Mike Murphy VP Media Sales Facebook (x-Yahoo) gave today’s keynote address and spoke on the Power of Social Media for Brands.  Some key take outs.

Facebook Australia Statistics
- now have 2.2 million
- that is 1 in 5 Australia people online.

Mike talked around the frequency of how Brands are mentioned in conversations without incentives.
For example, there are
- 118000 mentions of McDonalds
- 7000 mentions of Ikea in their profile

Polls
You can now run polls on Facebook, and in this example people were asked on their preference for Vegimite, Marmite or neither), and in 14 mins over 500 responses were received.

Trust and influence
People are discovering their friends various passion points, and this is being used to influence purchasing behaviour, as well as close friends being trusted for all topics.

Value of online media
Mike showed some examples of branded online media
Ali versus Ali (addidas)
Aussie Week (which was is a clever travel log showing real people experiencing Australia)

Distribution through Conversation
Mike talked through the social graph to explain social networking

Media spend
4 to 5 % of budgets are being spent online in Australia versus 25% in the US
He appealed to the industry to find better ways to measure engagement

Examples of companies doing social media right
1. Be a part of the experience
Gillette Venus Breeze razors, which asked women to interact with experiences

2. Maintain a daily dialogue
JP Morgan / Chase bank.
- Asked collegue students what was important to them in a credit card
- Results suggested that points were important, but that they didn’t feel they would accumulate enough points
- Chase responded with an application that enabled student to accumulate points together and then you could see how many points your network has
- This was the most successful credit card campaign that Chase has done

3. Give a reason to share
Cloverfield movie .. created a facebook application which could run as a widget on users pages.

What makes social media different and exciting? (some quotes from leading US ad execs)
- The power of conversation
- Like the difference between leaving a voice mail and the other person picking up and talking
- Putting your brand out their and letting people contribute to it
- How do you listen and engage consumer needs … over and above your brand needs
- Creating a fair value exchange – experience for their attention