I’m at the “Best Practices in Green Social Media” at the Opportunity Green conference, which promises that “The panelists will demystify social media marketing channels, the types of insight that can be derived from them, the market sizes, recent trends, messaging methodologies and execution-based case studies.” The panelists are:

* Michael Leifer, executive director of social media at Swirl, a marketing agency.
* Ben Black, co-founder of New Cycle Capital, a venture capital firm.
* Ryan Scott, founder and CEO of Causecast, an interactive community that connects people with a cause.
* Rob Reed, founder of Media Maxwell, a social media and cause marketing firm.

2:41: Michael’s presentation’s titled “Obama Case Study as Business Practice Road Map.” Main features — decentralized, transparent, participatory. Obama’s use of Flickr makes use of citizen journalism, allowing people to participate while linking up to other social media channels.

2:47: Michael’s explaining what social media is (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and the other usual sites) and why it’s important (more people are participating in social media).

2:51: Shorebank‘s one of Swirl’s clients. Michael’s talking about the bank’s high interest savings account.

2:53: Shorebank has a blog, which Michael sees as the key to transparency. “A blog is a prerequisite,” Michael says, for establishing a brand and having transparency. Really? Aren’t blogs so 2004?

2:55: Most of Michael’s case studies have to do with creating Facebook communities to get people involved in contests or events.

2:57: Ryan on why you should care about cause marketing: Your customers and employees care. He demos how Causecast helps businesses engage people in their cause marketing.

3:04: Ryan on the importance of being genuine about a cause you support. “You can only be disingenuous for a short period of the time.” Ryan points to the fact that info stays on the internet — so it’s easy for people to tell if you change your story.

3:06: Ryan’s “Lessons Learned”: Associate with other trusted brands. Building community takes time. Be genuine. Be everywhere (go to social networks where people already are, instead of trying to get them to join new networks).

3:10: Rob’s presentation’s repeating a lot of basic info: That the number of people engaged with social media is growing, and that young people on the social web care about socially-conscious and environmental issues. And that companies can create badges and widgets for people to put on their blogs, social media sites. No new info here.

3:18: Ben’s 4 reasons “Why Social Media is the ideal agent for change”: Lowers the cost of collective action, improves quality of engagement, enables best and brightest ideas to flow up to the top, lowers transaction costs.

3:28: I’m having a hard time seeing how Ben’s case examples relate to his points. He uses Carrotmob as an ex of the lower cost of collective action — but as far as I know, Carrotmob is not a business…. He uses a carbon credit company as an ex of a company lowering transaction cost — but I don’t get how social media was actually used in its business model.

3:33: Panel’s over. I’m not sure I learned very much, but perhaps the panel was helpful for total newbies who don’t know what social media is…. It seems, however, that people who simply follow the advice of the panelists will remain behind the curve, as much of social media’s already moved beyond blogs and embeddable widgets.

3:41: Found my post on How environment and social change orgs can use new media.

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