We hosted the 3rd in our series of Social CRM conferences yesterday - Social CRM 2011 Paris - with the largest audience to date. Over 150 brands, agencies, journalists and bloggers joined us at the Hotel Royal Champs Elysees for an insightful day of presentations and discussion.

Building on the discussions from London and New York, the event highlighted issues such as the importance of internal communications for effective “external” social CRM, the difficulties but significant value of implementing social CRM in a B2B environment – and the inevitable questions that arise around data management, privacy and ethics when brands monitor and store customer conversations.

Some of the stand-out quotes for me included:

• “Social CRM is not a promotional activity” – We agreed that it’s about providing value and support
• “Customer loyalty is more important in social media” – Rob Markey, quoted by Nicholas Saintagne (CRMMetrix)
• “Twitter mustn’t become a VIP channel” – We discussed the risk of 2-stream customer care, where Twitter users get the best service
• “Social CRM must be people-centric, not customer centric” – Anthony Poncier (Lecko) argued that, to succeed, sCRM must involve staff, partners etc.
• “sCRM is a long term goal. It’s not about making short-term sales” – Frederic Charles (Lyonnaise des Eaux) stressed this point.

Many of the presentations from the conference are available on our Slideshare account, plus Frederick Charles and Mark Tamis have published their own. We are still awaiting sign off for one or two.

You can also download the Tweets from the conference here (thanks Tweetdoc!) and read a useful review (in French) on CIO-online.com here.

We will be publishing our photos from the day to Flickr very soon, and a video, plus clips, of the conference in the next few weeks. I’ll Tweet and blog about those when we have them. Laurent Sounack (Collaboratif-info) has published his photos here.

I would like to thank our sponsors for the conference again: Broadvision, Dimelo and Viadeo, plus silver sponsors SugarCRM and MarketMeSuite. In case you missed any of our Exhibitors, they are all listed here. A special mention goes to DialogFeed – a great company that wasn’t listed in the event handout.

We will be running Social CRM 2012 in London, Paris, plus Frankfurt and Brussels (to be confirmed). If you’re interested in getting involved in these events, please contact us.

Following sell-out conferences in London and San Francisco, the Our Social Times team is heading to New York for Social Media Marketing & Monitoring 2011 – the next leg of our social marketing tour. And we’ve got a great show planned…

From Peter Shankman’s keynote on the increasing blend of mobile and ‘customer service marketing’, to Sebastian Hempstead’s master-class on extracting meaning from social media data and NBC’s use of trending content to increase engagement on Facebook – SMM11 NYC will be a jam-packed, parade of valuable insights and first-hand experiences. We have The Ultimate 30-minute Guide to Location Marketing, from the Founder of the Location-Based Marketing Association (LBMA) and tips on how to integrate gaming mechanics to make your marketing more effective.

The Next Revolution Will Occur in Your Pocket
Peter Shankman – The Geek Factory

In this exciting Keynote, Peter Shankman will teach you, using real world examples, that the next revolution won’t occur through PR, or marketing, or advertising, or even social media, but through customer service. Hear how a Steakhouse’s customer service reaction to one single Tweet led to a 125% increase in sales, and how an airline didn’t listen to a customer on distress, but their competitor did, and earned tens of thousands of dollars.

Social Media Overload: How to Filter Actionable Insights from Your Data Stream
Sebastian Hempstead – Brandwatch

In this fascinating presentation Sebastian will show how companies may be missing out on the critical insights and actionable data, especially if they’re too focussed on the big numbers. The talk will include practical examples and useful hints and tips on how you can make the most of your social media monitoring.

How to Empower Your Digital “SuperFans” to Drive Offline Engagement
Josh Richman, WGN America & Keith Blanchard, Story

“Involve the fans” is the sine qua non of digital marketing today. But to date, these participation opportunities have been limited. What happens if you let brand advocates all the way into the tent? In this session Josh Richman of WGN America, Tribune Broadcasting’s national cable network, and Keith Blanchard of Story Worldwide, will show how you can drive offline behavior through digital by involving advocates in the creation of content, and curating the digital communities that form around it.

Discussion: The Future of Social Media Marketing
With the launch of Google+, the battle to control the world’s newsfeeds (or “streams”) has truly begun. But can we handle multiple social networking accounts? Do we really want to segment our friends, fans and followers? Will we ever tire of ‘recommendations’? And, what role will advertising play in the future of social networking? Join Brian Reich and our team of social media experts for this insightful discussion.

Case Study: NBC Uses Trending Content to Increase Engagement
Dan Wooley (NBC News) and Chase McMichael (Infinigraph)

We all know that consumer behaviour is the best barometer to what’s relevant. Actions equal intent, right? In this insightful session well hear how NBCUniversal used social intelligence on trending content to drive more engagement on Facebook, Twitter and on adverts. Their smart approach to content optimisation led to direct, measurable ROI.

Discussion: Is Social Commerce Really the Future of e-Commerce?
A recent report revealed that 89% of people haven’t bought anything through Facebook. In spite of this 25% said they would if the offer was exclusive and 17% would if buying was made easier than traditional e-commerce. So, should we expect to make sales on social networking sites, or not? Our panel, including Andrew Beranbom (Co-Founder & VP Business Development, Extole, Inc.), will explore the future of social commerce, highlight the risks and offer guidance for selling within a social media environment.

B2B Social Media Marketing: Humanizing Your Company
Christine Perkett – Perkett PR

Social media has become the fastest way to humanize your brand. Once “faceless” corporations are embracing transparency and authenticity and engaging with their customers. By by-passing the call center, by responding as real people and by adding a touch of humour, companies are increasing customer loyalty. In this session Christine shows how brands are shifting from staunch, corporate entities to humanized, “socialized” powerhouses.

The Ultimate 30-Minute Guide to Location Marketing
Asif Khan – Location Based Marketing Association

With the unstoppable rise of the smart phone, location marketing has finally arrived. But which social networks should you use? What kind of activity works best? And what results should you expect? In this session Asif Khan, one of America’s leading Location Marketers, offers an essential, one-stop guide to getting started in social location marketing.

Combining Social Media & Email Marketing
Josh Mendelsohn – Constant Contact

We all know that email is one of the best ways to get your message heard. But social media is one of the best ways to get that message to spread. When businesses leverage both channels in an integrated marketing campaign, it can dramatically increase the impact of their campaigns. In this fact-packed session, Josh will explain how to combine email and social to win new customers.

Discussion: How to identify & Engage with Social Media Influencers
How should you identify the key online influencers in your industry? What’s the best way to approach them? And can you really score online influence? In this topical panel discussion, we ask our hand-picked team of experts, including Marshall Sponder (author of Social Media Analytics) and Pierre-Loic Assayag (CEO, Traackr), what social media influence really means for marketers. Expect fireworks and a suitcase full of actionable take-away’s.

Tickets are available online now for Social Media Marketing & Monitoring 2011 New York. You might also like to attend Social CRM 2011 New York.

(c) Naomi Bullivant / Viadeo

For anyone who didn’t make Social Media Marketing & Monitoring 2011 in London yesterday, I’m sorry to say, you missed one of our best events ever. On the plus side, though, you can read about it here for free.

The highlight of the day, most agreed, was Jon Morter’s incredible story (photo above / presentation below) of how he beat Simon Cowell’s X-Factor to the Christmas #1 in 2009.  Far from a one-off fluke, it was actually his second attempt (he’d got Rick Astley to #73 the year before), and one for which he learned the rules of the chart listings, exploited loopholes in Facebook’s privacy settings – namely the ability, at that time, of someone to take over abandoned groups (Jon “adopted” 300+ groups) – and regularly changed his Facebook Page logo to drive home calls to action. His crashing of a local radio station chat-room with 15,000 Rage Against the Machine fans is an object lesson in PR stuntery.

First up, though, I chaired the keynote discussion on The Future of Social Networking, with panellists Charles Arthur (The Guardian), Jenni Lloyd (Nixon McInness), Wayne Gibbins (Viadeo) and Neville Hobson (The Hobson & Holtz Report). We asked if Facebook fatigue is terminal? (No) Whether GooglePlus is a genuine contender? (Yes – especially when it integrates seamlessly with other Google properties, such as YouTube). Have we “bloated our streams” and made services like Twitter unusable without third party apps? (Yes, possibly, we now need to filter incoming updates and syndicate outgoing ones to remain sane).

We then had a case study from Edelman’s Marcus Dyer and Mark Wheeler from Diageo citing a social media campaign for Captain Morgan’s rum, in which they tracked and measured the sales made via social. They introduced us to the term “social emphasis” for media that isn’t paid, or earned, but somewhere between. We don’t have their presentation to share yet.

Next up was PJ Verhoef from Clarion Consulting, who illuminated us on the rampant rise of location marketing and the many opportunities opening up to the socialmedologically adventurous. See my previous review of his location marketing statistics. His six steps for getting started in location marketing are: link, locate, listen, attract & engage, transact, analyse & retain. See his full presentation below.

We then had a truly great presentation from Bridey Lipscome and her colleague from The Rabbit Agency and Naomi Bustin from bmibaby, the low-cost airline. Their innovative, and highly successful, Instagram competition incited travellers to share photos via an unbranded #hashtag on the high-quality photo-sharing network, delivering over 2300 entrants and a lasting legacy of relevant social content. They weren’t measuring ROI – this was about PR and buzz. Here’s their presentation…

We then reverted to discussion, as Andrew Grill (PeopleBrowsr), Giles Palmer (Brandwatch), Joshua March (Conversocial), Catriona Oldershaw (Synthesio) and Tammy Kahn Fennell from marketing dashboard MarketMeSuite, explored the latest thinking on social media monitoring, customer engagement and social CRM. Lloyd Grofton from Liberate Media has summarised this panel here quite nicely, but the suggestion that the Met could have used “Hate Language Analysis” to pre-empt the London riots was an interesting one.

After Jon Morter’s virtuoso performance, gaming consultant, Raf Keustermans gamely ;) took to the stage to explain one word: gamification. He did so in fascinating, high-definition detail (see his presentation below), citing examples from McDonalds and CitiBank and warning against mere “pointsification” (as if we needed another -ication to grapple with!). True gamification must tap into our desires for reward, urge us to share our experience, and ensure we know when we’ve won.

Marcus Taylor from SEOptimise then gave an understated but somehow spell-binding introduction to the relatively new ground of social SEO, social search and personalised search. Do Facebook +1′s affect your rankings? No – according to Marcus, though I’ve previously written the contrary because they used to (prior to Google+). Do Google+1′s affect them? Yes – quite a lot. And how can brands get into your personalised search results? Encourage people to click a link to a Google results page rather than your own website – and, settings permitting, you’ll appear in future search results. Tricky stuff!  Marcus has done a fine write up of the day here and his presentation is below.

We were then treated to a truly refreshing review of a social media marketing campaign that didn’t go according to plan. from Vue Cinema’s Director of Sales & Marketing, Mark de Quervain described how, in spite of conducting in-depth research and spending money (£300k) on the campaign, their high-profile Teen Screen Facebook offer failed to deliver meaningful results. The reasons? Teens are lazy and can’t organise, but they also relied on a “tell your mates” approach without incentivising the act of sharing. We can’t share Mark’s presentation at the moment, but hope to in due course.

The final presentation of the day was from Chris Howard of Play.com. One of the UK’s largest online retailers, Chris demonstrated how, but using a third party application, EngageSciences, they managed to dramatically increase both the # of fans, level of engagement and sales returns that Play.com gets through Facebook. It was a compelling study of how a brand can drive their own social media success without an agency in sight. See the presentation below.

Last up was the hotly previewed discussion on Social Commerce. I was joined by Amy Kean (Havas Media), Robin Grant (We Are Social), Jenny Chiu (BrandAlley) and Peter Parkes (Expedia) – who all had strong views. Is Groupon “social”? No. Is social commerce simply buying on Facebook? No – it includes reviews, recommendations, sharing offers, YouTube stores, Twitter engagement and more. But do we want to buy things through social media? Well, yes, but some things are easier than others (e.g. books are easier than holidays). Interestingly, BrandAlley have tracked £30k (a month?) coming through Facebook sales, based on exclusive, time-limited offers.

As I wrapped up the conference, I was joined on stage by Stella English, Winner of the 2010 The Apprentice TV show, who expressed her enthusiasm for and excitement about the future of social media in business. A fine way to close the day.

Resources from the day…

• @jas has helpfully shared all the Tweets from #SMM11 here.
• Photos of #smm11 are being uploaded to the Viadeo Flickr page here.
• We will be emailing attendees and Live Stream viewers with access details for the videos of the event. These will be made public in 2 weeks.

Please feel free to add links to your blog posts, photos and videos from the day in the comments section below.  Your feedback is also  welcome (except if it’s about the wi-fi, which the Cavendish has upgraded twice at our request – but we still manage to break it!).