This year We Are Social Australia turned five, and like all five-year-olds, we wanted to have a party and invite all our friends: our clients, some of our platform partners, influencers, and media.
But the event wasn’t just about celebrating our little milestone; we also wanted to celebrate, and even interrogate, social media itself.
The keynote was delivered by We Are Social’s Mister Simon Kemp, Regional Managing Partner.
In his speech, Simon really brought home for our audience the importance of placing social thinking at the heart of marketing. Drawing on a huge reservoir of stats, and a large serving of common sense, Simon argued that many brands are too self absorbed, rather than tuned into the real value consumers derive from their products.
He suggested that through better listening, companies could learn to provide what consumers actually want, rather than merely advertising to them, and hence create real value and meaningful connections.
And it seems Simon struck a chord with our audience.
Should we drop the “social” in media and create media that is social by design? #SOGA2015 — Roden Vuong (@rodenv) October 8, 2015
Simon also encouraged marketers to create brands and marketing that people want to talk about. Not to interrupt consumers, but to listen to them, then communicate and add value.
Ness Jones from Twitter held up Maccas and ANZ as two of the marketers making best use of the platform in Australia. She also helped to relieve people’s stage fright around tweeting, announcing that only 40% actually tweet, with most people on the platform only there to listen and engage, rather than contribute.
As you can imagine, we had all the social stops pulled out – our Periscope session had viewers from all over the world showering us with hearts, Social Playground was there to provide up-to-the-minute gifs and real-life Instagram images for our guests to take away, and Twitter and tumblr provided the ‘swag bags’.
To cap off a splendid evening of laughter and learning, #SoGa2015 even went on to trend in the Sydney area. Not bad at all.
So a massive Thank You to everyone who came, watched, shared and liked. We’ll leave the last word to Ness from Twitter, as it sums up everything we’re trying to achieve:
“Getting ROI is all about how you understand value. And putting social at the heart will get you true value” @Ness_Jones#SOGA2015
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