OMMA Social Panel: Navigating the Financial Crisis: How Marketers Should Use Social Media in a Time of Tight Budgets

Image by inspecie.co.uk via Flickr

Navigating the Financial Crisis: How Marketers Should Use Social Media in a Time of Tight Budgets

Moderator: Joan Voight, Contributor, MediaPost
Heidi Skinner, Director of Emerging Media, Critical Mass (yay, another director of emerging media!)
Neal Shenoy, Marketing Partner, [212] Media
Deborah Shultz, social media consultant
Liza Hausman, VP Marketing, Gigya
Rob Crumpler, CEO, BuzzLogic

Q: How will the financial crisis help the social web?

Rob: It will be a time when consumers can come together.

Deborah: Constraint breeds innovation. Agencies have a real opportunity to take on brand education. Those that take charge and are more aggressive can educate brands on what the space is about.

Heidi: This is the time to sink our teeth in the apple.

Q: Take your ideas and offer guidelines. Include the idea of where to cut corners and where you shouldn't.

Liza: Don't throw away your old metrics but use them as an anchor for the social web. I've shown clients using traditional metrics how social media can deliver that and more.

NealPartner, don't create - via Wikipedia: In 2009 focus on cobranding and cooptition versus creation. Tap into audiences, networks, community behaviors and networks that already exist. That will help your production budget. Simultaneously, don't cut activation (promotion dollars) - but put some limits once the community is "activated." Case study: for sports property Recreational Sports, Coke wanted to build a stand-alone microsite with original content. We did build a microsite with user-generated content, on top of existing social networks and college intramural sites. We wanted the community to grow organically. That achieved the same results by being smart about the architecture.

Heidi: Consumers are much smarter. Don't cut back on listening. Find the trees through the forest.

Deborah: I totally agree with partnership, partnership, partnership. Think relationship, not campaign. Work with customer service groups at clients. 

Rob: My guidelines: focus and integration. Find some targeting that can help you assess where to place your media or your message [Me: Ahem, BuzzLogic does both, ahem...] . What not to cut? Listening to your customer.

Selected Twitter highlights during this panel:

BJ: RT @convagency Customer Service is the low-hanging fruit - Deb #ommasocial (Hasn't it been since last year?)

ysnjen: "Don't get cheap on the listening piece" - re: paying attention to what consumers want/need. #OMMASocial

Britopian: overwhelmed by all the social media exerts and social media extroverts business titles here .... #ommasocial

julia_briggs: #heidiskinner #ommasocial 'only 15% of major brands participating in social media'