From Sunday October 17 through Tuesday October 19, I had the privilege of attending the first annual Pivot Conference here in NYC. The conference was described as “a marketing conference for brand marketers who seek to understand the style, attitudes, technologies and preferences of the 18–34 year old consumer as they make first-time brand choices.” The description wasn’t very accurate, as it touched on huge changes in business communications and marketing that applies to everyone – not just 18-34 year olds (commonly referred to as “the millennials” or “generation y”). Thankfully, the “marketing to millennials” jargon disappeared after the first day and the focus shifted to “marketing to digital natives” (which we’re all becoming).
Key Takeaways
These bullet points are based on what I took away from my three days at the conference after everything I heard. They aren’t necessarily attributed to any one speaker, but they’re based on the themes and conversations of the conference. At the end of this post, I have linked to detailed recaps of each individual session that live on the conference website.
Shift in the way we communicate
- Digital natives DEMAND transparency, authenticity and engagement from brands and there are a lot of vendors/agencies that claim to be able to help achieve that via online and social media marketing.
- Facebook has made communication and peer-to-peer contact more efficient than ever before.
- Customers connect with brands using social media in order to have a real dialogue about their experiences with products and services.
- The goal of social media campaigns shouldn’t be to add “fans” or “followers,” but to connect with real people in order to humanize the brand. The next step is turning valuable consumer insights into everyday business operations.
- Our society is weaving a “Global Brain” of information via platforms such as Facebook and Google. It is easier than ever before to have “the answer” right at your fingertips.
- Mass media is slowly being replaced by media curation – a mix of original content, aggregated content and a point of view (Huffington Post for example). The brands that have built the most impressive presence in the social media space build a curated brand image.
- The new search engine results page is the news feed – it is where people learn about new things.
Shift in organizational structure
- The role of marketing is evolving faster than ever. Reverse mentorships are very important to close the increasing “knowledge gap” between seasoned marketers and digital natives entering the workforce. The future of business is social and organizations can’t afford to foster an “us vs. them” mentality.
- Silos can no longer exist – marketing lives in every department.
- Marketing has become entwined with technology. There have been amazing advances in technology in marketing - “Your marketing department is the software it uses.” – Scott Brinker. Organizations need to fuse technology into the DNA of marketing throughout the organization in order to tap into the “Global Brain” of information. Marketing must champion its own technology throughout the organization.
- Marketing is the new customer service – the customer voice should be pervasive in every function, every day.
- Companies need to empower employees to advocate for customers from every desk. In order to create desired customer experiences, everyone needs to be at the table at the same time – not just the product development team.
Social media & marketing
- What people put into their “feed”:
- Things they feel represent them
- Things they think is interesting
- Things they think others will find interesting
- Things that make them laugh
- If you want your customers to share something to their news feed (very powerful), put yourselves in their shoes.
- Using social media to make products better is great, but brands shouldn’t invite themselves into every online conversation without first earning trust. Conversations about brands have always been going on in coffee shops, bars, at home, etc, without brands being directly involved.
- Online videos shouldn’t be more than one minute. After a minute, they lose impact.
- “Long-Tail” bloggers are often the most influential and focused (great for marketers to reach out to), but they’re often not included in online blog databases because of their smaller reach. Reaching these smaller, very engaged communities is extremely valuable.
Case Study – Cisco Systems with the help of Brian Solis. (link is to video of the session – I highly recommend watching this if you’re not familiar with Cisco’s story)
Back in 2005, Cisco Systems embarked on a journey to make their entire organization social. They realized that innovation could no longer be cultivated in an organization of silos and they wanted to integrate. The rise of the social consumer changed the balance of power - marketing was no longer one-way and was becoming a more socialized experience. This forced barriers to be broken down within the organization and forced Cisco to completely re-think the way they ran their organization.
- It all started when Cisco introduced internal blogs for the different departments. Everyone was encouraged to create content. Employees had Flip cams and created podcasts. Now, they use internal social network Yammer to foster inter-departmental employee relationships. This provided all employees with “social media” experience internally, before expanding social to their external communication strategy.
- They stopped creating static press materials and Q&A’s – everything was on the blogs, everyone in the organization became a content producer.
- Individuals were empowered to represent the brand externally. Leadership team regularly met with employees to understand what they felt comfortable with and they entrusted them to make the right choices when representing the brand.
- The conversation prism was a conversation starter within the organization, allowing executives to easily see where consumers were discussing the brand.
- Social media shouldn’t be looked at from a campaign perspective – it needs to be looked at as a continuing dialogue. This requires conversation within the organization across departments.
- A new job family was created for social media and an advisory panel was formed.
- There is a social media roundtable with participants from around the globe each month to talk about processes (communications teams, marketing teams, customer service teams included)
- Cisco realized that they needed to STOP doing some things to START doing other things:
1. Stopped hiring external video vendors. Every employee had Flip Cams to create multimedia content
2. Stopped traditional white papers – used blog posts instead
3. Stopped communicating EVERYTHING by email – (ex: PR team posts coverage reports on internal blog)
- This entire process encourages more spokespeople for the brand throughout the organization
- In order to make this radical change, someone needs to be a champion and a change agent. Innovation within specific silos of the organization need to be brought to light and celebrated.
Recommended Reading
The following books were either given away with the “swag bag” or were referenced by speakers:
- The Facebook Effect – David Kirkpatrick
- Nonzero – The Logic Of Human Destiny – Robert Wright
- Why Business People Speak Like Idiots – Brian Fugere
- Program Or Be Programmed – Douglass Rushkoff
Recaps from each specific session courtesy of the Pivot website are below (I missed most of the afternoon session on Monday, including Arianna Huffington). I highly recommend checking out David Kirkpatrick’s discussion from day one and Douglas Rushkoff’s keynote speech at the end of the conference. Kirkpatrick made some great points about regulations that are likely to be coming down the pipeline regarding digital privacy and who owns the “social graph” information that Facebook is monopolizing. If you’ve seen “The Social Network,” you should really check out what David Kirkpatrick has to say for a more firsthand view of Mark Zuckerberg. Rushkoff was a great speaker and took the “brand marketers” in the crowd through a short history of how society has communicated and how the digital age is creating a completely new paradigm for communication. Very theoretical and thought-provoking stuff!
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17
Recap (David Kirkpatrick – author of The Facebook Effect)
MONDAY, OCTOBER 18
Morning Session Recap pt 1 Morning Session Recap pt. 2 Morning Session Recap pt. 3
Afternoon Session Recap pt. 1 Afternoon Session Recap pt. 2 (Arianna Huffington)
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19
Video – Cisco Systems Case Study
