A Digital Handshake
Jillian Vorce, chief handshaker at The Jillian Group, spoke about the original importance of a handshake.  When shaking hands, it showed you were not holding a weapon, thus conveying trust.  She asked the attendees how they are conveying trust in the digital space.  

Vorce broke down a really bad in-person handshake.  She advised, “Don't be the limp fish (handshaker) in person and online. Demonstrate your brand in person and online!”

In person your body language and posture make the good first impression.  What is it online that makes the good first impression?  It is important to think about perceptions, as people are the multipliers that can help your business.  Online or in person, you’re one handshake away from more success for your organization, shared Vorce.

Engagement Is What Matters
As more businesses adopt social media into their marketing strategies, marketing managers are getting pressure to justify it as a marketing tactic.  

Brad Blake from Hill Holliday cautioned the attendees to not focus on vanity metrics.  They do not matter.  For example, it is not about how many Facebook likes a company has.  That is because, for many, liking a page is the only engagement a fan has.

He asked, “Do followers matter?”  He showed Hill Holliday’s analysis that of all the people that retweet on Twitter, only about one third of them are followers.

While Facebook’s organic impressions have declined, engagement on Facebook is up.  Blake said, “It might be actually helping to get the right information in front of the right person at the right time.  Viral impression rates were up to.”

The real-time marketing trend is becoming more popular with marketers.  The classic example is Oreo Cookie sending out the ‘Power out?  No problem.’ message during the Super Bowl.

He advised posting content and then monitoring to see if it works.  Determine a KPI threshold and pay attention to likes, comments, shares, sentiment and organic reach.  “If it works, share it,” he a said.  Then do more stuff like it.  

If all social media marketing is planned ahead of time, marketers will not see how people react to it.  It is not enough to get likes, as there are some people that just like everything.  Instead, you have to see how people react to it.  Blake recommended identifying the cost per acquisition/conversion and tying in things like the lifetime value of a customer.  Think ROE (Return on Engagement).