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I was privileged to appear on a panel last night with Toby Bloomberg of Bloomberg Marketing, Erika Jolly Brookes of Vitrue (also a client of ours), and Collen Jones of Content Science.  Our moderator was Julie Gareleck of Junction Creative.  The event was put on by StartupChicks, led by the inimitable Jen Bonnett.

StartupChicks Digital Strategy Panel

We talked about the importance of a digital strategy – what it is, common misconceptions, how to approach it, value it’s provided, tactics that worked and didn’t, results, and recommendations for new business owners.  We were fortunate to have a good amount of time to delve into the topic in depth, and got some great audience questions.  Some of the points that seemed to hit home for the audience included:

• Everything starts with content.  You’ve got to have content to optimize (SEO), as well as to publish via social media, in an enewsletter, etc.  Have a strategy as to what kind of content your target audience wants, and how to get it to them.
• It’s best to own the platform your content is on, so you control it and it doesn’t just disappear one day (this was my point – I’ve written about this before).  This is a concern with blogs hosted on Blogspot, etc., and note that you’re just renting space on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• In terms of measurement, worry about quality as well as quantity.  It doesn’t do you any good to have a ton of Twitter followers or Facebook fans if they’re not your target audience.
• While digital media is very measurable, don’t forget the “unmeasurable” benefits, such as branding impacts and becoming a thought leader through blogging or social media.
• It’s great to follow best practices, but test and measure everything, because you’ll be surprised as to what works!
• Non-digital marketing efforts that the panelists still use include public relations, speaking engagements, and attending conferences/trade shows.
• We had a long conversation about business versus personal personas online.  It’s uncomfortable to many to blend the two and let the business audience know about you personally.  But it often works to your advantage – business people are people and they prefer to do business with people they like and trust.

This is just a small sample of the discussion – I’ll link to additional blog posts in the comments as they’re published (and feel free to do so yourself).  Live tweets can be viewed here or here, and more photos are on Prominent Placement’s Facebook page here (please “like” us while you’re there!).

Bottom line, it was energizing to have so many entrepreneurial women in one room!

(And props to one of my favorite restaurants, MetroFresh, for the amazing catering!  Speaking of digital strategy – sign up for their daily enewsletter.  It’s so entertaining that I read it every single day, and you can bet I eat there more often as a result.)