The recording of the show is now available. Thanks again to everyone who joined us including Paige Arnof-Fenn, Jeff Cutler, and Mike O’Toole. We’d also like to give a shout out to our friends at PJA advertising + marketing and Small Plate Radio for helping us make it happen.
This was a big step forward and we are planning an even bigger show in mid July with a special guest so stay tuned. Also, feel free to add suggestions for future shows as comments.
Thanks to everyone for the valuable feedback on our first event! We learned a great deal and enjoyed the stimulating discussion.
We decided to delay the second event while we worked out our technical issues. The good news is that we found someone to stream the event live and thanks to our friends at PJA Advertising, we now have a first class audio setup in place.
We will be emailing a link to the event to all who sign up. So what are you waiting for? Sign up now!
Need more info? Here are the details:
Topic: How much social media do you really need?
The Skeptical CMO and his panel of marketing experts will continue their ongoing debate about the business value and ROI of social media. This live, online discussion will challenge conventional wisdom about these new media and explore:
- How much social media do you really need?
- How do you know if you are a new media laggard?
- What are people doing to get started in these new channels?
We’d like to thank everyone who joined us on Tuesday. Despite some early hiccups with the audio (we have isolated the problem), the feedback has been positive. We are working on the event recording and hope to have it online tomorrow. Until then, here are the slides.
The Skeptical CMO and friends: The value of building your online community (before you need it)”
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 (yes that is tomorrow!)
3:30 PM – 4:30 PM EDT
Title: “The Skeptical CMO and friends: The value of building your online community (before you need it)”
Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Time: 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM EDT
The buzz about Twitter, Facebook, and other social media is deafening. Sure everyone is talking about social media but will you grow your business, expand market share or keep your customers happy by jumping on the bandwagon?
The Skeptical CMO and his panel of marketing and social media experts will debate the business value and ROI of online communities. This live, interactive discussion will challenge conventional wisdom about social media and ask:
How important is engaging and building social media communities to your overall brand strategy, marketing and sales initiatives?
Can nurturing your online community really help you prepare for crises like negative product reviews, recalls or rogue employees?
Will these new approaches to engaging your customers really make your organization more agile?
While I remain bullish about the potential of these channels, I have a bunch of concerns about long term adoption by pragmatists and laggards particularly in the B2B world. Here is my logic:
Advertising based business models are weak: Regular readers of the ’slice know about the poor response rates of Facebook ads. Without a strong ROI from this advertising, companies will eventually steer clear of this medium or prices will be driven down to a level reflecting its effectiveness.
Where are the doctors, lawyers and other “regular” business people? I can see them wanting a presence in the social media world but until these media can improve service delivery, increase sales or cut costs, it will be a nice to have experiment for some guy in marketing.
Customer conversations are great: Engaging them online is valuable but it is challenging to measure the impact. We’ll see in the long run if customer satisfaction or retention rates improve from these online interactions.
Someone’s gonna pay: In many cases, however, we just don’t know who that will be. I love what people like TipJoy are doing in the micropayments space but we still don’t have strong revenue models for many of these sites.
Call me old fashioned: One of the things that helped Web 1.0 explode was when business people realized they could sell more stuff by having an ecommerce site. I’m still waiting to hear more of these B2B stories from the social media world.
So what does this mean?
We need to keep innovating and testing. There is a great deal of option value in being a part of the conversations. They are happening out there whether you like it or not. Also, I know this isn’t a very web 2.0 idea but repurposing and syndicating your content through these channels can have a positive impact on your search engine marketing and help you reach prospective customers. Just be don’t be an idiot, be relevant, and add value to the conversation.
Why is it that someone who is an expert in social media is often referred to as an evangelist or guru?
Do we really need to resort to faith-based arguments to convince people that these new media are important to businesses and nonprofits? Well, I guess if we made stronger arguments based on “the numbers” then we wouldn’t need to ask people to blindly believe. In the B2B world, more case studies from prominent companies would help. Until pragmatic managers get a taste of higher customer retention rates, improved SEO, or increased online sales, then social media will be something that is optional (even if everyone is talking about them online).
Try this next time you explain Twitter or LinkedIn to a friend – share a couple of stories about organizations who turbocharged their sales or customer service levels using social media. Then you won’t have to ask them for their blind faith.
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