Usable Clicks

15 Insights from the Social Media Boot Camp

On Tuesday I attended Social Media Boot Camp, a half day conference put together by SocialMedia.com, with the focus on actionable social media thinking. I was looking forward to the conference specifically because Fred Wilson and Ian Schafer would both be speaking there, but virtually all of the presenters did a great job at delivering case studies and strategic thinking that made the 4 hours incredibly worthwhile. Lately I’ve been seeing collective communal intelligence around social media take a step forward beyond the initial chaos of social media to moving towards deeper understanding and more defined courses of action. For the benefit of the UsableClicks community, here are 15 key insights and themes that were discussed at the Social Media Boot Camp:

1. Services that seem ‘unfinished’ usually last the longest; products & services need to show that they are continually evolving and growing with consumer feedback and participation
2. Traditional media tells the same big story to as many people as possible; social media is about lots of little stories told in small groups at the same time
3. Consider how consumption online enables interaction with content. When reading an article, a user can comment on the article, Tumble quotes, Twitter links, Blog deeper thoughts… leveraging endless social channels to distribute content further than the original medium
4. The power of passed (shared) links is reaching Google impact; in some cases, media outlets such as Perez Hilton now derive more traffic from social media than Google
5. “Individual pieces of media may be trivial, but the aggregation of the pieces of social media is the greatest media that has ever been created” – Fred Wilson
6. Social media channels are mainstream at this point; the next area of innovation is going to be built on top of it, such as aggregation, filtering, analytics, measuring authority
7. Everyone has their own personal CPM now – we need to begin learning how to understand and value users in terms of influence
8. Understand the shift from old media principles to new media principles:
   •  Messages are statements → Messages are questions
   • Channels are conduits → Channels are cultures
   • Metrics measure exposure → Metrics have meaning
9. It’s important to understand users behavior and the new social norms in different social media channels; how do users express themselves, what are their gestures, how do they form relationships? Marketing tactics and resultant measurement depend on it
10. Remember search as a purpose for social media action; by engaging in social media with your audience, you can help shape the content that is produced around your brand, and impact what is discovered via Google
11. On social networks, people care more about their friends than content; don’t chase clicks, allow relationships to deliver influence
12. Use consumer behavior insights to set campaign objectives. Example: Broadcast companies know that viewers who become interested in a show prior to launch are more likely to stick around for more episodes, and are more likely to watch them when they air the first time (important for commercial revenue). This drives the pre-launch marketing plan: get people to commit to watching the first episode the first time it airs
13. Measure social media marketing in terms of media value. Social engagement ads that cause free organic messaging impressions through the social graph lower the effective campaign CPM, and drive additional engagement with social connections
14. Measure social media impact through behavioral tools:
    • Facebook Lexicon to measure sustained activity
    • Google Trends to measure change in search volume
    • Twitter buzz tools to measure tweet volume
15. Take advantage of the Facebook redesign that focuses on social ads and social action to enable ads to build upon themselves; Look at how media can be widgetized and be made sharable across environments (try Clearspring); build upon fans to increase message capital (look at SocialMedia.com ads)

Thank you to all of the speakers at Social Media Boot Camp and thank you to SocialMedia.com for a great conference; I look forward to contributing to the conversation.

[you can or read my full notes here]