The Value of Social Media in Business -- Interview with StartUpClub.TV

Happy and honoured to be invited as Expert Guest Speaker on Startup Club.tv's Online TV Show. It was a pleasure talking to the vivacious Madison Stern beaming in live from San Diego, California. I had fun doing the Q&A style interview on "The Value of Social Media in Business".





Here's a timeline of the Q&A to help you better navigate through the video:

04:00 - Tell us a little about Holistic Social Media? How do Integrated Marketing principles apply in Social Business?

07:03 - Social Media empowers people... marketers, customers, employees. Can you tell us a little more...

09:50 - Social media creates markets of one. What are the benefits of having connected customers? How does a company benefit from two-way communication channels and receiving real-time customer feedback?

11:24 - Call it customization, personalization or mass individualization, what does it cost the company? Is it worth the investment for a company to achieve social scale? Go from social media to social business?

13:22 - Red Bull Live Jump: an example of break-through marketing, going beyond social media, a brand creating larger-than-life marketing experiences, keeping pace with the evolving art + science of marketing.

18:07 - Big brands with deep pockets/ huge resources enjoy phenomenal success/ generate customer loyalty via social media. How does the small guy compete? What's in it for newbies/ SMEs/ SMBs/ entrepreneurs?

20:43 - How big a role does one's personality play in social? Why being yourself is paramount? How does it influence meaningful relationships or relate to creating positive customer experience?

24:12 - What do you think about the power of Word-of-Mouth on social? (My slightly poetic views :-) How does it lead to creating brand advocates/ evangelists?

27:43 - Old Spice "Smell Like a Man" - put the fun to marketing, got the brand tone right, the campaign engineered a brand revival, Old Spice is a case study for using YouTube effectively.

30:00 - How do start-ups/ companies go about choosing the right social platform for their brand/ business?

32:32 - KiwiYo Frozen Yoghurt Case Study - how they leveraged social media to create a NZ success story, how their Facebook Photobooth app hit it off with customers.

37:55 - What can companies do to get people engaged/ ensure buy-in using social media? Two stellar examples: At a micro-level: Social Media Club Auckland, At a macro-level: President Obama campaigns.

42:47 - What challenges do marketers trying to get people in the door usually face? How can they best utilize social media for that first crucial step?

45:50 - What's the best way to pitch Social Business to the C-suite, OR pitch Social Media to skeptics? Do you recommend the use of "Fear Factor/ Peer Pressure" scare tactics? If you don't join in, then...

48:54 - Why do companies/ brands need to be on social media and get social savvy? The real reason is... 

50:00 - Why invest in social media? Why is social listening so important to marketers?

51:10 - How does it lead to insights within all the clutter and noise out there on social?

52:47 - Big Data: Making sense of incoming information. For eg. What does a Facebook "Like" really mean? 

54:19 - Using 'humour' as a campaign driver.

55:40 - What books on social media would you recommend?

58:20 - The psychology of customer relationships... Why should businesses build relationships/ engage with their customers online via social?

1:04:00 - Why are you social? How do you "be" social? Is there a mindset that works best in social media?

Social is the way forward, and Social Business is the way to go. I'll sign-off on my top one-liner: "Social is not something you do. It's something you are."


If social business interests you, you may like this slide deck:

Social Business - A Competitive Advantage [DECK] #SocBiz