The event, which took place this morning at London’s Bvlgari hotel, attracted 40 event professionals, who heard presentations from Hayward, as well as Kevin Jackson and Gareth Dimelow, GPJ’s VP sales and marketing, EMEA, and head of strategy and planning respectively.
Hayward said: "There are 40% of UK adults who look at Facebook each day. So you have to think of the social web as a party. If you say that you are amazing, people will walk away from you. Brands need to understand what’s the appropriate way to behave."
He outlined how a large proportion of BuzzFeed’s traffic comes from social media, with 75% of visits to the website coming from social media. He added half of people look at articles on the website using mobile devices.
"You need to think about how you can earn the right to be a part of what they [consumers] are talking about," Hayward explained.
He outlined a number of areas in which event professionals and marketers can create shareable content to connect with consumers on social media. This included nostalgia, such as looking at anniversaries in popular culture, as well as identity and how important it is in social media content.
"If you create a post that people will find funny, it might be hard to get it through to a large audience," Hayward explained. "With smaller audiences, like those growing up in a certain area, there is a higher percentage that it will get shared."
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