SXSW Session Recap - Championing Social Media Projects
Suzanne O Minassian March 13 2009 03:25:35 PM
I'm down in Austin for South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), and sessions began this afternoon. My first session was a panel discussion on how to pitch social media projects to executives. The panel discussion was interesting, and included Peter Kim and a social media project owner at the American Heart Association among others.
Some of my favorite discussion points are below. For a full recap, check out my other blog here.
Will social media make money? Does it make sense? Does a successful pitch depend on having ROI figures?
The panelists were torn on this question. Some were strong advocates for measuring and showing business impact (Peter Kim) while others went under the radar and managed to get buy in with fewer metrics. The American Heart Association used REACH as their metric. They showed examples / scenarios and built a financial model to justify what they were planning.
How do you build ROI?
Peter Kim's response - building ROI is more an art than a science; the right answer is that it depends on your operating structure.
Who’s more or less supportive of social media?
Kim: He sees evangelists / enthusiasts / sponsors from all departments. There is a misconception of young people magically wired to change the company with social media. Look to John Chambers from Cisco and Scott Cook from Intuit as social media minded CEOs. Also PnG Digital Hack Day as an example.
Examples of failures?
Caldwell: In their “Go red for women” campaign, they solicited videos on Facebook. They had 2500 videos to go through and screen within one weekend. If you open yourself up, make sure you have the resources to respond.
Top challenge to get social media project approved?
Kim: be realistic.
Caroe: don’t over engineer
Caldwell: show business value
Top way to ensure success?
Kim: good planning
Caroe: show results
Caldwell: monitor progress
Sim: know what metrics you need to measure
Does social media in the workplace make people less productive?
Caldwell: There is a fear that everyone will be playing on Secondlife and Facebook instead of work. Sound familiar? We faced the same thing with bringing in the internet - everyone will be surfing all day! And the same thing with computers - everyone will be playing solitaire all day!
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