Last Wednesday Nick and I were up bright and early to head down to Earls Court for the TFM&A (Technology for Marketing and Advertising) conference.  We were spoilt for choice as the event was made up of four different conferences in total. These were the TFM&A, OA&A (Online Advertising & Affiliate Expo), the Publishing Expo and the International Confex. These events deliver latest industry insight, trends and developments as well as bringing together leading suppliers in these areas.

Nick picked up many interesting leads in Confex and attended a presentation in the publishing Expo, whilst  I attended an interesting keynote presentation on innovation in digital marketing held by Ashely Friedlein, CEO, E-consultancy. I found his seminar inspiring and look forward to applying some of his innovative and creative ideas to Makemedia.

Innovation in digital marketing

The presentation addressed five key themes to deliver inspirational campaigns with case studys of innovation in each:

1. Joining up online and offline experiences
Examples of this can be seen here in print and in store.

2. Currencies
Currencies have evolved to non-financial currencies such as Twitter followers, Facebook likes and Foursquare badges

3. The Web of Connected People
How to bring back the people aspect. We have a primal desire to interact. An example of this is Chromaroma. Using your Oyster Card and Bike Key, Chromaroma lets you play the city as you travel. It tells you stories, gives you points and visualises your movements on an interactive map of London

4. Location
An example of companies using location is The North Face who have a geo fence 0.5 miles around their stores. They will send an opt-in text tailored to weather and location.

5. Timing
Tapping into life urgency and scarcity increases conversion rates. Have a look at worldometers site which has world statistics being updated in realtime.

Twitter Dos and Don’ts

I also attended a short presentation on the top five twitter dos and don’ts held by Dan Martin, Editor of BusinesZone.co.uk. He discussed major twitter disasters by businesses and how it can be used effectively. If you haven’t seen the Will King from Wilkinson Swords twitter page check him out – twitter.com/#!/KingofShaves. Also worth a look is The Kings Speech- A parody of Shaves.

His top 5 twitter recommendations for businesses were:

1.     Monitor Mentions

2.     Be Human

3.     Be Honest

4.     Consider making it part of your culture (get all your staff involved)

5.     Make it a long term thing

He raised areas we can definitely consider for future tweeting…..look out for a Makemedia tweet up near you!

All in all the event was an interesting insight into new technologies and future developments. However we have started a war zone in the office with freebee squeezy stress balls being launched at every opportunity now….duck!!