-- » Social Media Club Atlanta – “Think big, start small and scale fast.”

Last night Social Media Club Atlanta held its monthly meeting. The topic: ”Brand + Consumers: Dating and Mating in the Social Arena” It was part one of our Summer 2009 “Social Media Love Affair” three-part program series. Thanks to Jon Gatrell and the Mountain Social Media Summit for sponsoring the event.

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Jon Caddell, Michelle Batten, Diane Deseta and yours truly

We are seeking insights from local industry brand leaders about brand/consumer social media relationships within their respective industries. Our first speaker in the series was Jon Caddell, digital advertising director at ING.

The crowd was intimate and engaged. Jon candidly shared his experiences of being a social media advocate and the importance of taking incremental steps given the conservative nature of of ING’s business. The discussion centered on building trust (especially in this economy), changing internal culture, and using a data driven approach. He worked closely with an analytics team to adjust key performance indicators to account for social media metrics in facilitating buy-in. He shared with us his successes with Linkedin and Facebook revealing that they got higher click throughs than traditional banner advertising because their use of social media was culturally relevant to their audience. These initial results are helping pave the way for more social media initiatives.

In the crowd was Kristin Foster soon to be Kristin Parrish. She just moved to Atlanta from Washington, DC and works for Ogilvy PR’s John Bell doing social media. I also met Jessica Murray who helps lead up Social Media Club Nashville.

But perhaps the best audience takeaway came from Patrick Jones who summed up how best to use social media – “Think big, start small and scale fast.”

Let me get back to you.

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