[UPDATE: Jay Byrne of v-Fluence posted his presentation online here.]
New Media Minute’s Daisy Whitney led a group of cable communicators through a discussion of social media interaction with customers at The Cable Show Tuesday afternoon session, Conversation Starter: Social Media as a Mainstay of the New Communications Mix. Leading with a discussion of metrics showing personal consumption of social media now plays a key role in consumer decision behavior, Whitney then asked the panelists – including Jay Byrne of v-Fluence Interactive, Alex Dudley of Time Warner Cable, Robert King of ESPN, Inc., and Pam Slay of Hallmark Channels – to discuss how they’re using and measuring social media.
Jay Byrne laid out his three considerations for success - Visibility, Usability, Measurability. This set the stage for much of the rest of the discussion. Cable programmers and operators are setting goals and measuring progress, but all agree their companies share a commitment to engage consumers where they are living and discussing cable content. The companies differed somewhat on the specific metrics to measure for their social media. Are followers or “Likes” more important than more tangible measures like subscribers and audience? It was clear from the discussion, cable operators and programmers see the shifting future of communications and the growing need to go where their customers are to make their case.