Boston’s Social Media Breakfast 10 will be held on Wednesday, November 12, from 8:00am -11:00am, at the Ryles Jazz Club in Inman Square, Cambridge.

—> Register here.

SMB10 Theme: Getting ROI Out of Social Media

SMB10 will feature three, eight-minute presentations on examining new ways to evaluate and measure the success of social media engagements and community building programs.

The hard line ROI analysis that have traditionally been used in Marketing – sales leads, conversion rates and reach metrics – don’t easily translate to social media engagement driven programs – where you’re no longer buying your way into the conversation to influence potential customers.

Today’s visionary companies are engaging their customers directly – realistically, authentically and transparently – sharing ideas, spurring conversations, responding to industry trends and developing valuable digital content that helps propel their brand as an engaged trusted source.  This strategy can also dramatically improve SEO rankings and inbound marketing efforts leading to great findability and sales opportunities.

The Presenters

Brian Halligan, Founder and CEO at HubSpot

Andrew McAfee, Associate Professor with Harvard Business School

Matt Cutler, Vice President, Marketing & Analytics at Visible Measures

Sponsor
Boston’s Social Media Breakfast 10 is sponsored by HubSpot, an Internet marketing system that helps your company get found online, generate more inbound leads and convert a higher percentage of them into paying customers.

As a Sponsor, HubSpot has offered to provide the attendees of SMB10 with a Website Grader analysis that measures the SEO and marketing effectiveness of your website or blog.  If you would like an analysis conducted – please just include the URL of your site as part of the Eventbrite registration.   HubSpot will also have a few Internet Marketing Consultant available to answer questions about your Website Grader reports.

Links

* Directions to the Ryles Jazz Club (Nearest T stops: Central Square and Harvard Square on the Red Line). Free and metered parking is available.

* Official Social Media Breakfast website

* SMB FriendFeed room

Creating Content / Making Media?

* Please use the tags #SMB10.

Questions?

Boston’s Social Media Breakfast is organized by Bob Collins and brings together social media experts and newbies alike for a morning of eating, meeting, sharing and learning.  It is free to attend.

Please contact Bob Collins at Bob – AT – SHIFTComm – DOT – com.

Bryan Person originally started this breakfast series, which has exploded to cities all over the world, and has left some really big shoes for Bob Collins to fill now that Bryan has left for Austin, TX and passed the torch.  Thankfully our fearless leader stepped up to the challenge and put on another awesome event.

The theme for the October 16th breakfast was “Starting Community Building Programs with a Reluctant Executive” and brought together Jaime Pappas of EMC, David Alston of Radian 6, and Peter Kim of the stealth Dachis Corporation to share some of their experiences dealing with executives and community building programs.

Thanks to EMC for sponsoring the event and keeping us all fed!

(Left to Right: Jaime Pappas, David Alston, Peter Kim and Bob Collins)

(Left to Right: Jaime Pappas, David Alston and Peter Kim)

Via Steve Garfield

While I have always been very impressed by the lineup of speakers that Bryan Person, and now Bob Collins, puts together for these events, it is connecting with familiar faces in the crowd that makes these events so popular and successful.

Via Steve Garfield

There is yours truly hanging out right in the front row during the presentations.

The two things that stuck with me most were from David Alston and Peter Kim.

David talked about relating to executives by asking them what they would do if someone was on the street outside of your company’s building yelling into a megaphone “This Company Sucks!” How long would it take for your PR guy (or security) to come down and deal with them?  Ignoring the online community is just like ignoring the guy on your lawn, except when online, your megaphone is a whole lot bigger and louder.   David also reminded us that Google was everyone’s new home page – and that when people search for a Company – the first or most interesting search result may no longer be the Company website.

Peter Kim talked a lot about making business sense of social media and the short lifespan of CMOs. CMO tenure is down to almost 23 months, about half that of an average CEO’s tenure.   He also talked about the extra pressure on CMOs to justify the results of their spending and prove that marketing is actually delivering value to the business.

To check out other’s reactions to the event and what they got from it, check out the twitter stream for #smb9 or check out these posts from Peter Kim, Bryan Person, Gina, and Tangyslice.