IASA 2011: Author Discusses Social Media Impact

"We'll dig in a little deeper to show case studies on how social media is used across various marketing segments," he says.

Qualman says he likes to pull information from various market segments when he speaks to a particular industry crowd.

"It helps get the creative juices flowing," he says. "If you focus on one specific segment the audience begins to think that's not possible with all the rules and regulations. Hopefully we get the creative juices flowing."

Resisting Value

Qualman believes people are moving away from any initial reluctance to try something new like social media, although "you would still be surprised to find the pockets of resistance I run into," he says. "Some people are ready to get into it with an advanced approach. Other industries are still thinking it's not going to work."

Qualman reports the approaches he sees from the business world span the gamut, but what excites him is that the turn to social media has created a faster shift than any other technology breakthrough in recent years.

"It's moving faster than any shift I've seen," he says. "By shift I'm talking about when email came out, when portals came out, and then you had search. More companies are hopping on social media quicker than they did for those other shifts."

Qualman is aware of the insurance industry's tendency toward patience when it comes to technology and compares the industry to the entire financial services field as well as government.

"Insurance runs into different challenges because of the laws and regulations that apply to the industry," he says. "The progressive companies are getting out there and push for it, whereas others are more hesitant and resistant to take chances."

Case Study

Qualman will present information about Garry Vaynerchuk, who built his brand through social media and turned his wine company from $4 million annual sales in 2000 to $50 million in annual sales by 2008. One of the keys to Vaynerchuk's success was a series of videos he put out.

"He built an individual brand," says Qualman. "One person made this difference. You can't think of a harder product to sell online than wine because of the state-by-state regulations in terms of distribution."

Vaynerchuk is the author of Crush It and also The Thank You Economy.

"He's made a whole career out of it now," says Qualman.

Word of Mouth

The technology for social media is not expensive, but Qualman points out companies have to be ready to invest in a social media project.

"You have to be careful," he says. "There are some fairly significant soft costs involved in terms of people power. But at the end of the day I like to say Socialnomics is word of mouth on digital steroids. If your company is in the position where it has so much information they can't handle it, I tell them that's a champagne problem."

Qualman reminds people in that situation to remember a time when they were paying people to be in focus groups and trying to guess what customers were thinking and what they wanted from your products and services.

"Now you have the world's largest focus group," he says. "It's a nice problem to have. People are talking about your brand, so let's figure out how to listen to them properly. When companies say they don't have time for all this, I tell them that's like saying you don't have time to listen to your customers. Would you ever say that? The answer is no. That's when they begin to reallocate resources to handle the information."