Last week LABEL, in collaboration with Starfish Community Group, launched its very own Social Media Roundtable: SM@RT. This initiative aims at gathering companies’ communication, marketing and social media representatives around a table (which in fact was square and not round) to discuss actual topics concerning social media. With presentations and debates animated by social media adepts (let’s not call them gurus or experts. As one speaker said, we all learn everyday about social media so no one can pretend to be an expert), the participants have the occasion to share their opinions and experience and learn best practice methods.

On October 28, in LABEL’s premises in Geneva, we were pleased to welcome about ten representatives from some of the biggest multinational companies and IGOs in the Lemanic arc. Already active on community platforms or for some intrigued, even careful, about them, our participants brought with them not only their curiosity but also challenging questions and real encountered situations to enrich the presentations of the event’s speakers.

With a presentation entitled “Social whatever”, first speaker of the day, Laurent Haug, founder of the LIFT Conference, introduced the challenges and opportunities with today’s social media and platforms.

Next speaker was John Horniblow, Head of Digital Marketing and Social Media at LABEL, who talked about engaging with fans and fanatics via communities. He reminded us that fans are a new economy, that they don’t just consume a brand’s product but also convince their network to try it. Basically, “Money spent on a fan is money spent on retention, recruitment, R&D and longetivity”. One good thing about social media and fans is that the latter “are now more easier and cost effective to find and engage online. Fans are practiced at voicing their opinions. Understanding their desires and motivations is absolutely critical.”

For the third presentation, participants at SM@RT were thrilled to discuss via teleconference with Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers and Secrets of Social Media Marketing and social media consultant. Conferencing from the United States, Paul presented the collapse of traditional media and how they will be replaced by which kind of new media. The discussion was a huge success with speaker, participants and organizers actively immersed in conversation and forgetting about the time schedule.

Finally, Piero Poli, from LABEL’s sister company Linqia, conducted a presentation and discussion about the monetization of online conversations. He reminded the essentials of a good and positive social conversation, which should entertain, inform, inspire, encourage and support.  In a social conversation one should be authentic, truthful, and transparent, have fun, aknowledge it’s not always about oneself and, above all, one should always be themselves. In short, a social conversation should be like a dinner party conversation: intimate.

With excellent feedback from our participants, LABEL is now looking forward to hosting the next roundtable in early 2010. As part of the initiative, a SM@RT online community is being created. Also viewable online is the flow of last week’s discussion at the Roundtable accessible looking for #SM@RT on Twitter.

Print PDF

Related posts:

1. A Digital Night with P & G – Buzzing Pampers Save a Baby social media campaign
2. Can Twitter & Social Media channels replace Mainstream Media ?
3. The Value Proposition and Value Exchange in Social Media

Tags: Brand Intelligence, Marketing 2.0

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 17:38 and is filed under Community, General, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.