Michael Wilson moderated. MIles Sims, Christian Caldwell, Rebecca Caro, Peter Kim were panelists

hashtag #sml

Qs From audience were asked first: how do you get a trial going to help get their feet wet, convincing another agency’s “man” (if you’re a consultant). Selling to a board, monetization goals to show the man, and something else …

Why does it make sense/how will this make money/ROI foundation thing?

Caldwell – (works at the American Heart Assoc) – reach was important – allowing whole organization the ability to get message out – larger reach is good. Did lots of explaining, showed examples, etc.

Sims – Reach isn’t necessarily instant money – but it holds real value.

(aside – funny – a spontaneous yelling match between our session and another one)

Kim – have to show equivalency and analogy – (showing similar costs for different types of ad dollars, I think. Also sometimes showing cost

Basically, an ROI model for social media varies greatly – it depends on your organization, the customers you target, etc etc.

Top questions that need to be addressed:

Sims – these questions happen after the fact many times …

What can it do for us, our customers, how does it help my customers.

What can the company handle, who in the company can get on board early without having to do detailed ROI models?

Caroe – need to look at your company culture. IE – if your comapny would freak out if they saw negative publicity, they might not be ready yet

Wow – the panel’s talking about having to get legal into the projects… yikes!

Loss of control (Kim) – it’s a misconception. You still have control – just looks different. Control over message and control over brand.

What do you do when social media creates/requires a culture change?

Kim – a matter of perspective. Described a change of focus – the company already had bloggers, they figured out how to use those bloggers

Caroe – describes a company ceo who got fed up with bad publicity and untrue mentions, so started a blog to tell “the truth” about their company

Sims – showing how it impacts our business. Show small successes and start small, then you can slowly start to snowball into greater change

Caldwell – show successes and failures. Failure is cool – show no fear. Colleagues saw no one getting fired, bosses saw learning, so transparency worked.

Kim – it’s GOT to change, so our choice is whether or not to stay at your organization and work on change, or simply go somewhere else where social media is already accepted

Does the pitch change depending on the audience?

Caroe – play to the audience – finance wants to hear about money. Does someone want a promotion? Show them how your project will help them get that promotion. Find out their motivations and change your strategy to match those motivations.

Kim – myth – young adults ALWAYS do all social media things. He said he’s been on strategy calls where the company they’re working with will include their summer intern … “because she’s young!”

Caldwell – wanted to share women’s stories about cardiovascular diseases – they mentioned it on facebook, quickly had over 1000 videos they had to screen – Sounds like it was a good kind of failure…

Caldwell – started recuiting the resisters – cool idea. He found out what they wanted to push, what their goals were, then showed how social media could help meet those goals. The resister (in at least one case) became the champion.

How do we help make the project a success?

Caldwell – have to point out it’s not a short-term game. It’s a long-term thing, and they need to have ongoing conversations

Sims – set expectations early

Caldwell – have to trust people. Don’t worry about people playing and not doing their jobs. With PCs, it was Solitaire. Before that, paper could be a distraction!

If you have marketing types/corporate communications departments that haven’t gotten it yet … find their peers that DO get it, and introduce them.

Pull it out of people at the beginning – stop by the watercooler, ask people to guest-blog.

Aside from money, what else do you use to pitch the idea?

Caroe – recruiting new prospects and having that in a database…
Caldwell – the speed of research. Get instant feedback
Kim – bottom line is always how will you make money (I think he’s wrong for non-profits and libraries)