Marketing Week’s social media event this week showed that case studies are key in convincing brands of social media’s worth.

Yesterday’s session featured case studies and presentations from big brands such as Sony, Diageo, MyDeco and Starwood, showing that social media can in fact deliver on ROI. It was a breath of fresh air to hear truly practical examples from brands on how social media is being used rather than more agencies and ‘experts’ blowing hot air.

The lack of genuinely interesting case studies on social media has been a problem for a long time – something that the IAB Social Media Council are working hard to change, but doesn’t seem to have improved. Brands using social well are reluctant to give away their secrets, leaving agencies with vague presentations and anecdotes. This could be extremely damaging to the integrity of social media as recent conversations with marketers have shown that they feel little trust for agencies and individuals professing to ‘do’ social media.

The Sony presentation unveiled that the electronics giant had not only made over £1m in revenue from its Sony VAIO Twitter stream, but it also helped provide 12 weeks of coverage  for a campaign promoting its Cyber-shot camera, resulting in £12.5m in revenue. Sony’s head of corporate communications Nick Sharples admitted that while PR and particularly social media/online PR had been tacked on at the end of the marketing planning process, the success from the team’s campaigns has now led to PR and social joining the conversation from the very beginning,

Too many events and talks about social media seem like a sales pitch for agencies and don’t provide attendees with the goods to convince the board that social media can work for them. Impressive work by Sony, now we need other brands to step up and show social media does work.