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Welcome to the liveblog of the BlogHer Business '10 panel: Morning Keynote: Funding social media marketing programs: Where you gonna get the money?
This panel starts at 9:45am and ends at 10:45am Eastern time on August 5, 2010. Keep refreshing this page as the panel takes place for more liveblogging!
INFO:
This frank and fearless discussion will explore the many ways in which social media is being funded, and what brands and agencies and communicators must do to get the dollars they need to fund the initiatives that they want to launch. Social Media is part advertising, part word of mouth, initiative-driven, promotionally-relevant and a great research tool. Does the money come from Media, PR, promotion, research, event, and/or product development budgets, or all of the aforementioned? BlogHer EVP and industry veteran Gina Garrubbo moderates a discussion with social media budget-wranglers extraordinaire, including Unilever’s Phyllis Joseph, MEC Global's Andrea Wolinetz and PepsiCo’s Bonin Bough. These panelists are navigating new waters, collaborating across departments, brands and approval levels to get big, innovative, market-changing social media initiatives done.
LIVEBLOG:
Welcome to BlogHer Business everybody! Starting the morning keynote session.
Gina Garrubbo talking to kick off the session. She's moderating, how do brands get started with bloggers. How are they going to get funded.
Gina: Please describe your role in each of your companies
Bonin (Pepsico): Thanks to BlogHer Business!!! (Yay...woo hoo) He loves the power of Bloggers. He loves that the mens room is open (laughter). Bonin is the head of social media at Pepsico. He's looking for opportunities and partnerships. He also wants to identify best practices. Out of all the platforms, BlogHer is one of the major ones for Pepsico. Helped shape programs with Tropicana.
Gina: How do blogs become a part of your overall marketing mix.
Bonin: It's a significant part of where our organization is headed. Not just what is happening right now but where the world will be. We want to understand it and be a leader in it.
Phyllis: Unilever's social media team. Working with brands to sharpen their story and build media and marketing plans. Also makes sure Unilever is educated about best practices to get programs going and share learning. Huge traction within the last 18 months to engage brands with different social media platforms. Huge interest and engagement from the top down.
Andrea: Social Media dept head at Media Edge. Huge growth currently about social media. Huge interest. 4 years ago her dept had only 2 people. Now they have 7 in their social media dept. Clients want to learn and also go really deep into social media programs and get conversations going so that brands are being heard and understood.
Gina: How do you advise the brands to plan and strategize to get the $$ for these programs.
Andrea: We beg them. We look at long term. Ways they can make a social footprint. We want to put them to bloggers that will speak openly about their brand. We look for the right balance of budget. Social gets 10% of the money but it is 85% of the conversation. We keep the CPM's low.
Gina: You funded a program?
Bonin: The smaller social programs are even harder to find. The bigger ones get adequate funding. Pepsi Refresh program. We gave away $20 million in grants for ideas to improve communities...environment, education, etc. Conversation and program took place on social media platforms. Go to the pepsigroup site to read about the amazing stories. The conversations show people bringing their passions to life. It changed the conversation about Pepsi.
Define funding: go big...big big project. And find the folks that really believe there is a change to do things differently. Find those groups internally. Social media is the next step.
Gina: Phyllis, what steps do you go through. What about measurement?
Phyllis: Measurement is tricky. No social GRP. It's more nebulous. What is the story you are trying to tell. Monitoring sentiment and conversation. Concrete measurements around call to action. The industry has a ways to go to capture ROI for this.
Gina: Your funds come from corporate media or a social budget?
Phyllis: What the channels are, what the specifics are helps drive who is doing what. Is it a PR effort, media effort? Nature of each initiative drives where the funding comes from. It's really organic.
Gina: Andrea, media budgets or pr groups?
Andrea: Most budget comes out of the media group. But we have to work with all the other departments. Work with media, strategy, PR, creative. If it is not good content...everyone works together.
Bonin: Also crucial to share market successes to help
