The two and half hour social media boot camp at Four Seasons, Palo Alto, drew participants from both large and small companies in the Bay Area. The group had strong representation from Business-to-Business and Direct to Consumer companies.

Not surprisingly majority of the participants were already experimenting with Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin YouTube and blogs. They talked about issues ranging from privacy yet effective communication to measuring ROI, to challenges in content generation & distribution and wondered if the channel was right for them.

Our Social Media Maturity framework below triggered animated discussion. With over 5508 (on a last count in December 2009) social networks and social sites, it soon became apparent that a structural approach will need to replace any tactical one.

Most of the participants have either moved into or on the verge of moving in from Level 1 to Level 2. Few were actively thinking ahead to step into the Social Leverage stage. Fewer still were thinking about the loosing control at this level when the social campaigns starts spreading wider and user generated content overtakes any corporate restrictions.

Social media commitments touch a much wider universe due to the channels relational nature.

The idea of eliciting firm commitment from all stakeholders met with lot of interest (and groans!)

Social Media Stakeholders

Execution of social media programs inline with the level of maturity provoked wider response. Everyone was in agreement with the changing landscape of buyer-seller relationship and its impact delivered through social media. With customers taking up the center stage in the process, businesses have to find innovative ways to interact with them at every stage of the buying cycle.

Social Media changing customer relationship

Several participants were curious about emerging area of custom social media applications as an effective vehicles to connect and expand the reach

social media custom apps

Platforms like Linkedin provide a perfect medium where businesses can setup Thought Leadership groups by bringing professionals together. Such groups serve to level the plying field effectively to the advantage of small businesses in the engagement process. Some companies, like Compliance Online have gone a step further and created their own social community for the maximum social leverage

Measuring impact of social media and ROI threw up another interesting round of discussion. While everyone was clear on the business goals, companies are still focusing more on channel level performance. This often happens as there is a tendency to equate social media with online marketing media and apply channel metrics to gauge performance. This is not accurate because social media is not of a homogeneous character (interaction on Facebook are not the same as video views on infotainment nature of YouTube). Then there is a clear trend that social media creates combined impact at the business level.

There was a wider consensus that traffic/views metrics, by themselves, are not indicator of ROI.

Are these your social media goals too?

While we agreed that not all business goals can be achieved for all companies through the social media, the field is wide open. Some companies are finding achieving one subset of goals easier while others find better performance from a different set. Businesses need to follow their likely target prospects to their favorite hangouts. The goal selection will firm up as more trends on industry/vertical emerge.

Another interesting feedback was on the ease of measuring key performance indicators. The general opinion was that this problem will disappear as better (and integrated) tools become available.

Do you agree?

Our next camp will be coming up soon! Stay Tuned!