Five incredibly talented and deeply entrenched social media THOUGHT LEADERS fielded questions about “How to get the word out” and win more business now that there’s so much FREE stuff out there.
THE VENUE: Grand Hyatt in San Francisco
THE SPONSOR: San Francisco chapter of the American Marketing Association
THE “WHY”: To discuss whether or not today’s marketing and PR “sucks,” and, if so, What To Do About It.
What would you do if you had a great product in a niche and zero dollars in marketing?
What would you now do if you now had $10,000 in marketing? How would you put it to use?
What is the role of agencies in today’s environment? Should companies simply do their own marketing?
Headlines from the discussion:
PR NEEDS A NEW NAME
NO TRUST IS OBSTACLE FOR PR & ADVERTISING
CROWDSOURCING IS THE NEW INFLUENCER
KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO BE
BECOME AN EXPERT IN A UNIQUE NICHE
“TRUTH IN MARKETING”: [Who’d a thunk?]
EVERYONE IN YOUR COMPANY WILL BE FINDABLE
BE YOUR OWN MOUTHPIECE
PR AGENCIES ARE PASSÈ
Selected clips from the discussion
Silicon Valley blogger Louis Gray
“For marketing on a shoestring: Tap into personal network for word of mouth. Leverage the people who are your biggest fans.”
Seesmic founder: Loic Le Meur
“The problem with old styles of marketing is No Trust. What I trust are my friends telling me about products they like.”
“Twenty years ago there were 20 influencers. Today there are 6,000.”
“When you engage with customers on Twitter, you can learn what problems need to be resolved.”
“Social Media Marketing: Find the fight people in the right places and offer the right message.”
Steve Patrizi and Renee Blodgett round out the panel of experts
“Online Social Media: No difference between personal and professional.”
“Professionally distributed news releases may only be necessary with major launches.”
“Break out of old marketing by teaching your people to LISTEN and then to RESPOND.”
“The speed of innovation is directly related to the speed at which we are sharing information.”
“Rules are different for social media platforms: MySpace is like your neighborhood bar. Facebook is the backyard BBQ. LinkedIn is your office. You’ll need to act accordingly.”
WHAT DID THE ATTENDEES HAVE TO SAY?
Mark Evans, SFAMA President
Marketing is going through a revolution. The SFAMA is here to embrace this change and help bring together all the moving parts. — Mark
Julia Francis - Ubiquity PR, Wendy Fisher - Moxie Mtkg, Sharon Lee - Shamiko Design, Kelly Connelly - Kelly Connelly Design
MARKETING AND PR “SUCK”? — People will always need them, suck or not. It depends on the approach for them “not to suck”: Change the name of PR to a more friendly and real term like SOCIAL CONNECT, for instance. — Sharon
Bill Bralye
After listening to the panel, I want to devote more time identifying best practices used by companies that are effectively widening their marketing tactics by adding social media to the mix. — Bill
Deb Kockos
I can tell you that most people do not spend their day online exposed to ads or blogs about certain products. Most of the world doesn’t even know what Web 2.0 means. When referencing a conversation on LinkedIn during a recent presentation, the audience looked at me like I was nuts. No one even knew about LinkedIn. We’re definitely in the early adopter stage here. — Deb
John Meyer - UC Berkeley, Laura Dantes - Engagement Strategies
We do need to filter the Hype and remember basic marketing principles. As Renee put it, “What is the problem we are trying to solve?” Focus on strategy, messaging, and reaching the right stakeholder groups using multiple channels. I don’t believe the zero budget Twitter solution is sustainable. — Laura
Cory O'Brien
Marketing and PR don’t suck. They’re just changing rapidly, and the companies that can’t keep up with the changing environment are using marketing and PR methods that “suck.” Social media has closed the gap between the company and the consumer, and there’s a level of speed, honesty, and transparency that is required to play in this field that many companies are not yet comfortable with. — Cory
FOR THOSE WHO’D LIKE TO VIEW GUY’S QUESTIONS AND THE PANEL RESPONSES AND DISCUSSION:
Can’t get enough of thought leaders in panel discussions? Here’s my report on Steve Rubel, Michael Brito, Richard Brewer-Hay, and Angela LoSasso discussing “Beyond the Hype: Roadmap for Social Media”
I’m remembering the quote I often tell students: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”
Back on July 1, I started to think about “managing” my online presence, i.e., putting some routine in place primarily to help me select where I wanted to make my Web contributions. So I wrote “How do you manage your Online Social Media presence?”
In essence, I was thinking aloud. What I accomplished — and, unfortunately, all I accomplished with that post — was to ask myself to set aside time in the morning to Go Online.
But I didn’t give myself a road map. Hence, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”
Road Map — by the numbers.
1) Step one on the road must be taking time to clarify Objectives. So I thought I’d imagine the possibilities:
a) Casual: Whenever . . . of course that’s not me. It’s really OK if that label describes you, someone who spends as little or as much time as happens to be there: checking out your Facebook page, email, Twitter account, etc. I.E., WHENEVER . . . [been there, done that]
b) Experimenter: We’re ALL experimenting here, and that is a good thing. But there’s a danger — lost opportunity and value when you never really “move off the dime.” Get out there and BUILD, don’t just keep trying new things. [been there, done that]
c) Reader: One of the greatest benefits of Twitter for me personally are all of the website references with Great Stuff. I could read and read and read. How many of us bookmark and bookmark and bookmark . . . and don’t even get to read? [been there, done that]
d) Novice Participant: Read some blogs that strike a chord and add your voice once or twice a week. Join some groups and occasionally check to see what group members are asking and answering. [been there, done that]
e) Active Contributor & Engager: This is who I WANT to be. And we all know that Today is the First Day of the Rest of Our Lives.
So what does an ACE [Active Contributor & Engager] do?
Here’s my new plan . . . and a new Number One since the Objective has been taken care of:
1) Make a list of WEEKLY goals {I believe I can hold to that) and check off my accomplishments EVERY Sunday night.
2) Prioritize those goals to make certain that the ones on the top of the list are done for sure.
3) Because my original intention, way back when I first posted on April 23, was To Become an A-List Blogger — and that continues to be my Long Term Goal — Blogging will be my top priority. One of my students got around to reading my blog last week — and liked it. He asked how often I write. My immediate answer to myself was NOT ENOUGH. So Priority Number One for me is to make certain FROM NOW ON to have 3-4 posts (or more) Every Week!
4) Next, because I really believe that Twitter will become all that its creators are envisioning, my goal will be 3-5 Tweets Every Single Day! I will continue to follow my own advice on What to Tweet.
5) Facebook is a HUGE priority, especially since my partner Les Ross and I are building our Social Media/Internet Marketing consulting business Performance Social Media, which recently set up a Fan Page. We’ll be including the opportunity for small and large companies to find social media interns through us, so I’ll be monitoring and updating both my Facebook Profile and my Facebook Page EVERY Day. That means NEW content on the Facebook page at least four days a week.
6) I may be running out of time for Daily Tasks, but I thinking checking in and updating LinkedIn is essential. So besides that commitment, I plan to contribute to at least two LinkedIn Group Discussions every week.
7) Finally, my new Road Map will highly suggest that I check out at least one New social media tool, strategy or app every week; by checking out, I do mean more than reading about it.
Good luck . . . to me . . . and everyone else out there who may want to follow my Road Map.
Let me know what you think?
Do these suggestions help you?
Do you have any others to suggest?
In the meantime, I’ll see you all “Out There.”
And, Jay [my student who asked about my blog], how’s this for a new post?
Last post we tried to address the responses of naysayers — the “non early adopters,” the social media non-initiates.
Common challenges in any evolutionary cycle. But the fact remains that life does change, and so do we.
And nowhere are these changes more dramatic than with engaged students in our colleges and universities. I’m seeing this “Ah-Ha Awareness” particularly strong among scores of individuals in my Public Relations and Advertising classes at San Francisco State University where many are hearing of this revolution in marketing for the very first time.
After 10+ weeks immersed in All Things Social Media, I asked the students to comment on this experience. Here following are the thoughts of Yoshiko Hill who is currently on a team studying the future of radio advertising:
I had no idea that social media was impacting the advertising, and entire marketing, world in such a significant way. I now realize that social media is being fully utilized by companies as a more cost-effective, targeted method of reaching customers.
Social media creates a dialogue with customers that most traditional media lack. It is especially attractive as an alternative to costly traditional advertisements — especially given the current state of our economy.
Social media is no longer your sibling’s hobby. It is a rapidly evolving revolutionary tool, and if more businesses do not begin to embrace it, they will soon be left behind. — Yoshiko Hill 5-5-09
Hey Businesspeople — small and large:
Are you listening?
Listening to the marketplace in general?
Listening to your customers in particular?
If you aren’t, as Yoshiko warns above, you will be left behind.
From Engage by Brian Solis
