Meltwater Social Summit London 2019 Summary

Lance Concannon Lance Concannon, Marketing Director, Europe

March 13th saw the Meltwater Social Summit return to London for a third year, and the first since we rebranded from Sysomos. The event took place at the Institute of Engineering and Technology in Savoy Place, an appropriate venue given its historic role in encouraging and promoting technological innovation.

The day began with Meltwater’s global head of social, John Box, sharing the latest news about our integration into the Meltwater group, and providing an overview of our product roadmap.
Our first keynote speaker was Dr Jillian Ney, founder of the Social Intelligence Lab and the UK’s first doctor of social media, with a presentation titled “The Secret Brain Science of Content Optimisation”. Taking inspiration from the recent Black Mirror show on Netflix, she invited the audience to participate in a game of #Brandersnatch, allowing them to choose the direction of her presentation by voting for different options throughout the session.

As well as being a fun way to start the day, the presentation also gave us an important lesson in understanding customer needs and using them to guide our content creation programs.

Next up was Giles Peddy from global communications agency, LEWIS, who talked about a concept they call “Quantified Engagement” and why it means social data needs to be at the heart of all modern marketing campaigns.

Jo Eden and Helen Skipworth from the British Heart Foundation’s social media team then presented a case study on how the well known healthcare charity uses social media not just to raise funds and spread awareness about its mission, but also to identify people on social channels who might need its help.

Bringing the morning session to a close was Alexandre Huot, head of social media for the International Olympic Committee, who showed us how the IOC uses social to bring the spirit of the games to a global audience and engages a younger generation in conversation about Olympic values.

The afternoon began with Jay Maldonado of Mailchimp showing us how B2B social media can be just as much fun as consumer campaigns, as he explained how the company used social to help communicate a recent rebrand, reflecting Mailchimp’s evolution into a marketing automation platform.

Sticking with the B2B theme Doug Bairner, from Hectare Agritech, and John Lonsdale from comms agency Octopus Group, shared a case study about an app to help farmers find suitable breeding partners for their livestock. Pitched as “Tinder for cows” the launch story went stratospheric, attracting global press interest in a matter of days, so Doug and John explained how Meltwater helped track both social and conventional media coverage.

The final solo presentation of the day came from Lukas Andriukaitis, from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, who gave a fascinating insight into his work in identifying and combating misinformation and state-sponsored propaganda on social networks.

The very last session of the day was an expert Q&A panel, where we assembled 4 social media marketing and analytics experts to take on any questions the audience could throw at them. There were plenty of thought provoking questions from our guests, which sparked a lively and entertaining discussion to wrap up the day.

Finally, to wrap up a great day we enjoyed some drinks with the speakers and guests. Our MC (and EMEA MD) Claude, couldn’t resist grabbing a few selfies with the speakers: