6 lessons from the social media world forum

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6 Lessons From the Social Media World
Forum
If you go to as many social media conferences as I do, sometimes it is difficult to separate the
wheat from the chaff. At least t hat's the excuse I'm going to give for having my associate at
Renegade, Merlin Ward share the six unique lessons he gleaned from the recent Social Media
World Forum (SMWF) conference in New York City.
1. Pair Your Social wit h Ads
Chris Thorne, Vice President of Social Media & Media at EA, the sports game developer, found
that content was more effective when coupled with Facebook advertising. They put extra care
into creating content that users could “play” with, essentially gamifying their Timeline; then they
made the monet ary spend to promote it to as many users as possible. The result was more
than just extended reach—they increased virality and sales.
2. Your Content Doesn’t Work Everywhere
Morgan Baden, Director of Social Media and Internal Communications for the book publisher
Scholastic, shared their failures and successes with Pinterest. Pinterest is a natural social
network for this brand, but they found that not all content is created equal. While female users
enjoyed sharing book covers and special quote memes from books, photographs for event s
and other physical spaces didn’t attract the same interest. It seems that content made for
collecting does the best on Pinterest, while amateur point-of-view photography is better left on
the shelf.
3. Branch Out Beyond Your Brand
Felicia Yukich, Manager of Social Media Worldwide for Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts,
discovered the secret to using social media in the hospitality industry. The fundamentals of
hospitality – t hinking about your guests’ stay in and outside of the hotel – translates well into
social media. Therefore, Four Seasons curates content far beyond the hotel brand, such as
wedding planning ideas, sight seeing destinations and recreational activities. They get into the
minds of their audience and focus on their interests, just like a good concierge would do.
4. Build Social Into Your Product
In keeping with one of the conference themes, Jesse Redniss, Senoir Vice President of Digital

at USA Network, noted that social works best when it’s anticipated in the product creat ion
phase. Brands should leverage natural user behavior by building social sharing into products and
providing seamless social activit y around their brands online. The consensus was that users are
going to be social anyway, so why not enable them?
5. There is NO Crisis Plan
Morgan Johnston, Manager of Corporate Communications at Jet Blue, and Paul Fox, Director
of Corporate Communications at P&G, t alked about addressing crisis as a brand. The short of
it is that there is no cure for crisis, but brand openness speaks volumes. P&G invited bloggers
to their shop to talk about anything they wanted and write anything they wanted—good or bad
—af ter negative news surfaced around a certain product line. After a dramatic employee exit,
Jet Blue posted on their website that they didn’t know any more than anyone else about the
situation but were trying to find t he answers. These clear and open lines of communication
helped bring the correct information to light in the end.
6. Brands Can Talk t o Other Brands
Shane Steele, Director of Sales Marketing at Twitter, shared examples of brands t alking with
each other, which, in turn, created viral content and brand adoration by users. Oreo and AMC
had a Twitter exchange about sneaking snacks into theaters, and Taco Bell and Old Spice had
an exchange about their “spicy” ingredients. These conversations were both genuine and
humorous and left the door open for consumers play along.
And lest you think I was doing nothing at SMWF, you can find my interviews with these SMWF
speakers: Kip Wetzel (Comcast), Jay Epstein (Sprinklr), Nicole Bohorad (CapitalOne)
and Morgan Baden (Scholastic) all on TheDrewBlog.
Connect:
Authored by:
Drew Neisser
Drew Neisser is CEO & Founder of Renegade the NYC-based social media and marketing
agency that helps inspired clients cut through the nonsense to deliver genuine business growth.
A frequent speaker at indust ry events, Drew’s been a featured expert on ABC’s Nightline and
CNBC. In addition to blogging for SocialMediaToday, you can find Drew’s articles
on FastCompany.com,

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