SMACSRIT Part One

The Rochester Institute of Technology held the second Social Media and Communication Symposium on September 29, 2011 and it was once again put together and hosted by Professor Mike Johansson (@mikefixs).

Just like last year, this years SMACS was another amazing learning and networking event. The #SMACSRIT Twitter hashtag was busy all day with people tweeting their thoughts as the speakers were presenting their parts. For me personally, this year was a little better, but only because I didn't hold back. Last year I was still learning what you can do with social media both personally and professionally. This year, however, I dove right in and participated in the discussion and got to chat with a few more people. Unfortunately, I was't able to network with many in real life because I had to work, but I did do some networking via Twitter. I can't wait to see what the next event has in store.

Now, I took a lot of notes this year as I followed along with the Twitter hashtag #SMACSRIT. I started writing this blog post, but it got to the point where it would be way too long for just one post. At the suggestion of Professor Mike Johansson, who has become my social media and PR mentor, I will be doing a series of blog posts. I want to give an adequate description of each speaker and my thoughts on how they inspired me. This may take some time, but I feel that the event deserves it.

To start, RIT President Bill Destler (@RITPresident) opened the event with a few words before moving on to the first keynote of the morning, Pam Moore. Pam (@PamMktgNut) spoke about social media in small businesses. Pam introduced a strategy for businesses involved in social media that she calls the POST-GM strategy.

People

Objective

Strategy

Technology

Goals

Metrics

She also answered the question that people ask all the time about marketing in social media. What's the Return on Investment (ROI)? She says that "Social Currency = Action". The most important thing is to be INVOLVED in social media and to interact with potential customers and business partners. ROI is no doubt hard to measure online when direct sales are not involved, but the most important aspect is to BE online. Businesses, whether B2B or B2C, have to have an open online presence and be willing to interact with their customers, good and bad comments alike. How consumers see a company deal with negativity can have a huge impact on their opinion of that company and whether or not future business is done there.

I will conclude my first post by saying that SMACS had two separate tracks throughout the day, a business track and a student track. I will not be commenting on the student track in any of my posts, as I spent all day in the business track.