A Recap of Social Media BDI Conference in New York

On Thursday November 12th, I had the opportunity to attend a great conference in New York City sponsored by the Business Development Institute on Social Media. The event had Companies like McDonalds, Jet Blue, Godiva Chocolates, AMD, and SAP present their Best Practices around Social Media in their companies. Special thanks to Jamie Haenggi of Vonage and the Marketing team for the invite. Attached are some of the highlights of the event.

Key Quotes/Mentions

• 93% of Americans want Brands to Engage in Social Media. – Michael Chin of KickApps.Com


• If you ask yourself what the ROI of social media is, ask yourself what the ROI is if you ignore it. – Tweet.

Jet Blue Presentation

• On Usage of Twitter - Morgan Johnston of Jet Blue says 6 people support 1.4 million followers on Twitter for things related to Customer Support, Customer Complaints, etc.


• On Online Support - An interesting thing he noted on Support Content is that on their website they externally link to resources/sites that will help their customers. Like a reference to Time Zones in the U.S. They opted not to recreate the content, just externally link to it. At Vonage, there is a lot of opportunity for us to do this with International Dialing and Country Codes.


• On Social Media Tools –
  
  
  
  1. Jet Blue utilizes CoTweet (www.cotweet.com) to track their tickets in Twitter. It is the Ticketing System for Twitter and it is FREE.
  
  
  2. They use TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com) for Listening and Monitoring Conversations.
  
  
  3. They also use Seesmic for monitoring.
  
  
  
  

McDonalds Summary

• The McDonalds presentation was interrupted in the first 5 minutes by some anti chicken PETA Protesters who yelled "McCruelty.Com" and passed out pamphlets. This was an interesting opening as many people tweeted that McDonald's got "KanYeD!"


• Their Twitter usage was around using the tool for Customer Satisfaction. They have about 6 – 8 staff members who monitor twitter for Customer Satisfaction issues.


• They use Face book for all sorts of Promotional Campaigns, Contests, Idea Generation, and Events. They noted several examples of how their customers helped to suggest new food product ideas, music for their commercials, and more.

Social CRM

• This is a big buzz word in the industry now. But not many people understand what Social Customer Relationship Management is. In a nutshell, it is the Social Media tools, processes, and technology used to manage your Customer Relationship across networks like Twitter, Facebook, Forums, etc.


• Traditional CRM was about managing your Customer Relationships using traditional systems and methods in the Sales, Marketing, and Customer Support area. Some examples below:
  
  
  
  • In Sales – you were cold calling, looking at your pipeline, and calling and email till you can close a deal.
  
  
  • In Marketing, you buy lists for lead generation/conduct events, etc.
  
  
  • For Customer Support – You let your Customers Call you and You Log the Ticket.
  
  
  
  

Social CRM is all about:

• In Sales – Listening to Social Conversations, Engaging Customers or Prospects, Adding Value to the Conversation, Warm Calling, and then making the sale.


• In Marketing – You are Monitoring Social Conversations, Capturing and Engaging the Key Influencers of your Product while establishing relationships with them, Running Campaigns and Ads on Facebook, Twitter, and Measuring the ROI.


• In Customer Support – You’re providing Pro Active Support by listening, engaging, and resolving in real-time across social networks.

Well that was about it. What are your thoughts?