Frost & Sullivan: Using Social Media to Drive Demand

Michael Masnick, President and CEO of Techdirt, is leading this session exploring:

  1. Blogs
  2. Social Networks
  3. User Generated Content (YouTube, Flickr, etc.)
  4. Twitter
  5. Wikis
  6. Virtual Worlds (Second Life)
  7. User Reviews
  8. Employee Communities

Our key take-aways will be:

  1. A framework for understanding blogs & social media in terms of how they can be used to drive demand
  2. Case studies on a few different ways to engage with new media audiences
  3. Examples and insight into what works and what doesn’t in the social media space

There was a significant discussion over whether or not to respond to negative comments. One participant said his company’s blog is to provide a forum for customers, and that they don’t respond on the blog. Someone else raised a question: If an issue surfaces through the blog and you address it, why wouldn’t you go back and do a blog post to let everyone know that you had resolved it?One of our participants mentioned that his employer, TD Bank has a Facebook group or application. I’m not sure whether I’m seeing the one he’s mentioned, because it may be limited to Canada. Its competitor RBC has a sponsored group, too.

There was a lot of discussion about ROI and metrics. From my perspective, the key is making the “I” part of the ROI equation as small as possible. Train employees to engage as volunteers. Get customers involved. Provide the platform for them to have discussions. With little expense, it makes the return (much of which may be hard to quantify) easier to demonstrate.

When we broke into roundtables to work on case studies, I was with three consultants so my employer, Mayo Clinic, was the only organization left. So I had the benefit of Kevin Hoffberg, Ginger Conlon and Anne Smith Rainey (from Publicis Modem) giving their advice based on what we’re doing. Kevin is blogging their recommendations for Mayo Clinic, as well as those from the other groups for U.S. Bank, Pfizer and Armstrong.

Author: Lee Aase

Husband of one, father of six, grandfather of 15. Chancellor Emeritus, SMUG. Emeritus staff of Mayo Clinic. Founder of HELPcare and Administrator for HELPcare Clinic.

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