Top Ten Takeaways - Social Networking Conference 2010

I enjoyed meeting other community managers, social media practitioners, and marketing and business professionals at last week's Social Networking Conference in Miami. It was an exciting opportunity to learn from people in the trenches, who are quietly revolutionizing the way their companies do business on the Web and behind the corporate firewall. Here then, are my top ten takeaways:

1. Your job as a community manager is to have your community face each other (and not you).
   
   Simple but true. Think of an offline meeting. The seating arrangement that stimulates dialogue and encourages people to get to know one another is a roundtable, not a classroom-style layout. Kudos to @RahulnB for sharing.
   
   
2. Federal Agencies like the CDC are leading with way with smart and effective use of social media.
   
   Forget old ideas about stodgy government institutions rooted in the past. Some of the most innovative and comprehensive social media programs are coming out of the Centers for Disease Control. Not convinced? Check out the CDC's social media page, managed by @bujulicious and her team. It's loaded with tools, dashboards, best practices — an all around excellent resource for community managers.
   
   
3. Corporations are developing social networks inside the firewall to run their businesses.
   
   LinkedIn and Facebook cut to the chase and let business and relationships happen faster. Dow Jones is reinventing the idea of a corporate directory by enabling employees to create personal networks from existing contact information stored in email address books. @simonb educated on key learnings: garbage-in, garbage-out applies, curating contact data and profiles is important, as is setting up rules for sharing of personal data to avoid abuses.
   
   
4. Practice common sense meeting new people using social media — don't be a victim.
   
   Have you ever received a desperate message from a friend of a friend over a social network, asking to you to send money now and rescue them from being lost and hungry in a foreign country? According to our friends at the FBI, this is a common ploy to separate you from your hard-earned cash. Even the smartest person can be taken. Don't be embarrassed, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is there to help.
   
   
5. Research says that social networkers are a) not that social b) can be convinced to pay for social networking services and b) are concerned about privacy (or are they)?
   
   Alcatel-Lucent surveyed thousands of people across different age groups and demographics to arrive at these somewhat controversial findings. What's not clear is how communities, and the different member archetypes — connectors, lurkers, collectors and so on — figure into this research. Still, I count myself among many who would gladly pay for more robust twitter services, like reporting and analytics on the reach and influence of my tweets and the people I follow. Thanks to Allison Cerra for sharing the research.
   
   
6. Mobile social networks are a sleeping giant.
   
   @schapsis says that untethering yourself from a desktop Web browser opens up a world of interesting and exciting possibilities. Time and place matters for people on the go, and the mobile phone is ideally suited as an immediate and ubiquitous communication tool.  A mobile social network uses location, geotagging, being "in the moment" for green field opportunities.  My favorite mobility app: FourSquare.
   
   
7. 20% of twitter posts mention brands, positive or negative. People are writing about you, whether you like it or not.
   
   @alexdc advises companies to protect their brands and have a risk management and mitigation plan in place BEFORE you end up being punk'd by social media. There are many free and for-pay tools for listening, monitoring, and responding, so there really is no good reason you shouldn't be engaged.
   
   
8. Facebook is a web marketer's wet dream.
   
   The numbers are impressive. Over 350 million users. One of out every three people online. 8 billion minutes spent on Facebook, every day. While Facebook is pushing the boundaries in what people are willing to share with the world about themselves — tastes, preferences, age, friends, buying habits — a marketer can't ignore the opportunities to find buyers faster. Do me a favor — go buy @clarashih's book,  The Facebook Era, Marketing Success Stories and write your own success story.
   
   
9. Social media and business: it's not about the fun, it's about the dollars.
   
   @sandy_carter has to show her boss the money, and prove the ROI for the social programs she manages. She successfully uses twitter and LinkedIn for business campaigns with zero incremental cost, and the lowest industry cost per lead. Amazing!
   
   
10. "Social networking is now a life necessity, like WiFi and oxygen. It permeates business, too."
    
    Hey, hey, my, my. Social networking will never die. Tools will come and go, but the underlying life and world changing forces brought about by the social media revolution are here to stay. Quote attributed to @DozierLaw.

Comments

[Allison Aldridge-Saur]

Really appreciate this post, Lou! These are great themes. I found #1 and #2 very insightful. Many business starting out in Social Media are still struggling to make the shift from thinking in terms of a marketing bullhorn to a community dynamic.
And the CDC example is a great study in how progressive government entities, who are very risk adverse on PR should be leveraging the social space online.
Thanks!!

[Paul Kasper]

Lou,

First, I want to thank you for twittering during the conference. I really enjoyed the updates throughout the day.

And, this list is great. My favorite one is the first one, "Your job as a community manager is to have your community face each other (and not you)." It's like the age-old adage about teaching a man to fish. Your community cannot really grow if everything revolves around one person, and if you don't empower the larger community.

In one of your future posts, I would really like you to expand on this topic.

[Lou Ordorica]

Thank You, Allison and Paul. Putting the needs of your community first, being their advocate, and putting the spotlight on their contributions, are all good examples of #1. I'll go into this in future blog posts. Have a great weekend!

[Matt Zellmer]

I second Paul's comments about the Twitter posts during the conference. And I'm all for lists of "Top Ten Takeaways" so thanks for posting these as well.

I obviously don't know what most companies are doing internally but based on my limited experience I'd say there is a lot of untapped potential in #3. Widespread use of internal social tools could really improve communication, relationships, and results for a corporation.

[Marc Lesnick]

Thanks Lou for your post on the event. We had some really great sessions, and the attendance was grade A fortune 1000 SN execs.

Marc Lesnick

[Jennifer Roberts]

Hi Lou,

What do you mean by "LinkedIn and Facebook cut to the chase and let business and relationships happen faster." ? I can see how LinkedIn might encourage business relationships to evolve faster. Are you suggesting Facebook business pages?

-Jennfier

[Lou Ordorica]

Hi Jennifer,

Businesses are using Facebook Fan pages to attract new customers, and to also stay in touch with the customer base. For example, Toyota USA is a good example of a corporation using Facebook for discussions about the company's products. You see a fair number of loyal customers voicing their support for Toyota during the safety recalls, for example. These fans are probably influencing potential buyers who might be re-considering their next car purchase.

Toyota is going to where it's customers live on the network, and for many, that is Facebook.

Thanks for your question!