October 2, 2011

R.I.P. Social Media: Summary of Eric Weaver’s Enterprise 2.0 Talk

Eric Weaver, Vice-President of Social Business Strategy & evANTgelist for Ant’s Eye View, was the keynote speaker at Social Media Week Vancouver’s Enterprise 2.0 Summit. His talk, titled “Social Media is dead! Long live social media!”, was one of the highlights of the week for me, not only because it was informative, but also because Eric brought a lot of humour into his presentation.

His Slideshare, which you’ll find below, is pretty detailed, so I won’t repeat most of it here. Some of the key takeaways for me are the following:

Most purchases are not rational. A vast majority of consumer decisions are based on emotional decision-making.
Social media is just a tool. Focus on your business objectives and include social media as part of an integrated marketing communications effort.
Start with something emotional, and then think of a way to integrate social media with traditional tactics.
Google loves engagement. Social media can help your search engine marketing efforts. (Chris Briekss’ presentation has more info on this.)
Listen to get to know your market. Conversion is higher when companies invest in engagement.

Eric also offered some tips on how to start the journey towards becoming an enterprise that is fully engaged. Eric’s presentation, in addition to Shane Gibson’s and Amber Turnau’s, really drove home the point that day that being social is not just about Facebook and Twitter. Injecting social media into the entire business and breaking down silos are important steps towards the development of social business.