Thursday, February 20, 2014

The Power of Social Media conference

Thursday, February 20th I trotted on over to the OECD for a half-day conference on Social Media. Put together in part by iABC and the OECD (or in French, the OCDE) the morning's talks got people comfortable with the basic who/what/where's of social media. I stepped in to hear  "Ignite social media" - four five-minute presentations on a variety of uses of social media. Mary B. Adams, social media consultant (@LadyMissMBA), presented a packed discussion on measuring ROI.  Arthur Mickoleit, OECD e-gov policy analyst (lnkd.in/b4EcuV), mentioned how there's a 20:1 ratio difference between political leaders twitter followers and their institutions. The question is how to get the governments to engage and use SM as well. Chicago had a successful interaction with its Chicago Shovels: Snow Corps campaign linking volunteers with residents who need this service. Mickoleit is deep in the awareness that in a lot of countries, education determines social media use. And he recognized that the value proposition for governments can be tougher as they may not see a real R.O.I for social media use.