Liveblogging Inside Social Apps: Social Apps for Marketers and Brands, Maximizing Audience Engagement

We’re at the San Francisco Design center, blogging Inside Network’s third annual Inside Social Apps conference. The final panel of the day focused on how marketers and brands can use social apps to maximize consultation engagement.

Joining moderator Josh Constine, of Techcrunch, were Context Discretionary CEO Kevin Barenblat, Buddy Media Senior VP Carla Bourque, Facebook Page Product Manager Russ Heddleston, Starz Media VP of Digital Media David Katz, Hearsay Social CEO and Starbucks Board Director Clara Shih.

All of the panelists agreed that construction mobile experiences and applications is becoming increasingly vital for brand marketers. Shih, of Hearsay Social, and Barenblat, of Context Discretionary, said that rising application experiences that involve the user being physically bestow at a retail store have potential for both marketers and developers. Bourque, of Buddy Media, said her company’s mobile focus was primarily on enabling social buying at scale and driving conversions.

While panelists agreed that construction applications for mobile will be increasingly vital, their take on construction Open Graph applications was mixed. Shih, of Hearsay Social noted that for lifestyle brands, Open Graph represents a significant chance since of its cleverness to connect identity to brands and products. For small or local brands and companies, or persons outside of the lifestyle space, Open Graph might not be a excellent fit. The consensus was that developers and marketers should focus on testing new thoughts and generating success at a small scale in order to demonstrate impact, and build upon that.

When questioned in this area the future of page tab applications, and whether they will become mobile well-matched at some point in the future, Heddleston, of Facebook, did not make any best proclamation. He reinforced the substance of mobile in Facebook’s overall strategy and noted, “We haven’t yet come out with a separate solution for tab applications for mobile, it’s something we’re looking into, and something that would make sense.”

The panelists discussed some of the factors that go into deciding whether businesses should develop custom applications for their page or work with platform templates. The general consensus was that custom development might not be cost-efficient for some companies, but business objectives should ultimately drive the choice. Shih, of Hearsay Social, said that she’s seen a 50-50 split among better clients — half start with a template from Hearsay’s app gallery and half are completely custom experiences developed by another digital agency.

As far as brand integration within existing apps, such as well loved social games, the panelists emphasized how distribution and engagement are key things brands should look for before spending cash on placement. Katz, of Starz Media, said he especially looks for examples of what an app developer has done before and wants to know that a company has delivered results for similar brands in the past.