It seems like a social media frenzy this week in Sydney, with a couple of events bringing together some great minds and great discussion. I spent lunchtime today at an event organised by Beth Etling from The Insight Exchange to hear some interesting strategies from a cross section of different industries.

On the panel today was Kate Leaman of Foster’s Group, Digital and Social Media strategist Con Frantzeskos, Aisha Hillary of SBS and Chris Noble of World Nomads.

Rather than rehash details from each presentation, it is easier to distill them into what I considered the three standout messages and what it means for your online business:

• Social Media is about Sustainable Engagement – Unlike traditional media, where you run a spot here, or a full page there, it is about an ongoing conversation with your fans, followers and customers. If you plan to use it as part of the marketing mix, firstly understand why you are using it and be clear about the messages you will be putting across. Once you have committed to it, you need to be listening to what the community is saying about your brand and what they want to be hearing from you. It’s not about doing it once, you should have someone who is responsible for monitoring this activity and engaging on a regular basis. Thanks to Aisha for this insight.
• Be prepared to stand in front of your brand – because of the ability of the Social Web to make or break a brand with just a few comments, it can be easy to sit behind your profile and not interact as a human. Managing a bad customer review is difficult, but by taking conversations with unhappy customers offline from the social environment, it can lead to resolution and better management of the brand. He interestingly referred to an old adage of make someone happy they tell 5 people, make them unhappy they tell 50 – only it is now more like 50,000. This is the multiplier effect of social media, and something you need to be acutely aware of when managing your online reputation.
• Online Communities know more about your product than you do – a point perfectly illustrated by Con and Kate, who had the difficult task of arresting consumer backlash and declining sales when Fosters decided to reduce the size of Cascade Pale Ale bottles. Facebook groups were formed and forums ignited with unhappy Tasmanian’s whose state beer had been shrunk but for the same price. Rather than jumping straight in to defend the position, through listening to this community, being transparent about who they were and engaging them in discussion (particularly those in charge of these anti-Cascade groups) they came to understand the issues, and the beer was returned to it’s normal size, and the community was able to hail it as a victory for the people. Never asssume that you know more about your product than a potential customer.

The roundtable Q&A at the end threw open a number of questions, the most interesting being at what point should you decide to build your own social platform for customers. The answer was essentially, do you need to? Consumers use social media in such wide and varied ways that getting them to join another network that is product specific can be pointless. The better practice is gving them the tools within their existing networks to interact with your brand. Unless you are in a niche that has no interaction point, in which case there may be room for one.

In the end, the consistent message from all of them was that social media is not about the sell, but about listening, learning and engaging. For me it really solidified the theory that regardless of the rapidly changing face of the web and social media, the rules for playing in this space do not, and have not, changed at all.

Related posts:

1. Highlights from the Affili@SYD Conference
2. Twitter as a Customer Service Tool
3. Is Social Media Just Marketing to Your Competitors?
4. How Social Media Can Help (and Hinder) Your Business
5. Twitter – Business, Personal or Both?