Web Ink Now: The business value behind social media

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November 16, 2010

The business value behind social media

If you or others in your organization are struggling with the business value (and ROI) of implementing social media in your enterprise, you must watch this amazing panel discussion I participated in several weeks ago at the SAS Premiere Business Leadership Series Event.

Besides me, this terrific panel included:

Martin Giles, U.S. Technology Correspondent, The Economist who served as moderator. Martin is the best moderator I have ever worked with!

Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs, popular blogger and co-author of Trust Agents and author of Social Media 101.

Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group and co-author of two books: Groundswell and Open Leadership.

Grab a coffee and check it out. Then pass it on the skeptics in your company.

Direct link to the video on YouTube.

On the panel, we looked into strategies, trends, issues and opportunities that executives are facing when considering the implementation of social media communication and analysis. In particular, Martin steered us to cite value and adoption of social media in both B2C and B2B with examples of companies engaged with these strategies.

Real-Time engagement

At one point during the discussions, Martin asked me for the name of a company doing a good job with B2B social media. I mentioned Boeing. And then a few people in the live and virtual audience tweeted what I said. Moments later, @BoeingCorporate tweeted @dmscott thanks for citing us during #pbls10. Here's the air show effort DMS mentioned. http://bit.ly/dkQEqC

The real-time tweet by Boeing generated quite the buzz at the conference because it clearly showed that the company is paying attention to social media.

Posted by David Meerman Scott on November 16, 2010 | Permalink

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The business value behind social media:

» The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 1 - Social Media Strategy from A to Z from Social Media ReInvention Blog
Part 1 of a blog series covering The Business Value Behind Social Media panel discussion with Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, David Meerman Scott, and Martin Giles (moderator). Part 1 focuses on Martin's executive summary, The ABCs of Social Media Marketin... [Read More]

» The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 2 - Open Leadership, Guidelines, Process Discipline, and Goals from Social Media ReInvention Blog
Part 2 of a blog series on The Business Value Behind Social Media panel discussion with Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, David Meerman Scott, and Martin Giles. This post explains how guidelines, goals, and processes enabled large companies like Dell, The US... [Read More]

» The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 3 - How Walmart Learned From Initial Social Media Failures from Social Media ReInvention Blog
Part 3 covers discussion on Walmart's initial social media strategy mistakes. I've supplemented the panel's discussion with key examples described in pages 229 to 230 of Open Leadership, Charlene Li's latest book. Here, Charlene writes how Walmart le... [Read More]

» The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 4 - How to Get Started from Social Media ReInvention Blog
Part 4 of The Business Value Behind Social Media series focuses on linking social media to corporate strategy, listening before creating content, understanding where online customer conversations are taking place, and defining the business results desi... [Read More]

» The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 5 - How and What To Measure from Social Media ReInvention Blog
Part 5 of The Business Value Behind Social Media series highlights the panel's insights on measuring social media's business impact. Suggestions offered by Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, and David Meerman Scott focus on (1) Defining what metrics are valua... [Read More]

» The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 6 - Disaster Recovery & Crisis Communications from Social Media ReInvention Blog
In Part 6, the panel focuses on online crisis communications and disaster recovery. A key lesson is how companies need to respond quickly in the same social media channel a negative event takes place. Motrin Moms and United Breaks Guitars are example... [Read More]

» The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 7 - What's The Next Big Thing from Social Media ReInvention Blog
Part 7 of The Business Value Behind Social Media focuses on future opportunities in social media marketing and public relations (e.g., what's the next big thing). [Read More]

Comments

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David,

Or, as you've pointed out, Boeing used "real-time media," which just happened to be social: http://www.webinknow.com/2010/09/is-the-term-social-media-holding-you-back.html

Posted by: Keith Jennings | November 16, 2010 at 10:29 AM

This was a great panel. It was the first time (embarrassingly) that I had heard about you.

As we all know, that sparked some great real time discussions between the both of us.

Keep it up!

Posted by: Matt | November 16, 2010 at 08:19 PM

1.We all know, A good web copywriter-in-print that makes people grabbing reader by the eyeballs and not letting him go until he is persuaded to grab his wallet and beg you to rush him your product. And that’s what this site is providing. It’s really helpful. sales letter

Posted by: sales letter | November 16, 2010 at 11:47 PM

Hi, David --

Great post and nice video.

I'm glad to see you're evangelizing about the ROI of social media. It's one of the more important topics in this space right now.

As always, great to see/hear/read your stuff.

Thanks,
Jamie Turner
Co-Author, "How to Make Money with Social Media"

Posted by: 60SecondTweets | November 17, 2010 at 08:56 AM

David - Love the video...so far. I just watched the first half. Going to catch the second part of the panel discussion tomorrow. Thanks for sharing this valuable info and opinion.

Posted by: Sean Carpenter | November 17, 2010 at 11:35 PM

Tantastic

Will keep this one to show to all businesses that don't get it.

Posted by: Makethemclick | November 19, 2010 at 07:52 AM

David, thank you for sharing this valuable video with us! I studied the video from beginning to end and wrote down 20+ pages of notes. My next step is to form these notes and the panel's insights into a blog post series.

In addition, you are absolutely right about Martin Giles' skills as a moderator. He was well-prepared, carefully listened, seamlessly transitioned the conversation, and provided a great A to Z recap of the discussion. Look out Charlie Rose - a talented journalist at The Economist may soon be providing you online competition (especially if Martin decides to publish his own YouTube Channel with great interviews like this one).

Posted by: Tony Faustino | November 26, 2010 at 12:44 PM

Thanks Tony. Glad you found it valuable. Looking forward to your blog series.

Posted by: David Meerman Scott | November 26, 2010 at 01:41 PM

Hello David, just finished reading "New Rules", thank you for the book. Been banging my head against the wall trying to grow my business with expensive and time consuming methods. I have begun embracing new ideas and methods, I am confident it can change my business.

Posted by: Sven Kielhorn | December 06, 2010 at 11:00 AM

Good luck Sven!

Posted by: David Meerman Scott | December 07, 2010 at 01:09 AM

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