Global numbers released about 6 weeks ago about Social Networking sites:

• 47% of online adults using social networking sites
• 1.5 million businesses have active pages on Facebook
• Average user is spending 55 minutes per day on Facebook
• 73% teens are members of at least 1 social network
• 50 million tweets sent a day on Twitter

The interesting points from the morning debate include:

Mike Stopforth – CEO – Cerebra

• Begin by examining our motivation for engaging in social media
• Brands need to have a compelling business reason for being on Social Networks
• Problem with social media is that it’s not just applications and platforms. It’s actually more an evolving role of the consumer towards brands.
• I believe that we have to realize that consumers are no longer recipients of messages but are now participants
• People are going to complain because you are doing a bad job, bad service, not because of Facebook. So risks have always been there.
• Community self-regulate, brand advocates will come up for the brand
• Everybody is the media, every digital citizen has a platform and an opinion

Ingrid Rubin – MD – Virtuosa

• Social media is not about campaigns
• Social Media is an evolving technology
• Brands aren’t using the medium correctly because they are trying to advertise
• Use social media to the extent of integrating it into your business
• Take from social networks what is meaningful for your brand and filter out the rest.
• Mistakes that brands are making – start engaging without doing the necessary research, but need to first do research to see what is out there.
• Not just about marketing, it’s about business processes and how you facilitate this online.

Arthur Goldstuck – CEO – World Wide Worx

• Facebook is the mainstream 6.6 % of South Africans are Facebook members – need to use a combination of services to get to your market.
• Must listen and must engage
• Brands must have a social media policy – says what type of communication will happen from the brand and who is responsible for this interaction.
• Social media is no longer a youth platform, the age curve is becoming older every day

Brent Shahim – MD – Aquaonline

• Brands don’t need to regain control of their brand, key opportunities to gain insight. Consumers can talk to each other and the brand can listen in on this.
• Real opportunity to gain invaluable insight into the brand.
• Social media is just visible word of mouth.
• Social networking is a cheaper form of communication
• Organizations needs senior people to be responsible for social media
• You need to look at digital as a whole not just social networking

Toby Shapshack – Editor – Stuff Magazine

• Live in a brand new age, where brand belongs to consumers
• Brands have no choice but to be there listening to conversations
• A good social media strategy is not going to change the fact that it’s a screwed up company
• People want to be heard, ultimately they want acknowledgement

Pierre Odendaal – Creative Director Jupiter Drawing Room

• In the digital space you can cost effectively get your message out there and have a more profound effect on the brand
• Social Networking has a lot more punch then people think
• Digital is face to face contact, it’s just in a digital world
• Digital is the most dominant communication of our time and will shape our future

The next Journal of Marketing Debate: “Design and Packaging” -Thursday 28 October.

Brand managers no longer control the message, customers do – finished and klaar.

All of this requires a massive shift in mindset and an implicit understanding that brands need to take on and embrace the inherent risk.
Apart from the brand chatter, social networking also opens new channels of communication and distribution and that’s good for the bottom line.

Join Jeremy Maggs for another power breakfast marketing debate as he’s joined by a panel of leading thinkers on the subject as they explore where social networking intersects with brand development – the new brand frontier.

When you leave you’ll know more than your competitor, increase your brand awareness, make more money, get famous and eventually retire to Barbados – where you can social network for fun.

The panel:
• Mike Stopforth – CEO – Cerebra
• Ingrid Rubin – MD – Virtuosa
• Arthur Goldstuck – CEO – World Wide Worx
• Brent Shahim – MD – Aquaonline
• Toby Shapshack – Editor – Stuff Magazine

Bookings: Contact Megan Larter on megan@thefuture.co.za

If you are unable to attend the morning in person be sure to follow the live updates on Twitter and eMarketing Trends.

Facebook, which has over 681 000 members, quickly became the most popular (most-accessed) social network site in the country, though it has been overtaken among younger users by MXit. Clearly, there’s a marketing opportunity.

One of the opportunities to get some insights into Social Media is the Tony Koenderman’s Cracking the Digital Code conference which kicks off today. In fact, it starts in just a few minutes.

I am here, as are most of the longtail team, and we are ready to take notes and blog about every little detail. So hold on to your seat.

About the first session
Stafford Masie will open this workshop with a scene-setting examination of the new media, followed by Vincent Maher’s discussion of how marketers can use social media. Ingrid Rubin wraps up the session by explaining the delicate question of how to manage your corporate reputation in a landscape where consumer generated content can make or break your brand.

Speakers and Topics on the menu

• The digital future is now – Stafford Masie of Google explains the threats, opportunities and relevance of digital media to South Africa
• Vincent Maher of Vodacom examines why social media has taken off – and how to use them for marketing
• How’s your online cred? – longtail founder Ingrid Rubin on Reputation Management