Executive Summary
Social Media Conference
October 20, 2016
Marriott Marquis, NYC
8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.
Putting Paid Social to Work to Amplify Your Messages—and How to Win Budget Dollars From C-Suite Skeptics
Allen Plummer, Content Marketing & Social Media Strategist, Institutional Business, Vanguard
- Look for allies and supporters within your organization to be brand ambassadors on social media
- Maintain regular internal communication of wins and successes, even if it’s just an influential follower or share early in your social media program
- Look for creative WIIFMs ("What's in it for me?") to build buy-in
- Educate and train employees on social media to create a “Center of Excellence” within your organization
Melissa Baratta, Senior Vice President, Affect
- Paid social can help hit engagement and brand awareness goalposts in a measureable way
- Set clear, platform-specific goals and create a program and budget that maps back to those goals
- Some examples of paid social campaign goals: grow engagement among target audience, increase website traffic, build or demonstrate consumer trust, create interest around a topic relevant to your brand
- Twitter and Linkedin the best paid platforms for b2bs; Facebook and Instagram better for nonprofits/b2cs
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Snapchat Content Strategy & Measurement: Managing the Platform’s 2 Pain Points
Kathy Baird, Managing Director of Social, North America, Ogilvy
- Quality stories are more important than quantity of snaps
- Don’t be afraid to try new things. Use all of the functionality and push the limits of the platform
- Optimize content based on measurement results
Melanie Cohn, Social Media Marketing Manager, Dunkin' Brands
- Snapchat is a portal inside the world of your brand—use it to sneak peek, tease, surprise and reveal
- Three key areas of Dunkin’s Snapchat programming: Snap ads, geofilters and Snap story content
- Geofilters are the best way to couple the in-store experience with users’ social interaction—Dunkin’ used geofilters that were only unlocked once users were inside their locations
Sarah Maloy, Director of Social Media and External Video, Fuse Media LLC
- Use external resources to kick-start your Snapchat strategy; use internal resources to maintain and test
- In terms of measurement, value unique views and completion rate over screenshots and score
- Repurpose your Snapchat content on your own channels and via influencers to extend the platform’s reach
10:45 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.
How to Increase Earned Media Coverage in a Social Media World
Doug Simon, President & CEO, D S Simon Media, and Tim Haslam, Managing Director, Principal, SWNS Media Group
- Consider what a journalist might think if they see your content on social media—the “fluff” just won’t fly
- Twitter and Facebook are the top platforms journalists use for stories
- Make video content available in different formats to reach different parts of your audience
- Using compelling data can help create a story where there isn’t one
- Journalists today need more than just text – they need content that will increase dwell time on websites (video, infographics)
11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
How to Create a Measurable Video Strategy Across Social Platforms
Elaine Seward, Video Producer/Social Media Director, American Chemical Society
- Consider education level of your audience — if you’re in a STEM industry, do you want to create content that is elementary school level? High-school? College?
- Use captions – most people watch Facebook videos with the audio off
- Put a lot of thought into clean-looking thumbnail images for videos to make them stand out from the noise
Elizabeth Sorrell, Social Media Senior Manager, National Audubon Society
- You don’t need a big budget to make videos that perform well—a smartphone with a tripod works wonders
- Follow social trends (e.g. Tasty-style videos, election cycle humor) to use what already grabs audiences (be sure to tie it in a way that is authentic to your brand)
- Facebook Live is a great way to make cheap content that works well within Facebook’s algorithm
12:00 p.m. – 12:45 p.m.
Luncheon and Keynote Presentation: Transforming Your Corporate Communications Strategy With Brand Journalism
Doug Busk, Group Director, Digital Communications & Social Media, Corporate Communications, The Coca-Cola Company
- Break through the clutter by interacting with audiences in meaningful ways and measuring engagement in new ways.
- Coca-Cola uses its branded "Journey" newsroom to humanize the company through inspiring conversation on passion points of mutual interest and delivering business- focused editorial and original storytelling in an authentic way.
- Coca-Cola uses paid and organic social content to drive consumers back to Journey's content.
- The three C's every piece of content on Journey must have:
- Content: Must be high-quality to be shared.
- Coordinated: Must support company messages, values and marketing efforts.
- Current: Must be relevant to or tie in with current conversations.
- Being current doesn't just mean tied to contemporary events. Old content that speaks to current conversations is perfect to update and share.
- Create a measurement framework that shows quantitative value calculated based on social network shares, referrals, shares, SEO traffic and total visitors for each piece of content.
1:00 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.
It’s Alive! Live Broadcasting With Twitter’s Periscope and Facebook Live
Moderator: Evan Welsh, Senior Director of SME and Partner Marketing and Communications, SAP
Karen Vega, Director of Social Media Activations and Earned Media, Viacom
- You can incorporate pre-taped footage into a Facebook Live stream using their API
- Create attention-grabbing content like gifs, Hyperlapse or Boomerang videos to tease the broadcast to your audience before going live
- Consider placing paid promotion after broadcast has ended to get post-stream views
Brandi Boatner, Digital Experience Manager, IBM
- Make sure there’s a call-to-action for every live stream
- Share content that is simple but useful
- Make sure content is not just beautiful, but relevant to your audience
1:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
The Information Technology Skills PR Pros Need to Survive and Thrive
Greg Kunkel, Senior Marketing Communications Program Manager, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Kevin Kautzky, Communications Group Manager – Energy and Environment, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
- Communicators have to be familiar with things like SEO, user interface, tracking, meta tags and keywords. In short, PR needs to be a backseat web designer.
- Develop shared priorities between IT and PR to become a dream team.
- Do build the dream team, PR needs to engage IT early on in planning, be clear about what support it needs and return and report back to the IT team.
- NEVER try to force IT into delivering a silver-bullet answer to a questions or problem—they don't exist.
2:45 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Use Instagram to Visualize Your Brand’s Messages—and Use Creative Takeovers to Broadcast Those Messages
Sid Orlando, Managing Editor, Kickstarter
- “@” mentions and location tags can up your engagement
- Put the call to action right in the post
- Establishing personal relationships with Instagram users, even if they have small followings, can be useful (micro-influencers)
- Keep overall look/feel consistent – whether that’s in color scheme, layout or emotional pitch
Lindsay Kaplan, Vice President of Communications, Casper
- Try new content — get weird and quirky, see what sticks
- Don’t bring a kazoo to a parade – e.g., every brand is posting on Father’s Day so unless you have a really big “instrument” it’s not worth it to invest a lot of resources into joining in
- Plan photoshoots to create multiple assets at once (this can help create a unified look for your feed); repurpose assets for Instagram as much as possible
3:45 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.
What’s the Next Big Social Media Platform?
Moderator: Drew Neisser, Founder and CEO, Renegade
- Four growth areas for social: Transactional (e.g. Venmo), Affinity (e.g. Affinities), Private (private groups, like SAP, the original Facebook), Teen (where will they go now that their parents are on Snapchat?)
- Adopt a “power pose” a la Amy Kuddy for more confident body language (attendees were encouraged to stretch and energize before last session started)
- “The medium is the message” for B2Bs who are early adopters of new platforms
- Reddit could be the next big thing: Millions of passionate users, brands who know what they’re doing will succeed
Kashem Miah, Global Director, Social Media & Content Marketing, Shutterstock
- Snapchat – Spectacles coming in December 2016, IPO set for next year at $1 billion
- Instagram – another arm of Facebook tapping into a younger demographic
- If you invest in messaging apps, tailor messaging to a very targeted audience
- Smartphone is becoming the next social media
- Snapchat is the “next big thing” – it’s changing our behaviors, like verticals
Marissa Pick, Director of Social Media and Content Engagement, CFA Institute
- Give people more than one way to hear from you: consider subscription via messenger, texts, personalized channels
- Linkedin Elevate is in beta, great for b2bs
- Linkedin is the next big thing – everyone can become a publisher, they have the most professional array of data, and they have a high percentage of matching audience