Last month, on Nov 10, 2009 the 7th blogwell session took place in sunny Atlanta, Ga. (this is meant to be a joke for I have been twice to Atlanta so far and have seen a lot of rain not to mention flooding). Nearly a month later - and I am a little late for that - now that the dust has settled I wish to recap on some of the best sessions I was able to attend. Stephanie Moritz, ConAgra foods presented her company and its many brands of foods (Hebrew National, Egg Beaters, Peter Pan, Banquet, Slim Jim, Kid Cuisine, Healthy choice...), most of which are huge hits in the US although less or even not at all known in Europe (another tale-telling example of non globalisation; there are many examples of brands which are immensely successful this side of the Atlantic and unknown on the other side and vice versa). Stephanie explained how a big brand like ConAgra could use Social Media to stir passion within its fans. Here are my notes from that session, the live transcript of which you can also find here courtesy of Gaspedal and the Social Media Business Council.
Embracing a Social Media Culture By Stephanie Moritz, ConAgra foods, USA
Social Media is everywhere. It is now mainstream. Consumers refuse to be marketed at. They want to participate, they have a passion. The challenge is to adapt it within a large organisation. How do you create inspiring programmes for your customers? It takes:taginlineimportWhen should a brand use social media? Not everyone should jump on the bandwagon Benchmarks are carried out continuously Key to success:
- Targeted manageable plan,
- A plan that supports business goals,
- Setting a plan that achieves and ties to your business objectives
- How do your get champions on board?
- Long term commitment:
- Creating a masterplan: define clear business objectives and match them with the SM initiative
- Enterprise-wide solution. Not just Marketing
- Establish some guidelines before moving into that space
- Building the foundation first and listen to conversations. Who Responding to consumers. Addressing issues in a transparent manner.
- Getting to know the blogging community. We ourselves tried blogs and tried and understand => Building communities
- Digital immersion
- 3rd step: create coalition: there wasn't much budget or staff. Experts and specialists throughout the organisation have been identified. All cross functional teams were identified. Enthusiasm made it.
- Created a Twitter page, spent a lot of time on it
- Created a facebook page
- Benchmarks, listened to conversations
- Attended blogger events and blogger media conferences for the sole purpose of listening
- Set clear goals,
- Create enterprise-wide endorsement,
- Determine roadmap,
- Commit.
I specialize in information systems, HighTech marketing and Web marketing. I am author and contributor to numerous books and the CEO of Visionary Marketing. As such, I contribute regularly on this blog for Orange Business account on cloud computing and cloud storage topics.