The Podcaster

Posts Tagged ‘Radian6’

I had the chance the other day to participate in a webinar on Social Media with Brian Solis hosted by Radian6.

A good summary of it can be found on the Radian6 blog. A link to the webinar can also be found there if you want to listen to Brian.

The webinar itself is an example of the power of social media and Web 2.0. Brian is based in the USA, Radian6 are from Canada and I am based in the UK. I am not sure how many people were online but for just over a hour Brian would have had a worldwide audience at a fraction of the cost of doing something physically such as a multi-country presentation tour. I have subscribed to Brians blog and Twitter feed for a few years now but this is the first time I have heard him speak as it were.

Brian refered to his new book – Engage – and whilst he did not ‘plug’ it he said enough for me during the webinar to buy it via Amazon (and mention it here so proving how Word of Mouse marketing can really work).

Back to the webinar itself  – whilst it does take some effort to organise and prepare (as all good presentations should) and some more to maximise the audience it is cheaper and less effort to organise than a physical seminar. I wonder how many countries Brian would have had to visit to speak to everyone ‘face-to-face’. Having run both both webinars and live seminars I can honestly say both have their own advantages and disavantages but both have value to the marketing mix of any organisation. For smaller businesses with limited budget and lacking overseas offices a webinar is a very powerful and cost effective tool.

So what new things did I learn from Brian?

• He did a great job of answering the common objections organisations have to using social media (a passing fad, waste of time, fear of loss of control and negative feedback etc) but sadly ran out of time to really review some good case studies. I hope he can do another webinar and cover them.
• He reminded me how social media can work at all levels of the Customer Engagement Life Cycle (Discovery, Purchase Evaluation, Recommendation, Post-Purchase Satisfaction)
• How valuable Social Media is for market research and planning – listening and targeting should always be the first step
• How the content of the ‘conversation’ is vital to build and sustain a relationship so always considering the audience first is key and adding value to the interaction is critical (always focus on what they will want to discuss). For me the best way to describe it is to think of it in a Gift sense – what can you give to the community? Knowledge, information, access to people, news, special offers, technical assistance etc?
• The increasing value of social media as a delivery platform in terms of search (YouTube is now number 2 in search terms to Google)
• The use of social objects to increase your organisations footprint such as Flickr photos, YouTube Videos etc and so maximising SEO.

All-in-all a great way to spend an hour in the company of Brian and Radian6. Check out the webinar online at Radian6. I am sure you will learn a few new things to help you understand and start using social media.