Social Media Spotlight - William Bonaddio
Director at Will B Social Ltd, William Bonaddio is here to give you his tips and insights that you can start implementing straight away on your social.
Tell us about your history in marketing?:
A lot of people talk about how they "fell into" media, but I'm not ashamed to say that it was something I always actively worked towards!
I started at a small independent agency called The Media Shop back in 2006 as a press/digital planner before focusing exclusively on digital at Arena BLM (now part of Havas). I was lucky enough to work on some amazing clients like T-Mobile, Scalextric, Pathé Films and Domino’s Pizza during a really exciting time in the industry as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook were all launching ad platforms and Apple released the iPhone which meant I got to work on the first Domino’s mobile app.
I loved working on Domino’s, but when the opportunity to join OMD UK to work on McDonald’s came up I had to take it. Working with my favourite brand’s sponsorship of the Olympics in my hometown in 2012 remains one of my career highlights.
I did leave OMD for 6 months to work on the Disney account at Carat Global, but soon returned to focus purely on Social Media at OMD on the likes of Monopoly and Rimmel London. That’s when the opportunity to help out McDonald’s in-house on a secondment came about, and what was meant to be a short-term solution to help them out turned into the best 5 years of my career, involving me launching my own consultancy (with McDonald’s as my main client) in the process.
So, you're a Social Media Editor-in-Chief for McDonald’s. What do you love most about doing this?:
I love innovation in advertising, and working in Social Media means that every post has the potential to try new formats or ‘break’ existing ones.
Brands shouldn’t just look at what their direct competitors are doing on Social, because in the busy Newsfeed EVERY post appearing above and below you is a competitor for user attention.
That’s why I like to follow what brands outside of my clients’ sectors are up to for inspiration, see how Social-first publishers are making content that stands out and look at how real people are using platforms. Inspiration for our next post can genuinely come from anywhere which means I can always justify one more scroll of my personal feed!
When it comes to creating social posts and ads, what are companies/brands doing well and what do you think they need to improve on?:
It sounds obvious, but I always encourage my clients to post about what people actually care about. “To find funny or entertaining content” is one of the top motivations for using Social Media (it sits just behind “To stay in touch with what my friends are doing” according to GlobalWebIndex) so a salesy message showing an image of your new product is rarely going to ‘go viral.’
Of course, businesses need to sell products to pay the bills, but if it’s not something in a high-interest category then they need to think of ways to create Social content that makes it interesting, shareable and enticing. It’s one of the reasons why working with Social publishers is so powerful, and also why the likes of Paddy Power, Old Spice and Innocent Smoothies always get called out as ‘best in class’ examples. They don’t make ads that feel like ads, and that in turn makes you more likely to pay attention, engage and share.
How can they start to do this?:
Something I talk to a lot of my clients about is to build campaigns and creatives that are designed for the speed of the feed. We in the industry may hate to admit it, but 70% of a users’ time on Social is spent scrolling fairly mindlessly, and so any posts that have a chance to be noticed need to stand out fast.
20% of users’ time will be spent interacting with posts, while only about 10% will be them willing to fully immersive themselves in content. A lot of the case studies I read and conferences I go to focus on that 10% (the Nike 2hr marathon broadcast on Facebook Live, the viral Dollar Shave video, the John Lewis Christmas ad etc) which are incredible ads, but are probably once a year campaigns that not every brand has the budget or internal buy-in to attempt.
Instead, I encourage brands to really think about the 90% that doesn’t get talked about as much but is essential to drive salience, ongoing sales and fundamentally helps pay the bills.
What do you feel are the biggest barriers to creating that 90% content that resonates and performs well?:
Given nearly everyone now has a professional camera housed within a smartphone in their pocket, the barriers to creating social posts have never been lower. What I think brands struggle with is making that 90% of posts (made up of immediate and interactive content) work hard for them, and so if it doesn’t they feel like they should only be making that 10% of fully immersive content all the time – which is hard and potentially unsustainable.
My advice would be:
Make your content ‘thumb-stopping’: Realistically you have about 0.5 – 3 seconds to capture someone’s attention when they’re scrolling.
Keep it simple: As advertisers, we sign off ads by looking at them on a big screen and with sound on, but most customers probably consume them walking down the street listening to music.
Build for mobile: It’s where 97% of users see your content on Social.
Make it memorable: The only barrier here is your creativity.
Are there any tools and resources these brands can use to create better content?:
The answers are already there in your Newsfeeds, just be sure to save or screenshot anything cool you see when you see it. It’s so frustrating when you see an ad and want to tell your colleagues about it but then can’t find it later!
There are dedicated accounts and groups about great marketing examples on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter which are most definitely worth a follow, and I think it’s worth checking out what the likes of LADbible, Buzzfeed, JOE and Jungle Creations are doing as these are Social-first brands that often know the platforms better than the Social Networks themselves.
I know you've spoken at Social Day Festival before about marketing during tough times and right now, times are really tough for everyone. Do you feel businesses should change the way they're marketing right now?:
Absolutely, 100%. By the time I finish this interview, the landscape will have changed again and my answer will likely no longer be relevant, but right now in these times of such uncertainty, I would encourage brands to:
Be supportive and acutely aware of the situation we are all in.
Be useful: What do your customers really need right now? It may not be your product..!
Be positive: There’s so much uncertainty at the moment and people are consuming more Social Media than ever before. I feel like we could all use some light relief, but it needs to be in a way that makes sense for your brand.
Keep a read on the situation: Things are constantly changing on an almost hourly basis, and so a post that was perfect yesterday may not be relevant or even appropriate tomorrow.
Plan for the future: This will pass, but the campaigns you paused last week may not make sense to just set live again in a few weeks or months.
Where can we find you?:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/wbonaddio/
www.willbsocial.com
