Thanks to the more than 70 people who joined us for a discussion of the Business Record/Hanser & Associates 2010 Des Moines Social Media Survey results last Friday. Thanks also to R&R Realty for making space available on short notice when attendance was much larger than expected.

Thanks especially to the Business Record for their partnership in conducting the research and to our panelists for sharing their successes with the group.

We hosted the event to allow discussion of the results, framed by a few respondents who
have a social media strategy in place and results that meet their expectations.

Jim Pollock, editor of the Des Moines Business Record, talked about the value of social media in nurturing community and creating “leads” for stories as well as integrating these tools and conversations with their print and digital news products. His comments on the continued examination of social media “value-added” are worth noting; the publication is updating its Web site.

Christine Hayes, director of public relations for The Blood Center of Iowa, talked specifically about success with Facebook — how the demographic match and networked dialogue have boosted attendance at blood drive events. Hard, offline metrics are what many seek with social media, and it was great to have her share that experience.

Christian Renaud, president and CEO of Palisade Systems, described his company’s success “outside of interruption marketing.” His spoke about the company’s strategy and culture as the foundation for creating “inbound marketing” attraction to their products through “ad hoc” content and networking. His ability to see this approach driving direct contact via Internet search and other content-driven connections was an important take-away.

There were a range of questions, and I thank our panelists for handling them well.

In the days ahead, we’ll be diving deeper into the survey results for benchmarking and other perspective on social media goals, measurement, budget, policy and more. So, please stay tuned, and we’ll look forward to your participation.

Meanwhile, what did you gain from the survey and the panel? What didn’t get covered at the event? What questions can we tackle here together?

Posted: February 8, 2010 at 4:12 pm by Ryan Hanser