New Marketing Summit: Social Media Marketing in Tough Times, Todd Defren

15 October 2008 in Conferences & Events by Kate | View Comments

Panel: Social Media Marketing in Tough Times – Who Should Do What & What Should They Do?, Todd Defren, Principal at SHIFT Communications

  • We have two choices: We stick our head in the sand, cut budgets, or we can get tougher, smarter and louder.
  • Why would you cut budget for your brand in a way that gets it louder and more visible at a time when it’s most important for you to get the word out?
  • From Doug Leone, Sequoia Capital: Pound your competitor’s shortcomings, nail your sales & marketing, and an aggressive marketing and PR strategy is key right now.
  • You don’t need to reach everyone, you need to reach people who are going to find your stuff.  How are they going to find you?
  • You can simultaneously stir up the Google Juices.
  • “Findability” is cheap.  What’s expensive is the time.
  • Focus on the basics.  What you should cut: SEM (PPC), Advertising (in a downturn), Layers (internal staff), and Events (visibility comes from speeches).
  • Where do you double-down? Listening (responsiveness scores points and identifies red flags early on), Content creation (thought leadership and findability), SEO, PR (thought leadership and promotion).
  • You get to know your audience through social media, you can then tailor content to them.
  • People don’t want to go on your website to find you, they want to find you in places where you hang out.
  • Fresh Content + Smart Brains = Google Juice
  • PR is crucial. Provides third-party validation (mainstream media is influential).
  • Do: Listen, blog, hire a PR firm, focus on SEO, distribute content that’s relevant.
  • Don’t: advertise, PPC, attend events (unless you’re speaking), panic.
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  • dhemley
    Thank you for the coverage of the New Marketing Summit. There are several points here from Todd which in my opinion, are particularly critical:
    "Listening (responsiveness scores points and identifies red flags early on), Content creation (thought leadership and findability), SEO, PR (thought leadership and promotion)."

    Smart, useful content which stands out and makes an impression, and makes the reader want to learn more goes a long way. In blogging we help spread ideas and resources, and encourage someone to learn more from you (the blogger), or to be motivated enough to visit the link you've mentioned, download the pdf you wrote about, or go to their local bookstore (or online) to buy the book you've told them about-. That's a lot of bang for the buck.

    I often find myself quoting something I read on someone's blog, or describing a particularly entertaining video. By reading a wide spectrum of blogs about new marketing about social media, I feel like I've been the dutiful student, taking online courses. It's still very much about content--maybe even more then ever!
  • Thank you very much for your insightful words. I completely agree with you. I think creating a two way conversation and passing parts of that conversation along, or enticing others to pass your half of the conversation along, goes a very long way.

    While it can be time consuming, if you can do it correctly, it's effective and doesn't have to cost a lot. I worry about the companies who are spinning their wheels on things like blog posts (not putting out valuable content to attract people) or Twitter because, while "free," they take up a significant amount of time that could be devoted elsewhere (perhaps on some of the things you mentioned above). In tight economic times, I might argue that if you're in "experimental stages" in some of these channels, you might want to focus energies on already-proven marketing mechanisms.

    But of course, if you've already got the value part nailed... keep with it! :)
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