Interspersed with digital agencies, platform companies and technology enablers, the sprinkling of brands that attended this week’s content-packed OMMA Social conference in San Francisco told a story of its own.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment’s VP of digital marketing, Mike Wokosin, wowed the crowd with details about his studio’s portfolio of 100+ Facebook pages, and their collective fan count of nearly 8 million. His candor was refreshing, admitting that Apple’s iPad launch could very well prompt his company to excise the word “home” from its name.
An attendee from Williams-Sonoma grilled panelists about best practices in social media, hoping they’d serve up a tasty recipe or two for analyzing direct response. The gourmet kitchenware retailer has just dipped its spoon into social — with a tad over 1,000 Twitter followers and 7,200 Facebook fans.
Speaking of spoonfuls of tastiness, another extremely social brand was in the audience: Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream. It’s great to see the call to action for the brand’s Facebook page featured so prominently on dreyers.com
With so many social media interactions around consumer products, celebrities and entertainment, it was surprising to see an insurance company in the crowd. Then I realized it was one of the most social insurers, Aflac, whose snarky duck has a combined Twitter-Facebook audience of more than 170,000.
While I liked the speakers at OMMA Social, some of the best learning happened in the face-to-face banter between sessions. That’s where I learned from Aflac’s Gerard Babitts that a Causes on Facebook campaign had raised $1.16 million for the fight against pediatric cancer.
I’ve been quacking about it ever since.
Events like OMMA Social give Context Optional the opportunity to share our ideas and advice for maximizing consumer engagement on the social web. CEO Kevin Barenblat did a case study on GAP’s successful 2009 integrated holiday campaign, Cheer Factory. During Q&A, Kevin acknowledged the land grab (VIDEO) happening among creative agencies and PR firms, as well as inside brand marketing departments, over ownership of social media.
Another panel, focusing on “brands as media companies,” I lauded American Express and jetBlue for their timely use of Twitter to inform their followers as well as mainstream news organizations trolling social media for story fodder. During coverage of the earthquake in Haiti, @AmericanExpress received mainstream and social media accolades for waiving merchant fees when donations to earthquake relief are made with their American Express cards. Likewise, @jetBlue quickly quelled rumors about free air travel by providing links to an organization where nurses and doctors could be credentialed for possible volunteer assignments in Haiti.
