Tag: Klout

My Day as a Social Media Week Speaker

Posted on by smwnyc

This is a guest post by SMW veteran Joyce Sullivan.

This is my 2nd year as a Social Media Week NYC speaker and attendee. After getting my feet wet last year curating and moderating a panel on the emerging world of social media for financial services, I thought I’d dive in again talking about Social Media Strategy for Financial Services.

We finished our setup work on Monday with our live event on Tuesday, Feb 14th – and yes, I wore red on stage for Valentines Day! The planning and prep paid off, as we had a full house at @NYITManagement Auditorium. We had good feedback in person, and via our Twitter feed using our hastag#SMWFinServ. If you missed us, and want to know about all the fun facts on how to do social media in the highly regulated financial services industry, this link’s for you!  We also Storified our tweets! You can also catch me on Livestream or on Twitter @JoyceMSullivan and @SocMediaFin.

My Day as a Social Media Week Attendee

With my SMW presentation complete, it was now time to enjoy the talks from the other side of the stage. I had a full day starting at Big Fuel bright and early listening to Rachel Stearne (whom I met in the elevator on the way up!). So great to hear what’s going on in the NYC digital space with Rachel at the helm as Chief Digital Officer for Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Free wifi in the parks is today a reality but just a beginning. It may be a bit longer before we have it on the subways, which Rachel mentioned was one of the biggest requests. However, the city will be providing lots of support for the NY Tech start up community. Rachel encouraged all to check out all the NYC Digital happenings.

As part of her first 90 days with the City, she created the Road Map for the Digital City outlining a path to build on New York City’s successes and establish it as the world’s top-ranked Digital City. They make it easy to keep up with these news making and news breaking innovators: @rachelsterne @edpilkington @nycgov @NYCDigital.

I had planned to head over to another venue but since I had a front row seat at Big Fuel (check out my pics of the stage!) I thought I’d hang a bit longer and see what’s going on with social TV. Yahoo! kicked off the event with Patrick Albano on stage introducing the next talented panel for Social Television: Opportunities for Broadcasters and Advertisers. I absolutely loved the Into Now app demoed by the sartorially resplendent Edwin Wong of Yahoo!.

Though I’m trying to stay neutral (for now!) with the upcoming 2012 US election, the talk by Edward O’Keefe of ABC News demoing their new OTUS News app they developed with Blue Fin Labs is a game changer. And for the finale we had Beth Reilly of Kraft Foods showcasing the success and fun of engaging their audience with their latest Cheesy Skillets Liquid Gold spots. Who would have thought Velveeta could get this much of a rise out of folks.. well, the Liquid Gold Blacksmith guy has a little bit to do with it!  Keep up with these app makers: @intonow and @OTUSNews and @kraftfoods.

Next up was my fave Joe Fernandez of Klout interviewed in front of a digital fireplace by Big Fuel CEO Jon Bond. I’ve been an early adopter of Klout and have watched them soar and swoop down – a bit – in the last few months. They continue to be the digital global influence leader. It was interesting to hear after the US, the next biggest countries for Klout are #2 Brazil and #3 Japan.

Joe told some inside tales about the handlers of the rich and famous coming to see him and asking why some other big star had a higher Klout score. For such a successful global influence disruptor, Joe is very down to earth and approachable. See what I mean: @JoeFernandez and catch Jon Bond at @JonBond57.

Time to walk around and check out the rest of the goings on at Big Fuel. Yummy (and free!) food from @wholefoodsNYC in the back was a good way to refuel. The charge stations throughout the floor gave me a chance to charge up my devices and meet others. As I turned around to say hello to the folks around me, I met @BeVisible, whom I have followed for the past year but had never met in person. Always great to meet old school in real life.

It was a double header day for Joe Fernandez who was also on the Global Influence panel. Along with Joe, we got an insightful and fun perspective on how this group influences their online community from Funk Flex aka @FunkMasterFlex, along with Brandon Evans of CrowdTap, moderated by Ben Luntz of Big Fuel. It was especially fun to have Funk and Joe sharing their views on how to be influential. Joe said he started following Funk right before this event to get to know him. This Livestream is definitely worth another listen. It’s on my replay list.

It was time to get some fresh air and check out another venue. I decided to go to a non-hub event to check out the ‘indie’ SMWNYC scene. I picked “Can We Tweet Yet, Social Media in Financial Services” hosted by Joanna Belbey of Actiance a few blocks away. It was a nice sized group and with a slide show, and some handouts, Joanna took the group through the ins and out of social media regulation in a clear and approachable manner.

This was great live theater; no livestream for this one, folks, though you can follow more of Joanna’s insights on twitter: @Belbey  and on BelbeyBlogs.

I wanted to also attend Email and Social Media up at Thomson Reuters taking place at the same time uptown. I had heard Wendi Caplan-Carroll of Constant Contact speak at other events and wanted to catch her latest insights. Next best thing?.. watch it on Livestream and find out what Fanbruary is all about! Great intro by Brady Hahn of Crowdcentic introducing Nick Hahn (any relation?), Wendy Caplan-Carroll, Noel Descalzi, Gabby Bernstein, and Josh Mendelsohn. So many great insights of how to use email marketing as part of social media to reach your target audience. Being authentic is key, and you can see all the insights here.

And my day is done! Being on the Social Media Week stage and watching the events on stage, are both exhilarating AND exhausting. Everyone have fun out there!

 

Joyce Sullivan is a recognized industry expert in social media networking through emerging social media networking tools. A financial services industry veteran, Joyce speaks frequently on the convergence of social media and the financial services industry. She’s been recognized for her social media networking expertise through seminars, and you can watch Joyce’s interview with CNBC anchor and journalist, Maria Bartiromo, on career reinvention and the use of social media networking on “Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo.” Keep up with her online.

An Interview with Stephen Bates, Oracle Public Sector Director of Business Strategy, on Social Media, Public Companies, and Advice for CEOs

Posted on by Lisa Chau

Stephen Bates is the Director of Business Strategy for Oracle Public Sector, one of the largest technology companies in the world. In this role, he drives program capture to enlarge Oracle’s hardware and software footprint within DoD, Federal Civilian agencies, Canada, and both state and local.

Stephen Bates, twitter: @batess

Q. What is the general consensus among public companies regarding social media? 

SB: Most publicly traded companies have fairly well defined guidance regarding the use of social media. As you know, publicly traded companies are regulated by the SEC regarding disclosure of material information. There is necessary due diligence that must be done regarding public communications. More and more companies are discovering social media as a way to harness their internal intellectual capital, but the free two-way exchange of information via social media remains a concern for a variety of reasons. Most companies will use social media as a marketing tool, allowing them to carefully craft both message and the medium. Others do an extraordinary job of customer service through Twitter (think Starwood Preferred Guest, Zappos, American Express, and JetBlue).

Q. Who are the CEOs who embrace social media?

SB: Aaron Stout has a list of Fortune 500 CEOs on Twitter.

Michael Hyatt, Tony Hsiesh, Scott McNealy, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Mark Cuban, Jack Welch, Sir Richard Branson, Schmidt, Tim O’Reilly, Fred Wilson.

The WSJ ran an article recently in the Careers section discussing the decline of resumes. Union Square Ventures, headed by Fred Wilson, simply asked prospective candidates to send them links to their web presence. I would imagine Klout scores weighing more heavily in future job prospects.

Q. Who would you like to see using social media?

SB: Firms that are customer-focused. I would love to see Jeff Smisek of United. There are HIGH RISKS, however. Consider the following:

CEOs are busy people with tons of demands on their time.

The stakes are high. If you make a mistake, you can end up in the front page of the Wall Street Journal. And not in a good way.

Financial risk makes it tricky to talk about meaningful drivers to the business (the SEC doesn’t take kindly to potential insider information).

Twitter is hard to learn, so learning “on the job”  — while the world is watching — can be unnerving.

Q. What are best practices for firms to leverage social media?

SB: Be personal. American Express is superb at this. They put a name to their company Twitter account. The Army CIO-G6 also does this; she tweets herself unless tweets are prefaced by “staff.”

Be consistent across all forms of social media.

Be timely and accurate.

Q. You worked as a General Manager at Apple for four years. What are your thoughts about Apple and social networking?

SB: If you recall, Apple wanted to partner with FB, but Mark Z’s terms and conditions were too onerous (See the 7 Nov 11 cover of Forbes magazine.) Apple wanted to buy Dropbox, and while not social, it did round out the ecosystem. Look at how deeply Twitter is embedded into the iOS. Phil Schiller tweets, but Steve Jobs did not nor did Tim Cook. Speculation on Apple’s future product plans is generally a fool’s errand.

Q. What do you see as the next big revolution in social media?

SB: Social overtaking and/or disrupting search. Search will be social. And the marketing metrics will get tighter and more effective. Look at Klout, ComScore, ListenLogic, Radian6 as examples of increasing measurement, but for business and consumer.

Q. Will Facebook exist in 5 years? 

SB: Absolutely, but mainly due to the lack of a credible alternative. I had high hopes for Google+, but I think Timeline was such game changer that few are going to make a similar such an investment in Google+, at least in the short term. That may change in the longer term for those that don’t have such an investment in FB.

Q. If you were hired as the CEO for a startup social media company, what are the first three key issues you would address?

SB: A CEO has two major priorities: Set strategic vision and focus on talent. Delegate everything else to your top managers. Do I have enough projected capital to execute my strategic vision while paying above market rates for my employees? If not, how do I raise and what is the appropriate debt and equity structure? What’s my exit plan? Are my metrics meaningful? Are my employees as fanatically devoted to customer service as I am to them? I spend quite a bit of time in the hiring andvetting process and would train managers accordingly. Employee churn kills companies.

 

Lisa Chau has been involved with Web 2.0 since graduate school at Dartmouth College, where she completed an independent study on blogging. She was subsequently highlighted as a woman blogger in Wellesley Magazine, published by her alma mater. Since 2009, Lisa has worked as an Assistant Director at the Tuck School of Business. In 2012, she launched GothamGreen212 to pursue social media strategy projects. Follow her on twitter.