Photo courtesy of Christian Sann, SCVNGR

By Barbara Bix

To one side of me sat a business development professional from a detective agency. To the other side, was an owner of an eye glass store in a downtown mall that seeks to make his store a “destination”. Both had come to learn about how to use social media to market their businesses. Moreover, the packed ball room was standing room only.

“All star” panel on social media

This morning,WBZ radio hosted a fantastic panel on social media. One of the things that made it fantastic was the all star panel: Anthony Silva (moderator), Paul Gillin, Laura Fitton, Mike Troiano, and Seth Priestbatch (left to right as they sat on the stage).

Their individual and combined knowledge of social media is incredible and the meeting was packed with great soundbites and case examples. In fact, many of these gems were grist for individual blog posts–even for an experienced user of social media.

Social panel about social media

The other thing that made it fantastic is that most of the panel was Q and A–that is a social panel about social media. In fact, it is this short answer format that may have engendered so many great soundbites from the incredibly articulate panelists.

Leveraging the Twitter Stream

Since I do want to return to these soundbites at a later date, I wanted to capture them for posterity. I took my own notes but captured the Twitter Stream as insurance by searching Twitter on the hashtag #wbzbreakfast–and then editing the stream to include the soundbites that most resonated for me.

Soundbites courtesy of the audience

You’ll find some of these hashtags below. I’ll be back in later today to update this post with my notes and to add pics and speaker links. Thank you to WBZ, Anthony Silva, the panelists, the #tag tweeters, and all who attended for making this such a valuable meeting!

motgnarom Tom Morang
#wbzbreakfast @Pistachio listen, learn, care, and serve

Steve Garfield
stevegarfield Steve Garfield
Interesting. RT @Bobbiec: #wbzbreakfast @pgillin “we can’t just be on social media, we need to be interesting”

Matt_Sully Matthew Sullivan ?
By a show of hands, over 90% of the #WBZbreakfast audience heard about the event from radio, the others from #socialmedia
57 minutes ago

ChrisMLindgren
ChrisMLindgren ChrisMLindgren
Be creative @pistachio Bakery in London sends a Tweet when latest item has just come out of oven #WBZbreakfast #HotBlueberrymuffins

Chris Requena
CERequena Chris Requena
#WBZBreakfast @SethPriebatsch: Easier to lead a clean,wholesome life & share everything on facebook than to understand the privacy settings!

Bobbie Carlton
BobbieC Bobbie Carlton
#wbzbreakfast for your information Twitter handles for the panel @Pistachio @miketrap @pgillin @sethpriebatsch
1 hour ago

ChrisMLindgren
ChrisMLindgren ChrisMLindgren
Tying engagement activity to transactions, swipes #WBZbreakfast See Social Sales Exceed Social Traffic marketingcharts.com/direct/social-… #WBZbreakfast

ChrisMLindgren
ChrisMLindgren ChrisMLindgren
On negative feedback: Walking around w/ spinach in teeth; If you don’t know what’s wrong you can’t fix it #WBZbreakfast #Socialmedia
1 hour ago

Whole Foods Dedham
WFM_Dedham Whole Foods Dedham
And @pgillin explains that acknowledging the negative is important because it engages and can head off a crisis #wbzbreakfast #socialmedia

Steve Garfield
stevegarfield Steve Garfield
Right. RT @GrahamSpector There will be #Socialmedia comments you shouldn’t respond to #wbzbreakfast

Bobbie Carlton
BobbieC Bobbie Carlton
#wbzbreakfast @sethpriebatsch shares “never feed the trolls” truism. @Pistachio advocates pixie dust so others will rush to your defense.
1 hour ago

Karen Covey
KarenCovey Karen Covey
ditto! WFM_Dedham Love the cooking analogy! @pistachio explains the ‘mise en place’ you need to be effective with #socialmedia #wbzbreakfast

Kristin Bedard
kristinbedard Kristin Bedard
anonymity is gone, with #socialmedia we’ve returned to accountability. it’s refreshing, healthy. – @pistachio #wbzbreakfast

Graham Spector
GrahamSpector Graham Spector
Good spin on privacy issues. #wbzbreakfast

Chris Requena
CERequena Chris Requena
#WBZBreakfast @pistachio Emotional connections are stronger b/w people than b/w people & brands. Get your customers to connect w/each other!

Meg McDevitt
OhThatMeg Meg McDevitt
Strong emotional connection brand is rare. Get your consumer & brand to connect on an emotional level. #wbzbreakfast

ChrisMLindgren
ChrisMLindgren ChrisMLindgren
Game mechanics as means of engagement in social media #WBZbreakfast

schneidermike
schneidermike schneidermike
Turning the police dept home page into Mafia Wars would be awesome -@sethpriebatsch #WBZbreakfast

ChrisMLindgren
ChrisMLindgren ChrisMLindgren
Social media has made us microprocessors; figure out how you can add value #WBZbreakfast
2 hours ago

Graham Spector

ChrisMLindgren
ChrisMLindgren ChrisMLindgren
Customer is in control; social coming to every desktop; build literacy thruout orgs; #wbzbreakfast at www.cbsboston.com/breakfast

Whole Foods Dedham
WFM_Dedham Whole Foods Dedham
Tidbit from #wbzbreakfast from @pgillin: social media is forcing businesses to react & change. There is no going back.

Christian Sann
csann Christian Sann
I just snapped a pic at Sheraton Boston Hotel. #SCVNGR http://scvn.gr/leJOXk (@sethpriebatsch on a social media panel for #wbzbreakfast. )
2 hours ago

Innovation Nights
MassInno Innovation Nights
#wbzbreakfast @pgillin “social media is a huge global campfire” and “the customer is in control”

rt @miketrap: Social Marketing panel w @Pistachio, @sethpriebatsch @pgillin. Livecast at www.cbsboston.com/breakfast #WBZbreakfast

Additional soundbites that caught my ear

Here are some of the soundbites I scribbled down.  Unfortunately, I didn’t always catch who said what.  But if you were there, please add attribution n the comments:

“You can’t market your way out of bad reviews”

“Build literacy throughout your organization: anyone can screw up” @pistachio

“We add a game layer  on top of the world” @sethpriestbatch

“Get people to meet in the context of your brand” @paulgillin  (?)

In referring to static websites “You were the czar of your content museum” @miketrap

“A negative review legitimizes positive reviews” @paulgillin

“A good measure is when the check (money) is a transaction” @sethpriestbatch

“Give yourself permission to experiment”  @miketrap (?) @priestbatch (?)

“Get involved, Twitter (?) Social Media (?) is hard to master from afar”

Looking to learn how you can use social media to market your business?  View our social media marketing services.

Related posts:

1. Twitter tidbits

To make matters worse, attracting—and ultimately closing new business–can take anywhere between several months and several years. In fact, sales people, at any organization that sell services, or products, that prospective buyers perceive as a major commitment, find themselves in much the same situation.

Several factors contribute to elongating the sales cycle. Most prospective clients will only buy from those that they know and trust–and winning trust takes time. Many already have satisfactory relationships with others. While some will give new firms a chance, most end up waiting until a major problem develops before they seriously consider switching providers. Even then, sales cycles often stretch out as decision-makers, and every one of the individuals they choose to involve in their buying process, perform due diligence to minimize risk.

The good news is that there are steps you can take to accelerate this process. Next week, we’ll discuss where to start.

Related posts:

1. Shortening the sales cycle starts with getting into buyers’ minds
2. SaaS: Building the revenue momentum you need to achieve profitability
3. Shorten the sales cycle: one marketing message at a time