The simple answer is yes. Like Minds wasn't a conference about social media, it was a conference about what to do with it, and that's what I was looking for. (From some of the chat going around yesterday it seems that some people did want a conference about social media - how to use it, what to use etc. There's nothing wrong with that, and I know where you can find it - contact Dave Thomas at Bluegrass. He runs a great Social Media workshop). But Like Minds was about ideas, about what you can do with social media. Because social media is just a tool - a means to an end. It's not the end itself.
Trey Pennington (@treypennington) kicked the whole event off on that theme, by asking the question: What's the value of social media? The answer: It depends. What is the problem you are trying to solve? It's a simple answer, but the beauty of that is that it works for everyone. There was a lot more good stuff from Trey, and you can see it here. Social media is just a marketing tool, to help you achieve an objective. You have to have a clear idea of what that objective is.
And once you have your objective then you need to measure it, and that was where Olivier Blanchard (@theBrandBuilder) came in. On one level measuring your ROI from social media is the same as any other marketing activity: Compare activity after launching your social media strategy, to activity pre-launch. The difference is the impact / value - your ROI. You can find Olivier's presentation here. (Some people in the audience seemed to want something more tangible - but it's the same for any communication media: compare before and after. Yes, there are other variables. It's not an exact science. But it's the same for any media).
But out of those two presentations, and the discussion that followed, came the two nuggets that I took way - my ROI for my attendance at Like Minds.
1/ ROI is about business impact
2/ Small is the future
Business impact
This was the focus of Olivier's presentation. Social media ROI isn't how many people follow you, look at your blog, visit your website; it's what difference that activity makes to you business. It's revenue. It's financial. Now, it's useful to remember Trey's answer to the question of value - It depends. Because for some people the financial measure might be value per transaction, for others it might be the number of transactions. But the important thing to hold on to is that there needs to be some financial benefit for a business to be able to justify it's investment in social media.
Small is the future
This was a statement from Rick Waghorn (@MrRickWaghorn) as part of the really interesting panel discussion (also involving Vanessa Warwick (@4_Walls) and James Barisic (@jamesmb)), following Trey's presentation. There was a discussion about large v small and the panel's view was that big is bankrupt - big banks, big business, big media. They have lost trust. Small is the future. And social media is fundamental to that.
The reason is that social media allows users to communicate with their audience one-to-one, whether you're large or small. It levels the palying field. As Vanessa pointed out, it's easier for small businesses to be more personal, because they're much closer to what's going on in their business - it's more transparent, more honest, more real. And that's why a brand is so valuable for a business - whatever size - beacause it communicates the personality of your business.
This really resonates with me because a lot of our clients are 'small' in size, but not in attitude. And that's where our work with their brand can be so valuable. The personality of their business is the reason customers buy from them, and the 'thing' that differentiates them from their competitors - and social media is a great channel for communicating personality. (It's interesting that this came out of the conference, because giving your business personality is the theme of our next Brand to Deliver seminar on 11 November).
So what did I get from Like Minds? I got the opportunity to hear some really interesting ideas being given a thorough work out. That's always a good use of time. And the satisfaction of knowing that with our views and attitude we're not alone - that was a bonus.
But to close I must congratulate Scott Gould (@scottgould) and Drew Ellis (@drewellis) on the foresight (and energy, passion, enthusiasm...) to create Like Minds and produce such a good event. Can't wait for February!
To get some more feedback from Like Minds take a look at these blog posts from Alastair Banks (@banksy6), Director of Opitx Solutions and Nick Tadd (@nicktadd).
