The Twin Cities Social Media Breakfast group met today at Best Buy Headquarters to connect about social media and to hear from our hosts who’ve created Blueshirtnation, Giftag and something we hadn’t heard about before, Spy (video of Best Buy’s Spy in the lobby of Best Buy HQ is after the jump).
Social Media Breakfast’s Rick Mahn was the emcee and did a great job keeping it moving. While you can read many of the tweets from today here and draw some conclusions, suffice to say that Best Buy is doing one thing in social media and doing it well: they’re on the field and playing the game.
A discussion about acceptance of Blueshirtnation, a presentation on viral video from ThreeVolts, and a group question which rounded out the discussion, “Social Media “Pureists” vs. the “Corporatists” in the enterprise. What’s your take?”
The Spy application we saw a screenshot of — and heard Gary Koelling mention was in the lobby on a plasma tv for all to watch — was also something the Best Buy Chief Marketing Officer had up on his computer so as to watch the stream of consciousness playing out over various social media feeds. You can try out Spy for yourself). The video below shows a few of us in the lobby viewing that temporary plasma tv that may-or-may-not get a permanent place of social media honor.
Koelling has said many times in interviews (including this one with Minnov8) that the adoption of social media was a fluke and that other companies would have challenges driving social media forward since their culture wasn’t one open enough or risk embracing as Best Buy is due to their huge number of people in the demographic sweet spot of social media use.
What was palpable in the audience was the seeking for understanding of how we could persuade, motivate and engage our client or company executives with the intrinsic understanding that social media wasn’t some fad or goofball kid thing and demanded a specific return on investment (ROI)…but rather is a fundamental shift in human communication and connectedness one can only understand through involvement.
Koelling said that he often compares the ROI of the telephone to social media and asks leaders, “You don’t ask for the ROI on a telephone before buying them, do you?” since it’s obvious a phone is “table stakes” to be in the game of talking in business and social media is, in many ways, new ways of conversation and communications.
Very thought provoking morning, fun people, and a shared passion made this event very worthwhile.