The Buzz Bin

On Thursday, the greater Washington Region will host the New, New Internet Conference will be the biggest web 2.0 conference on the Eastern Seaboard this fall. More than 800 attendees are expected. The roster of speakers is impressive.

The conference will focus on the larger business aspects of the new Internet economy. And yours truly will be the lunch keynote for the pre-game festivities at the Web 2.0 Accelerator on Wednesday, and part of a red hot marketing panel featuring Rohit Bhargava as moderating and fellow panelists Frank Gruber and Gary Vaynerchuk. We will be discussing how to “Engaging your client community via blogs and social media.”

In pre-panel chatter via email, we decided to answer the question, “What’s the greatest challenge facing businesses trying to adapt social media?” Here are the answers…

Frank Gruber: Initially, I think the biggest challenge facing companies trying to adapt to social media for marketing is the age-old problem of FUD or Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. FUD can cripple an organization into doing nothing. You can combat this FUD by embracing social media with the understanding that by embracing social media you have more control over your message.

After embracing social media, I think the biggest challenge facing companies trying to adapt to social media for marketing is fighting through information overload. A few years ago this was not a problem, but now with the millions and millions of social media plays on the Web it is becoming more difficult to be heard through all the noise.

Rohit Bhargava: I believe the greatest change that social media brought to marketing can be summed up in two words … accidental spokespeople. Marketing was once about creating and controlling the messages that built perception of your brand. Now those messages are being crafted by others. Those others are your accidental spokespeople, who are speaking for your brand even though they have not been trained or key messages or even authorized by you to do it.

Yet the answer is not to give up control – the answer is to share it. And control is the wrong word anyway … because now that everyone and anyone can speak for your brand, the important thing is to find your own accidental voices to tell your story. These may be your employees, or they may be your best and most vocal customers. Call them citizen marketers or call them consumer evangelists.

Either way, the change that social media has brought to marketing is the opportunity to find your new spokespeople in real voices. Whether or not you succeed depends in large part on how effectively you interact with these voices.

Geoff Livingston: Moving from a one-way mass communications model to a two-way conversational marketing model creates massive problems for corporations. Consider the many implications of this simple paradigm shift: Letting go of controlling the message, unlearning 60 years of mass communications theory, embracing negative comments, understanding the ethos of conversational marketing, learning how to participate in a larger community, etc.

The resulting fear caused by this seismic shift is astounding, and at the same time normal for any significant cultural change. The fastest way for companies to navigate this change is not to focus so much on the communications tools, but instead to focus on their cultures to optimize their chances for success. Corporate failures in social media tend to be a result of not understanding the medium or trying to use one-way strategies in a two-way world.

As you can see, this promises to be an excellent panel. What do you think is the biggest challenge facing corporate adoption of social media tools?

The Web 2.0 Accelerator keynote will focus on the Seven Principles of Community Building uncovered in Now Is Gone. If you haven’t registered yet for the New, New Internet Conference, take advantage of the “BuzzBin” promo code to take $100 off.