Social media data: connecting the dots

Today is Eiffel tower appreciation day, Bunsen burner day, national Crayola day, world data back-up day and the day of the DMA’s Social media data: connecting the dots seminar.

What are the dots? Media planning, insights from social analytics, how search, facebook, Instagram and twitter interact, how to prevent backlash and how to ‘hack the newsroom’ – taking advantage of a trend before it’s peaked.

Joel Davis, who founded Europe’s first social media agency in 2007, opened the seminar. The biggest change since he began, is the speed of change. Recently, the UK became the first country in the world to spend 50% of advertising budgets on digital. Early last year, organic facebook reach was at 16%. Now, it’s less than 1%. And the bigger your brand, the less you get. As Davis put so eloquently, Mark Zuckerberg wants your money. Plastic sandals don’t pay for themselves.

Facebook video has just overtaken YouTube as the most popular medium for branded content. Five times the amount of money spent on producing content goes on its promotion – unsurprising when compared with traditional media. But if you’ve worked with facebook since 2007, it’s astounding.

Davis also witnessed the evolution of social analytics. Once reserved for curious bloggers, it's now critical for Coca-Cola (and every other household name). The insight that changed his business practice? Parents of under threes are into weight loss and don’t want to travel. When kids are over three, the reverse occurs. Subversions of blanket demographics is common.

As performance media director at Performics, Nicola Reed is sceptical of the “content king” conquering agency slang. If content is king, targeting is his army. Her advice for facebook: fewer, bigger, better. More advice? Don’t advertise on Instagram unless you would on Vogue.

Finally, Richard Norton (@ericbratislava) injected some disruptive creativity, and asked:

“If a meerkat jumps into the sea, will a periscope see it?”

Useful tips from Indicia's Creative Director included: choose your brand DNA, think like a newsroom (respond fast!), become a culture vulture and determine your toxicity. You don’t want to end up like NYPD.

Then, people tweeted selfies that were turned into crayola drawings.