Social Fresh Tampa – Key Takeaways and Notes
February 10 2010 by Jason Peck ~ 2 CommentsI had a great time at Social Fresh in Tampa on Monday. It’s always great to hang out with smart folks (some I know and some new ones) and talk about the business applications of social media. I really enjoyed getting some new perspectives and meeting some great people. Playing Golden Tee that first night was pretty fun, too :). Big thanks to Jason Keath for putting on such an awesome event.
I’m not a huge note-taker at these kinds of conferences; I’d rather be actively listening and meeting people. But I did take a few notes (I also did some video interviews that you can see here). Please see below for some key takeaways from Social Fresh Tampa that I thought were interesting and wanted to share.
Real Twitter and Facebook Results Panel
- Using Twitter for customer service, Best Buy’s Twelpforce (about 2,400 employees so far), answers about 100 questions per day
- Advertising is a tax that you pay for being an unremarkable brand – be a brand that people love and want to be involved with
- To help obtain buy-in for initiatives, it may be helpful to show your boss what people are wishing your brand did. Ex: I wish Nike had XYZ or I wish Apple had better ABC. Do a Twitter search for “wish yourbrand” to see what people are saying.
Branding within Social Media Panel
- It’s important to keep in mind that for many companies, there are a lot of things that are more important than social media
- Stephen Linn, CMT’s Director of Music Programming and Promotion, spoke about how the only difference between promotions and community are which way the chairs are pointing
- Sales is important, but that will come after relationships are built and established.
Social Media for Internal and Enterprise Use Panel
- Keep in mind that asking employees to be social is one thing. Getting them to do it is another. We need to help them learn and understand its value.
- One way to get employees to see the value is to show them some of the things their counterparts are doing at other companies
Better Marketing Through Private Social Networks (I REALLY liked this one)
- Cassandra Jeyaram spoke about her experience about essentially being the only full-time employee handing social media for Intercontinental Hotels globally.
- When crafting social media strategy, consider using Forrester’s POST method – people, objectives, strategy, technology
- Her objectives were to increase retention and engagement, reduce costs and drive revenue
- IHG started 3 private communities for their customers to obtain feedback on ideas, new promotions, etc.
- In 2008, they gave 150 members a triple points offer to use and/or share with friends. This resulted in $250k additional revenue in 6 weeks.
- In 2009, they gave 450 members the triple points offer for 4 weeks. This generated an additional $350k in revenue.
- Private communities are a good, safe way for a brand to dip their toes into social marketing
- Corporate websites are going away – everything is becoming more community-like
Inbound Marketing: Getting the Customer to Come to You
- How do the best companies market? They have great features/content to pull people in
- Things that are rarely shared/retweeted: product info, free trial, software documentation
- Things that are frequently shared/retweeted: new data, funny videos, top-notch blog posts
ROI of Community Building Panel
- A community-focused company lets their customers become part of the brand management process
- Community managers should spend a good amount of time on internal education to get others to expand their knowledge and understanding of community
- Community managers should understand engagement AND business building metrics
–
Hope you enjoyed those notes. If you took any notes of your own, feel free to leave a comment here and link to them. Or if you have any other thoughts about Social Fresh you’d like to share, please let me know!
Related posts:
