Panel of social media experts shares insights at U.S. Chamber of Commerce

October 1, 12:14 AMDC Social Media ExaminerMary Fletcher Jones

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New and Social Media: Investment and Return, September 30, 2009

A panel discussion featuring four professionals involved with social media was presented by The Communication Center and The U.S. Chamber of Commerce this afternoon (September 30, 2009)  in Washington, DC.

Presenting were (left to right)

Paul Argenti, Professor, Corporate Communications at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business,

• Matthew Zablud, Partner, Adfero Group,
• Laura Howe, Senior Vice President, Public Affairs for the American Red Cross, and
• Adam Conner, Washington D.C. Associate for Privacy and Global Public Affairs for Facebook.

Paul Argenti has just published a book on social media, Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications.  He made several comments on how to measure the effectiveness of social media.  He advised the audience at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to

1. Focus on engaging your company's influencers.
2. Identify metrics and key performance indicators for social media efforts (e.g., reach, retention, page views, followers).
3. Benchmark performance for each social media channel. For example, he said an acceptable level of performance for a blog was to obtain three to thirteen comments per post, and that fifteen to thirty-five comments would be considered high-performing results.
4. Select tools to collect data, or outsource the effort.
5. Analyze the results and adjust the strategies, as required.

Adfero Group's Matthew Zablud shared two best practices from his firm.  Speak Now For Kids was an online engagement campaign designed to educate legislators about their constituents' views about health care for children.  The campaign allowed the public to comment and post photos and videos on the site, and the contributions were mapped geographically by Congressional district.  Matthew Zablud said this approach reinforced to legislators that these were real people with real-life concerns, not just anonymous signatures. 

Security Debrief, a blog, was unique in that it focused on a niche audience, specifically targeting high-ranking influencers.  He mentioned that if just 5 of their most popular Twitter followers re-tweeted a link to the blog post, the blog post would subsequently receive 5,000 additional views.

Laura Howe explained how the American Red Cross -- which has more than 15,000 Twitter followers and more than 90,000 Facebook Fans -- uses social media to empower people to get help from or give help to the American Red Cross, particularly for disaster relief.  She mentioned how the Red Cross evolved from trying to control blog comments to embracing the feedback obtained from social media platforms, and ultimately to encouraging and training its 700 chapters to participate in social media efforts.

The organization has recruited celebrity Twitter accounts, such as Ashton Kutcher, to tweet support for the Red Cross.  She mentioned that their support helped make the Red Cross a trending topic on Twitter.  In another anecdote, she mentioned how she tweeted CNN newscaster Rick Sanchez while he was on air, and that he instantly updated his broadcast with the information she had transmitted.

Other important social media platforms for the Red Cross included Flickr, WordPress, and Utterli, which were particularly important for meeting the media needs of journalists.

Facebook's Adam Conner had some fascinating statistics to share about the popular social media platform.  He encouraged the audience to take advantage of Facebook Pages, its new Connect feature, and Facebook advertising. 

Thanks to Erin Stinton, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for coordinating my admittance to attend and report on this event.