Social Buzz Awards sponsor iomart talks brand loyalty, social engagement and video rich content

There is only three and a half more weeks to enter the Social Buzz Awards, which are taking place in November in association with iomart Group. The Drum caught up with Phil Worms, director of marketing and corporate communication at iomart to discuss his views on big social issues.

This year’s Social Buzz Awards event has grown, with new categories including best use of Pinterest and Google+, so The Drum asked sponsor iomart’s Worms his views on the biggest changes in social and the importance of social engagement.How can brands build loyalty via social communities? Building brand loyalty via social communities is a bit like having a small child. You need to educate them, make them feel part of the family, encourage them to share and occasionally reward them. But you also have to listen to their views and learn from them. Social is two-way not one way so once you’ve started the conversation you need to respond to it, good or bad. Give your community the information they want in the form they want it and give them a reason to do the thing you want them to do, like visiting your shop or website. How can brands use social engagement to create the same level of impact or brand awareness as traditional advertising?Despite the existence of a vast social community, social media is all about the individual. You want that individual to buy into your brand both mentally and physically, so you need your brand to have a personality. Decide what form of social best suits your audience and deliver the content that best suits that medium. You still need to make sure your social engagement is rooted to specific offline brand objectives – are you looking to shock people into action, do you just want to drive overall brand awareness or is it actual sales that you want? What has been the biggest change in social media so far this year?It’s hard to pin down one thing because social media is constantly evolving but from a business point of view video content is becoming the most direct way of connecting with your audience. Potential customers are much more likely to view video rich content on their phones and tablets than spend time read corporate literature or website text. And it’s working the other way too. With Twitter and Instagram introducing video, customers can be encouraged to post their experiences opening up a whole new area for brand advocates. How valuable is the data being discovered by social to brands?Data has been around forever but what’s new is the amount of it that we are creating every minute and how much of it is rooted in mobile. Data is valuable to any business but particularly for those consumer brands that need to monetise it and track customer behaviour. The other important aspect is how to protect it. It is essential to ensure that the data collected about individuals by organisations is held securely. The value of data therefore lies not just in the ability of organisations to analyse it but also in the legal ability to hold on to it. What do you see as the ROI of social media?The ROI of social media comes down to the purpose of engaging with it in the first place and that can be different for every brand and campaign. If you drive up Likes on Facebook and that was your goal, job done. If you want to push sales of a certain product and PPC clicks end up with customers making purchases, again job done. Measuring ROI is difficult enough on social media so there’s no point in embarking on a campaign if you haven’t set clear objectives of what you want to achieve by doing it before you start.