Social Media for Business event

IdeaLoft, Barcelona, May 28th, 2010

Participants:

• Alex Puig, expert on Twitter, owner of Shotools. • Marisa Iturbide, brand strategist• Xavi Bermúdez, Product Manager at e-laCaixa• Enrique Rodríguez, owner at Datanauta• Jordi Valls, new digital products manager at Links40.• Genís Llamas, entrepreneur, founder of cosasderegalo.com and many others.• Lluís Saiz, general manager at Grup Idea• Jordi Puigdellívol, entrepreneur, investor & innovation manager.• Cristina Puig, social media for business strategist at Gotoclient• Jordi Marca, managing director at Gotoclient

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Index

1. What

2. Key questions

3. Before starting - 10 considerations

4. 10 recommendations to put in place your presence

5. Last word

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1. What

The first-ever Social Media for Business event hold in Spain took place in Barcelona, on May 28th earlier this year. Organised and lead by Gotoclient, we met in IdeaLoft of our sponsor Grup Idea. The event was filmed by our other sponsor, Links40.

Our 10 key experts in the region put their minds in order to ask the key question of the day: how can we translate our Social Media activities into real business? The event, as opposed to many in the web 2.0 world, uniquely managed to gather both Social Media experts and key managers interested in Social Media but still reluctant or unsure about how to utilise Social Media for their own organisations.

We had 4 hours of fully disruptive debate, with great ideas and, at the same time, great questions from the other-side-of-the-wall-people.

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2. Key questions

The key questions were the following:

* Why does an organisation need Social Media presence?* What is the structure our presence has to have?* Honestly - for most business, are Social Media important? * What the tangible benefits can we obtain?

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Alex Puig

Cristina Puig

Marisa Iturbide

Lluís Saiz

Jordi Valls

Jordi Marca

Enrique Rodríguez

Jordi Puigdellívol

Xavi BermúdezGenís Llamas

3. Before starting - 10 considerations

1. Value lies on distribution

One of the greatest ways you can use Social Media for your company is listening to the customer. Nowadays most organizations can launch a product after having listened to their end-users, as opposed to the traditional way, where you built a product, and you tried to say nice things about it so people would like it. Now you can just listen to your customers before developing a product.

Of course this implies a fundamental change for some people. Launch the product your customers want, now the one you want!

2. It’s a case by case answer

Social Media is not the new El Dorado, where anybody can go to and become a gold trader. Think about you, your culture, the way you do business, and then, try & translate this into a Social Media strategy.

3. Metrics are key

Any Social Media strategy - as anything in business - has to have a clear set of goals, supported by a set of metrics you will then be able to use to track your progress.

4. Web 2.0 world is a non-intermediary one

Brokers, dealers, intermediaries, commissioners and other kind of in-between-business functions will have a hard time. The end users talk to brands, who can now listen to them directly in a very easy way. Anyone with an Internet connection can talk, discuss, criticise, give feedback and, make decisions on our brand. The purchasing-decision process itself has now changed, and for a very large portion of the population is now based on the Internet. And we have to be ready to listen to brutal statements!

5. Don’t figure out how you want to be seen

You just want business using Social Media. The moment you figure out how you want to be seen by the users, you will be putting at risk your own profile. Your company, with its mantra, culture and people is exactly the same for offline, online, and web 2.0 business. You don’t have to manage several companies depending on the platforms you use. Therefore, just be yourself, don’t loose or change your brand philosophy.

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6. Give quality to the end-user

Do you think you can give crappy value to end users? Take another look at point 4) and you’ll get the answer. Also, try to manage Social Media as if you were managing one of this old cute shops were the customers had customized care.

7. Change your organization

Being customer oriented is not an option anymore. Now it’s the only way we can do business. Take into your consideration that now four different generations can buy. Two generations are not digital native, two are. The way the digital native people is just different to the non-digital ones. Companies should use collective intelligence and the information that the Internet provides, in other words, listen inside and listen outside.

8. Consider the geometrical growth effect

Once you start, you cannot stop. You will probably be able to put your foot on the brake pedal, but you won’t stop the car completely. You will foster people’s implication with your brand, and you won’t be able to stop them anymore. They will talk forever, on the one hand. On the other hand, you and your people will get addicted...

9. Host the party

Familiar with hosting a party and having to welcome people, open drinks, give the speech and clean? You’ll see a similar effect with Social Media. You’ll play, inform, foster, listen, ask and answer. However, think about who you are, and get everything done, of course, under a clear goal.

10. Be honest

If you’re not, you won’t survive. There’s a collective intelligence on the Internet that will not allow you not to be honest.

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4. 10 recommendations to put in place your presence

Before reading our experts panel recommendations, we’d like to talk to you about a couple of challenges you will have.

First, it’s important that the whole organisation is aware and buys-in your brand strategy. At the end of the day, that is what you will translate into Social Media. The reason why this is important is because all your people will have to be part of Social Media strategy. Remember, with Social Media, you will be fostering people’s discussions on your brand. The only real way, or at least, the safest one to do that is involve everyone in your company. Contact center people and reception folks are key to this. And of course sales, marketing and the general management. Train people so they know what is about to start and how they must react.

Secondly, take some time to think about what you sell. What are the key needs of our customers? Only if we know them precisely we will be able to utilise Social Media to channel our product differentiation. Now, the second question here is what the language you must use is and what is the relationship you want your customer to engage with.

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Okay, here are our 10 recommendations:

1. Make sure you have a consistent strategy

Build the Social Media strategy under your business strategy and make sure is consistent with it. Review everything and create a solid go-to-social-media-plan.

2. Make a pilot

Invest a little, try something, listen, and build from experience.

3. Make sense

Don’t talk for the sake of talking. Talk with sense. Make people listen to you based on the fact that you say interesting things.

4. Issues with Internet 1.0? Make the leap to 2.0.

You might be one of those that have a 10-year-old website and had a plan to update it. Don’t worry, go directly to 2.0. Today’s train is 2.0.

5. Learn from others Look at relevant companies in your market, try to understand what they are doing, learn from them.

6. Start by a blog

Write a blog so you can start and people can easily find you.

7. Be honest

Tell the truth. If you don’t know, tell people. People will value being honest more than anything else.

8. Be an opinion leader

Pick a key issue of your market and write about it. That will allow people to see you as a reference in that particular niche subject, and you will have a great place to grow from.

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9. Internalise something

Don’t give everything to agencies. Agencies will help you build a strategy and manage and implement your presence. But you have to have someone from the inside, breathing your business strategy involved.

10. Train

Build a training program for your people, split out by functions.

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5. Last word

Finally, our panel experts all agreed on the fact that the most important actor is the consumer. Transparency and respect are important. At the end of the day, not only we have to be honest in business, but users will recommend your product or not. And the only way you can make that happen is being honest.

Don’t fall into geeks’ religion and use technology for the sake of it, place the end user in the center of your activity.

If you do both things, in a strategy integrated mode, you will be able to get great ROI (Return on Ideas).

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