I attended Silicon Valley Brand Forum on social media late last week…perhaps my tenth such conference. This one was different. The keynote was Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group, a guy who really knows this space, and the panel was made up of roll-up-your-sleeves practioners from EBay, Electronic Arts, and Cisco. Steve Farnsworth provided a tutorial on setting up a listening dashboard that turned out to be very easy to execute. I came away with some new thoughts and have already put some of them into practice.

Some of the notions worth sharing from the panel discussion:

-Much to the chagrin of most senior managers, social media is not free. You must have an organization to execute the programs–Jaap Tuinman, EA

-One tweet can ignite a crisis. the key is not to panic–Jeanette Gibson, Cisco

-Your corporate website is irrelevant. 95% of the conversation about your brand and products takes place outside your control–Steve Farndsworth, Jolt Media

-Get you legal department involved in your social media strategy early–Jeremiah Owyang

-Video is where the action is in Social Media–Jeanette Gibson

What struck me most about this particular social media panel discussion was how these companies were actively engaged in social media and had been for some time. EBay and Electronic Arts have been dependant upon communities to drive their business models for some time. And they have taken it to a new level as they integrate new outlets and access their customers in ways they could not a couple of years ago.

As a brand strategist, my eyes were opened to some new thoughts. At the same time, I was struck by how much of the emphasis in Social Media is still PR-oriented. there has been much discussion about building brand value in Social Media. The practices are being invented right now and I intend to be part of the conversation.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 10:38 am and is filed under Branding Everywhere. 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.