 1st experiment it personally, to see how social media works and which are the mechanisms to use, and, when speaking for a company, to engage with consumers, because people expect conversation and interaction from brands.

Same likes online as offline

Dragos Stanca said that online is not just another media, but a whole new channel, and estimated that nowadays online advertising will slowly disappear and will be replaced by efficient brand communication.

Stanca also said that brand doesn’t mean only product, but also feeling, personality and values.

He also thinks that, in social media, people like the same things as in offline: entertainment, social causes, sex appeal and so on.

Next, Alex Negrea, Social Media Manager BCR, spoke about ways to analyze, integrate and report results in social media, referring to how often one should post on a Facebook brand page and how to analyze fans activity and to what to report it in order to have relevant conclusions.

One conclusion, besides technical stuff, is that social media doesn’t cost less than other channels.

Bloggers must associate with only couple brands and support them on long term

Mugur Patrascu from iLeo – the agency behind many social media campaigns, including multiple-awarded Rediscover Romania for Petrom – spoke about bloggers, agencies and brands.

According to him, in nowadays social media, there are a few obvious things: “hit and run” relation between bloggers and brands when it comes of campaigns, everybody writes about everything and, most of the times, there isn’t any background relation between the bloggers and the brands they campaign for. Patrascu noticed that, in campaigns, actions are following the same patterns and involve the same people that have the same attitudes.

Patrascu thinks that social media KOL-s must professionalize and considers that bloggers’ key to long term success is forging partnerships with a limited number of brands that match their interests and with which they are willing to work in order to build something good in social media.

Let the content producer free and cease opportunities

Second session of yesterday’s event had as speakers Cristian Manafu, Vlad Petreanu, Razvan Baciu, Georgiana Gheorghe – Danone, Gabriela Lungu – The Practice and Marius Tudosiei – Bacania Veche.

Vlad Petreanu spoke about content producers involved in campaigns and said that, most of the times, bloggers must say immediately if they want to get involved in a campaign. He also explained that writers must be allowed to tell campaign’s story as they consider best because they are the only ones that know how to make fit best with their audience.

Cristian Manafu had a presentation about Pinterest, that sky rises lately and that already started to give results for some online stores. According to him, adopting a new platform is a “first move advantage” for marketers and Pinterest is a place people pin things they like.

Manafu’s presentation:

Campaigns in Romanian social media

Cristian China-Birta – Chinezu for Romanian onliners – spoke about social media campaigns that ran, in the last 6 months, through BlogallInitiative.

Started as an initiative to involve a bigger number of bloggers – including local bloggers – in social media campaigns, BlogalInitiative managed to attract the advertisers and to generate better than expected results.

According to Chinezu, Blogal ran 40 campaigns in 6 months, involved 464 bloggers and generated 1,308 posts. The campaigns ran through the platform offered awards in cash – RON 38,805 or in objects: 15 smartphones, 5 laptops, 3 printers, 2 iPods, 1 iPad, 1 xBox and others.

Chinezu also explained that the costs to manage a campaign through BlogalInitiative was of Euro 300 and mentioned few of the brands that campaign via this platform: Knorr, Romtelecom and Orange.