Speakers
Sarah Hofstetter - Vice President, Emerging Media and Client Strategy, 360i
Rob Key - CEO, Converseon
Adam Sherk - Search/PR Strategist, Define Search Strategies

First to speak is Rob Key

They provide end-to-end social media solutions
specialize in distribution channels
community has become the heart of the web experience
the issue is there are dozens and dozens of communities
each has an emerging culture associated with it
it’s about shared experiences
some of these networks aren’t built for marketers
the challenge is that these communities are developing their own environment
different languages are evolving and different norms
we as marketers are walking into unknown lands
as marketers we are cultural anthropologists walking into these communities
conflict in Second Life - digital revolutionaries took American Apparel owners hostage
When you think of social media you need to think differently…as marketers
You need to start thinking of ROI as what can I give back to the community

Participate and learn
make friends with community elders
Understand and respect community mores
Lead with altruism and come bearing gifts
Discover what a community needs
Learn the linguistics
Value and cultivate the relationships
Leverage the opportunities

We did an initiative in Second Life
Second Life is the beginning of the 3D web
Second life hates marketers
Created 5 second life residents in 2006
Made friends with elders
Environmentalism is very important in the real world and Second Life
They started a group called Second Chance Trees for America Express (YouTube Video)
Accolades came in and the Second Life community embraced it
Be prepared to lose control of your campaign and let people own it
Main stream media picked this up, won the OMMA award for best use of virtual worlds

Now speaking is Adam Sherk

They are owned by the New York Times
SEO Consultative work for major brands
You need to be flexible when dealing with social media
When dealing with big brands you’re dealing with big ships that turn very slowly
Every department in the company is thinking about different ways to promote and build
When you have 100,000 pages it might take a lot to change a site
When you’re dealing with publishers you dealing with people thinking about ad revenue

common pitfalls include:
no strategy
lack of support/resources
poor coordination
inappropriate content
lack of understanding
hiding your affiliation
being overtly promotional

A lot of these networks are designed for individuals and not incorporate branding

Paths to success
selling upper management on the concepts
getting buy-in from all key departments
instilling a “give to gain” philosophy
finding the right people to mange the efforts
giving them what they need to be effective
testing
oversight
measuring results

The way you have to market is to give back to the community
You need to let your employees have the needed time to evolve within communities in order to leverage them

More to consider:
how will you sustain your efforts over the long term
what if your brand ambassador leaves the company?
what about employees that have their own profiles?
how will you deal with negative responses?

Fully advocate full transparency…make it known who your work for
you want to have a corporate policy in place for employees who have personal social media profiles

Finding what works:
The Daily Green - owned by Hearst. Similar to Hugg from Treehugger
Daily Green went out and found green top Digg users

TV Guide
full-time brand ambassador hired
regular monitoring and participation on social sites
full transparency within communities
network of “partner” sites developed for publicity efforts
efforts tied into SEO online and print marketing

Next to speak is Sarah Hofstetter

How can marketers influence the influential?

(running through the slides too fast…can’t transcribe)

Building awareness for show Living with Ed
Reached out to bloggers, group admins, forums
Generally speaking we were able to figure out what blogger’s interests were and befriend them
the response was fantastic and hundreds of people linked back to the HGTV website

Stressing how important it is to reach out to bloggers to build awareness of television shows
Utilize Assests:
widgets
video
unique information
photos
DVDs
contests

You can get some nice coverage if you just take the time to read and know your blogging audience
Give bloggers freebies to give away to their fans

What worked best in show promotion? Listed by most traffic to least:
Myspace
NBC Contest
NBC Rewind
NBC Heros
NBC Downloads
NBC Auction
ARG Link
NBC Widget
NBC Theories

It’s about developing intense relationships with bloggers
These guys are always looking for things to write
Contacting bloggers poorly can really ruin your reputation
Do not use interns for this task

Make sure you have something worth while to give to bloggers
Find the right bloggers to write about you
Write them a customized message
Make sure you keep an updated contact database
Don’t hope that whatever you have is blog worthy
work with your team
don’t mass email press releases

• Live: Micro Communities, SMX Social Media NYC
• SMX Social Media NYC Second Session (Brent Csutoras) - Effective Linkbait Strategies
• Interview: Tim Nash On Social Media, Digg, StumbleUpon & His New Membership Site
• Live: SMX Social Media NYC, Fourth Session – Social Bookmarking & Tagging
• Giving Away Free Stumbles Today