Last week we (Mireille and I) went to the Vlerick Marketing Alumni Event : How Social are you ?

The evening was about a marketing approach on the Social Networks and Online Communities.

Robin Wauters started with an Introduction on Social Networks. I didn't learn much on that introduction (maybe I know already too much) except that the groups that exist on different networks like Facebook are a target for Marketeers.

So creating or using social networks is now the objective of good marketeers. Pieter Goiris (CEO Boondoggle) showed us how the Heineken Music site to illustrate how brands try to engage in a give & take relationship with online communities. By the way this website is a wonderful Mashup (Stoemp) ! Web2.0 is also about involving the users to make the content. It's the case of Sensoa, a Flemish website where people can ask all questions about Sex.

Luc Colson of 4C Consulting explained us that in a Social Network, three kind of people are very interesting for the Marketeer : the people with most connections within a group (Let's call them "Leaders"), the people linking independant groups to each other ("Connectors") and people on the path between the two profiles ("Relays"). The "Leaders" would allow to influence the group. If the Leader has an excellent experience with your brand, others will know it. "Connectors" allow to transfer the brand experience from communities to communities. "Relays" are a way to accelerate the transfer from Community to Community (they connect the Leaders to the Connectors). Those concepts are for instance exploited in the Telecom sector to enforce operator loyalty and reduce the risk of churn.

Steven Van Belleghem (Insites Consulting) gave me the best impression. He explained that Marketeers have to understand how the new technologies can impact the way branding works. Marketeers have an important challenge to learn surfing on the web2.0 advertsing wave led by FaceBook, Google... There is a change of paradigm going on. Before the Marketing equation was the following :

Advertising ... Brand ... Sales

Today the chain is the following :

Brand ... Advertising ... Conversations.

The goal of the marketeer is to land in the conversation zone. Consumers need to talk about the product, advertsing is not enough anymore...This session gave me a better idea on how marketeers think about Web2.0. I see it as a great way to discuss with people and a great technology at the same time. I see the promise of the semantic web. They see segments, focus groups, communities, conversations, advertising...

Note 1 : For the Vlerick Alumni people, that kind of event is the best rather than just have a beer, let's also have some content.

Note 2 : From web experts websites, I'm not always impressed : 1) I hate the Boondoggle's website (try searching Heineken in it...), and 2) how is it possible to have an URL like http://www.4cconsulting.com/Templates/home.aspx?id=32&langType=1033 when you know the following principle : "Good URLs never Change"