VIDEO: Ogilvy's John Bell says social is part of everyone's job

A broad best practice, said Bell, is that you need to make social media part of everyone's job.

"Everybody needs to have an expertise in using social media towards their business function."

When asked whether social media is a must for every brand, Bell said it is a little naive to say everybody has to get in the conversation.

He mentions brands that are perhaps a bit premature for social media are often those that have not yet got the fundamentals of marketing right, including SEO and search marketing, the "basic building blocks of good marketing in the digital space".

"If you don’t have that, maybe that ought to be your priority," he said.

Speaking of current and upcoming trends, Bell talks about conversation management which is about changing a mindset from a campaign mentality to an "always on" relationship management model.

As for emerging trends, Bell mentions social commerce or services that are like buying clubs.

"There is so much social sharing baked into the transactions that inevitably it is all about attracting family and friends to the experience." He mention P&G's commitment to putting 39 brands on Facebook selling directly to customers.

Bell laughs when he mentions "it's the year of the mobile" but reckons this time it's serious as brands are understanding that mobile strategies has to be integrated into everything.

He goes on to mention another phenomenon typified by a service like Empire Avenue (like a stock exchange for influencers, measuring value around people’s social activity), and even Quora (a Q&A service where experts answer questions) to some extent, putting a value around your or your company’s social graph. 

While Bell feels it is far too complex to get any wide adoption, he said it points to finding different ways to value your influence. Human beings are the new channel and the only way marketers can use that channel is if they earn the right to do it.

“I’m hopeful that these emerging services that are playing with that idea will only strengthen the value of the individual.”

Bell concludes by saying that any brand today can come up with a great measurement programme, but operationalising our understanding of ROI remains the challenge.

"Social media is still as much art as it is science."

He reckons we'll see big gains in that this year, and as for scale, he said, "I think we have already figured out that the way to gain scale is by combining it with other marketing disciplines that can add reach to it."