Social@Ogilvy Asia-Pacific Director Thomas Crampton, Ogilvy & Mather CEO Adam O’Conor, and David Ogilvy himself welcomed guests to toast the exciting fun, fame and business opportunities of Social Media.

Under the glow of viral videos and social media memes projected around the venue, guests were encouraged to grab a custom Bingo card and stamp and play Buzzword Bingo to win a Bingo Night t-shirt.

After Marion McDonald, Asia-Pacific Planning Director for Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, brought down the house with a social media song to the tune of “Another One Bites the Dust,” and guests shot down tweets about Social Media Week in “Twitterhunt,” a motion-based interactive game built by the Ogilvy team.

The party brought together a mix of influential attendees that went well beyond advertising to include some of Hong Kong’s most prominent academics, journalists, business and creative minds. Thanks to all who turned up. We had a blast!

Ogilvy Hong Kong CEO, Adam O'Conor, and Regional Planning Director, Marion McDonald, having fun at Bingo Night

Ogilvy PR APAC CEO, Steve Dahllof, and APAC Social@Ogilvy Director, Thomas Crampton, getting social

We were joined by the crew from Facebook, Jayne Leung, Terry Iu and Benny Chu

Guests played Social Media Bingo throughout the night

Props from our photo booth taking a rest

Regional Asia-Pacific Social@Ogilvy Team

This week, we welcomed the launch of Social@Ogilvy, Ogilvy & Mather’s global, cross-discipline team of social experts from across all of Ogilvy’s businesses.

We have been designing and executing social media marketing and communications programs for more than seven years as 360 Digital Influence – a specialty practice born out of Ogilvy Public Relations. We quickly grew to deliver social solutions for all sorts of marketing and communications clients. Now we have grown into Social@Ogilvy. We are a true global network with a common approach.

The whole PR vs. marketing battle is moot. Social media will inform every discipline and deliver business value for the foreseeable future. Social media as a standalone specialty doesn’t make sense. All the power and potential in social-based solutions comes to life when you integrate it into marcom and other functions.

Read more about Social@Ogilvy and connect with us online in the following places:

Social@Ogilvy on Facebook

Social@Ogilvy on Twitter

Social@Ogilvy on LinkedIn

Social@Ogilvy on Slideshare

How to play? Just mark each square when you hear a buzzword. Once you get five in a row, take a photo of your card and post to Twitter with #BINGO and #SMWHK.

What to win? We’re giving out Social Media Bingo t-shirts to all winners while supplies last!

Prize for winning Social Media Bingo • Credit @joeywan

Of course, while you’re having a bit of fun, consider too that social media marketing should be focused on real business impact, not buzzwords. Congratulations to some of our early Social Media Bingo winners!

@tricialing posing with her #ogilvy #SMWHK #Bingo t-shirt

Congrats @moninafu for winning the #SMWHK #bingo and a free t-shirt from #ogilvy

A shout out for @jessicalee87 for winning the social media week #Bingo and a free t-shirt from #Ogilvy

We’ve also been following Hong Kong’s top ‘movers and shakers’ via our Social Media Week Hong Kong  Twitter leaderboard.

#SMWHK Leaderboard

We’d like to shout out to the team at Kred.com for helping us develop this. Believe it or not, we’ve seen some intense competition for people vying for the top!

The panel, hosted by Thomas Crampton, Ogilvy & Mather’s director of Social@Ogilvy Asia Pacific, covered key challenges global brands face in planning, scaling and hiring for social media positions. According to Dingle, all employees at a company should be responsible for social media. This doesn’t mean a brand can’t have a social media center of excellence to help steer the company’s point of view for social media marketing and communications. But, essentially everyone should know the basics and be able to participate.

Dingle also stressed the importance of listening in social media, saying, “”You MUST be listening to what’s being said about your brand. Your brand is what people SAY your brand is.”

Ali Bullock listed the variety of tools Cathay Pacific uses, both free and paid. Particularly for customer service, having a social content management system (in the case of Cathay, Context Optional) enables them to capture customer feedback and put it into a workflow.

He also discussed the importance of content in developing direct relationships and in driving everyday engagement among fans. For example, when Cathay posted a photo of an engineer changing the tire of a 747 on Facebook, they received 890 likes and several comments. The response has inspired the company to create more content along these lines.

Ghafur stressed the importance of experimentation. Before brands can see value and success in social media, they must be willing to try different techniques on different platforms. Now with 50,000 corporate accounts, SINA Weibo is seeing continued growth in branded uses of their micro-blogging platform. At 250M users and 100M posts per day, SINA Weibo continues to be a key platform to watch in Greater China.

Before we knew it, the hour was up, Twitter was crowded with #smwhk and #ogilvy, and the panelists were quickly rushed by the crowd. Thanks to everyone who participated in Ogilvy’s sold out panel today. Looking forward to the rest of Social Media Week!

Mike Fox, director of global vertical marketing at Facebook, kicked off the panel with some tips for how to move marketing and communications efforts toward the concept of Social by Design. According to Fox, all brands must build their presence from the ground up, keep it simple, put friends at the center of their messaging and scale, scale, scale.

He also mapped out four ‘dimensions’ for social marketing impact, namely connect, engage, influence and integrate.

The panelists downplayed the importance of apps, saying that most brands are lucky to get 2% of their fan bases engaging with apps. Of course, this doesn’t mean brands should shy away from developing applications for the platform, but rather, brands should focus on who they’re looking to engage and ensure they are engaging the right people.

Two other points that really resonated for me:
1. Brands must have an ‘always-on’ strategy as well as a campaign-based strategy. It’s not one of the other.

2. Planning a social media strategy in silos (consulting, creative, build) will inhibit brands from reaching the continuum of Social by Design.

Packed house at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong

Of course, we wouldn’t be at a Facebook event in Asia if someone didn’t ask about China. According to the panelists, it’s a ‘non-goal’ for now, meaning it will be a while before Facebook can enter China in a meaningful way while still staying true to the platform.

And last, but not least, a preview for what’s to come on mobile! Well, not exactly, but a hint that the platform is reorienting itself around mobile with an experience that will begin to reward behaviors coming soon.

All in all, I wish we had more time. Just as the questions started going, our hour was up and it was off to the next event of Social Media Week. It’s always reassuring to hear ‘straight from the horse’s mouth,’ and I look forward to seeing more growth on Facebook here in Asia!

“Facebook On: Advanced Best Practices for Brands,” a panel moderated by Thomas Crampton, Ogilvy’s Asia-Pacific director of social media, will offer brands and agencies advanced tips for leveraging the world’s largest social network.

Panelists include:

Mike Fox, Director of Global Vertical Marketing, Facebook

Doug Frisbie, Automotive Lead, Facebook

Maz Sharafi, Retail Lead, Facebook

Jane Schachtel, Tech Lead, Facebook

Moderator, Thomas Crampton, Ogilvy & Mather APAC, Director of Social Media

If you’re in Hong Kong on Monday, 13 February, please join us! Due to the focus and advanced level of this session, RSVPs will be accepted from brand managers and agencies only. Space is limited. Seats will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Request a seat here: bit.ly/advancedfacebook

We often see companies who are fixated on driving fan acquisition. But what to do once you’ve gotten a ‘like’?

Join us Tuesday, 14 February as we discuss driving value through social media, not just buzz.

We’ll be kicking off at 2:30pm with a half hour of networking followed by a 1-hour panel discussion starting at 3pm.

Register online here: http://socialmediaweek.org/event/?event_id=1654

We look forward to seeing you!

Specific to social media and digital, Burberry has launched several innovative initiatives this year, including:

• Burberry Body, the new women’s fragrance, launched globally and including Facebook, a YouTube homepage.
• Spring/Summer 2012 runway show hosting the first ever ‘Tweetwalk,’ premiering the collection on Twitter

Though one of the leading luxury brands to invest in social media, Burberry is not the only one to benefit from going digital and connecting with customers online. According to a recent study published by L2, among the luxury brands who have invested most in digital, those with e-commerce capability register double the traffic growth, 85 percent higher Google search volume, and nearly triple the number of Facebook fans. They also demonstrate broader adoption of digital marketing tactics, such as search engine optimization and marketing and email communication.

And, the impact reaches all the way to shareholders. Brands ranked as ‘genuis’ by the luxury digital think tank also show the largest positive impact on stock price over the past year (based on data from L2 analysts and data available on Yahoo! Finance).

The key takeaway? Digital is no longer a nice to have. For luxury brands who pride themselves on providing the ultimate customer experience, digital is now a key touchpoint throughout the customer journey. The danger of not participating: your fans will create an online fanbase over which your brand has no control.

If you’re part of the luxury industry and haven’t thought of jumping into digital, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work! And, of course, we’re always looking for new, innovative cases for brands using digital and social. If you come across one, please send it our way!

I love the simplicity of this campaign – enable people to shop while they wait. How productive!