By Sunita Nagendra (8/27/2009)

We had an interesting event with a big and enthusiastic crowd that was gathered to learn about strategies for using Social Media for Professional and Personal success.

Edith Yueng moderated the event by sharing her insights and asking interesting questions to the Panel that consisted of Megan Casey - Chief Editor of Squidoo, Gary Swart - CEO of oDesk, Himanshu Jhamb - Founder of Active Garage and Tony Welch - Social Media Strategy Lead for PSG Division at HP.

Edith kicked off the conference by asking the Panelists what kind of Social Media tools they recommend for Personal and Professional branding.
Megan recommends focussing on top 3 tools that your business can leverage from instead of trying to be everywhere and spreading yourself too thin.
Gary suggests that one should prioritize Social Media tools based on Target Audience. He also added that creating good content is quite important to leverage from Social Media.
Himanshu and Tony said they have used twitter successfully in their business.

Edith quoted the success story of the Korean BBQ Truck in LA that uses twitter to connect to it's tech-savvy customers. A constant twitter feed informs it's customers of their current Menu and Truck stops. Tony talked about how he escalated a support issue after seeing a twitter post of a disgruntled customer. After escalating this issue, customer got support and the product problem was fixed in 24 hours. The customer made a video of his positive HP-support experience and published it on YouTube; this was great marketing for HP-Support.

Following the success stories, Edith asked the Panel to share any disaster stories they encountered or are aware of. Tony said that Social Media is a fairly open platform and sometimes people get creative with insults; especially on twitter where some frustrated customers are blowing off some steam. The best way to handle such a situation is to acknowledge the post and try to address the customer's issue.

A Gentleman from the Audience asked the Panel how to successfully use Social Media for Customer Retention and not just acquisition and promotion. To this Gary suggested using twitter and setting up Community forums. Gary quoted Ebay as a good example. Ebay had a strong community forum and they hired the top community performers as their first support representatives.

As the conference approached its end time, Edith asked the Panel "what would be the one last thing they suggest doing on Social Media?".
Tony says it is all about the conversation and being Authentic on Social Media. Himanshu suggests using Social Media for engaging and not just selling. Megan maintains that one should focus on a few Social Media tools and use them effectively instead of trying to be everywhere. Gary recommends that one should know what to accomplish, then use Social Media to leverage, measure the effect, test and streamline.

As the evening winded down, SIPA Volunteer Deepal Deolalikar recommened the following Social Media book:
The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web - Tamar Weingberg

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596156812/ref=ox_ya_oh_product