1. Defining social networking platforms
2. Integrating face-to-face with social media, optimizing resources and measuring ROI

What we learned

• Listen first. Tools are available to measure the effectiveness of social media. Use them to listen and learn.
• Ask your audience where they are – what social media tools are they using and how are they using them. Ask them what platforms they prefer.
• Finding meaningful and relevant content is a challenge. Pre- and post-event content is ideal for engaging your audience. Examples: video and audio clips, photos, presentations, speakers’ notes.
• We are all resource-challenged. Build social media into your marketing plan and daily schedule.

Using face-to-face communications and social media in conjunction with each other

• Face-to-face communication is still incredibly popular despite the associated risks, costs, and expectations. People still like to shake hands and make personal connections. On the other hand, there is a huge push to adopt social media techniques.
• Listen first. Many people want to leap in and broadcast on social media. Various tools exist that will identify who is talking about your product or brand, and provide sentiment analysis. This will help you build online brand advocates.
• Engage your digital audience to lead up to a live event. Inviting them to a digital event first is an effective way to gauge their interest level.
• Keep a face-to-face event alive. Use the same social media networks in which you engaged with your market pre-event to post content after an event. If you make your company a hub for that communication, you will generate a gathering of digital advocates.
• Using face-to-face events to continue a conversation started through social media is good practice. However, that poses a challenge: finding someone to actively engage with digital advocates – subject matter experts are the best individuals to do so, but they have limited time. Use a third party, someone from outside the company (analyst, journalist) who is already connected with people online.
• Determine where your audience is – are they using social media platforms? Which ones? Have a presence where your audience is active. Sometimes customers try to communicate through specific channels – the worst thing you can do is not be there.
• If you can engage people in online communities, you can get them involved in developing their own social media networks. A small group of advocates can introduce topics that will engage a larger group.

About LinkedIn

• LinkedIn has the largest online business community, so leveraging that network is key.
• Joining and/or starting communities are good ways to develop relationships and credibility. Provide content to your communities that is relevant, then you can let them know about your company’s activities and events.
• You can receive an “expert” designation from LinkedIn by responding to people’s questions within a community. Become a resource and build authority.
• LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool to reach out to potential employers, prospective employees, and customers.

About Facebook

• Depending on the industry, Facebook can be very effective. For example – using Facebook to promote consumer products or sell to teens is excellent.
• It is an effective recruitment tool to reach out to university graduates, to publicize internships, as an employee-to-employee channel (internal communications), and it is the number one support channel for many B2C organizations.

Communicating value of social media to C-Suite

• Social media presence can help to build effectiveness of search engine optimization for companies, which can be measured by connecting with more prospects.
• If competition is doing it, we should be doing it.
• Social media can seem huge. Suggest launching a pilot program for one social media platform at a time.
• Get Human Resources involved. Test a social media initiative internally first. The C-level can have a risk-free, real-life experience before launching externally.
• Some people say ROI in social media is vague, but others have been able to measure it – for example, by experiencing lower call centre numbers. If you want buy-in from the C-suite you have to demonstrate how you can measure ROI in your particular organization.

Relationship between social networking and sales

• In some companies, sales people are driving their marketing department to provide Twitter content. Conversely, a lot of sales people are just not there yet – marketing is constantly after them to get on Twitter and Facebook to leverage their networks.
• Sales’ job is to close business; social media is a good way to interact and build relationships with customers.
• With marketing communications, there is usually an agreement around key messages, etc. With sales, it is more dynamic – have to trust the dialogue that is occurring.

Attendees:

• Kathryn Ferguson, SAP Canada Inc.
• Michael Cohen, NexJ Systems
• Sean O’Donovan, Doxim Inc.
• Jim Theobalds, Nova Marketing Group
• Milvi Ester, Ingram Micro
• Farah Bunni, Arrow ECS
• Lorraine Sutton, Platform Computing
• Pam Aziz, IBM Canada Inc.