Getting Social & Going Viral Panel Ruffles a Few Feathers at iKC

During iKC there were many great panels and talks all with the goal of innovation and building Kansas City into the most entrepreneurial city in the world. One panel that stood out was the Getting Social & Going Viral session. Moderated by Aaron Deacon of the Social Media Club of KC comprised of panelist Ramsey Mohsen of Digital Evolution Group, Shelley Kramer of V3 Integrated Marketing, and Allison Way of Inboun. The discussion started off with panelist introductions, followed by a general overview of social media. Once the floor was opened for questions the discussion took flight.

The panelists were generally in consensus on social media practices. Some of those that were talked about:

• Getting something to go viral is a goal, it doesn’t just happen. The panel each had their own stories of clients that come to them saying “make it go viral”. Snarky Internet-nerd laughter soon followed.
• Crowd sourcing can be a valuable tool in product development. Mohsen told of his prior experience working with companies that were able to utilize crowd sourcing to gain consumer feedback while developing a new product. This in its self becomes a marketing campaign to build product awareness.
• Humanize your brand. To do anything with social media, you have to have a following.  Unfortunately, the toughest thing to do in the social media space is to build a following. Pretty catch 22, isn’t it? Humanizing your brand is the key to unlocking the social media book of secrets.

The social media soiree really ignited when the question of how to build a productive social media team arose. One side believed in employing the current younger generation that has been using social media since its inception. While another side believed that more experienced marketers are the ideal employees for a social media team. According to Shelly Kramer, “It’s not just being on social media sites and knowing how to use them, it is business! You need someone experienced that knows business.”  Through intense discussion, involving not only the panel but the audience, consensus was reached that it is best to build a team comprised of the experienced business personnel as well as millennials who know social media.  This mix can foster a great social media team in which everyone learns from one another.

Feathers were definitely ruffled during Going Social and Going Viral at iKC (but isn’t that the goal of a great panel?!). All in all, this panel gave valuable insight from their own experiences in an industry where many try and few succeed.  Now why not put those social skills to use and tweet this!