On Monday, I was able to attend the Social Ad Summit in New York which Nick O’Neill from the Social Times put together at Tribeca Rooftop. For being a one-day conference I think it actually managed to pack in a decent amount of content without watering down with too much sales. There were of course the thinly-guised sales pitches throughout the panels and keynotes but when the panelists actually began discussing underlying issues and abstract ideas, conversations that actually matter began to emerge.

This is the first conference I have attended that the majority of panelists agreed that clicks and impressions are about as useful metrics in social media as ruler is to measure the diameter of the Earth. But that is a rant for another post. I figured that in the spirit of data dissemination, I should post my notes here for those people who could not attend. The vast majority of my notes are from the first panels of the day because I think those were the most informative and engaging; in fact it seemed to me that the panel on branded social advertising had more information about relevant metrics than the actual metrics panel did. So it seemed as the day went on, the quality of innovative ideas went down while the sales pitches went up.

That being said, these are the big takeaway ideas I wrote down during my day along with some panel photos I took and some expanded thoughts I added later:

Monetization

• Whenever New Media and technology emerges, old models of advertising and monetization are always applied but they never succeed.
• Social Media presents unique changes to basic online metrics. Media buyers have become accustomed to seeing data around clicks and impressions but those are irrelevant variables on sites like facebook and YouTube.
• Each industry will begin to uncover its own relevant metrics as monetization of social media is experimentally expanded.
• The movie industry has begun to see that the number of times a trailer is viewed online positively correlates to real-world ticket sales.
• MySpace has created a method of ad targeting they refer to as ‘hypertargeting’. (Currently this is through ad sales only, not executable on the user-facing interface as it is on facebook)
• The key to social measurement is multi-variable and dynamic variable assessment. Creating a sort of regression-type model with many variables in order to predict and assess success.
• Legitimacy is key to expanding social advertising. Cannot do this by reducing negatives, it must be done by growing positives as a drawing force for advertisers. i.e.: advertisers will be drawn by “we can now impact x% more users and measure x% more of the conversation” rather than by “We have reduced negative user reaction and backlash to only 20%)
• Possible future model: Brand-sponsored activities. Ex: “Your iTunes download will be free and sponsored by General Motors.” Just sending someone to a URL to redeem free songs will not be viable forever. Must integrate brand into the already existing stream of user behavior. Go to iTunes, don’t make the user come to you and then push them to iTunes.

Brands and Apps-Facebook

• Applications require the 3 Es:

-Emotion: measurable by qualitative feedback
-Engagement: measurement is dependent on unique application type
-Efficiency: measurable by existing time-spent metrics

• Tone must be changed for social engagements from PR-type relationship you have with an employer to a friendly interaction you have with friends over beer.
• Fan pages can be mildly serious and descriptive but Groups have to be funny or cause-driven.

Overall Deployment Method:

(from part of the keynote presented by Gordon Peters of SocialCash… this guy is one smart dude.)

• Define clear and measurable goals
• Try multiple avenues and build a portfolio
• Don’t fear the mob; cede some control
• Leverage key metrics to drive growth
• Test, learn and iterate

Branded Experiences

• MTV
• JPMorgan Investment Bank
• Ford

• Head-On competition will likely divide users and stunt growth and engagement. If you can’t take on a brand directly via a flashy fan model, use indirect user engagement across multiple channels to draw away their influence. Ex: Maxwell House vs. Starbucks. Maxwell House couldn’t compete with Starbucks’ vocal fan base so they targeted relevant communities and groups with discounts and promotions in order to avoid looking foolish in the shadow of Starbucks while simultaneously adding value to communities and driving brand engagement.
• Online markets are the holy grail of marketing and have not begun to be utilized by marketers the way they could be. Web ads and analytics offers micro-level analytics with exact figures for user actions; there is no standard deviation of accuracy unlike Nielson or Arbitron numbers.
• Microsites are not the silver bullet, are not applicable across the field and are not always beneficial. They can be good if every bit of data the user could want is 100% protable to other channels.
• Release the brand into the right hands: Ford allowed developers to create brand cars for downloadable addons for the Sims 2. Had huge positive feedback from users who said having real-model cars such as the Mustang and Focus in the game made it “more real.”

Social Ad Networks

• Facebook redesign shifts application goals from clicks and impressions within the app to quality engagement and quality apps that users will want to publish stories via their Mini and News Feeds.
• Some brands that are huge traditional media buyers are not engaged in search marketing because their brands are not high-volume searches and they have little organic competition. Ex: people don’t search for Tic-Tacs. These brands can divert resources they would put into search and get more exposure and quality return from efforts in social media.

That is the extent of my notes from the event, but as an aside, the venue was amazing.  The view from the rooftop was also really quite beautiful: