An Bui, Spelled An With 1 N

The action at Marketing Profs Digital Mixer didn’t stop. From an early morning breakfast discussing Twitter with Leigh Duncan-Durst to two moderated sessions to discuss: (1) various uses of Twitter for brands like Marketing Profs and Best Buy; (2) community building through social media.

The rate of responsiveness for Best Buy’s Twitter team was amazing - during the session, one of the attendees tweeted something about Best Buy and minutes, if not seconds later, had a response from Best Buy. This in-person, real time demo made us laugh. Marketing Prof’s Twitter evolution also highly interested me - from Ann Handley just tweeting on her own to having a more formal policy or structure demonstrated that social media use isn’t static. What one does today, how one applies various tools will change over time, as it should. Business needs and goals change as new information develops and social media strategy should evolve to take those changes into consideration.

The conference closed with the Mixologists recapping and reviewing tips and tactics that attendees could take home with them. Highlights include:

• KEYWORDS for SEARCH because people are searching! 4-5 search terms should give them your product if they are looking for it!
• Community membership is a privilege, not a right
• 80/20 rule for content - personal vs. brand for personal Twitter or brand vs. personal for brand Twitter. However, make sure the content has value for your audience
• Lawyers speak their own language - legalese. Lawyers’ risk aversion is in service to their clients, so have in-house counsel discuss social media policy development with peer enterprises
• Have a plan - know why you use the tools you use and how you use them
• Tactics without a strategy is like doing nothing, or passing up opportunity while incurring costs. If you’re looking for an analogy, tactics without a strategy is like a steering wheel without a car. Maybe it’s like a public transportation system without any stops.

Tags: Ann Handley, Best Buy, Beth Harte, Community, Leigh Duncan-Durst, Marketing Profs, Marketing Profs Digital Mixer, mixologists

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 3:35 pm and is filed under conferences, search, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.