Why should we care about online video? Just take a look at the metrics of time spent on watching videos online and you will understand why more and more brand advertisers include digital video in their campaigns. To discover more about videos and their added value for the web, we invited Elie Casamitjana from RichCast for an interactive Friday Session.

Essential Elements

Elie guided us through the creation process of videos for the web and challenged us to determine a topic. All videos start with an idea. Afterwards, he helped us to build a scenario and a storyboard, identifying three essential elements, such as:

1. the protagonist,
2. the antagonist and
3. the dramatic goal.

Then we finally were ready to set up the production team and move on to the filming.

Best Format

But before the actual camera work, we needed to tackle the best format for our movie.

• Who is our audience?
• What is the main message we want to tell?
• B2C or B2B?
• Information or Emotion?
• Product and Services or Content Marketing?
• Customer Reference or Event Marketing?

RichCast learned us how different goals are served by different formats through practical examples. Think about the best user experience for your audience and how to translate your message into a strong format.

Dissemination

Dissemination is one of the most important points: today every channel has its specific videos: websites, blogs, social networks, live broadcasts, video platforms. Targeting is really the top keyword here!

So, silence on the set. Action!

[scribd id=93148583 key=key-1okuk682in6eo7bpvp68 mode=list]

Source: Lara van Dievoet, Facebook Timeline: quels défis pour les entreprises?, in: Trends, 26 April 2012, pp. 68–69.

Combining social media with your CRM seems like the goose with the golden eggs of our time. To get a better grip on this complex world of data, we invited Jeroen Van Godtsenhoven from the SAS Institute to guide us through the wide world of customer relationship management related to social media.

Special attention was paid to the following topics:

• What is the difference between operational and analytical CRM?
• How can your CRM be linked to social media analytics and conversation management?
• Practical cases from Belgium companies.

We started off with a look at some examples. The following screenshot shows how well Amazon is integrating customization into their website by counting the number of times “you” is mentioned.

Gathering basic information on your users is only one part of the CRM. The biggest effort is put into customising the messages being sent out. Where in the past you would have only a handful of different messages, these days it is possible to go into the hundreds of custom targetted promo-notifications. End goal of it all (besides sales)? More customer loyalty.

Media seems to be giving us the impression that marketeers are all slick guys in suits who are playing games in their office. But in reality the truth is far from this Mad Men myth, and more like Math Men.

On March 30th, Facebook updated all pages to the new ‘timeline’ design. This was announced a month in advance. Yet still, a lot of companies were unsure which changes this update with bring along, and how exactly it would impact their brand.

To explain the changes and answer all questions from our clients we organised a Friday Session. Christelle Deliens and Stijn Vogels guided the audience through the new Facebook, with focus on the following questions:

• What can you expect from Timeline for Brands?
• What are Facebook’s motives behind the facelift?
• What does this mean for future brand management on Facebook?

Presentation

Storify of the evening

Before 2012 is over there will be a Billion people on social media. That’s a one with nine zeros. How on Earth does one sift through all that noise to find the right signals? For our latest Friday Session, we invited Jeroen Fossaert for an in-depth Engagor update that helps us to tackle this problem. His talk contained some very practical examples, which really garnered a lot of feedback from the audience. Here’s the story of this evening via Storify.

Twitter in Belgium surpassed 1 Million users. That’s what news media reported earlier this month. Numbers show how twitter use doubled compared to last year, from 520 thousand to 1,1 million users. That makes Belgium the 35th country worldwide.

With so many new arrivals on Twitter, it’s probably a good idea to learn some of the basic rules of Twitter. What should you do? Or better yet: what are some things you definitely should not do on Twitter?

1. Make sure your Twitter name is “unique”, meaning: long, complicated and hard to remember. Add as much keywords as possible. For example @cleverwoodnewwaysoftweeting
2. Eggs are cool. You don’t need to set a custom avatar.
3. There is no need to fill out your bio either. Who needs to know who you are anyway? It’s not like people are going to visit your profile.
4. Use a #hashtag in #everything you #write on #Twitter. All the #hipsters are doing it!
5. Use Twitter only to push links to your website. Repeat the same tweet every day until people start replying.
6. Whatever you do, don’t interact! Never answer any questions from your followers. You’re not that social.
7. Never retweet. Just copy that interesting message you saw and remove the name of whoever mentioned it earlier.
8. When you do a #ff, be sure to include @yourself in that list. Instant karma!
9. Do you are operate a corporate account? Then be sure to only follow other accounts of your company!
10. Display links to all your social media accounts from the company website. A widget is even better. It doesn’t matter if your last update was 6 months ago.

Feel free to pat yourself on the back if you don’t recognise any of the above. If however you do see yourself making some of these mistakes, perhaps it’s good to go through the tweetiquette again.

Image: LEGO Twitter Fail Whale by Bjarne Panduro Tveskov (Flickr)

Mijn Club. - Slecht begonnen - Onze Club. Club Brugge. Ken je ze? Blauw-zwart, opgericht in 1891 onder de naam Brugsche Football Club en Club van harde werkers en noeste arbeid. Op de grasmat en in de tribune, allemaal volksmensen. Gewonnen prijzen doorheen de jaren? Who cares. Ik niet. Al had mijn Club – sorry onze Club – het palmares van een gemiddelde 3de klasse club, dan nog was ik supporter geweest. Maar waarom ben ik dan supporter? Omwille van de cultuur en identiteit.

Cultuur en identiteit bepaalt veel, zo niet alles, in wat ik onderneem. Ik werk voor Cleverwood. Bij Cleverwood kiezen ze voor de Dynamic Insourcing aanpak. Kort en simpel gezegd, samen de juiste balans vinden tussen je privé / werksituatie. Deze aanpak, samen met de visie dat een bedrijf beter wordt van het doorgeven en delen van kennis maakt dat ik hier mijn plaats heb gevonden. Nooit zou ik kunnen werken voor een bedrijf waar individualistisch en asociaal gedrag bij de bedrijfscultuur hoort. Maar voor Cleverwood geef ik me 100%. Ik zal ook zonder nadenken reageren wanneer ik iemand negatief hoor praten over Cleverwood (on- en offline).

En ga ik reageren omdat ik toevallig een Twitter account heb? Hell no! Of ga ik kennis met mijn collega’s delen omdat wij over een intern knowledge sharing platform beschikken? Hell no!

Het gaat niet over de technologie of over sociale media. Nee, ik doe dit omdat ik mij identificeer met de cultuur en identiteit van Cleverwood. Met plezier kom ik op voor mijn werkgever en deel ik kennis met mijn collega’s. Mijn gedrag wordt bepaald door de cultuur en ik maak dankbaar gebruik van technologie en sociale media om mij te uiten. Maar het zijn zeker niet deze technologische mogelijkheden of sociale media kanalen die mij aanzetten tot mijn gedrag.

Maar genoeg over mij. Wat heeft dit te maken met Club? Wel Club heeft als eerste club in België een Conversation Manager aangeworven. Wat goed nieuws is uiteraard.

Maar wat maakt een club echt sociaal en conversational? Wat creëert een community waar ambassadors zullen opstaan wanneer je ze nodig hebt? Simpel. Je vasthouden aan je cultuur en identiteit. Net omdat dat de reden is waarom je supporters voor jou gekozen hebben en waarom ze je nooit meer de rug zullen keren. Want eenmaal supporter, altijd supporter. En slaag je erin om je cultuur en identiteit in stand te houden en af te stemmen met de waarde van je supporters, dan zal je succes boeken. Aan wat er zich afspeelt op het veld kan je niets veranderen maar commercieel maakt dit je sterker. Diegene die zich kunnen identificeren met je club zullen vrienden, broers en zonen overtuigen om mee te komen. Ze zullen trainingen, shirts, tassen en deurmatten kopen om een uiting te geven aan hun gevoel. En bovenal zullen ze over je praten, on- en offline. Positief en negatief. En het is leuk om je supporters 4 kanalen te bieden waar ze hun mening kunnen uiten en waar je als Club aanwezig bent. Maar de echt waarde en de echte taak van de Conversation Manager is om constant af te toetsen of de beslissingen van het management stroken met de waarden van de supporters. In dialoog gaan met ons, de supporters. Vragen wat we van een beslissing denken en toelichting geven bij deze beslissing. Daarom ben ik ook blij dat in een tijd van verandering en – daarvan ben ik zeker – vooruitgang, die onze Club momenteel doormaakt onze Conversation Manager van start is gegaan.

Ik ga 11 jaar kijken naar Club en heb 7 trainers en 3 voorzitters overleefd. Er zijn rondom mij mensen in het stadion die al 45 jaar elke 2 weken fier hun plaats in de tribune innemen. Ze hebben 25 trainers zien komen en gaan en hebben 5 voorzitters gekend. Laat staan de spelers die ze hebben zie rondlopen op het Heilige gras. Mijn punt? Blijf praten met ons want morgen ben je misschien weg. Maar overmorgen zullen wij er wel nog staan.

Time for confessions, I love Iron Maiden! Not only for their great output of timeless heavy metal classics, but surely for their unique brand management over time as well. Like many major bands, it might not surprise you Iron Maiden is more than just the artists. It is a serious business with well thought out marketing budgets.

However, while many major bands still use traditional promotion pushed through various new media channels, Iron Maiden seems to understand the power of conversations. Next to their advanced experience marketing programs (join singer Bruce Dickinson on board of his Boeing 747), presences on Google+, Facebook and Twitter, they dare to reach out to the fans in a unique way. Let’s explore what happened earlier this week.

Building Momentum

Building momentum is a proven marketing technique and easy to execute on a maintained Twitter and/or Facebook account. With little effort, static announcements can be turned into vivid conversations. A technique that is clearly well understood by Iron Maiden’s marketing machine.

The story started with the following official tweet on New Year’s Day.

Few minutes later, a small banner on the official Iron Maiden website appeared :

Simultaneously, another teaser was spread through the official Iron Maiden Twitter account:

Real Conversations

These official messages increased the attention of the Iron Maiden fans and various rumors rapidly started spreading around the internet. Many other bands would then continue either teasing (classic promotion) or do nothing (lack of a plan). Not so with Iron Maiden.

The official @IronMaiden Twitter account — with nearly 125.000 followers — was used to counter most false rumors, to keep the conversations positive and to reassure their fans it would be ‘good’ news. Iron Maiden had a voice and talked to the fans. Real conversations started and made the community buzzing. The teasing was now done by the fans, not by the brand; the art of great momentum building.

Don’t Disappoint

Although the outcome may not have pleased all Iron Maiden fans (an announcement about a small studio sideproject started up by Iron Maiden guitar player Adrian Smith), it certainly increased conversations about the band, kept the brand alive and helped promoting the sideproject at little cost.

But beware: bad momentum building can result in negative conversations. If your community or brand positioning is weak, avoid the mountain to give birth to a mouse. Make sure you have something to announce of great importance to your fans before you start developing such promotional tactics. Avoid teasing non-events or non-news.

5 Points to Keep In Mind

Building momentum through conversations is great to trigger your community and engage your fans. Five points we can learn from the Iron Maiden case:

1. Building momentum works only as an integrated part of a long term strategic marketing plan. (Iron Maiden started Twittering officially early 2009 and maintains regular contact with their online fans.)
2. Don’t tease your fans with non-news. Avoid the mountain to give birth to a mouse.
3. Have a communication/promotion plan ready. Which channels to use? When to announce? Teasing period?
4. Have a content plan ready. What to tease? What kind of tips to give away?
5. Be present and talk with your fans. Expect your community to ask questions, answer them. Don’t sit and wait.

Future ahead

With the Tweets flying by on the TweetwallPro, Olivier Beaujean, Managing Partner of Cleverwood, welcomed everyone on this rather special 6th Trends Session. During his welcome word, a moment was reserved to highlight the 3 Cleverwood pillars – Knowledge sharing, Flexibility and Collaboration - that played a major role in the 4 years of growth. In those 4 years, Cleverwood worked with over 60 clients and 80 consultants on New Media missions, with focus on web, mobile, social media and other digital channels.

After Olivier’s introduction, Caroline Maerten, Partner and Head of Social Media, summarized the year 2011  in terms of Social Media projects, with 11 new clients who chose Cleverwood as their partner to work on innovative Social Media activities. She then did a quick fast forward and shared her vision on the evolution of New Media and detailed some of the many opportunities for Social Media in 2012 to develop cross-departement Social Media activation programs.

Social Foot

We promised to combine fun and knowledge sharing : Pieter Maenhout, Junior Consultant, worked for several months on an overview on how Football clubs in Belgium use social media. The main goal of this research was to understand how professional football clubs in Belgium use social media. Not by looking at numbers of Facebook fans and Twitter followers, but by exploring the field, by visiting clubs and interviewing communication and marketing managers. During an interactive presentation, Pieter provided the context for the white paper he wrote and detailed two different topics: Football fan engagement and what brands can learn from this engagement.

You can view the presentation and dig into the results of the white paper via his blogpost. In case you feel the urge to discuss the topic or results, you can keep the conversation ongoing via #SocialFoot.

Social Food

As mentioned in one of the tweets in the audience, after the session the hashtag changed slightly from SocialFoot to Socialfood. We enjoyed the delicious drinks and food delivered by Artfood.

Last but not least, we want to thank everyone who contributed to this success so far. Can’t wait for the 5th anniversary!!

Cleverwood white paper by Pieter Maenhout.

As announced in my previous blogpost, I’ve worked for several months on an overview on how Football clubs in Belgium use social media. Today it seems like most companies and brands are conquering their fear of social media, one step at a time. They realize that online presence and reputation matters. A multi-million business like the professional football world can not leave behind.

The main goal of this whitepaper is to understand how professional football clubs in Belgium use social media. Not by looking at numbers of Facebook fans and Twitter followers, but by exploring the field, by visiting clubs and interviewing communication and marketing managers. 13 out of 16 first division clubs agreed to talk to me. The data you find in this white paper is varied and covers different aspects of social media.

On the 5th of December, during a Cleverwood Trends Session to celebrate the 4th anniversary of Cleverwood, I’ve presented some of my findings. My main objective of the day was to make people aware of what real fan engagement and passion is all about. The presentation create context, the white paper delivers the data.

Download the whitepaper

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Enjoy reading, we’ll hope it inspires you and let’s keep the conversation ongoing on Twitter via #SocialFoot. Please do not hesitate to contact us for any request.