Organic Social is Dead: Neal Schaffer Webinar Recap

On Wednesday, BL.INK hosted a webinar with BL.INK Advisor and social marketing expert Neal Schaffer. In addition to being named one of marketing’s 10 biggest thought leaders by CMO.com, Neal has also been recognized as a Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencer as well as a Forbes Top 5 Social Sales Influencer. 

Neal began his social media career focusing on social media strategy consulting, which he has done for dozens of companies since he began in January 2010. In addition to consulting, coaching, advising, and responding to customer requests, Neal launched a social media agency, PDCA Social, in May 2016.

Webinar attendees were treated to 100+ slides and a high-energy, lightning-speed presentation on how companies and individuals can tune their social “marketing mix” for better results.

Neal packed in a tremendous amount of valuable ideas into the hour. He started by describing how and why digital has eclipsed all other forms of marketing and advertising spending, and how social was growing in importance, but in fact, getting more difficult and complex for marketers to derive value and ROI. He challenged attendees to broaden their mix of social efforts to move beyond organic social to include paid social, influencer engagement, employee advocacy, and building sustainable relationships with communities.

He pointed out that social media is really about content communications. And content is most successful when it’s audience-centric – that is, when it’s focused on the needs and interests of the target audience (and not only what the company or brand wants to talk about). Neal described the challenges and opportunities involved in pursuing an ever-changing mix of social strategies to meet the needs of a continually changing environment. It was an inspiring session.

Each of Neal’s topics merits its own blog post; look for future BL.INK posts that explore Neal’s ideas in greater depth.