There was an interesting little article on Webguild that looked at the role of social media in an economic downturn.

Social Media in the Economic Downturn

By Reshma Kumar, November 2, 2008

“Social Media, in light if our current depressed economic climate was a topic of discussion and on the minds of many in attendance at the Social Media Strategies Conference last week. Paraphrasing roughly Keynote, David Carter of Awareness’ take on this, he noted that with the current economic situation, there are more eyes on where the money goes. Therefore, social media strategies have to be spot on the first time around. So, how can we execute better? Identify and leverage on points of enthusiasm (e.g. press releases, conferences, events, etc.) and make them a part of your community. Identify watering holes for customers and pick the project that has the most obvious ROI. It doesn’t have to be about money, it can be about trust scores, community stocks, and to gather the required information needed to measure and analyze this event.

“Shel Israel, Social Media Strategist of Global Neighbourhoods, had this to say: What can we scale back and cut back on in the downturn? We really need to talk to our customers. Traditional advertising and PR have remained expensive in the last decade or so. Social Media is an answer to the problem of lean marketing and addressing the problem of how to stay close to the customers. Mark Yolton, SVP, Community Network of SAP said social media is being used at SAP for about 5 years now. It’s core to what SAP does today. Given today’s economy, there is a need to focus on cost efficiency. Reducing cost, agility, and reaching out to customers are the focus points of community network at SAP.

“What do you have to cut that you now can’t live without? According to Mark, as budgets get cut, be it training budget, marketing budget, traveling budget, etc., social media is the thing to turn to — the same way PR is being done by providing daily news summaries which includes blogger comments. There are serious discussions going on on blogs and inviting bloggers to product launches, company events, etc. is the thing to do — giving them the privilege because they’re the ones who are asking the best questions.

http://www.webguild.org/2008/11/social-media-in-the-economic-downturn.php

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