Social media is a term that can be heard everywhere it seems. Even songs are mentioning facebook, and when you meet a new business contact it's increasingly likely to be followed up shortly after with a LinkedIn request.
But what is social media? Who uses it? How? How can your business derive benefit from it? And if you decide to take the plunge and launch your business' shiny new social media strategy and get involved, then how do you get the tone right, and avoid being like the over-keen guy who no-one wants to dance with?
 Bijan White, OMD, gave an outline of Denmark's social media demographic. Over 90% of adults are online, 66% of these are on Facebook, and 60% of these use it every day: on average for almost 10hrs per month!
As consumers, we are addicted to social media, and especially so in Denmark (In the UK 73% of households have an internet connection, and 43% of internet users use social media).
In fact, we're so addicted that over 120 participants signed up to hear about social media, and despite the snow and freezing temperatures outside, Ballroom 1 at the Hilton, Copenhagen Airport, was packed.
Chris Plantener, CEO and Founder, Zielgut, emphasised that the impact of social media can be measured, and as with any other business activity it must improve the bottom line to warrant further investment. He advocated using services of a company such as Spockly to find out detailed information about your client base, then choosing several social media channels to use. Then after a few months if the costs aren't coming down, and the sales aren't increasing consider what needs to change - don't waste money on things that don't work!
Chris used e-conomic as an example of a company he has worked with that used this strategy. Two years ago e-conomic switched to using social media as it's main advertising channel. It also created YouTube help videos demonstrating the details of the product. Since then, the number of customers has trebled, while the number of service calls rose initially and then fell as people began to make use of the YouTube help instead. As a result e-conomic can now support 3 times as many clients with the same number of support staff.
 Peter Espersen, Global Online Community Lead for Lego, explained that Lego's social media policy revolves around celebrating their fans. Sometimes Lego staff do create content, but Peter commented that it's never as good as what the fans come up with, so mostly they focus on showcasing and facilitating instead. The creativity and passion is just incredible!
One of the key principles Lego maintain is to give people fair compensation for their work. So when a fan creates a new kit design that thousands of other fans vote for as one they'd like to buy, then Lego puts the kit into production, and gives the fan a cut of the profit. This gives fans a strong incentive to work with Lego, and allows Lego to tap into thousands of extra ideas - their architecture series, and japanese submarine kit were both fan's ideas.
 With so much user-generated content, how does Lego police the system and make sure no-one gets offended? Peter answered that in most cases the online community polices itself - Lego is a children's brand and people are careful to make sure group members respect that. Also, all posts on official lego forums are screened before they go live. However, because Lego is a global company and cross-cultural offences might not be so easy to spot, Lego has also set up user groups in different countries, and when a new product is due to be launched, they ask these groups to point out any potential problems, and give advice on how to handle them.
The evening finished with a Q&A session where the audience fine tuned their fresh understanding of how to get involved with social media as a business. The key messages were: work out who you want to reach; have a clear, genuine, and consistent message; think long-term and be committed; measure the success rate and optimise your choices. The channels will change over time but the relationships you build with your customers (B2B or B2C) will last. So get involved!
This event was organised jointly with the German-Danish Chamber of Commerce (Dansk-Tysk Handelskammer) - Thank you to them!
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