ROI: Return on Insight

Viva La Evolution: A panel discussion with Deborah Shultz (stratgic Advisor on Social Media to P&G) and David Armano (VP of Experience Design for Critical Mass)

Risks of Social Media

• Social Media and the legal department haven;t evolved at the same rate [rights management/privacy for instance]
• Grandiose plans...start small [this is risk mitigation strategy...if you can fail without risk, though, you aren't creating revolution. Most companies are not configured to be revolutionaries of course]
• [The biggest risk is that you challenge the existing way things are done...and that can be as  much a personal risk as an organizational risk]

Best practices for big companies

• Brands are broadcasters...this model is dead. 
• Marketers as customer advocates are the important role...marketers as broadcasters are assembly line workers.
• The call center associate is closest to the customer and yet viewed as lowliest n the organizational totem pole [is the receptionist one of the most important voices in the organization?]
• Facilitation versus Managers: you don;t manage your suctomer's conversations, but you can have people who faciliate and seed conversations among cusotmers.
• Comcast and Twitter example: when people are talking about your brand, the best response is 'How can I help?'
• Ask forgiveness...not permission

Conventional Marketing

• Big ideas-->big launch-->big budgets
  

Unconventional Marketing

• Plan/Design/Launch/Measure-->insights->little strategy->adjust-->Plan/Design/Launch/Measure [same process as software development...beta, release 1, etc.]

Online communities provide an excellent source of research into the customer mindsight. Verus traditiona research, you are not limited by size, controlled discussion and context-free assessment.

Marketers are not in the business of selling advertising, they sell products [Mad Men reference!]...selling products in the future will require more engagement in directly talking wtih customers. 

Return on Insght:

• Rather than calculating a hard economic return on investement, recognize that much of social media and customer interaction is learning. In that regard, the appropriate metric is return on insight.