116 top tweets from #ragancisco

The Ragan Social Media Summit, hosted by Cisco Systems, was held in San Jose June 9-11, 2010.

The event promised the latest Web 2.0 strategies for PR, marketing and corporate communications.

Attendees generated over 2,700 tweets under the hashtag #ragancisco.

Ragan Social Media Summit at Cisco

Twitter is ephemeral. It only maintains 10-14 days of content, so this information will soon disappear. However, here’s a useful permanent archive all of the tweets. 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 listing of “top tweets” I first experimented with at the Detroit Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference at the GM Headquarters in May, I’ve curated a list of 116 tweets I found most content-rich and interesting; adding links where appropriate for easy reference; consolidating others; editorializing.

Full disclosure: I am employed by Cisco as an executive communications manager.

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

Please share your own experiences of the event in the blog comments (or on Twitter!). Let me know which of the many suggestions were of interest and how you’ve implemented the ideas you picked up at #ragancisco. If I omitted your favorite tweet please add it to the comments below.

Enjoy!

  1. A listing of Twitter handles for presenters at the event.
  2. @codella: my slides published for 17 social media tools.
  3. Notes from @JeanetteG ‘s excellent talk on social media evolution.
  4. @jowyang slides: On Future Trends in social media.
  5. @GuyKawasaki is running his preso from this excellent list of sources.
  6. Brands breaking boundaries: Notes on a great talk by @Britopian of @EdelmanDigital
  7. @JeanetteG asks What’s your “twitch” – your business pitch in 140 characters. Tweet it!
  8. Cisco started Social Media by blogging in 2005 (high-tech policy blog). Today 25% of blogs are video blogs. 5X more retention.
  9. Videos need to be “snackable” … 90 seconds or under typically.
  10. 60% of Cisco social engagements are on Twitter.
  11. We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it?
  12. Once on the net, it is there forever — no do-overs. Twitter is even archived by the Library of Congress.
  13. “People die, but their posts never do.”
  14. “Deleted messages often reappear in court” one can’t erase messages in social media.
  15. Whirlwind tour of over 30 social media tools by @codella – learned about this directory of social sites.
  16. Instead of a 30-page white paper, consider doing 10 or so blogs. Have employees use Flip cameras to save video production $
  17. Cisco saved $250k in one launch using the corporate blog!
  18. Cisco encourages all employees 2 use internal & ext social media, but NO ANONYMOUS POSTINGS-keeps ppl in check when posting online.
  19. Cisco & video. THEN: video blogs, video data sheets, web video. NOW: meaningful engagement: public Q&A using video+Twitter+blog.
  20. Use of Flip camera: NBC+Cisco Flip Sponsorship during 2010 Winter Games. 292,000+ mins watched. Showing video w/ Queen Latifah.
  21. Live customer polling via Twitter is way cheaper than other ways of doing it.
  22. @Cisco has 2 versions of their press releases in their newsroom 1. Social media press release 2. Traditional version.
  23. Cisco’s currently tracking >20k social mentions per week.
  24. Cisco is using crowd sourcing with the Cisco I-Prize to get new ideas prize= $250K http://ow.ly/1WMj7 cool stuff!
  25. Check out A Special Valentine’s Day Gift ….from Cisco.
  26. 54% of companies still block social media – Stopblocking.org a resource you can use.
  27. If you Block Social ask your CEO these Q’s: What does it say about culture? Trust? Innovation? Attracting employees?
  28. Suggestion to sell stock if you hold it in companies that block their employees from social media. Competitive disadvantage.
  29. Lower video quality is an okay trade off for increased timeliness & better transparency. Some call it “scrappy” video.
  30. “The purpose of a business is to create customers who create customers” says @kirasw of Ant’s Eye View. 40% of twitter users have recommended a product or service.
  31. 97% of your customers are using search to research products/services.
  32. Why use social media: 1/because of solution selling. Customers have pain points, not needs.
  33. Social media policy is about allowing confident and competent engagement online.
  34. Intuit told all the dev team: spent 10 minutes a day on their community…their code got better.
  35. Social media team trying to increase engagement, cctr team trying to reduce call volume. …not on same page.
  36. Customers expose/show you your silos all day long on social web. Like a mirror showing your flaws.
  37. Put a screen in front of execs showing what customers really say (not just a metric of customer satisfaction based on survey).
  38. Brands become believable when they listen AND ENGAGE. Listening not enough: http://ow.ly/1WQir
  39. Intel humanizes the brand through video! “A Rock Star is Born”
  40. Wow! Cisco’s TelePresence is amazing! @LionelatDell speaking from Dell’s headquarters to communicators at Cisco.
  41. You know your brand is socially relevant when your content is shared without you asking.
  42. Common blogging error … Not giving the reader a clear next step that keeps them on your site.
  43. Marketers who don’t sell a product should use traffic analytics as justification, not the typical metric of product sales.
  44. Focus on what your customers want more than what “outside experts” recommend for social media.
  45. Twitter is no more a social marketing plan than a phone is a telemarketing plan.
  46. Fact – there are over 20M tweets per day.
  47. Social media is word of mouth on steroids!
  48. The more people you know, the more you can do.
  49. Consumer 1.0 gets unhappy and just doesn’t come back. Consumer 2.0 gets unhappy and shares with the world their opinion.
  50. In social media you don’t need be fancy; you just need to be useful.
  51. Millennials grew up on mobile screens that’s where they live & one day they will have $$ to spend! Do you have a mobile strategy?
  52. You can’t prevent Facebook usage in the enterprise because of mobile devices!
  53. Email is the original social media. Don’t leave it behind. Still relevant and great for 1:1 communications.
  54. Social media does not create buzz, it uncovers the buzz -that’s when we should react to the buzz.
  55. “If you talked to people the way advertisers talk to people, they’d punch you in the face.”
  56. Twitter is your new (low barrier) newsroom.
  57. Yahoo Pipes will pull all your content together – “everyone who uses it loves it”
  58. EMC took an inside-out approach to drive social proficiency with employees first.
  59. Now: Everywhere: EMC Gang: 500 emp. on Twitter w/ 90K collective followers, 25 public bloggers w/ 2M unique visits in 2Q last yr.
  60. Community-generated example- 450 ideas with 20k views on “how to save EMC money” during dark days of 2009.
  61. Great tips for Online Press Release: Use key word search engines before you write your story and use it a lot.
  62. Social web is catching up with the many human interactions we have had since the beginning of time. Not new and scary.
  63. Key to productive social media: educate, enable, & scale, teach best practices, etiquette, goals, and have social playbooks.
  64. Never say anything online you wouldn’t say to someone’s face.
  65. Etiquette in social is key and must be learned because ur reach is bigger than u think it is.
  66. By 2020 there will be enough digital info that two stacks of DVDs will reach 1/2 way to Mars @LenDevanna. Now there’s a picture.
  67. It’s in your best interest 2 figure out collaboration/knowledge sharing/social media b/c your next employer will expect it of u.
  68. Part of a successful corp. social media strategy: Put someone in charge.SM should ultimately be pervasive throughout.
  69. Database of Corp Social Media Policies.
  70. @guykawasaki: Wow, have to go to work for Cisco. This is the speed there http://www.speedtest.net/result/843448685.png
  71. Guy Kawasaki: If your first rxn to Twitter was not ‘This is the dumbest thing ever’, you fail the IQ test. Then you find http://search.twitter.com
  72. Guy Kawasaki recommends following back on Twitter as polite, and notes you can’t DM unless you’ve been followed. Solicits DM’s.
  73. Engaged followers are more important than a high number of followers if you’re trying to sell – example Dell Outlet.
  74. Google searches like this one: ‘intext:”bio” “speechwriter communications” site:twitter.com’ find types of people.
  75. Spokeo.com – type in someone’s e-mail address and find out what social media channels they are using. Good for finding nut cases.
  76. How to find interesting stuff to tweet? Stumbleupon + Smartbrief + Alltop
  77. Grab links in 1 click to tweet out: Objectivemarketer.
  78. Source for nice photos on Boston.com/bigpicture
  79. Use “LinkedIn” on Twitter as it’s a popular topic and you’ll get RT
  80. @GuyKawasaki uses MarsEdit for blogging.
  81. Typinator – efficient way to creating repeat messages in email, blogs.
  82. There’s 2 kinds of people on Twitter 1/ ppl who care about how many followers they have and 2/ people who are liars.
  83. @GuyKawasaki aims to gain 500 followers on Twitter every day (every Tweet goes out four times to hit primetime)
  84. Email Extractor: grab email addresses from any text, remove junk. Spammers delight!
  85. Tweetmeme I love this! Drives traffic. A good approximation for measuring quality of posts.
  86. Who’s copying your text from your blog? Tynt knows…
  87. Compelling reasons for execs to begin tweeting: Life is all about embracing change, so experiment with it.
  88. Biz doing social media facing issues with scaling – too few employees, too many customers.
  89. 3 ways to scale: Harness the Rings of Influence, develop p2p systems, invest in social CRM.
  90. In social influence, prospects trust customers more than brand and customers trust employees more than brand.
  91. CEOs are NOT CREDIBLE among most US consumers (26% trust a CEO). Edelman Trust Barometer
  92. Crowds can work for you by developing robust customer communities. The self-service support model.
  93. Rather than ghost-write exec blog, have them do video or podcasts.
  94. The Intel Employees blogs give customers an “inside look” at their ops and lets outsiders interact w/ insiders.
  95. BestBuy example of @twelpforce as a way to allow thousands of employees to support customers.
  96. Wal-Mart failed at social media until it launched Elevenmoms that lets bloggers post on Wal-Mart site.
  97. Microsoft recognizes Most Valuable Professionals (MVP’s) annually – knowledgeable, passionate, etc. It’s a badge of honor.
  98. Google SideWiki shifts power to customers. Not big yet, but a hint of the future.
  99. Starbucks partners with Foursquare to empower check-in advocates. Expect more advocate programs.
  100. Prospecting: they may not be talking about you. So monitor their pain points, what they say about your competition.
  101. Reputation, ranking, ratings | helps identify top advocates. Example: TurboTax users rank Best Answers; Oracle Super Users recognized on leaderboard.
  102. What is social CRM? Connection between social web and your customer database.
  103. Starting with 5M’s for Social CRM-Monitoring, Mapping, Management, Middleware, Measurement.
  104. Make sure to do opt-in rather than scraping when you’re in a sensitive, maybe regulated area like healthcare. People get touchy.
  105. Prediction from @jowyang: Insurance cos. will use what you say/don’t say on social web to determine rates. So don’t advertise how many times you go to a bar, for instance.
  106. Will location-based social media platforms be used to affect your personal insurance rates?
  107. Whether a Fortune 500 company or a small business, the approach is the same: show customer care in a public way.
  108. Word clouds are a great way to visualize conversations and understand customer priorities.
  109. Adoption of tools requires pioneers to test them who then become educators Culture of innovation helps.
  110. Think of your social programs as parties. Be a host. Make it rock. Enable conversations, don’t drive all of them.
  111. Hallmark used #flip to record moms at a live event then post to YouTube to continue the conversation when ppl went home.
  112. More video was uploaded to YouTube in the last 2 months than if the major networks had been airing new content since 1948.
  113. Average life span of a Fortune 500 company: 40 yrs. – so how to live longer than 40 years as a company? Embrace change, experiment, learn, leverage.
  114. Three reasons you know you’re at #ragancisco: 1) Great people 2) Wifi is 5 bars strong and 3) You hear “bleep bleep” of flip cameras.
  115. @guykawasaki: At Cisco, there’s always something to aim at. http://yfrog.com/bgxqoj
  116. Not to mention that @cisco campus smells so amazing! Love the flowers!

13 Comments so far
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I enjoyed the summit. Here are a few of my favorite tweets from it that didn’t make your list (you got most of them):

@BurgessCT RT @dyarashus: RT @petra1400: Don’t be stupid is a great social media policy #ragancisco || really, it’s an excellent guide for all of life

@petra1400 Len: TRUST is an inherent part of the equation. Don’t be overly prescriptive in policy or concept. Leverage power of masses #ragancisco

@petra1400 Len Devanna of EMC says: Forcing behaviors won’t work. Educate, enable and scale #ragancisco

I’m glad I had a chance to attend and meet so many talented folks.

David

Thank you for posting this list. It’s really great and an example of collaboration in the social media space. Love it!

The Event Facebook Page has useful links and resources.

Re: #4 above: Very nice summary by @DavidBThomas of @jowyang’s presentation “Social media trends for corporations”

great list – thanks for putting it together

@davidbthomas from SAS summarizes the event in this YouTube video. “We are so over the Social Media 101 Social Media Conference. There is no-one left out there who wants to hear ‘You need to join the conversation’.”

This is AWESOME…thank you!

@petra1400 Some of my fav quotes per speaker from the Social Summit. Missed a few presenters, feel free to add.

@NewspaperGrl New Blog Post: How @GuyKawasaki Tweets

Kira Wampler issues a challenge: What’s one thing you’ll start based on what you learned from the conference?

Here’s a video from the event. Who’s that handsome gray-haired guy in the background at 1:02?

Just found the official Cisco video archives for this whole event – how cool is that!

Day 1 (be sure to click ‘Next’ at bottom of page).

Day 2

Enjoy!

How Social Media Helped Cisco Shave $100,000+ Off a Product Launch.



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