Stepping out from the warm confines of the creative industries sector can sometimes be a daunting experience, especially when these alternative sectors of industry appear to have a more ‘traditional’ approach to advertising, marketing and communications. If I were a salesman, it would be a daunting task ahead. Thankfully, this is not the case.
Recent polls and analytical reports have delivered contradicting summaries from their respective writers, with one report saying that social media is a time-wasting exercise with no real tangible benefits, and others highlighting significant return on investment for good case studies. That situation in itself presented me with a conundrum- who do I believe, what is the truth, and how do these relate to my local area? There was possibly one way to find out…
Yesterday, Digital Birmingham and Birmingham City University hosted the first of a sequence of events, as part of the Knowledge Transfer programme run by the Interactive Cultures department.
Treating my attendance at the event as a physical observing exercise, by embedding myself amongst business representatives which I had no prior knowledge of (with the exception of one attendee), I was keen to investigate what opinions the attendees had about social media usage for business purposes. Was social media perceived to be a waste of valuable time? Could the attendees see future benefits and figure out a route for returning the investment of their time and monetise their efforts? Were they likely to show consideration for experimentation, take risks and allow for potential failure to shape communication strategies? How many businesses were already engaging with social media, how were they using the practice, and were their efforts showing any customer relations or financial benefits?
During the event, we received two presentations, one from Jon Hickman (Lecturer, MA social media at BCU) and two representatives from Gas Street Works, one of whom was Leon Barrett. Both copies of presentation slides are below.
Following the presentations, the event moved into round table discussions, designed to investigate the current user techniques, platforms used, levels of engagement, success or failure achieved, and tips for colleagues.
During this section, the small group leader, a representative from a traditional marketing company, suggested that colleagues considered using a twin-account approach. He suggested that the main account was to be used for official company profile, with the other ‘bogus’ account used for collecting of information, and ‘spying’ on competitor communications. This was a revealing suggestion for me, and not one that I felt comfortable with- it raised issues around morality, open sharing of information and personal character traits. However, if this has been suggested, I should consider the possibility that this practice could be deployed by many people and companies; an area for further investigation and research for another time in the future.
Reassuringly, the interest and potential for businesses to take up experimentation and allow for communication strategy expansion appeared to be high. Future events in this series may present developments and progress that companies and their representatives may, or may not have made. I shall be interested in the staged outcomes of this progress, and shall relate this information towards future developments of the AWMist platform, linked to my Production Lab module.
Interestingly, in contrast to the perhaps radical approach suggested by certain representatives of the creative industries and online activist movements, not once were the phrases ‘pirate’ or ‘JFDI’ mentioned, suggesting a more planned and structured approach was in this case, perhaps more appropriate.