MITX Highlights
Posted January 25th, 2008 by admin
At about 6:45pm on Thursday, January 24 a group of social media visionaries formed the first 2008 MITX panel discussion about the opportunities and implications of social media. The event took place at the Parris Lounge in Faneuil Hall, Boston.
The Moderator: Larry Weber, Chairman, W2 Group, Author, Marketing to the Social Web
The Fine Panelist: Tom Arrix, VP of Sales, East, Facebook; Pauline Ores, Senior Marketing Manager, Community & Collaboration, Global SMB Marketing, IBM Corporation; Suzanne Skop, VP of East Coast Sales, MySpace; Juan Fernando Santos, Chief Creative Officer, StudioCom; Jeffrey C. Taylor, CEO, Eons
The panelists state their claims
Suzanne Skop from MySpace believes that “social networking is not a fad”. She discussed how MySpace uses its “massive membership” to do “hyper targeting” and how more than 90 production companies approach them weekly in search of “branded community identities”.
Pauline Ores from IBM followed by discussing how the 100 year old company has embraced the collaborative power of social media within its own network. “For the first time we can engage people who are not our customers and start listening to what they have to say.” She also stated some of the main concerns of B2B corporations contemplating social media.
“My concerns are thinking ahead. Our efforts are all around the world and in a few years they are all going to connect so how do I develop an efficient metric and manage operations?”
She highlighted a very interesting distinction between B2C and B2B companies when it comes to social media. “In B2C you can hire an agency to set up everything. In our world, in B2B, people want to talk to the experts. It’s not as easy and they agency alone cannot do it.”
Juan Fernando Santos, chief creative officer at StudioCom, believes that observations are “less textual and more visual”. StudioCom creates virtual worlds and has successfully built virtual communities that have attracted millions of members. “People are looking for experiences online,” says Juan. “Before it was looking for a service or specific information, now we believe that the right place for a brand to be is to be the enabler and one of the best ways to do it is with visual media.” He spoke about how “mediated content generation” is changing brand-consumer interactions through the “hyper realism of the social media experience”.
Tom Arrix from Facebook began by discussing the effect of Facebook in participation of young voters in the presidential race. “In 2000 the Iowa caucus had 3% youth turn out. In the last 30 days 13% of Iowa youth came out to help Obama defeat Hillary. In New Hampshire the same elements swung on Hillary’s favor. This is starting to tell and amazing story about social media. From Facebook’s perspective, our platform is revolutionizing how people are communicating. In today’s home, the phone does not ring for High School students anymore. What’s going on in Facebook is pretty dramatic. We are different from Suzanne’s world [MySpace] with hundreds of millions, which is fantastic. We are a piece of technology that’s connecting people.”
Tom mentioned that each week they get about two million more users. “By the end of 2008 we’ll have over 200 million.” He also said that 40% of the Canadian population is on Facebook “and its not college kids”.
Jeffrey C. Taylor, founder of Monster.com and CEO of Eons.com, started off with “You gotta be in it to win it.” He then did a raise-of-hands vote to see how many people where on MySpace (40% of group), Facebook (97% of group), LinkedIn (97%), Webkins (he was the only one). He then told a story about adults taking care of their kid’s virtual pigs for 6 months after their kids get bored. “My daughter had 53 message windows open in her laptop. She had 155 words in 53 screens. Four hours of homework. Two hours is just keeping up with friends.” He asked her if she ever met people on Facebook and she said, “That’s disgusting!”
Jeff then focused on talking about Eons.com and the baby boomers. “Every single article in this town says im gonna fail, but I’m excited about how baby boomers are coming together. Every single person came to Eons without friends. They come by themselves and make friends in groups. On Facebook and MySpace you join groups because it looks cool but nothing happens. In Eons is all about the groups. Couples meet in a gardening group about tulips. My people are about relationships. You have to be 50 to get in my site. I’m 47 and I can’t get into my own site. People are meeting on Eons and automatically meeting offline.
Q&A Session Highlights
Q: At what point do content creators start saying, “we want to see some of the value we create? When do we start unionizing?”
Tom from Facebook: “I don’t think you should get paid to connect with your friends and call your mom.”
Jeff from Eons: “Making money is not the primary priority of the people putting out information.”
Q: A CBS Boston reporter asked, “What is the road traditional Media has to take to embrace social media?”
Juan from StudioCom believes that everyone, particularly younger generations, want content on demand. “Children just don’t understand linear media formats”.
Tom from Facebook: “I worked at CBS. Big media companies put the blinders that no one is going to touch broadcast. They are getting smarter though. They are getting shows online and pushing them out on YouTube.
Q: What will have to happen for the creation of more emotional moments to happen on the web whether is visual or textual?
Pauline from IBM: At Eons most people will eventually meet. So it’s not about duplicating reality, it’s about providing the connection.
The Wrap up thoughts:
Jeff from Eons: There is a new platform now. No one has figured out how big it really is. You see joy and laughter. People love it. I’m a big MySpace user. I would be a Facebook user but they kicked me out cause I marketed too hard. For 6 months I only had 16 friends and that was really tough.”
Pauline from IBM: “What’s old is new again. In small communities back in the day everyone knew your business. On Facebook I’m back in a little village. I get micro updates. My Advice: The community approach is “how can I help?” If you have something to contribute, you contribute. Asking where I can help is better than raising awareness.”
Suzanne from MySpace: “Im gonna end with performance. 70% of the ROI from social networking comes from the momentum or pass along effect. That is people taking a piece of your brand and putting them in their page and passing it along. Social networking is not a fad.”
Tom from Facebook: “As platforms continue to evolve, you can feel it and hear it from friends. It is changing how people act socially. Whoever is not in it…you have to get in at some point. This is the most effective way of communicating in the planet. The biggest challenge for marketers is being revolutionary. If you listen and learn you’re going to be smarter and drive more sales.
Pictures courtesy of Ryan Barrett
