markwilson.it

Tag: Social Media

  • Fruits of my labour: Fujitsu’s UK and Ireland blogs

    Six months ago, I changed roles at Fujitsu and moved to the Office of the CTO, as a Strategy Consultant. It’s been a good move and I’m really enjoying my work, in a team that’s focused on driving innovation, thought leadership and governance.

    Aside from my technology background and propensity to share information (whether people ask for it or not!), one of the reasons I was brought into the team was my experience with social media – particularly blogging but other channels too – and I’m really pleased to say that I’ve been involved in Fujitsu’s move to embrace social media, not just here in the UK, but as part of a global community too.

    Whilst some IT service organisations have been using social media for a while, it’s typically in a business to consumer (B2C) rather than business to business (B2B) context but it’s equally important to ensure that any social media activities are part of an overall integrated strategy. At the same time, it’s important to pick the appropriate channels (not necessarily every platform that’s out there) not least because, as any company starts to use new methods of communicating with customers and partners, it’s important that they’re able to respond in the manner that the audience expects: it’s no good launching a Twitter account (for example) and then not having the resources in place to respond to customer dialogue.

    Today, I took the wraps off the first of Fujitsu’s corporate blogs for the UK and Ireland, kicking off with our CTO blog, written by David Smith, who is Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Security Officer (CSO) for our region.  Because of the combination of roles that he performs, David has a unique insight on a variety of technology developments, drawing on a combination of external go-to-market and internal IT capability knowledge and this enables him to be a thought leader in both business and technology, translating IT trends into potential business value. I believe that’s pretty unusual and, just as importantly, I want to stress that he writes the content himself (it’s not ghost written) – if the author is shown as David Smith, that means that it’s David’s views and opinions you read, not something formed by my team (although we do also also provide some content, for which the author is clearly shown as Office of the CTO).

    Whilst the site went live today, we’ve included content that’s been written throughout the site’s development as I wanted it to add value from day one, rather than starting out with a “Hello World” post!

    In addition to what I intend to be a growing number of Fujitsu blogs, we’re highlighting some Fujitsu bloggers – people like me, but also Amit Apte (Enterprise Architecture and strategic IT management), Debra Lilley (Oracle) and Jeremy Worrell (innovation). The Fujitsu bloggers all have established blogs which are not hosted by Fujitsu, but still provide some insight into the talent that we have available within the organisation.

    It’s not just blogging though: Twitter is another of the channels that we’re using now – with @Fujitsu_UK providing the latest news and developments from our region, as part of a globally co-ordinated social media community which embodies our “think global, act local” approach.

    This has been a really exciting few months for me – I don’t normally talk about my work on this blog but all of the activities I mentioned here are externally facing, so they’re not exactly secret and I really want to shout from the rooftops that we are doing this. Shouting from the rooftops is not really our style though, so broadcasting to a smaller community of people who’ve supported my personal activities over the years seems like a decent compromise. Please do visit the Fujitsu UK and Ireland blogs, and let me know what you think.

  • 24 hours with Greater Manchester Police, on Twitter (#gmp24)

    Greater Manchester Police has been running a social media experiment today, broadcasting details of all emergency (999) calls via a number of Twitter accounts managed by support staff. Using the hash tag #gmp24, the official accounts were named @gmp24_1, @gmp24_2 and @gmp24_3. It’s a bold move – but also an excellent example of using social media to demonstrate the type of calls that Greater Manchester Police receives.

    In a statement on the official GMP website, Chief Constable, Peter Fahy said:

    “Policing is often seen in very simple terms, with cops chasing robbers and locking them up. However the reality is that this accounts for only part of the work they have to deal with.

    A lot of what we do is dealing with social and health problems such as missing children, people with mental health problems and domestic abuse.

    […] There needs to be more focus on how the public sector as a whole is working together to tackle society’s issues and problems.

    We see time and again the same families, the same areas and the same individuals causing the same problems and these people are causing a considerable drain to the public purse.”

    A Manchester Evening News analysis of calls between 5am and noon, showed that a large number of calls received by the police are non-emergency, or “social work”.  For another view, see this Wordle showing a sample of 500 “emergency” calls.

    Inevitably though, the spoof accounts opened up – two, in particular (@gmp24_0 and @gmp24_9) had some hilarious updates exploiting Police stereotypes, but also providing welcome amusement. Greater Manchester Police were less impressed, asking spoof account operators to change their avatars as use of the official Police crest was a copyright infringement… it seemed a little heavy handed at first but, on reflection it’s no different to any other organisation protecting its brand.

    Another amusing event was that, despite using multiple accounts to avoid Twitter’s anti-spam measures, the official accounts found themselves in “Twitter Jail”, resulting in some more humorous exchanges as followers commented that jail (sic) is intended as a method of rehabilitation and creating new accounts is not the answer!

    In all seriousness though, the event (which started at 5am today and will complete at 5am tomorrow) has exposed some of the inner workings of a busy urban Police service and, whilst critics may question this use of public funds to “play around with social media” at a time of public service cutbacks, there is another view: by exposing the types of calls received by 999 operators, it would be nice to think that Greater Manchester Police may actually save money in the medium-term through better public education (a standardised national number for non-emergency calls to the Police might save even more…).

    Personally, I’m impressed by Greater Manchester Police’s remarkable openness and innovative use of social media – it might not save them from inevitable budget cuts, but it can do their image no harm either.

  • Why CEOs don’t blog/tweet

    Yesterday, I tweeted about a Harvard Business Review article published by Bloomberg that asks “Is the typical CIO a ‘Gear Guy?’” and it reminded me to post something about Rob Shimmin‘s talk on “Why CEOs don’t tweet” at last month’s Dell B2B Social Media Huddle (#dellb2b).

    It was a fascinating talk and I hope Rob won’t mind me sharing the key points in this post.

    Setting the scene

    • Very few CEOs blog or tweet (and even fewer in the B2B world).
    • All CEOs are good communicators but their skills may vary according to where/how they are communicating (face to face, auditorium, etc.)  Your CEO may be nervous in front of some audiences – so look at them and see where they fit.

    Should a CEO communicate using social media?

    • Maybe not? Some CEOs have unbelievable restrictions on what they can say and their message may be scrubbed clean until the point where the content is not that useful.  One example is Jonathan Schwartz (former CEO of Sun Microsystems), whose current blog is titled “What I couldn’t say…”.
    • The primary reason that CEOs don’t blog or tweet is time. Use of social media needs to be transparent and, if a blog is ghost written, then it’s important to say so.  Rob spoke of how some CEOs sits down with the guys who write their posts at 8am each day and tell them what they are thinking.  Others want to write for themselves but it’s difficult to switch someone from “command and control” mode to “talking through a keyboard” (unfiltered).
    • Permanence is another consideration (the United States Library of Congress is cataloging all tweets) – think about what happens when two organisations are competing and they later merge – those blog posts and tweets are still there for all to see their previous history of conflict!
    • CEOs may also have some restrictions around what can say (for example as a result of regulation, fair disclosure).
    • For B2B CEOs, control is a big issue – it’s difficult for them to let people say what they like in social media!  Lawyers and HR may also have a view.  Then consider that social media reaches a wide audience and impacts buying patterns… whereas B2B CEOs worry about a small number of important contacts.
    • All CEOs are interested in recruiting great talent and getting message to staff in event of crisis.  Often, organisations are collaborating with other partners on a product or service – they can’t be completely open but there is a need to collaborate externally [and to communicate internally].
    • B2B and B2C communications are closer than many might think. Rob’s example was that, if British Airways’ engine supplier is “volcanic ash friendly”, that could impact on a consumer’s airline choice (i.e. B2B becomes B2C when the public are interested). And even if there is no risk (i.e. that all jet engines are equally ash friendly, or not!), there may be a perception of risk by the public – again, B2B organisations need to think about what the public thinks as a B2C organisation would.  In essence, it’s important to think “if my customer’s customer is interested in something, what am I doing to address it?”

    Triggers for B2B social media communications

    • Crisis (fixing negative PR [BP must surely be upset about the @BPGlobalPR Twitter account!]).
    • Competition (sounding knowledgeable on a topic that people care about (they have a good approach to xyz… should we have?).
    • Cost effectiveness (i.e. – look at the reach of various social networking platforms – although it’s important to consider richness, not just reach).
    • Powerful channel (recognising that social media can play in important role in communicating with both customers and employees).

    Using social media for B2B crisis management

    “Seeing a CEO grapple with social media can be a bit like seeing your Dad dance at your wedding with baseball camp on backwards!”

    [source unknown]

    • A crisis isn’t the time to launch a social media presence – the CEO’s message can be passed out through existing channels and other (often younger) more, technologically-savvy people in the organisation can get the CEO to comment through their blogs.
    • In a crisis, suddenly everything is watched and old, previously uninteresting content becomes interesting (so, because of permanence, it’s important to future-proof the message).
    • Some CEOs will take well to social media, whilst others are not so comfortable – it’s important to play to your CEO’s strong points.

    Social Media is on the B2B RADAR

    • Social media can have a negative effect too – in the recent British Airways strike negotiations, a senior Union leader provoked controversy by tweeting from the negotiation table (and then compounded the issue by tweeting as he enjoyed himself at a football match, whilst passengers were grounded by strikes).
    • CEOs make mistakes like the rest of us but, if they have a good setup around them, they can survive; however CEOs are less likely to survive contention (particularly if old content is surfaced later) than “Jake from marketing aged 24” is when he tweets about suffering from a hangover.
    • CEO use of social media should be about: earning trust; having an industry voice (building communities); monitoring issues (getting ready to react to consumer’s needs and concerns); talking to employees (listening too); driving innovation (encouraging idea sharing); and recruiting talent (leveraging connections).

    The top 10 challenges for Heads of Digital Communications (HDCs)

    1. Lack of understanding
    2. Loss of control
    3. Demographic apartheid
    4. Fragmentation of media
    5. Speed of change and response
    6. Rules of engagement
    7. Privacy and corporate security
    8. Finding good people
    9. Lack of effective metrics
    10. Ownership of digital

    (From Watson Helsby Executive Search’s “Digital Communications and Social Media: the challenges facing the PR industry”) – more quotes include:

    “Under 30’s are the digital natives – but they lack the all-round communications skills, gravitas and credibility.”

    “Digital communications is a destabilising force in a bureaucratic environment.”

    “38% of HDCs were in favour of a total ban on social media in the office.”

    Cornerstones for CEO communications

    • Consider all audiences – you can no longer speak to just one.
    • Think before you speak – consider the “New York Times Test” (never write down anything you would be uncomfortable seeing in tomorrow’s New York Times).
    • Consider content rather than tone – strip away any negative tones and focus on the issue.
    • Scope – decide early what’s in and out.
    • Know your influencers – who must be reached in a crisis.
    • Be honest, open and transparent.

    Credits

    This post is based almost entirely on the presentation that Rob Shimmin (@robshimmin) gave at the Dell B2B Social Media Huddle – the original deck is on Slideshare.

    Incidentally, I notice that, when Rob’s slides were uploaded to Slideshare, the title was changed to “Why CIOs don’t tweet” – that would be an entirely different discussion…

  • So you think Social Media is a fad?

    One of the videos I saw presented at last Tuesday’s Dell B2B Social Media Huddle was Erik Qualman’s (@equalman) Social Media Revolution (refresh).  Set to the tune of Fat Boy Slim’s Right Here, Right Now, this video gives a whole load of statistics (the sources for which may be found on Erik’s Socialnomics Social Media Blog):

    For those who can’t see the video, here are the stats:

    • Is Social Media a Fad?
      Or the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution?
    • Welcome to the revolution
    • Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30 years old
    • 96% of Millennials have joined a social network
    • Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.
    • Social Media has overtaken pornography as the #1 activity on the Web
    • 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. met via social media
    • Years to reach 50 million users:
      • Radio 38 years
      • TV 13 years
      • Internet 4 years
      • iPod 3 years
    • Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year
    • iPod application downloads hit 1 billion in 9 months
    • “We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it.” – Erik Qualman
    • If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 3rd largest
      [behind China and India, ahead of the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh…]
      Yet QQ and Renren dominate China
    • US Department of Education study revealed that online students out performed those reciving face-to-face instruction…
    • 80% of companies use social media for recruitment
    • % of those using LinkedIn…95%
    • The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
    • Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Sweden, Israel, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway, [or] Panama.
    • 50% of mobile Internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook
      Imagine what this means for bad customer experiences
    • Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé
    • Some universities have stopped distributing e-mail accounts
      Instead they are distributing eReaders, iPads, Tablets
    • What happens in Vegas stays on
      Facebook
      Twitter
      Renren
      Kohtakte
      Flickr
      YouTube
    • YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world
    • While you watch this [4′ 26″ video] 100+ hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube
    • Wiki is an Hawaiian term = Quick
    • Wikipedia has over 15 million articles
      Studies show it’s as accurate as Encyclopaedia Britannica
      78% of those articles are non-English
      If you were paid $1 for every article posted on Wikipedia you would earn $1712.32 per hour
    • There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
    • Word of mouth [leads to] World of mouth
    • 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
    • 34% of bloggers post opinions about products and brands
    • Do you like what they are saying
      about your brand?
      You better…
    • People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them
    • 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
    • Only 14% trust advertisements
    • Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
    • 90% of people skip ads via TiVo/DVR
    • Kindle eBooks Outsold Paper Books on Christmas [2009]
    • 24 of the 25 Largest Newspapers are Experiencing Record Declines in Circulation
    • 60 million status updates happen on Facebook daily
    • We no longer search for the news, the news finds us…
    • We will no longer search for products and services
      they will find us via social media
    • Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.
    • Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like Mad Men
      Listening first, selling second
    • The ROI of Social Media is [that] Your Business Will Still Exist in 5 years
    • Still think social media is a fad?
    • Welcome to the World of Socialnomics
    • Are You Ready?

    The video is really an ad for Erik’s book (Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business) but those statistics are pretty compelling… so, do you still think Social Media is a fad?

    Me neither.

  • Highlights from the second Dell B2B Social Media Huddle (#DellB2B)

    This post comes with an apology: to all the tech readers of this blog, I’m sorry for including a marketing post.  Don’t worry – I’m still a geek at heart but I’m also getting involved in some marketing-related activities around social media, which meant that I spent a really interesting day in the company of senior communicators and marketing professionals at the Dell B2B Social Media Huddle earlier this week.

    The event was hosted by Microsoft Advertising, and organised by For Immediate Release and Dell, with speakers from a number of organisations.  It was the second B2B Social Media Huddle – the first was back in December 2009 and these events aim to plug a gap as there are many people looking at the use of social media for Business to Consumer (B2C) communications, but there seems to be less focus in the Business to Business (B2B) space. 

    The day included a B2B Social Media Overview from Neville Hobson (@jangles), Benjamin Ellis (@benjaminellis) talking about building a business case for B2B social media and a panel discussion with representatives from Dell, Intel and Microsoft, before a networking lunch, an unconference with several social-media-related topics (e.g. why CEOs don’t tweet, how to become an Internet private eye) and a number of roundtable sessions to mop up at the end of the day (before retiring for another form of socialising in the pub).

    Rather than duplicate the content here, I’ll link out to the slide decks (they were all on Slideshare before the event was finished – several large technology companies could benefit from following a similar approach. Yes, I mean you: Microsoft, VMware, Citrix…).  I’ll also include some of the tweets on the #dellb2b hashtag along with some notes I made in order to summarise the key messages from the main presentations [hashtags and presenter names have been removed for clarity, spelling mistakes corrected]:

    A quick tweet from during Kerry Bridge’s (@kerryatdell) introduction:

    Is Social Media a Fad? Some interesting quotes in [corrected link: ] [@markwilsonit]

    My notes, followed by others’ comments on Twitter during Neville Hobson’s talk on B2B Social Media Overview:

    • Social media is not about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (or any other site) – it’s about the connections made with people (if you forget that, it adds to the perception that it’s all a waste of time with no ROI).
    • It’s a seismic shift, and very disruptive in some organisations – hence the reason to be clear about what you are setting out to achieve.
    • It matters because of the increasing importance of word of mouth on purchasing behaviours – social media amplifies and accelerates word of mouth, rapidly shaping and influencing opinion and can help foster a genuine connection between a company and it’s customers, partners and employees.
    • Understand where and when people talk about your brand, with who (precisely) and aim to take this from awareness to acting as an ambassador (if that’s your goal) – the connections made might help her to bring your brand into their peer network (informal, highly social) and form a trusted partnership.  Other engagement methods are formal – the unstructured informality of social media jars against this.
    • Formula for success involves knowledge (understand your marketplace), clarity (listen and learn with precision), influence (identify locations of influence and influencers) and content (focus on syndication and conversation).

    Biggest comms challenge facing businesses today: Authenticity and transparency. Employees need to be able to speak freely [@guy1067]

    What is B2B social media? Important to define it or understand what you want to achieve with it [@guy1067]

    It’s about the connections you make with people it’s not about Twitter Facebook etc. Relationships not channels that matter [@guy1067]

    Why social media matters – increasing importance of word-of-mouth recommendations in purchasing decisions [@joiningdots]

    YouTube: Best Practices for the B2B Marketer:  [@markwilsonit]

    Am I the only person who doesn’t see the point of foursquare? [@sukhysukhy]

    [She wasn’t… but…]

    “This is just the start of location services” Too true [@ciaranj]

    Formula for success in Social Media = Knowledge + Clarity + Influence + Content [@msadvertising]

    3 key steps to B2B social media: 1) Listen 2) Plan 3) Engage [@tbush]

    My notes, followed by others’ comments on Twitter during Benjamin Ellis’ talk on building a business case for B2B social media:

    • The Social Media business case is often expressed as “believe” (together with some “stats porn”) but “believe” is not a business case!
    • “Buy my stuff” is not marketing – everyone wants to buy – no-one wants to be sold to.
    • Failure is a learning experience – whatever you do in social media will have an element of failure.  Allows us to learn.
    • Social media is a new set of tools – and it’s an input (tell you where things are not quite right).  If business thinks everything is perfect, then you have a problem.
    • You can’t buy attention any more.
    • Move from me = brand, you = customer (adult/child relationship) to a partnership.
    • When marketing, we speak “vendorese” – if customers/audience are advocating a company, brand, product or service, they write in a language that’s understood.
    • An audience is not a community – if you spend the social media budget on audience, it will not return business value – a community sticks together.
    • To create a community there are three options: build one (inexpensive, but how to you get people to go there), buy one (e.g. fund a user group – but be careful about how you do it), or borrow one (join and existing community, or pool resources with competitors to build an ecosystem).
    • For resources, you’ll need everything you can lay your hands on – not just money (social media platforms are free, time is expensive).  Understand who there is within the organisation that you can work with (some CEOs are charismatic – others are not) – and don’t forget the “engineers” (they may mumble, but can produce technical videos that are passionate and engaging).  Personality is key!
    • Tone of voice does not work for social media – understand what the personality of your business is – aspirational branding is fine, but what is your business actually like? Social media may not bring transparency but it does bring directness.
    • Slip social media under the research and development budget – what is your marketing R&D strategy?!
    • Experimental becomes core – look for return on innovation.  What was the business case for a B2B website a few years ago? Social media channels are a new form of this.
    • It’s a marathon, not a sprint – be in it for the long run – ROI calculations do not work well for social media (or marketing in general).
    • The best strategy is to think big, move fast, act small. Build big strategic plan – think about where you want to be and where social media fits in (in an ideal world), then plan backwards, then plan forwards. Ask, “what’s the smallest next action that I can do?” Start to execute the plan in small steps – and do them quickly.
    • The biggest ROI question: are your prospects, competitors, or customers active on Social Media?  What’s the cost to your business of ignoring social media?
    • And think about who you hire: not just what they say in social media whilst they work for you – afterwards too.

    Know who the influencers are know what they’re saying about your brand… social media isn’t always about marketing [@guy1067]

    Business case around B2B social media often revolves around the idea of  ‘believe’. Enthusiasm isn’t a business case [@guy1067]

    Most businesses don’t have a ‘discovery’ budget when it comes to social media [and] marketing [@arunsudhaman]

    Whatever you do in social media will involve an element of #fail …failure however gives the opportunity to learn [@guy1067]

    Traditional media = interruption; digital media = engagement; social media = advocacy [@markwilsonit]

    An audience is not a community! [@tbush]

    Marketers speak “vendorese” – if customers/audience are advocates they speak in a language that’s understood [@markwilsonit]

    B2B – to build a community takes 2 to 3 years or you can buy a community (easier) or borrow (take part) [@cofacio]

    “Don’t start what you can’t finish” is particularly relevant to social media (and it never finishes…) [@joiningdots]

    Understand the personality of your company as that’s your brand [@heatherataylor]

    Walk away if your bosses are looking for a fast return on social media investment [@robshimmin]

    What was the business case for a B2B website a few years ago? Now switch that thought process to social media [@markwilsonit]

    Social media still a marathon not a sprint. If can’t commit for the long-term risky to commit at all [@joiningdots]

    Last updated 96 days ago… Don’t be that Twitter account! [@tbush]

    Followers mean very little. Engagement is key! [@tbush]

    Decide what you want to achieve with social media and work back from there in small steps be flexible [@cofacio]

    “The rewards are there including financial. But they’re unpredictable” [@joiningdots]

    When building a social media strategy – think big act small move fast [@markwilsonit]

    If your prospects/customers are on social media not being there is like not having a telephone [@eepaul]

    “Who you hire” is now part of your B2B social media strategy; employees talk about your business [@eepaul]

    “Employees have the microphone”; “Think about who you hire”; Nice point[s] [@grahamsm1th]

    Great Q: Would Gerald Ratner be a #fail now[?] A: He’d be a hero; and ironic humour would be recognised – 20 years of change! [@markwilsonit]

    Comments from Twitter during the panel discussion with WCG’s Neville Hobson interviewing Kerry Bridge from Dell, Microsoft Advertising’s Mel Carson (@melcarson/@msadvertising) and Laura Conger from Intel (@intelitgalaxyuk):

    Dell has now made $6.5m out of Twitter use [@arunsudhaman]

    Be transparent [and] give everyone press training: Laura Conger from Intel on “How to keep the lawyers at bay” [@nathanmcdonald]

    How do you keep lawyers at bay? Common sense inherent knowledge of what’s right/wrong [together with] some guidelines [@guy1067]

    Microsoft rep thinks Looking Glass is next big thing? Pity no one knows what it is… [@sukhysukhy]

    [To be honest, Mel Carson had gone against the spirit of the event with this blatant product marketing (although he sees it as evangelism)… whereas Dell and Intel were talking about broader issues… so, in case you were wondering…]

    @melcarson referring to Microsoft’s Looking Glass tool – video embedded at  [@joiningdots]

    Panel agrees the next big thing in social media will be mobile. Do you have a mobile strategy in place? Are you prepared? [@zoe9]

    Within B2B who should be responsible for social media? General answer seems to be cross-functional [although] Intel thinks [social media should have its] own dept [@guy1067]

    Another good Q – personal vs corporate identities online who owns the content and what happens when they leave[?] [@joiningdots]

    Who owns social profile if you leave your company? context + relevance but still no definitive answer [@guy1067]

    [Kerry Bridge later explained to me that Dell has three types of Twitter account: personal, newsfeeds and business discounts (generally B2C) – also look out for unauthorised accounts – maybe using your logo/brand but often not positive – find out who they are!]

    Can social media give biz competitive advantage? That’s a yes across the board; gives open dialogue with people [@guy1067]

    1st step in social media? Go where audience are ask ‘why?’ start small and build how you can add value to the conversation [@guy1067]

    How do you get social media buy-in across multiple depts? Difficult[.] Dell has leadership team with reps across depts [@guy1067]

    Microsoft Advertising’s B2B social media white paper (learn and earn) [@markwilsonit]

    Totally agree with @melcarson “social media isn’t just about Facebook and Twitter[;] it’s about community questions and answers” [@cofacio]

    Social Media Spend tiny despite huge growth [@mrmrboulton]

    Microsoft talk about getting internal commitment [for] Social Media success. Easy to say but HOW do you do this? [@sukhysukhy]

    ROI on Twitter etc… can be reduced costs for call centres etc. [@ciaranj]

    Dell [and] MS monitor employees social media output but there has to be an element of trust and training [@cofacio]

    Interesting Intel [and] MS consider blogs are their most important social media tool [due to] interaction [and] discussions[. Microsoft also] mentions SEO [@cofacio]

    Content is king and blogs are best social media tool for your marketing [@shivseo]

    That covers most of the conversation from the main sessions: I’ll write some follow-up posts for the two unconference breakouts that I found most useful (so watch this space).

    Finally, if anyone is thinking “I wish I’d been there”, then the recorded sessions are available on UStream.  Mel Carson has also posted his photos from the event on Facebook, including yours truly chatting with Sharon Richardson (@joiningdots).