Gary Stein is up first from Ammo Marketing and talks about his company’s mission and the work that they do. He mentions a concept of “clique-through”, using social media to spread your message deep, but not wide. Which will help generate more long term value than an immediate pop. He gives the example of a world image and how your message could spread across. He gives the example of the JibJab cartoons about Bush and Kerry. Viral or friend marketing is not really trying to make you realize the spread of some value, it’s mainly of something of interest.
So what is a clique = a small exclusive group of friends or associates. Clique through = the degree to which an exclusive group hears and accepts your ideas. Cliques are built upon norms and group culture. To be accept means to be built into that culture. He gives some data about blogging behavior. Ovewhelming that creative expression is top, document personal experience is next, and stay in touch w/ friends and family. A myspace is not a place to broadcast your ideas, but just stay in touch with family and friends. Blogging is an extension of publishing. MySpace has really 75 million groups of 4, is a better way to think about myspace.com. He gives an example of how people get suggested new products. It seems friends suggesting it or it being at a party is pretty important. Marketers need to take the product and make it a part of that exclusive group of young people. He suggests in Step 1: is to tightly define your group. He gives the example of tax and M&A attorneys. They get excited about different things. Once you identity your target group, define it even more into subgroups. Step 2: be not afraid of your features. He gives the example of a monocoque fork or unibody frame of a bike. Step 3: look for an increase in influencer ration. 1 in 10 people are influencers. Get in with them and feed them information. Step 4: Support your community. You can do this in the online space, give them software, bandwidth, calendars, etc.. He says you kinda have to buy your way into the space. He says to remember they are often times grass-roots organizations because they had to organize themselves. He talks about there are some groups where you will get to reach a lot of people and other groups that you will not. Once you get more defined there becomes less and less people. How do you do this online. He says they have had success in directories and online networks. Find that one person and then look for the clique he is connected too. He mentions about comment-vertising. He says its not comment spam, but advertising with relevant something to say. In my opinion this is still spam, the incentive is not to share opinion but to selfishly advertise. Regardless it still works I imagine, I see it quite often already online.
Scott the CEO of About.com is up to talk. He says you need to know these things. 1. Success in social media = engagement + authenticity x target audience reach. 2. Look for riches in the niches. Social media takes many forms. 3. Learn, but don’t be intimidated, into following early adopters. 4. Cede only as much control as you can stand. He next talks about About.com. He says that YouTube and Myspace create a short experience, and its still undetermined how it will pan out for the long term. He says social media is the foundation of many of out most popular sites.
..and then my laptop died, so I only got part of the session. Good session though.
