Blog

Blyk was in great company at Ad:Tech – Mark Cridge (CEO, Glue London), George Bryant (Founding Partner, The Brooklyn Brothers) and Anthony Lukom (MD, MySpace UK) – at a panel moderated by Alistair Duncan (CEO, MRM Worldwide) entitled ‘Can brands be friends?’

The panel touched on the many challenges for brands wanting to be ‘friends’ with their target audience. Our conclusion? Brands must embrace the power of social media and understand how it can engage them into a direct dialogue and build a long-term relationships (or friendships) – ‘earned media’ as Mark put it.

Furthermore, as Anthony pointed out, social media can be used in multiple ways. It’s not just about above the line; it’s about selling products, engagement, long-term relationships, seeding strategies, customer insight and research.

We’ve seen the power of advocacy driven media at Blyk. Our high net advocacy score coupled with the fact that more than half of our members heard about Blyk through a friend (as a result, we’re calling our members ‘The Recommenders’), validates mobile marketing to young people and illustrates the power of advocacy driven media.

‘It’s the new emerging landscape’ as Alistair said – a new landscape where brands create a relationship over time which achieves much more than just a campaign.

The thorny issue of measurement and price came up; however, there was universal agreement in the power of this media versus traditional forms despite the currently hard-to-define ROI. But for Blyk, it’s cost per engagement that matters and that’s worth a lot more. After all, traditional forms of media are mostly about one hit. Social media is about developing a relationship through an ongoing conversation. And, as Mark rightly reminded us, it’s important to keep that dialogue going and develop it over time. That’s what we’ve learned at Blyk and that’s why most brands come back for more.

And another important note, Ad:Tech marked our first birthday! We are through 200k members, we boast more than 1,000 campaigns and our response rates are amazingly high. But it’s not about the numbers, and it’s probably not even about whether brands can be friends… it’s all about the media environment your brand is in – the place where relationships can be built.