HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA, USA - Conference organizer Jeff Pulver was gracious enough to let me present my latest "You Don't Need a Social Media Strategy" presentation, as the first of several at the 140 Characters Conference Los Angeles. CAVEAT: Slideshare, this wonderful wonderful tool, is clearly not ready for prime time, as when you replace a presentation, it mixes old and new slides, it makes public decks private, and it changes URLs, all randomly it seems. They are frustrating me to no end with this stuff. So if you see mistakes, duplicate slides, etc., please understand that I do indeed have a strong grasp of PowerPoint. Not so sure about Slideshare. :) I'd love your feedback, and if you feel so moved, please click the Like button or leave me a comment.

1. YOU DON T NEED A
SOCIAL MEDIA
STRATEGY
ERIC WEAVER • @WEAVE • #140CONF LA

2. Hi, my name is Eric and I
am an advertiser. (“Hi,
Eric.”)
I love this business. I really
do. I freaking love it.
Well — maybe not some
intrusive ad techniques. But
I love the craft – the
wonderful, Madmenny
creative craft of advertising.

3. Probably because, back when I was a
kid in the 1960s, I used to love the
show Bewitched. Besides my crush on
Elizabeth Montgomery, I loved that ad
execs Larry Tate and Darren Stephens
used art, clever copy, acting,
photography and sometimes even
magic to persuade, educate and sell.
And at the end of every meeting, they
had BOURBON! AWESOME!
“Mommy, that s the job I want!!”

4. I m also old enough to have been online since 1977 - before the
dawn of the social web. This is my blog, which back in 1995 we
called a “Personal Web Site.” That s me, 15 years and, oh, 30
pounds ago, sharing photos, opinions and helpful tips. And on my
site, people could stop by and leave their names and comments
on something we called a “Guest Book.”
The web WAS social, and it was a place free of advertising.

5. Advertisers saw an
opportunity to reach
people in social
venues, and initially
approached them
the same way they
approached
everything else: with
a publishing
150 YEARS OF INERTIA mindset.
And why not? Our
profession has 150
years of inertia
behind it. We re still
paid and rewarded
based on our ability
to persuade, educate
and sell.

6. This publishing mindset
created a massive
backlash from social
media gurus, social
media ninjas, jedi
masters, senseis,
rockstars — 16,000 self-
“Join the
proclaimed gurus as of conversation!” “Marketers need
last year, just on Twitter. training pants!”
They ve largely scolded “Advertisers
“It s about a
only think in
business owners and dialogue!”
terms of
marketers with campaigns.”
dismissive statements
like these, i.e., “new is
good, old is stupid.”
Many of them talk about
marketing yet have NO
marketing experience
whatsoever. #ironic

7. THE LATEST SCOLDING:
“YOU NEED A SOCIAL MEDIA
STRATEGY!”

8. WE DON T NEED
NO STEENKEENG
SOCIAL MEDIA
STRATEGY

9. THAT S LIKE A
CELL PHONE STRATEGY.

10. OR A FREEWAY STRATEGY.

11. THAT S A
FOCUS ON
THE TOOL,

12. RATHER
THAN THE
BUSINESS
OBJECTIVE.

13. BOTH
MARKETERS &
“GURUS” HAVE
TO STOP
PLANNING
SOCIAL MEDIA
IN A VACUUM,

14. INDEPENDENTLY
OF TRADITIONAL
MARKETING
PROGRAMS,

15. LIKE SOME KIND
OF BOLT-ON
PUBLISHING
PLATFORM,

16. BECAUSE THAT
REDUCES ITS
POWAH.

17. BOTH TRADITIONAL AND
SOCIAL HAVE THE SAME END
GOALS…

18. INTERACT. We want
SHARE.
people to
interact with
our content.
To share it
GET OFF
with friends.
To get up
and take
YOUR ASS.
action, to DO
something.

19. IN OTHER
WORDS:
ENGAGEMENT.
INFLUENCE.
ACTIVATION.

20. MARKETERS MUST BREAK OUT OF
THE PUBLISHING MINDSET
Marketers often stop at the Publishing
step, and frequently leave out Study
and even Listen. How much more
could we accomplish if aimed beyond?
STUDY LISTEN PUBLISH ENGAGE INFLUENCE ACTIVATE
STEP 3:
STEP 1: STEP 4: We STEP 5: Even STEP 6: Our
NOW you
Study the don t just better if we can ultimate goal
STEP 2: can publish
competition, want eyeballs inspire faving, is activation:
Listen for what the right
the tools & and reach. sharing, liking, advocacy,
your market content,
the trends. Content fanning, loyalty,
wants to hear. cost-
should be forwarding. preference.
effectively.
engaging,
interactive.
Activation is a greater CREATIVE CHALLENGE
It’s also a greater REVENUE OPPORTUNITY

21. TO ACHIEVE ACTIVATION, NO MATTER WHAT THE MEDIA,
THERE HAS TO
BE A IDEA THAT
MOVES YOU.

22. Research done by Nobel
Laureate Daniel
Kahneman shows that we
have two systems for
making decisions:
rational processing &
emotional processing.
DECISION-MAKING The problem is that
emotions are easy to
process rapidly, and on
IS 95% EMOTIONAL, parallel paths. Emotions
are effortless.
5% RATIONAL. But rational thinking is
single-threaded, takes
effort, and is slow to
process. So guess what?
95% of our decision
making is based on
emotions!
flickr.com/photos/
myklroventine

23. CREATE AN
IDEA TO
EMOTIONALLY
MOVE PEOPLE
…OVER RICE?
UNILEVER CPG PRODUCT
WITH A VERY RATIONAL
HEALTH BENEFIT
SIDEKICKS MARKET SHARE
WAS DECLINING DUE TO
INCREASED COMPETITION
AND A PERCEIVED HIGH SALT
CONTENT
COULD 25% LESS SODIUM BE
ANY LESS INTERESTING?

24. ENTER
SALTY: A
CREATIVE
HOOK WITH
STRONG
EMOTIONAL
& SOCIAL
APPEAL

25. WE STARTED THE CONVERSATION WITH TRADITIONAL BROADCAST

26. AND THEN TOOK SALTY TO PRINT, DIRECT, ONLINE AND RETAIL

27. In addition to the
traditional media, our
DDB social media team
came up with a plan to
give Salty a social media
stage for his life after
being snubbed.
We engaged with people
directly through various
social channels in the
“voice” of Salty, to raise
brand awareness and
engage users, influence
behavior and activate
them to create content.

28. ENGAGEMENT.
Our team posted photos
of Salty and Pep on
hikes and in unexpected
places. People
immediately began
engaging with Salty and
Pep online.

29. We also created three film-quality spots for YouTube
distribution only, which continued the story of
Salty s Life away from the dinner table.
Poor little Salty couldn t catch a break anywhere.
This let us continue the story after the original
broadcast campaign concluded and was pulled.

30. Our Radar DDB team
even had Salty and Pep
showing up in
unexpected places like
creepy webcam site
ChatRoulette. Instead of
some shirtless dude
with a chinstrap, people
connected with a salt
and pepper shaker.
Surprise!

31. INFLUENCE.
Immediately, Salty came to
the attention of both the
traditional press (Creativity,
Communication Arts,
Strategy, Financial Post) as
well as numerous bloggers,
who talked about how Salty
corresponded with them, in
this case, with a link to his
dating adventures.
Let s see how that went.

32. The response has
been incredible.
We ve inspired and
incented people to
create and submit
their own content…
receiving responses
like this.

33. Some who acquired
the shakers shot and
uploaded their own
YouTube videos —
some with thousands
of views.

34. ACTIVATION.
People staged their
own photo shoots
and posted to Salty s
Facebook channel.

35. Some people even took time out of their busy days
to create pasta art.
Pasta art around a brand icon. Think about that.

36. 6000 FACEBOOK FANS – 1 MONTH
375,000 VIDEO IMPRESSIONS IN
FIRST 30 DAYS; TOTAL MEDIA
COST: $0
SO DID IT 20,000 SALTY & PEP SHAKERS
WORK? OUR SOLD OUT IN FIRST 25 DAYS
RESULTS FOR HIGHEST WEBSITE TRAFFIC EVER
KNORR UNIT SALES ROSE BY 24% OVER
PREVIOUS YEAR
SIDEKICKS SURPASSED UNCLE
BEN S AS #1 BRAND IN THE
CATEGORY

37. WHAT RESULTS WOULD WE
HAVE SEEN IF WE D ONLY
PLANNED SOME SOCIAL
MEDIA TACTICS?
OR JUST A COMMERCIAL?

38. AND WHAT IF
WE HAD NO
EMOTIONAL
HOOK?

39. SO, NO, YOU DON T NEED A
SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY.
YOU NEED AN ENGAGEMENT
STRATEGY. AN INFLUENCE
STRATEGY. OR AN ACTIVATION
STRATEGY.
WHATEVER THE MEDIA.

40. AN EMOTIONALLY
APPEALING IDEA +
A MEDIA-AGNOSTIC
APPROACH =
ENGAGEMENT,
INFLUENCE AND
ACTIVATION ACROSS
ALL MEDIA

41. SOCIAL MEDIA PROPONENTS:
LET S STOP TALKING
ABOUT THE TOOL AND
START TALKING END
BUSINESS GOALS

42. MARKETERS:
USE TRADITIONAL TO START
AND/OR SUPERCHARGE A
SOCIAL CONVERSATION
USE SOCIAL TO
REVERBERATE AND AMPLIFY
THAT MARKET IMPACT WHEN
TRADITIONAL IS OFF-AIR

43. BECAUSE A STRONG
IDEA WITH
EMOTIONAL
APPEAL,
INTEGRATED
ACROSS ALL MEDIA,
WILL MOVE THE
NEEDLE.

44. AND THAT,
MY FRIENDS, IS A
GOOD STRATEGY.

45. I m employed by DDB Canada,
which has been named Strategy
Magazine s Agency of the Year –
5 of last 10 years – that s hot.
DDB CANADA Our Vancouver office includes 20
CREATES full-time social media moderators,
cultivators and specialists.
ACTIVATION.
Our specialties: TRADITIONAL.
DIGITAL. MOBILE. SOCIAL.
USER-GENERATED. AND
STUNTS.

46. SALTY CRIES WHEN
YOU WORK WITH
OTHER AGENCIES.
Don t be mean. Call us instead.
Eric Weaver, DDB Canada
+1 604 640 4350
Engagement, influence & activation can be found at ddbcanada.com