Last night, I attended an event hosted by the Boston chapter of the American Marketing Association. It was titled "The Impact of Social Media on Marketing."Labels: Marketing, measurement, social media
Posted by Scott Monty at 6:25 AM
At Ford, Scott heads up the social media function and holds the title Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager. He is a strategic advisor on all social media activities across the company, from blogger relations to marketing support, customer service to internal communications and more, as social media is being integrated into many facets of Ford business.

Prior to joining Ford, Scott served as Consigliere for crayon and spent a number of years with PJA Advertising + Marketing, a boutique BtoB agency specializing in health sciences & high tech.
In addition to his professional responsibilities, Scott is an active blogger and podcaster. He writes about the intersection of advertising, marketing and PR at The Social Media Marketing Blog and also writes The Baker Street Blog and cohosts I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, two literary undertakings. Scott has been featured in hundreds of news and business publications in print and on the web, in nearly dozens of books, and on a variety of mainstream media, including NBC, NPR, CNN and The Wall Street Journal. Scott is a recognized thought leader in the social media industry and frequently speaks at industry events.
Scott received his Master's in Medical Science from Boston University's School of Medicine concurrently with his MBA from BU's Graduate School of Management. He lives in the greater Detroit area with his wife and two young sons, golfs all too infrequently, and has a hidden talent for voice over work.
Oh, and one last little-known fact: Scott coined the Oxford Dictionary of English-accepted term "tweetup."
You may download a headshot here, courtesy of Rosh Sillars; a PDF version of Scott's bio is here .
Scott speaks on social media at events, seminars and conferences around the world. His topic generally focuses on corporate use of social media, becoming an online spokesperson, and specifically on the progress that Ford has made in the recent past. If you're interested in booking Scott to speak at your event, please click here to submit a speaking request for Ford-related purposes or email me at speaking [AT] this site's URL (if you know what I mean) to send a general email request.. Scott's bio and headshot can be found in the "About Scott" tab above.
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Did you really mean 75 and 75? : ) I haven't finished my coffee.
Yes: 75% thought companies should be involved now; 25% thought they should wait.
75% thought social media was good for relationship-building, while 25% thought it was for traffic.
The next Starbucks' is on me.
Count my vote with the twitter peeps, social media is about engagement. Recently, in a consult all of the questions were, not surprisingly, related to metrics and technology. I explained the key or first focus is a change in behavior, not necessarily technical knowledge and roi. What do you think?
I saw you at the ama event, but did not get to you in time before you left. I think the poll was slightly skewed. The ama event is a good one for generating discussion. I had a few people say that not every company should get into social media. I was thinking about caveats as well.
Selina, I think a change in behavior, or at least a change in mindset is the first step.
But beyond that, I would counsel that before the proper metrics can be assessed, a company needs to know why it's getting involved in social media. Goals need to be established first.
If the goal is engagement, then traffic might not be the best way to measure that; if the goal is to increase sales, then maybe resources would be better spent on a lead generation program. See? It all depends on what you want to get out of a social media program.
John,
Sorry I missed you at the event. Do you mean the poll was skewed heavily in favor of social media or against it?
But you're absolutely right: social media isn't for every company. Or at least the same scale of social media involvement isn't right for every company.
for it. I think we might have had a biased sample. However, it was a good starting point for discussion.
We should all start a heavy flow of blog posts for the media to pick up, make it just about..."if you do nothing else with social media, just engage and listen".
What can that cost.....you don't have to take action....just listen and see what is going on.
All the naysayers can't argue that there is some value there.
Kin, that's a great suggestion. Awareness and listening are two of the most crucial steps in executing a good program - but more importantly, they're key to helping companies learn about this new and ever-changing medium.
I say we should go for it!
I agree with you 100% Mr. Monty. It's hard to believe that around 25% of the people at that meeting may have been holding on to what will probably end up being the wrong frame of mind. Your other commentors also seem to be right on the money about this. Web 2.0 is all about engagement and building relationships. Relationships, which can turn long term through actively engaging the audience. The first thing you need to turn a relationship into a long term one on web 2.0 is a start. Companies have got to start somewhere, even if that just means setting their level of involvement to listener at first. At least then, they won’t be left in the dark for future advances. Even if we, as marketers, can’t exactly get the wholesome metrics we might like, we can still deduce from distributed sources just how massive web 2.0 really is and has yet to become. Whether we like it or not, this is the way people are communicating now. Better to join in the conversation than be left to speculate on when the “right time” will be. Just my two sense. Thanks for the post.
Oh, and since I see you gained some of your inspiration for this post from an AMA meeting, I thought I might leave you with a little invitation to join in on another AMA production. Only this one is in association with Forrester Research and my company, IMPAQT. It’s a webinar (https://amaevents.webex.com/amaevents/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=965737001&SourceId=impaqt030408) that focuses on a new report put out by Forrester Research entitled “The US Interactive Marketing Forecast: 2007 to 2012.” It was written by Shar VanBoskirk. The report touches on a lot of interesting information about web 2.0 and the social media marketing mix. If you have time, it would definitely be worth your while. The actual report will also be available, free of charge, at the conclusion of the webinar. Feel free to let others know. See you there.
Here's the address again:
https://amaevents.webex.com/amaevents/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=965737001&SourceId=impaqt030408
Happy Marketing,
Shaun
Whoops, forgive me for commenting twice, but I don't want anyone to get lost. My link in the above post was cut off, so here it is in full:
https://amaevents.webex.com/amaevents/
onstage/g.php?t=a&d=965737001&SourceId
=impaqt030408
Thanks again,
Shaun