This is a panel discussion moderated by Ellen Sherberg of St Louis Business Journal with Ekaterina Walter (Intel), Leslie Bradshaw (New Media Strategies), Aaron Kahlow (Chairman of IMS) and Allison Collinger (AHC). Now that we have that portion done, on with the panel and their thoughts before the Q&A.
- Aaron – there is a lot of fundamental misnomers. He polled on the importance of social media in marketing before starting with his presentation. We need to change our behavior, which is the core human behavior.
- Leslie – Tactical enthusiasm is no substitution. Social media needs to be nurtured and loved like a pet. Social is human, not a bot or feed. It can be part of your strategy, not the whole thing. Strategy should be matched with objectives. Work from an editorial calendar, review analytics and establish goals instead of don’t. We are in the age of transparent, authentic and intimate. Early web was an anonymous space.
- Ekatrina – Learn your target audience and their passion. Then move to pilot testing and focusing on results before going live. Are we starting to gain on our objectives. Personal branding trumps corporate since there is less coordinated strategy. So corporate needs the strategy in place.
- Allison – It isn’t the shiny new object. it is about the takeaways. It takes 4-5 touches of someone before you change their behavior in most all cases. There is a social media long haul that includes: consider your policy, objective and staffing ; how does this fit into your existing business plans; who will be the strategist assigned; what was learned in quarterly checks and what needs to be adjusted
This was a good panel, yet it wasn’t a panel. They all took about 10+ mins each, so it was like 4 mini presentations in one session instead. It was a shame that most of the Q&A time got washed away and should have been 50% moderated Q&A with a fixed 5 mins each. That would have provided so much value to the attendees.
Don’t get me wrong, what they each presented was succinct and great material. All needed more time to present individually or we needed more Q&A. Either way would have made this a great session excellent. Oh and don’t have 14 bullets on one page to look like less slides 
December 12 2009: I ran across this post today from Spark Media Solutions and it summed up handling panels at conferences to get the most value most amazingly well.
