The Corporate Social Media Ecosystem

It’s an interactive evening at the Social Media Club, San Francisco / Silicon Valley, at Citizen Space. HP alum Ravit Lichtenberg of Ustrategy ignited the event presenting before dozens of the social media digerati on “The Corporate Social Media Ecosystem.”

“What are you?,” she asks. An expert, agency, first timer? Now, let’s get started. Companies have become collaborative with multiple customers, and those customers are interacting with other customers. One to one marketing from company to customer is a thing of the past.

The social media corporate ecosystem has also changed. What used to be a discrete relationship between companies and their customers; companies and their partners, has become a much more pliable system. Corporations now count on customers to inform other customers, and often partner with startups—not just established companies.  The corporation, customer and partner are all together having a ‘conversation.’ Corporations want to create relationships; customers want the interaction; and start-ups want the money. The “glue” between them all is marketing, business development, and capabilities.

Recap: What is social media again? The desktop solutions (and previous web apps) have changed the conversation – and people are overwhelmed. The focus used to be on the customers as eyeballs, but now those same customers have a face, an actual “voice that’s being heard.”

Over 60 percent of Americans regularly use social media (RWW/Cone research from Compete.com). Ninety-three percent of consumers believe a company should have a presence on social media sites. According to Forrester Research, people are open to most social tools from brand they like. Online discussion forums are on the rise, so are online videos while blogs and podcasts are coming down in popularity.

“Corporations care about social media!,” Ravit stresses. Cisco, Google, HP, Intel, Pepsico, Microsoft, eBay, and others are marking budget for social media, and making it part of their products, online and off-line.

The “gold standard” for social media use is marketing and collaboration – offline integration with online. And, brands are trying to get that right. HP spends 50 percent of its budget on marketing, and  brands who use social media spend 10-25 percent of their marketing dollars.

“Lots of money being spent on social media and some are getting it right…” Remember how Burger King asked you to sacrifice your friends? Burger King got 20,000 people to each sacrifice 10 of their friends for a total of 200,000 people engaging with the brand. Procter & Gamble’s “BeingGirl” is a location for what it’s like to be a young girl. And, then those girls go to the store for the first time and, it’s a Procter & Gamble product they’re looking at first, of course.

But, most brands don’t get it… More than 50 percent of brand campaigns fail. Worst ad campaigns were HP Pay Per Post, Subway, Walmart Across America, as outlined at SXSW this year (SXSW blog and Forrester Research). These brands were unable to articulate and show ROI.

Startups know there’s a need. Facebook created a global need. Yammer’s another good example. Some succeed and others don’t. Some are generic or too customized, can’t get a handle on the business model, don’t share consistency or dependability, need integration and a quality interaction, need to show better understanding of customer benefits, and have to reach the right decision makers.

“So now what?”

Each player in the ecosystem cares about different things. How to measure ROI, what tools are best, how to get IT’s buy in, are the old ways best? Customers want to know what they get out of all of this: What do I get, why should I spend time here, will I have control over privacy? Start-up / partners are asking will we get a deal, will we beat our competition, are we creating a need to fill?

To turn the corporation social…

They need to move from “selling to caring!” Focus on relationships, get to know the customers, go to where the customers are, develop meaningful communication, make it easy for them, give tools to the advocates, reward the enthusiasts, turn boring into excitement, enlist the right subject matter experts, and bring on board the right solutions.

And, of course, corporations must have a STRATEGY!

Agree on the business objectives, understand customers’ objectives, identify the relevant channels, establish relevant metrics, have right people on board, align with ongoing marketing strategy, prioritize, develop a plan, identify the right tools, then…IMPLEMENT!

AND NOW (DRUM ROLL)

Ravit mobilizes the audience with an exercise. We’ve got to develop a strategy that we can take to a corporation. We break into groups and start to work..

Here’s what Ravit’s tasked us to do…

1.    Choose a sector: technology, financial, or retail
2.    Identity a product you’re passionate about
3.    Identify a set of customer needs
a.    What’s important to these customers?
b.    Where do these customers spend time?
c.    How do they like to get information?
d.    What do they like to talk about? With whom?
4.    Identify corporate objectives
a.    What does the corporation want to achieve?
b.    Determine the decision maker in the organization
c.    They’re looking for a solution…what’s important to them?
5.    Envision a social media strategy
6.    Propose it to the organization

To see the rest of the photos from this event, please check our Flickr album.

Ravit’s perspective?

I wanted people to leave with two key takeaways. First, that Social Media is about much more than getting on facebook, twitter, or having a blog. Just like traditional marketing, for Social Media efforts to succeed, it needs to be treated as strategy with objectives, metrics, and implementation plan. Second, for a Social Media strategy to succeed, it needs to speak to the corporate ecosystem and to the needs of each of the ecosystem players.  Without this holistic perspective, any Social Media initiative will face significant barriers to success.

I greatly enjoyed seeing how people took to these concepts and worked together to create Social Media strategies. We went from a strategy for a local bank focused on small business lending, to a Social Media strategy for the Flip camera, to cloud storage, to turning the boring Dr. Scholl insoles to a sexy Executive-in-Hills campaign. It’s not hard…but it does require a shift in the way people think of Social Media. With sessions like the ones the Social Media Club organizes we are getting closer by the day.

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SMCNYC Meeting on ROI for Social Media 6/17/09

Title: SMC New York
Location: PR Newswire, 350 Hudson, NYC
Link out: Click here
Description: Social Media Return on Investment
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2009-06-17
End Time: 20:30

Social Media’s Return On Investment - When will we get buy-in?

On June 17^th, members of the Social Media Club of NYC will take on the thorny question of how and when companies and brands are going to monetize their investment in Social Media.

Our meeting will be guided by the insights of presenters Josh Chasin, Chief Research Officer, comScore, Inc. and David Binkowski, Director of Word of Mouth Marketing at MS&L.

Binkowski will weigh in from the practitioners POV, and Chasin from the analytical.

We’ll explore the most current definitions and metrics. Look forward to a lively discussion on adapting current standards (driving targeted traffic) and making a case for new ones (level of audience engagement).

The evening event will be moderated by Donald Schwartz, Technology Writer Imagelink Productions & Technology Coordinator for Fast Company.com.

Agenda:

6:00-6:30 Registration and Networking

6:30-6:45 Welcome and introductions

6:45-7:00 Open discussion:  members pressing Social Media questions

7:00-7:45 Featured presentation: When and How the Buy-In Will Come for Social Media’s Return On Investment with Josh Chasin, Chief Research Officer, comScore, Inc. and David Binkowski, Director of Word of Mouth Marketing at MS&L

7:45-8:00 Wrap: Closing thoughts from members. Suggested new social media tools from club members. Upcoming event announcements. Then networking

Registration required for entry to the building. Photo ID may be required to enter the building.

Special Acknowledgement: The Social Media Club of New York City wishes to express their gratitude to PR Newswire for their support of this meeting.

NOTE: This event will be recorded. By purchasing a ticket or attending, you agree to be captured via video, audio, and photo. All media will be released under a (CC)Attribute-Non-commercial-share-Alike license.

Snacks, Drinks, Wine and Beer will be served.

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How Can We Use Social Media To Foster Voter Education?

Educating yourself on the various initiatives hitting our ballots today can be a daunting task as you try and  cut through the emotion and muddied language around each issue. The standard voting guides do a decent job trying to share the pros/cons of each initiative, but more times than not, I find myself asking people around me - in my online and offline network - what their opinions are, to help bring more light to what that initiative actually means TO ME and to those I care about most.

It begs the question - what else we can do with the technology of today to capture those conversations and help inform others asking the same questions?

Join California Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, on Wednesday, May 27th at 7pm in San Francisco, CA for a brainstorming session where we dig into this topic in an effort to find new ways of engaging and informing voters using Social Media.

Contribute your thoughts ahead of time on socialvoter.org (use the form on the right sidebar to contribute), or you can tweet/blog your thoughts using the #socialvoter tag.

There is no fee to attend but they would like you to register so they know you are coming. Simply click ‘Attending‘ on the Facebook event. We plan to live stream the event for those who cannot participate in person. We will also be capturing some of the conversation on our SMC San Francisco Twitter account if you would like to follow along that way.

I am happy Social Media Club can play an active role in government 2.0 discussions. Earlier this month, our San Antonio chapter was asked to participate in covering the mayoral race using the Social Media tools at hand. There are several programs in the works, locally and nationally, where we will be extending this dialogue - so stay tuned!

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May Social Media Club Meeting

Another month has come and a lot of things are happening. Come join the professional media group that is looking at changing the way the city of San Antonio does things professionally and personally. This meeting is sure to be a can’t miss.

Join us at Lion and the Rose Pub located at the corner of IH-10 and Blanco for a night of great discussion and Q&A. We’re hoping everyone comes ready to discuss some vital issues affecting our city and we’ll look at what SMC is going to do locally to help the professional community jump on board.

The meeting starts at 6:00 p.m. and ends at 8:00 p.m. Join us as we make new introductions and plan for the amazing future that is in store for our own local chapter!

Park North
842 NW Loop 410 (Park North Shopping Center)
San Antonio, TX 78216

ph: 210.798.4154

If you have any questions, please contact me at 210.782.4439 or Jennifer at 210.483.3025!

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Social Media Camp + Internet Week = Good Times in NYC

Social Media Club is excited to be hosting Social Media Camp during Internet Week NY this year.  Given the current economic situation, we wanted to really focus this camp on helping small businesses learn how to use Social Media as an alternative (and cost effective) option to traditional marketing and communications.  So rather then just focusing on bringing social media ‘insiders’ together to talk in our special jargon filled language, how can we make Social Media more accessible and useful to everyday people.

This will be a traditional open space camp event where people who work with small businesses, job seekers, and even those people in bigger businesses who do marketing and communications will come together to learn from each other.  Everyone who attends is a participant and hopefully a teacher too.  In the morning, we will come together in a big group to plan out the majority of the sessions that will be taught throughout the day.  In addition to the participant lead sessions, Social Media Club is offering a special Social Media for your Small Business ‘track’ that is designed for the small business person who is just beginning to explore social media.  We will have some of the leading social media marketers in the world in NYC during Internet Week, and several of them, including Chris Heuer and Howard Greenstein will be teaching these classes.

So if you want to teach or you want to learn, please join us for this great day of open learning and collaboration.

The cost for the day is $25 which covers lunch. We are seeking multiple participating sponsors to offset the costs.  We do not yet have our venue, but it will be in Manhattan in an easily accessible location.

If you are buying a sponsorship here, we will be in touch with you to get your logo for the web site, t-shirt and event signage. If you have a venue to offer up, please contact us via camp@socialmediaclub.org

Social Media Camp will need people for many roles, including check in, helping with the food, logistical help, and more. Volunteers will have the registration fee waived.  If you’re interested, please leave a comment below.

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SMC SFSV May Event: The Corporate Social Media EcoSystem

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Le premier Social Media Workshop in Paris, France

The Social Media Club French Chapter is  proud to unveil some details of the first Social Media Club Workshop, which will be held on May 15th, in Paris, France.

After reviewing two years of monthly conferences and sessions and having conducted many training and consulting missions, we came up with a detailed list of issues companies need to address to design an efficient social media strategy. Through an original format, the finest social media experts will train professionals and enable them to forge their own approach. This won’t be a series of lectures nor discussion sessions, this will be about designing your own social media project for your company and implementing it right away!

Roll up your sleeves and get ready to work along with Chris Heuer and experts from Rue89, AF83 and the Metrics Factory.

All right, but how will it be different from other conferences and seminars?

Instead of just listening to lecturers and trying to apply others’ best practices to your case, you’ll be asked to build up your own project throughout the day.  You’ll be provided with the basic analytical tools at the beginning of the training and the different session, held in very small and interactive groups, will be as many inputs for your reflections. Organizers and workshop leaders will stay available at any time to support you and challenge your project. At the end of the day, you and your team will present your project to the SMC experts and get their feedback immediately.

Workshop leaders and sessions will include:

• Chris Heuer, “Introduction: how to design a social media strategy” + “Social Media Tools for beginners”
• Rue89, “Communty Management: Make your users work for you!”
• AF83 , “How to recruit your community?”
• The Metrics Factory, “How to turn your social media metrics into gold?”

Participation is limited, so if you are in Paris, don’t hesitate to apply now (and save some money, with the “early bird” pricing). We are also currently still seeking sponsors for the workshop, contact us for more details.

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SMC San Antonio Meeting: Money Talks, Even Online

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Social Media Club NYC - March 25th meeting

Last night in NYC, Social Media Club met at the Roger Smith Hotel for our monthly meeting and a Tweetup/Party sponsored by H&R Block.

The meeting started with a presentation by Fraser of Adaptive Blue, showing Glue. Glue is a plugin that works on sites where you look at music, movies, books and many other ‘objects.’ It lets you see reviews, and also lets you share information about those objects with friends. It also lets you take actions - one action was viewing a movie on IMDB and via Glue adding it to your Netflix queue.

We took a brief raffle break, courtesy of Pearson Education Publishers, who provided us with books from Addision Wesley, IBM, Prentice Hall, FT Press, Que and Sams. We gave out books including 33 Million People in the Room, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, and a host of others.

Then Tina Alexander showed us about the community sites currently in beta on The Wall Street Journal’s site. While she admitted that the community software, written in house, isn’t ground breaking, the WSJ is doing a bunch of things to keep conversation on a professional level, including requiring real names, and offering photo avatars to make sure you know who’s really giving the advice or opinion. The community features looked quite solid, and Tina was open to feedback from members of the group who were already beta testers. She gave out 1 month trial codes to the entire group, as well as very cool WSJ mugs for all attendees.

After another Book raffle break, Wilma Hayes of H&R Block got up to tell us about items relevant to freelancers and others running small businesses. We learned that there have been over 500 changes to the tax law in 2008 alone, and that there are all sorts of credits people often don’t take advantage of. @LesBlatt tweeted “$282 billion left on the table last year by taxpayers who did not claim all deductions and exemptions due” and “Job search expenses are deductible - from ink toner for printer to money paid to a recruiter.”

Once the group was done asking Wilma questions, it was off to the Starlight room for the H&R Block-sponsored Tweetup. The team from the Roger Smith Hotel really made us feel welcome, with good food and a great spread of crackers and cheeses and snacks and drinks expertly poured by bartender Paul. Thanks to Martha, Brian, Adam and the entire @RogerSmithHotel team for their generosity in supporting this event.

You can see pictures from Flickr below, and video will be forthcoming as soon as we can compress and upload it is below.

Part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3

Currently available (converting) at http://howardgr.blip.tv and will be embedded soon.

Part 3 of 3

www.flickr.com HowardGr’s Social Media Club NYC March 2009 photoset

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Social Media Club NYC - March 25th Meeting

For March, SMC NYC is being hosted at the Roger Smith Hotel (thanks to @RogerSmithHotel @BSimi @AdamJWallace) and will be sponsored by H&R Block!

THIS IS A 2 PART MEETING - Part meeting, part Tweetup/Party!

PART 1: SMC Regular Monthly Meeting

We’ve got a night full of interesting things that Social Media Practitioners need to know about:

* Chris Phenner will show some new “Mobile Virtual Goods” from NYC developer ThumbPlay.
* Tina Alexander, Product Manager, Wall St. Journal/DN will show some of their community projects (a response to the discussion from February about what main stream media is or isn’t doing)
* Laura Giaimo from Adaptive Blue will show Glue.
* A special guest from H&R Block will talk about how to save on your taxes, and relevant items to those in social media, especially sole practitioners and small businesses.

NOTE: This event will be recorded. By purchasing a ticket or attending, you agree to be captured via video, audio, and photo. All media will be released under a (CC)Attribute-Non-commercial-share-Alike license.

PART 2:

A Public Tweetup Sponsored by H&R Block - with Open Bar for as long as it lasts. Admission first to people who signed up to the Social Media Club Meeting, then guest list as long as there’s room. Walk ins only if the guest list is not finished, so please register.
Title: SMC NYC - March Meeting
Location: Roger Smith Hotel, 501 Lexington Ave. at 47/48th
Registration Link: http://smcnycmar.eventbrite.com
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2009-03-25

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Social Media Club NYC meets Content Nation Author John Blossom

At last night’s Social Media Club meeting in New York, John Blossom, author of the book Content Nation joined more than 30 attendees to discuss his book and engage in a lively debate.

Topics ranged from the future of Twitter’s business model to the future of the Newspaper industry’s business model. There seems to be a common theme - in the words of the philosopher Snoop Dogg, people have “their mind on their money and their money on their mind.” (link to lyrics- not safe for work.)

Our initial discussion on Twitter’s future business model included conjecture about Zappos. If Twitter were to charge for commerical accounts (not yet a fact), how would the over 400 Zappos twitterers be handled? They’re using their accounts both for work and for personal use.  Many consultants in the room also noted they use their Twitter for both business and personal use, and were not sure how that would work either. Discussion was tabled until we know more.

Update: John published his slides and notes on “Content Nation Meets Silicon Alley, Madison Ave. and Wall Street.”

[Read more]

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Government 2.0: February 2009 SMC SFSV Meeting

Last Tuesday we gathered at the Loopt offices in Mountain View to discuss how can Social Media can transform government, and what roles it could play in achieving transparency with the agencies.

Our moderator, J.J. Toothman, put together a great panel together consisting of:

• Ariel Waldman - former Independent consultant for NASA
• David Canepa - City Councilman in Daly City
• Evan Ratliff - freelance journalist and writer for Wired, The New Yorker, Outside, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications.
• Veronica McGregor - Manages the news office at NASA-JPL; and the @MarsPhoenix, @MarsRovers, @MarsScienceLabMars/Rovers Twitter accounts

It was great to listen to the panel share their various case studies of Social Media usage in their respective agencies, and discussing the challenges and obstacles facing widespread adoption of Social Media.  While some departments are experimenting with blogging, Twitter accounts, Facebook profiles and live streaming events, it seems overall, most government agencies are not quite ready to jump in yet. And if they do…it seems to be so controlled that it doesn’t work as well and it could (and should).

We live streamed (had about 40 following online) and recorded (see below) the panel, and while the quality is not stellar, I am happy to have been able to capture this discussion and hope to use this as a educational piece with other government agencies to reduce the ’scariness’ factor that seems to permeate within agency walls.  Several folks live tweeted the event (thank you) and Russell Johnson did a nice recap capturing the conversations as well.

I would also like to thank our friends at Loopt once again for opening their doors and providing a great space to gather in, and to Lunchat for making sure we had snacks and drinks for the folks joining us live.

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Salt Lake City is a twitter with Social Media Club activity

More than 110 people crowded the downtown Salt Lake City loft-style office space of Neutron Interactive last night. They’re some of the valley’s most respected social media practitioners.

The Feb. 19 gathering was the second third Thursday meeting of the newly organized Social Media Club of Salt Lake City.

The social media panel discussion included four Utah residents, each well-known for their use of social media in various industries. At the last minute, the panel was supplemented by Philadelphia-based Frank Eliason, director of digital care for Comcast.

For an hour or so #smcslc was the number one trending topic on Twitter.

As the chapter’s program director and one of its original founders, I was once again overwhelmed by the amazing support from the community for the Social Media Club.

There appears to be a real need to speak out on social media best practices and serve as a resource in the community.

In fact, because of my involvement with Social Media Club I have been interviewed by a handful of traditional journalists in Salt Lake the past couple of months on stories that include Internet information. They approached me.

What has played out in Salt Lake City for the Social Media Club I’m sure has occurred in dozens and dozens of locales across the globe. Six chapter founders launched the local organization using only social media tools to spread the word. Instead of a few dozen participants in our first meeting we had more than 75. Now we’re planning our March meeting in a space that will accommodate 150.

With use of the Internet increasing at record pace and the desire for individuals to connect with each other and business to represent itself using social media tools, the future for Social Media Club is certainly bright.

We’re already discussing the launch later this year of the Utah Valley chapter of the Social Media Club, just 45 minutes to the south.

If you’re ever in Salt Lake City on the third Thursday, it’s Social Media Club Thursday in Utah and we’d love to have you join us at one of our events.

From Salt Lake City,
Pete Codella, APR
Program Director of the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City

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SMC NYC February Meeting

We’re looking forward to our February meeting at Business Wire NY where our guest will be John Blossom, President of Shore Communications Inc. and author of the book Content Nation: Surviving and Thriving as Social Media Changes Our Work, Our Lives and Our Future.
Date: 2009-02-24, Start Time: 18:00.

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Social Media and SEO: January 2009 SMC SF/SV Meeting

Last week in San Francisco we kicked off 2009 #SMCSFSV with an excellent gathering at the offices of Zannel where we discussed Social Media and SEO, with presentations from some great people who are deserving of the title ‘expert’. It was one of our biggest events in a while locally, reflecting the interest around the topic as well as the growth of Social Media Club, with about 90 people attending. As is usually the case with our events, there was a great mix of developers, pr folks, community managers, web 2.0 entrepreneurs, real estate agents, non-profits, social media consultants, media makers and others.

As promised, though a few days late, we wanted to share the knowledge and insights from our evening together here. In fact, Kristie Wells is a woman on a mission, focused on trying to find more ways that each local group can better share their conversations, insights and recommendations. She has been incessantly nagging me to get this post done since last Wednesday morning, so that we can serve as an example for others. So let’s all do our best to publish our lessons the next day after a meeting, but no more then a week later. In fact, we should have a dScribe (a digital scribe) responsible for capturing all the media from each event and getting it organized on the site.

In addition to the presentations below and the photos on Flickr (chrisheuer, ken yeung) you may also watch the raw/unedited ustream video from the SEO and Social Media presentations. This video still has about 30 minutes of pre-presentation noise in front of it (if anyone can edit the video and get us a better version, we would gladly replace this). Going forward I am thinking we might

The evening started off with an excellent overview of the interconnectedness of SEO and Social Media with a discussion of Rohit Bhargava’s 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization presented by Jose Nunez and Jacob Morgan from HiRank. The original 5 elements Rohit presented are:

1. Increase your linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel
5. Encourage mashups

Jose’s presentation was very informative.

Next up was Daniel Riveong, from e-Storm who was sharing more tactically focused case studies.  Daniel was also sharing some examples of missed opportunities, where great social media marketing was missing the SEO elements that would have made it even more succesful on many different levels.  It’s a very compelling case as to why SEO should have a prominent seat at the social media strategy table.

It was clear from the quality of the content being presented that we needed to take less time for discussion and more time for presentation this night.  This was especially clear when Brent Csutoras started his presentation which really capped up a great series of lessons with the special insider insight that everyone needs to take their work to the next level.  You can download his presentation (and also access the video) from his blog post recapping the night.

It was a great way to kick off what is going to be an exciting, albeit difficult, 2009.  While there was plenty of food and beverages for all, the night was not without its glitches.  While Zanel has an incredible space, its clear that SMCSFSV needs to get some portable sound amplification and a better microphone setup for each event.  I also would have liked to have had more time for discussion, but I, as emcee, let each presenattion continue longer since it was valuable information and everyone was engaged.

So for next month’s event, we can really use your help.  Please contact us at smcsfsv —at— socialmediaclub —dot— org if you are interested in volunteering or have suggestions on how to make our time together more valuable. More information about upcoming events will be posted on our Facebook group soon, so stay tuned

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