I was going to write a round-up of what was heard at yesterday’s CAANZ Digital Leadership Group Social Media in Business forum. Then I saw Ben Fahy of NZ Marketing Magazine and Stop Press had done the exact same thing, with more detail than I was going to go into. So, forgive my laziness and read the full report here.

For those even lazier than I, here are a few takeaway points:

There are two types of Social Media engagement (via @davewhittle of @markagency in Sydney):

·         Proactive (to promote)

·         Reactive (to protect)

If budgets are tight (ish), use Facebook as the campaign hub, rather than build a micro site, for example. This worked well for the Westfield Australia “All I want for Christmas” campaign. At least until everyone thought it was a virus and it got pulled by Facebook’s top dogs over in the US.

We all know by now that Social Media campaigns are typically very time intensive. If you are trying to go global like the “Best Job in the World” campaign, this grows exponentially. Here are a few things I picked up from Chris Chambers, Director of Digital Marketing at Tourism Queensland -  @ckjchambers:

·         Creating lots of user-generated video content is incredibly powerful

·         If you drop in ‘sample’ videos in to get the ball rolling, make it clear that they are samples

·         Create several ‘moments’ or ‘triggers’ in the campaign to keep the momentum. Plan these in advance!

·         Timing is crucial: the campaign went live at the height of the recession…