SOBCon09 Day 2, Session 4 with Geoff Livingston #SOBCon

(www.inkthinkerblog.com) — I’m at SOBCon09 in Chicago with @lizstrauss and @starbucker. I’m taking notes as people talk, so there will be typos; deal with it. I totally checked out for session 3 on e-commerce. I heard that the tension in the room was palpable. Best to check out the Twitter stream for #SOBCon for the dirt. Anyway, this session is on integrating online and offline customer outreach, with Geoff Livingston (@geoffliving).

Integrating social media into the larger communications mix. Using any type of communication to achieve our target result; it just comes down to which set of tools we’re going to use. SM is great for getting people to talk, but not great for getting people to do anything else unless you have a really great integrated campaign. Does a shiny object necessarily help us achieve a result? A lot of people are suffering from shiny object syndrome.

But social media can’t stand alone. Most people handle marketing in silos. 1.0 website, check. Ads, check. Press releases / PR, check. Social media, check. Blog, check. You need to get companies to adapt to both the cultural and linguistic change that goes with integrating marketing. Silos are industrial-era corporate structures. We’re not there anymore. Single-track silos don’t conform to the way people consume media. They are absorbing communications and messaging sent to us left and right all over the place and SM just happens to be one form of that.

We want to engage stakeholders, we want to do it for free, and then we want to get them to do something. We need a call to action. Calls to action get people to have a relationship with you.

Outbound = Identity, sales opportunities, loyalty

  • Emails
  • Webinars
  • Events
  • White papers
  • Offers
  • AdsPobalist ativities

Inbound = Socialprise

  • More information
  • Participation invites
  • Feedback loops
  • Harneess group intel, activity (PM)
  • User-generated content

Social media is just about communicating with people. It doesn’t have to be sales and marketing. You can use it to create a give mindset rather than just a single-track silo. At least add the social URLs to your old-school marketing materials.

New-School Examples

  • Twestival
  • Copyblogger’s simple blog design – affiliate sales, content marketing, e-mail and RSS sign-up
  • LOLCatz – busy but delivering with lots of calls to action, ugly but it works
  • B2B Example – AccountingWeb.com

See the slide presentation here.

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