Busy two days in Miami. I began my day yesterday presenting at The Social Networking Conference. The session itself I think went well (according to some nice folks who came up to me afterwards).  The topic of my session was “Anytime, Anywhere Social Media Marketing.” I had the session recorded so I’ll post it here once I get the file. The topic of the presentation was how we’ve built our social media team based on the concept of continual engagement with our customers vs. campaign mentality which ebb and flows. If a social media engagement is build around a campaign that campaign will sunset, ending the engagement with the customers.  Most brands walk away from the customer base they have build up; Facebook fans, YouTube views, UGC submissions. What we are focused on is how we maintain a regular conversation with customers outside the confines of a campaign start and stop.

I am happy to say I met 4 great social media counterparts today, 3 at the conference.  IBM @adamclyde,  JetBlue @jetblue, Ford @ScottMonty and one ala a mutual agency connection, Intel @Britopian. JetBlue and Ford are definitely focused on regular conversations with their customers. Scott at Ford is building out individual experiences with their different brands depending on the customers interests (@  FordDriveOne @ FordDriveGreen @ FordCustService @ FordMustang @ FordTrucks @ FordRacing @ FordRacing_ITO @ FordAPA). He recognizes someone interested in their Green initiative isn’t going to be interested in the same topics as someone who is passionate about his/her Mustang. I’m not a car gal but I certainly understand customer segmentation and this makes complete sense to me. It’s a massive undertaking but one that I’m sure Ford will benefit from. I plan to do a podcast with Scott in the coming weeks and will post it here. Really interesting stuff.

JetBlue is famous for their amazing Twitter conversations. Morgan is the main guy running that program. I was amazed how responsive he is committed to being on their Twitter feed. The number one question he gets asked is “Why is my flight delayed?” I love where Jetblue is going with this engagement model. What I also love is they have drawn the line with ‘virtual extortion’. They get contacted fairly regularly from bloggers wanting free tickets to events, etc. Bloggers will of course give them a shout out on their blog but JetBlue has to put up the free ticket first. This is a really grey area that can get quite sticky. I think it’s still a case by case basis depending on the corporation. IBM has a policy they don’t fly reporters anywhere or pay for anything. JetBlue has created a policy that is comfortable for them that they adhere to. At Microsoft we are unable to accept any gifts over a few $100’s. I was actually invited twice to Sundance this year and respective declined both offers. While it was very kind and generous of both companies to invite me and I’m quite sure my husband I would have had a great time MSFT has a strict policy on accepting gifts from partners or even potential partners.

IBM’s perspective is a bit different. They are adapting social media to work within their company culture. They are not a consumer business so running a Twitter account for customers isn’t probably the best use of his resources. They use social networking to connect their over 300K employees around the world. They have wikis, twitter feeds, virtual meet ups, etc all focuses around building internal awareness to a global company where people on the same teams may be on other sides of the world, and maybe not even speak the same languages. Adam does a great job explaining here.

Love learning from others!