Alex Zamora: “Let technology inform your ideas”

This sentiment neatly sums up a thought-provoking talk by Alex Zamora yesterday, who very kindly took time out to come down to WSA to tell our MA students how (not) to use social media. He showed how his commercial work (Poke London) and creative passions (Feverzine) are very much complimentary forces in his career - both helping him carve out networks to generate both sales and influence.

The Internet hates advertising, Alex warns that you can’t simply ‘facebookize’, ‘social mediarize’ or ‘iphone-appize’ a traditional communications campaign and call that a social media strategy.

“You can’t just use Youtube to promote TVCs…that’s an act of dilution rather than strategy. Don’t create crap using digital. Use digital to create something amazing”.

For him, a few of the ways brands and organizations with web presence can do this is:

1) Make sure it’s vetted – Alex advises that as manager of your brand’s community, you can’t let spam invade your social media. Weed out the spam/fake followers “to have a clear idea of who is paying attention”;

2) Be reactive to your community – You can’t over-plan social media. You get at most 1-2 weeks of planning but most of the time you have to generate relevant content within 24hrs.

3) Divide or unify? – Organizations must strike a balance between bringing their community together under a coherent strategy but must also allow for being involved at a localized level.

4) Experiment, know what NOT to do – these days everyone has a personal FB page but it is not the same as how a brand uses FB. “Pay attention to how brands use social media, and know works and what not to do”.

5) Collaborate – Alex’s final message to our students was to work together. Create personal projects you love to do for the sake of it. Agencies who comb through perfect CVs and portfolios are also looking for evidence of ‘creative spark’ and that shows through your personal work.

Alex Zamora is now a Digital Strategist / Community Manager at Poke London. When he’s not doing that, he’s working on Feverzine and working with universities around the UK, including Nottingham Trent and WSA.