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This month’s Social Media Club South Florida (SMCSF) was held October 13 at City Year headquarters in downtown Miami, followed
by some socializing at Tobacco Road.
A panel of advertising, public relations, and marketing
specialists led the discussion on “Who Owns Social Media?” Moderated by Angie
Moncada (@angiemoncada), the panel included Michelle Catin, digital media manager for RBB Public Relations; Alberto Padron, director of integrated marketing
for Zubi Advertising; Jacques Hart, CEO at Roar Media; Andrea Davidowitz, community manager for Citrix; and Britt Peemoller, account manager for
PorterNovelli.
This was the first time SMCSF used a
projector to display live tweets. Audience members participated in the panel by posting
questions or comments to Twitter followed by the hashtag #wosm. Those who didn’t make it to the meeting could also follow online.
This edition of SMCSF was shop talk for anyone who wants to sell
anything using social media, but it definitely wasn’t a panel for
newbies. Everyone agreed that
advertising, public relations, and marketing pros can no longer ignore social
media. “It’s professional suicide
for any marketer to not get their arms around this,” said Hart of Roar
Media. “There has been a paradigm shift. Today you can cut out the middleman and
reach consumers directly.”
Reputation management also came up, using the now-infamous
Domino’s Pizza incident when a YouTube video of an employee sneezing on and
then serving a pizza went viral. Domino’s did issue public apologies but took
too long. Everyone concurred that companies need to listen to all the chatter
out there. It’s dangerous for
companies not to listen, and even more dangerous for them not to engage their
social media audiences.
“Social media grows. It’s a big monster,” said Padron of Zubi. “It’s nothing like direct marketing. Things can morph.”
Hart agreed. “Social
media has just eclipsed porn as top activity online,” he said. “In Florida alone, there are about 1
million Facebook users.”
Although each panelist had his or her own thoughts about who
owns social media from a professional perspective — be it the PR account exec,
the marketing ace, or the ad agency — it was Hart from Roar who gave the most
democratic example by citing the Time magazine cover in which YOU were the
person of the year. Yours truly
couldn’t agree more.
Anyone who wants to get any kind of message out can no longer
live in a vacuum and ignore the vast machinery of social online
communication. You don’t need to be a PR pro to know that.
Social media
is owned by no one and everyone.
To check out some of the conversation, do a Twitter search for #wosm and #smcsfl.
