230 top tweets from #SMPlus

Social Media Plus SummitThe Social Media Plus Web 2.0 Business Summit was held in Philadelphia May 25, 2010.

The one-day event promised to put attendees on the fast track to incorporating Social Media into their overall business strategy.

Attendees generated over 2,100 tweets under the hashtag #SMPlus. Twitter only maintains 10-14 days of content so this information will soon disappear. Thanks to Adam Hymans (@LeMulatreGentil) here’s the archive all of them. Like Adam, I was not able to attend the event. But it’s with deep gratitude to all the attendees who posted their messages that this content has been made available worldwide on Twitter. Thanks!

Building on an idea of finding of “top tweets” I experimented with at the Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference earlier this month, I’ve curated a list of 230 tweets I found most content-rich and interesting; adding links where appropriate for easy reference; consolidating others; editorializing.

I aimed for brevity and so none of the twitter handles or attributions are listed below, so search Adam’s archive if you need sources.

Please share your experiences in the blog comments (or on Twitter!) about your follow-up to this event and how you’ve implemented the ideas you picked up at #SMPlus.

Enjoy.

  1. Jason Falls presentation (voted #1 by many), “Conversational Marketing” http://bit.ly/agDqOI
  2. Shashi Bellamkonda presentation “Social Media and Small Business” http://bit.ly/99JwRI
  3. Phil Baumann presentation, “Healthcare Uses of Social Media” http://scr.bi/dATKKF
  4. Valeria Maltoni presentation, “Why Social Media is Important for Brands” http://bit.ly/bKsL4e
  5. Director of Social Media from GM brings a different take on social media. Big business is more structured but good ideas shared.
  6. GM has weekly “Social Club” of all involved w/social media: Brands, Mktg, Comm, Cust Rel, Law.
  7. The best person to own social media in your company is the person who wants to – they need to breathe it. Brilliant.
  8. Social media ROO: Brand awareness Engage customers; create fans; provide customer service; crowd sourcing product features.
  9. Anybody who is listening to their customers will win in social media.
  10. Building Trust with Empowered Consumers: Individual engagement for healthy brand relationships http://ow.ly/1POxI
  11. Why are students studying Mass Comm anymore? It is all personalized communications now.
  12. Social media dashboard – http://www.unilyzer.com (free trial available). Dashboard looks pretty good.
  13. Twitter has a “shut up” button, it’s called a 140 chars limitation.
  14. Be the MC to build an audience – Master of Content, Master of Ceremonies, Master of Community.
  15. Conversational marketing success occurs when our participation in the conversation is GENUINE.
  16. Extremely important for SEO by taking the first step towards getting linkbacks. Link out to other bloggers!
  17. Twitter = a great way to draft compelling marketing messages. “I wanted to write a shorter note but didn’t have the time.”
  18. Fundamentals of SEO: Optimize your titles/content, tag, categorize your content, optimize digital assets like photos and video.
  19. Look at http://www.knowem.com. The place to find lesser known social networks.
  20. Have a blog? Look at http://www.wibiya.com. Great widget-esque toolbar.
  21. Apparently Bozeman, MT thought it smart to require applicants to furnish FB passwords. What do you people drink in the Midwest?
  22. Tweets from 10:25-10:35 (East Coast Time) get 15-20% more click-throughs.
  23. @jasonfalls Stated Twitter Strategy: “Share good Shit!”
  24. Mobility is about context – It’s real time, via location.
  25. Bandwidth is the paper of the digital era. If you don’t have enough, get more bandwidth. No need to cut trees to get it.
  26. If someone calls himself a social media guru but not a social media STRATEGY guru, then he’s neither.
  27. Thought: why do we never hear case studies from gaming industry about recruiting?
  28. The era of the destination sites is over. The attention is gravitating towards the edge – social networks
  29. You haven’t made it as a blogger until you get a negative comment.
  30. T-shirt says it all: Foursquare – I am the mayor of my pants.
  31. Avoid pitching. Illustrate expertise not products. Share good content. Create a buyers channel. Offer help if interested.
  32. Interject into the conversation. Monitor and search, interject when appropriate
  33. One key theme at #smplus is leveraging employees as a social media asset.
  34. Yes! Everyone needs 2 think they’re in customer service 4 your company.
  35. Tap into your ee’s. Egaged ee’s are your best marketers, salesmen, and service reps – no matter the job title.
  36. Sprint employees (termed “social ninja’s“) encouraged 2 engage in social media as company advocates but not company spokespeople.
  37. Look at the social network usage of employees at the largest corporations – http://bit.ly/b2nkBU
  38. There is untapped gold in your employee social graphs.
  39. Everybody is a front line employee today.
  40. Pimp your brand and what your company is doing and have employee advocates! Make sure your SM efforts are driven by real people.
  41. Identify your evangelists and trust them to lead the charge.
  42. Overshare with others, even if they are competitors.
  43. Illustrate your expertise, not your catalog.
  44. Avoid pitching. Don’t say click my junk all the time.
  45. We’re going from contact-management to community management — from simple transactions to relationships.
  46. Our intent can be plural. Contribute & market & learn & engage.
  47. Not being perceived as an early adopter but an early achiever is a fine line 2 walk.
  48. Build trust by being there when your customers have a question.
  49. 112% increase of people accessing Facebook thru mobile in 3 months.
  50. Advocate communication and training when it comes to setting up a company-wide social media initiative.
  51. Tip: if you’re a brand, grab the Twitter handle early – people like to hijack names.
  52. Companies should remember that we are serving – it’s the audience that we serve and not product roadmaps.
  53. “We can glean trust from even quick little interactions” < The Art of Conversation.
  54. I really like what @zappos is doing socially with http://twitter.zappos.com/ – The ultimate in corporate transparency and responsibility!
  55. Social Media doesn’t kill productivity; unmotivated workers do.
  56. http://www.stopblocking.org – tips to help stop blocking social media sites for employees. Stats on employee productivity.
  57. Re: blocking social media at work: At some point, you will not imagine doing your work w/o social media. Exactly.
  58. Top 4 reasons for blocking SM: productivity, loose lips, IT security, and bandwidth.
  59. Access to social networks leads to an increase in productivity (by 9%)
  60. 54% of orgs block access to social media. Can we say epic fail?
  61. Love the common themes in sessions – trust, conversations, connections, authenticity.
  62. Consumers want like minded people for recommendations and referrals. They don’t want conversations to become SPAM.
  63. Every presenter so far has said exactly this, “find out where your target market is and where they are”.
  64. No matter how bad the news is, it is better you tell it.
  65. On Twitter: re: Customer Service: Easier to be mad at a logo, not a pic of a real person! Personalize your relationship.
  66. We live in an area of the 140 character news cycle and if u don’t have it flooded, other people will with their news.
  67. Good blog post: “Community Manager Goals and Responsibilities”http://tinyurl.com/288zpcv
  68. “…no one cares about your company, we want your content. When u pitch u lose us!”
  69. Social Media Rebellion Coming Against Marketers http://amplify.com/u/6dvv
  70. Era of destination website is over. Still need sites, but traffic is dropping in favor of social sites.
  71. Social media leads are 25% more likely to become sales opportunities (http://www.genius.com).
  72. Leaderboard for #smplustweets @wthashtag http://wthashtag.com/smplus
  73. Only 24% of people are creating original material – so by RT’ing this I join the 76% – cogito ergo sum.
  74. Canadian Rev Agency video contest – http://bit.ly/cej7Ib
  75. Social media is here to stay… And more and more, it will permeate everything we interact with.
  76. Most orgs completely unprepared 4 what could happen online: e.g. Nestle & Greenpeace.
  77. Nestle’s SM failure? Instead of embracing feedback, they picked a fight. Result – substantial negative feedback.
  78. Social media will not be the destination – it will be everywhere you go.
  79. People don’t want to have a relationship w/all brands. What they want is to have a company address their questions problems & issues.
  80. People generally don’t want to have a relationship with the brand. Who wants a relationship with toilet paper?
  81. A brand is a gut feeling about a product or service..
  82. You can’t control brand message but you can control your brand relationships.
  83. When you build value, are you thinking of intangible or tangible value? All value is perceived; make sure your brand has both.
  84. People want to be taken care of when they have an issue, and want to be listened to when they have an idea.
  85. Are we engaging our consumers with the right conversations? Need to talk about business practices w/consumers.
  86. Find out where people are talking about your competitor and join the conversation to offer choices.
  87. Word-of-mouth drives 70% of all commerce in US (McKinsey) – why doesn’t marketing $ reflect that?
  88. Separate from the connections, Twitter makes you become a better writer because you have to be more concise.
  89. Data shows more people go to social sites for product info rather than the brand’s home page.
  90. Twitter is here/now and blogs are more legacy. So what about magpie or starring certain positive updates on your brand stream?
  91. Word of mouth one of the strongest ways to get people to buy. So why don’t many leaders don’t get? Lack of control.
  92. 95% don’t trust ads, 92% don’t trust what cos say, 91% don’t trust cos to act in consumer best interests.
  93. Over 90% of people really don’t believe anything that comes from the mouth of a company. Especially BP!
  94. Oil spill forced BP to create social strategy.
  95. Unfortunately, many companies avoid SM (until a crisis pulls them in), rather than prepare and join-in.
  96. 33% of social media users believe cos are interested in them. 93% say cos should be on social media.
  97. People are dividing their attention based upon on what resonates with them.
  98. The only company that needs a YouTube strategy is YouTube. For the rest of us it is a tactic.
  99. Social media helps you get unstuck because there is a community to help you with what you need.
  100. “Start with the free stuff first,” social monitoring tools – you bet!
  101. Social media likened to a garage. Some stuff used every day, some stuff every once in a while, and all of it is a mess.
  102. “Getting it Right: Social Network Recruiting”: http://ning.it/a95fXu
  103. Check out these sites: http://hubspot.com http://twitanalyzer.com http://refollow.com
  104. Wise words for job seekers: “Don’t go on Facebook drunk”.
  105. Cool tip for job hunters. Target company employees on FB.
  106. Using RSS to Job Hunt: http://ow.ly/1PABa
  107. If you’re not posting blogs every day, find other ways (e.g. comments) to get your name and ideas out there.
  108. Don’t get timid. Find out so you can correct it! -> when told, “you suck”, ask, “well how do I suck”.
  109. Best place to start social media measurement is with a Brand Audit.
  110. Measure: increase revenue, decrease cost, increase cust satisf’n. Arrange tracking. Unique URL, landing page, 800#. Set benchmarks.
  111. Top 3 measures: visitors, network size, and quantity of commentary. What, no quality?
  112. Data data data! What good is yapping on SM sites when you can’t tell what the results are or who you are reaching?
  113. Adding a share button helps you figure out where your customers are talking.
  114. Social Media is creating “compression” around customers not “convergence” across Marketing, PR, Services
  115. @comcastcares can’t wait to see your new FB page with the service tab & other goodies.
  116. How many people does @comcastcares employ? 10 people. 1 person monitors blogs (among other things).
  117. If anyone else asks me about a silver bullet, get me a gun. SM takes good, hard work; no more and no less!
  118. Turn messaging into conversation starters.
  119. Embed bit.ly links into mktg campaigns to track SM response. Wonder if that works with Google urchin tags. Anyone?
  120. Great insight into writing content that aligns with buyers decision journey – http://tinyurl.com/yfol4x7
  121. If you market to a gear head you better be a gear head.
  122. The key to social media is speed – opposite of PR.
  123. One of the best reasons to be online is to be found.
  124. Use IaaS to scale quickly and then scale down based on trends. Very cool concept. Company jumped from a few servers to 5000 in week.
  125. You have 30 seconds to capture someone’s attention.
  126. Using Gmail to find your customers on Facebook and Twitter!! AMAZING!
  127. Marketing and how SM ties into it. 5 R’s: Relevance, Receptivity, Responsiveness, Recognition, Relate.
  128. Oddly enough, my mom taught me a lot of social media policies… but she called them manners.
  129. Use the “Mom rule” when posting content online — if you wouldn’t want your mom to see it you shouldn’t be posting it.
  130. It’s an oversimplification to say that SM policy is just about being polite, that’s part of it. There’s more to it that for brands.
  131. Don’t ask the lawyers “can we do this?” but “how can we do this?”
  132. Seems most legal concerns really revolve around the fact Legal can’t install chips in our brains to jolt us when we think.
  133. Compliance is always the goal with social media. Risks include control, bandwidth, cybersmearing, negative press, etc.
  134. Largest age group using social media is 35-44 at 25%.
  135. 65+ men and women – 3rd most visited web page is Facebook.
  136. Women over 55 were the fastest growing demographic on Facebook last year; added 10 million profiles.
  137. 35-44 age group is the largest age group that uses Social Networking.
  138. 30 case social media case studies http://bit.ly/aHR7v4
  139. You cannot start with tools. First (after people) define objectives & goals, then strategy/tactics.
  140. Not one CEO in the Fortune 100 has a blog. Chickens!
  141. No Fortune 100 CEO with social profile including Linkedin. They should – to be more authentic.
  142. Advice to C-level Execs: Don’t Say anything stupid, be nice, don’t give away trade secrets.
  143. C-suite: don’t fear going into social media – fear NOT going in.
  144. Senior Management is blinded by the numbers. They want numbers, but they don’t know what to do with them.
  145. C-suite, esp of publicly-traded companies, can B translucent but not transparent on social media.
  146. Social Media needs buy-in from senior management to be successful.
  147. If there is a theme to #smplus, it is definitely “look before you leap” – don’t get into SM until you have an aligned strategy.
  148. “A good reputation is more valuable than money.” Isn’t that in the Bible somewhere?
  149. People don’t buy what you make, they buy why you make it.
  150. I don’t do presentations…I don’t do “Decks”…I have conversations.
  151. Marketing is the ability to bring brands across an increasing # of media.
  152. Marketing s/b responsible for Website, Blog and Social Media. Sales should have access to them.
  153. What can Marketing do to engage sales in Social Media? Send them a lead that gets them a deal!
  154. Why should sales participate in SM? If they could stand next to the fax machine and pull off orders they would. Dated, but yeah.
  155. Sales 2.0 is about shift from hard selling to helping customers buy from us.
  156. Let mkt people lead the conversation. They lead with the proper messaging. Allow sales to contribute to that discussion.
  157. The key to aligning S & M is attacking the process. Getting two groups together: http://yfrog.com/6ghh1zj (grin)
  158. Marketing 1.0 “spam cannons”; “what color is our company”; “sales can’t even be in same room”.
  159. Favorite piece of knowledge: “Add value, don’t extract it.”
  160. I like SM policies b/c they can help cos relax & focus on ways 2 help employees participate
  161. After launching SM guidelines, set a date a year later to review and talk about successes/fails.
  162. Policy as order makes me cringe in general, but it doesn’t have to. Our policy is 3 bullet points.
  163. Nordstrom’s has a one rule corporate policy – use good judgment in everything you do. There is no rule #2.
  164. Don’t assume employees know the social web risks, spell it out in your policy.
  165. Tell people the real risks of using SM improperly. Use real-life examples (of which there are plenty).
  166. Key takeaway, you have to set your employees up to succeed and to do that, you need to educate them!
  167. Don’t ban – educate. Study by U. of Melbourne shows that people engaged in social media are more productive.
  168. I hate social media policies. It’s the perpetuation of myth that employees need policy to communicate.
  169. Only 29% Of Companies Have A Social Media Policy: http://bit.ly/b8hZzT
  170. Not a policy to communicate it can dictate what is & is not acceptable to share, relevant in highly regulated industries.
  171. Implement a social media policy that reflects the company’s values.
  172. Education + guidelines/governance applied 2 asset audit (ID social/digital best practices) + social ideation = blueprint for success.
  173. Engage, Contribute, add Value, Join conversation and turn it around really, really fast.
  174. In the last few weeks, 1100 social media jobs posted on Monster.
  175. Small biz – use your FB page to promote the community as well as the personal. Helps engage 2-way conversations.
  176. Are many who believe SM is a realtime thought stream. Sad, but you do need to tell people how to properly communicate…
  177. Be transparent and credible at all times.
  178. See http://groundswell.com. They lump ppl in 6 categories but it comes down to 90 lurk, 7 contribute and 3 create out of 100.
  179. I think the myth is that employers need to control all communication media.
  180. Interesting thought – consider separate twitter acct for diff products.
  181. New reality for marketers to create and nurture conversations.
  182. Not all businesses are or belong on Yelp, not all businesses have easily accessible target audience or content that’s easy 2 share.
  183. Banning SM in the workplace is a bad idea. Period. Employees are your brand… When your brand is unhappy… Duh.
  184. Some still use Yellow Pages … to prop up broken furniture. Heh.
  185. Advice to everyone – get a signup form on your Facebook page.
  186. Everyone is in customer service. Conversations with people are the 3rd most trusted source for information.
  187. 5 things to create your “Army of David’s” for social media in the work place: [1] Get Senior Mgmt in place [2] Have social media policy in place. [3] Get everyone involved- HR, PR, Corp communications. [4] Determine who will speak on your behalf [5] Have monitoring tools in place.
  188. 9 ways brands are using social media effectively: [1] Create more utility: USPS Virtual Box Simulator; Sherwin Williams; iPhone app – iPee. [2] Be bigger than what you sell: Huggies crowdsourcing “mom inspired” ideas [3] Offer talkable surprises: Mr.Lucky’s Cafe at the Hard Rock Café – gamblers special $7.77 not on the menu [4] Answer latent but important questions: DTXTR to translate teen text speak to actual English [5] Recruit through real stories and people [6] Use SM to enhance what you’re doing now, take unique moments, make them special: UK bev. maker had guy w/camera stream annual mtg. [7] Put Use a calendar to create anticipation and map out the content you plan on sharing – helps to strategize [8] Identify your company voices: Flickr page with photos of the people behind the P&G social media account [9] Curate content along w/creating it.
  189. Yahoo answers, if you’re not answering questions re: your brand, you’re missing out.
  190. Blogging grew 68% in 2008.
  191. Follow the UAT formula: be unique, authentic, talkable.
  192. Everyone needs to think of themselves as customer service reps. You represent your company. Your people are your brand! So true!
  193. 25% of small businesses use social media, which has doubled from last year.
  194. Action plan – Join communities, comment on blogs, ans ?s, thank biz reviewers, and look for guest post opportunities.
  195. Give more than you extract (from social media).
  196. People use data and Internet on phone more than they make phone calls.
  197. Setup Google Alerts to track your company and keywords.
  198. How many friends you have on fb, etc, doesn’t matter – how many you can build a business relationship with does.
  199. Strangers are shaping your brand.
  200. Forrester says 16% of online Americans are mass influencers.
  201. People are tribal by nature.
  202. Create insider moments for your customers to share. IMO…So true.
  203. In social media the internet is our database – Never thought of it that way.
  204. Be real. Be nice. Tell the truth. Under promise. Over deliver.
  205. Companies very active in social media see greater revenue growth, gross margin gross & net margin growth than those that do not.
  206. Companies that respond quickly to Social Media comments can gain a follower for just responding! Has this happened to you? I agree!
  207. Don’t know if Facebook will be here in 3 years, but we know there will be something else – be willing to shift with the movement.
  208. Social Capital – Like the Aunt you love – we are predisposed because people have done nice things for you.
  209. Most companies have centralized social media around PR, but that’s limiting and not useful anymore.
  210. Personifying your brand can be done by providing content pieces to create a single voice using multiple sources.
  211. If you want to be part of the community, you have to play by the community rules.
  212. “Common thought == common user experience”. Company standards are important parts of successful SM.
  213. Creating videos for corporate use? Brand a YouTube channel. Interesting tip.
  214. If you need to search Flickr, try http://compfight.com. It’s been so useful for me. Search for “Creative Commons” licensed content.
  215. Yes, but what do they actually sell? Financial client list might surprise you: http://ow.ly/i/1K3K
  216. People. Objectives. Strategy. Technology. POST in this order. Not tech 1st.
  217. One of the main goals in using social media in HR recruiting: build a pipeline of followers.
  218. Unisys estimates they saved a million dollars in HR recruiting costs by using social media.
  219. SM & HR: access to competitor’s talent, better tools to attract, easy to get followers, and easy for candidates to contact you.
  220. Use http://www.flowtown.com/ to market yourself on the social networks where your customers are. Shape your message appropriately. Connects w @mailchimp.
  221. SM can be faster and more frequented than search engines to find content.
  222. Transparency matters; Authenticity is more important. Genuine intention trumps nuts & bolts processes.
  223. Create blogs, FB, everything … create a social media presence with a purpose.
  224. IT folks talking about harnessing rather than controlling online interaction. Refreshing.
  225. Faberge Shampoo – Classic social media example, http://ow.ly/1PxX4
  226. Social media is not one bucket – it’s lots and lots of different buckets – different for every company.
  227. Sharing ‘insider moments’ with customers can be a powerful social media tool for a brand.
  228. Virtual trust is real and powerful & being faceless doesn’t work & media is circular.
  229. People need a face in order 2 have a connection & loyalty or they don’t want to tell others about your brand.
  230. Your challenge on SM is not to suck. Hopefully, by the end of today, you now have the tools not to suck!

8 Comments so far
Leave a comment

Ian,

Thanks so much for putting this together. The live-tweeting added so much depth to the conference, helping everyone connect and share the important tips they were learning, especially for the sessions others couldn’t attend.

I know you have an interest in presenting as well. I just posted a review of some of the presentation takeaways from the #SMPlus conference. I think you may enjoy it, even though you weren’t able to attend.

Thanks for the insightful (and quite thorough) post, and I’m glad to hear that those who couldn’t make it were getting value by following the tweet-stream. It makes me feel much less guilty for tweeting in such rapid succession.

Jon Thomas
Presentation Advisors

Wow. Fantastic list! I was unable to attend this year, but took notes of the tweets as I had time for. This post really adds to what I learned. Thanks. I’ll link to it from my fan page http://www.Facebook.com/WebsiteROIGuy

thank you for compiling this great recap of #SMPlus a full recap and stats at http://wthashtag.com/Smplus

WOW! What a great list! Totally RTing this one… I even see 5 or 6 of my tweets up there!

Additional material: Connie Benson, presentation “Measuring Social Media Effectiveness” http://bit.ly/94vZdO

Great summary, best I have seen from the conf . Would be interested in a few posts challenging some of the tweets. like 205 and 156 .

Presentations now available on the Social Media Plus website.

Wow, this is like drinking from a fire hose. Simply a great resource you’ve compiled. Many thanks!



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