BlogWell Chicago: An Afternoon of Socializing and Social Media

Last Thursday, Len and I attended BlogWell Chicago. After accidentally walking into the VIP lunch and realizing "We're not VIPs", we entered the actual conference. The conference was packed. I think we estimated around 150-200 marketers from brands big and small and from all over the US. Andy Sernovitz (@sernovitz) kicked off the day with the agenda, which included 8 case studies from:

• Home Depot
• P&G
• Sharpie
• Mayo Clinic
• The Coast Guard
• Allstate
• H&R Block
• Walmart Molson

Walmart couldn't make it due to travel difficulties, so Molson jumped in and believe me, I don't think anyone attending minded. Molson, along with bringing some ideas for social media, also brought free beer for all. We'll cover off more on Molson in a bit, but let's get to the other case studies first.

The Digital Orange Apron: The Impact of Social Media for the Home Depot
Home Depot kicked off the case studies with some ideas and tactics they used to get their social media campaigns off the ground. Nick Ayres (@nickjayres) said that Home Depot was seeing a problem with consumers having lots of choices, both online and off, to get their home improvement advice and Home Depot was lacking brand differentiation as a result. In order to fix this, they started running some social media campaigns "under the radar" with a few passionate individuals who really loved social media. This included a Twitter account, social networking profiles, and websites with How-To videos distributed via YouTube, Vimeo, etc. etc. The key here is that they found audiences where people were talking and engaged with them on their level. They also made a conscious effort only to include helpful and relevant information and not to include a sales message. As a result, they can't necessarily measure ROI at this time, but that was never the intention.

Mayo Clinic's Natural Progression to Social Media
Lee Aase (@LeeAase) wanted to stress that the number #1 reason that the Mayo Clinic held its reputation and brand preference was because of word of mouth. Engaging users with social media is a natural and logical activity as it helps Mayo have a bigger role in the WOM process. Outside of that core principal Lee explained that a major function of their social media activities (ranging from their Facebook fan page to their blog) was to help shape mass media. A substantial “edge” as Lee explains it, that Mayo has is its syndication of medical information to news outlets, industry professionals, and consumers. By having a strong presence online, they help guide what happens offline. One final interesting piece of information was the story around their medical practitioners carrying around Flip Video cameras. With permission from patients, Doctors/Nurses/etc will film patients at the clinic and ask them about their experience. They then share those videos on their YouTube page so that people with similar ailments can get some background on what other people are doing who are in similar position.

Marketing in the Age of Social Media - Examples from P&G
Stan Joosten (@sjoosten) provided several insights from P&G and how they are evaluating and engaging in social media. He began by sharing a few examples of the power of social media via Caring Bridge and how terminally ill patients can achieve a small level of normalcy by connecting with the outside world via custom websites, videos, and blogs. He followed up with a hilarious example of how sock knitting has been effected by social media saying "If this can effect sock knitting, what else can it do?". When doing his strategy, he prescribes to the five buckets outlined by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li in Groundswell of listening, talking, energizing, supporting, and embracing. One example that P&G did internally was to setup sentimentality streams from Tide product mentions online near the Tide product group, so they could see in near real time what people were saying about their products online. He had another story about soliciting user feedback and ratings on their product websites and how excited people can get about products you would otherwise think were commonplace: Dawn pump dishwashing liquid or Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. He left with a final quote: "Technology changes, humans don't".

Always Ready...and Online: How the US Coast Guard Puts Social Media to Work
The US Coast Guard (@USCoastGuard) admitted that they were new to the social media scene. As they stated, “We understand that we are at web 1.5, but are taking baby steps towards being fully up to speed.” The quote from Commander Ron LaBrec that stood out the most to me was “Information, unlike orders, do not need to travel through a hierarchy.” This statement was a big one for a government organization to make. The military thrives on the chain of command but they understand that information, regardless of format, is freely distributed among everyone and that they have to embrace this kind of communication for all purposes of their duty. One last interesting note: the recent US Airlines crash that occurred in NY quickly popped up on YouTube. The commander explained that the footage was actually video taken by a US Coast Guard camera and that after making its way to their YouTube page, quickly received hundreds of thousands of views.

After a brief break filled with fruit and pretzels, we were back. The next session was a social media disclosure section. Instead of rehashing it here, we'd suggest referring to the blog council disclosure toolkit for a much more in depth explanation as to what social media and online disclosure entails. Needless to say, full and honest disclosure to online audiences is something that needs to be part of any social media marketers job.

Social Media on a Shoestring: How Sharpie engages and Grows Community in a Tight Economy
Susan Wassel (@sharpiesusan) presented from Sharpie and the title of this presentation is no joke. Susan works in the PR department at Sharpie and her entire social media effort was created with less than $2,000. She found out through her efforts that people are extremely passionate about Sharpie's and use them for some really interesting projects, which she showcased as part of her blog, tweets, and online videos. One way she gets content for her blog quickly and efficiently is to write up a Q&A form for R&D, customer service, and other internal constituents and has them fill it out and posts it almost as is. This is a quick way for her to obtain content for her blog with little writing effort involved. She said that she's used mostly free online measurement tools to keep an eye on social media communities until now. She's currently recruiting agencies to help with her efforts and expand on the base she's established.

Allstate's use of Social Media
Due to a small snafu in communication, Allstate (@Allstate) didn’t have a Social Media presentation to share. Rather, the very captivating representative talked about “Getting Crap Through Legal.” Although a deviation from the rest, this topic certainly pertains to those trying to carry out social media efforts on behalf of large companies, especially those who have major legal roadblocks like an insurance company. Ultimately convincing an organization comes down to what is more valuable, risking a lawsuit, or risking not capitalizing on great PR? One interesting note was that many companies are in fact liable for things said on their own forum. For example, if a member of Allstate online forum recommended a certain type of insurance coverage, and then that person was somehow not awarded and sued Allstate, the person filing the suit could use the fact that they received advice on Allstate’s forum as evidence (even though the person was a private citizen who had nothing to do with the insurer).

HR Block's use of Social Media
Due to a HR Block (@HRBlock) is somewhat of a veteran to the social media space having started their efforts in 2007. Paula Drum (@PaulaDrum), their VP of Marketing came in to talk about the overarching goal of HR Block in regards to social media. Essentially the goal is to make their services relevant to their customers more than just 16 weeks a year (tax season). Participating in various social networks is a given for a company that has been in this space for more than a year but the main point they wanted to drive home was that via social media, HR Block is fine with their agents giving away free advice. Although this is something that their business model charges for, they understand that today a lot of free information is on the web. They want people to know that HR Block is the most trusted and knowledgeable resource so that when it does come down to investing in a more serious action, their brand will be top of mind vs. software such as TurboTax, etc.

Molson - Pioneering in Social Media and Communications
Adam Moffat (@molsonmoffat) presented one of the last sessions of the day for Molson. Molson has traditionally been technology savvy, but didn't know much in the ways of social media marketing until recently, however, as Adam said "Beer is inherently a social product, so we thought this was a perfect channel." Adam admitted that as a marketer at Molson he has the best poker chip you could have: free beer. As part of his social media and blogger outreach campaign, he held private events at local micro-breweries and promoted them to select bloggers in those areas who were not already blogging about beer (i.e. fashion, technology, etc.) He said "I have beer. I don't know you. Come on over" was the mentality used to recruit many of the bloggers and it was incredibly successful - obviously. He said that social media provides a great outlet for customer research as well, as it's in real time and will minimal investment they can make customers for life.

Overall, it was a great opportunity to network with some of Chicago's best and brightest in the world of social media as well as hear some really interesting case studies from some very entertaining speakers. And the fact that it was all in one afternoon made it really convenient.

Image credits go to George Dearing of Telligent (a BlogWell sponsor)

Comments

[Andy Swindler]

Nice write-up. I was particularly impressed with Susan from Sharpie. It's funny even in such a well-known company that she really had to bootstrap the social media campaign herself, writing the blog and tweeting in her free time. Hopefully after demonstrating its success she'll be able to gain some more support and resources.

[George Dearing]

Good write-up Jeff and thanks for the photo credit.

George Dearing
Telligent