5Q's with Sarah Hofstetter, Vice President of Emerging Media & Client Strategy at 360i

Mom Central's 5Q's: Sarah Hofstetter

VP, Emerging Media and Client Strategy at 360i 

This week we speak with Sarah Hofstetter, Vice President of Emerging Media and Client Strategy at 360i, a digital agency with specialty in search and social marketing. In addition to running the 360i's social media group, Sarah spends time with her husband and two wonderful kids, Abby and Sam.

MCC: Describe an “aha” moment you’ve had with Social Media.
SH: When I joined Facebook for the first time a bunch of years ago, and I saw my dad was already there. Here I was thinking I was an early adopter, and yet my dad trumped me. Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

MCC: What about Social Media currently keeps you up at night?
SH: You could phrase it the other way around. Because social media is there days, nights and weekends, there’s no way for it NOT to keep you up at night, even if it’s just to catch up with friends and family.

MCC:  What’s your fave social media site right now and why?
SH: I’d love to come up with something esoteric but I’m still a huge fan of Facebook. It gives me the platform for communication, sharing, even gaming with old friends, new friends and even my parents. While there are plenty of niche social networks that connect me to other people like me – I’ll bet there’s even a couple of social nets for working moms who kickbox and eat kosher -- I’m just too busy to participate in more than a couple of social sites, and Facebook gives me the reach and functionality to really get everything I need out of one site.

MCC: How should a company best prepare to respond to a Social Media crisis?
SH: Starting a listening program TODAY and develop your escalation program NOW.  There isn’t an elementary school around that doesn’t have a series of fire drill preps where they train children about what they should do in the event of an emergency. Why shouldn’t you have that same protection for your brand?

Social media invites participation from anyone – employees, customers, investors – and therefore defies organizational boundaries by those departments it impacts – marketing, PR, customer care, HR and more. By actively listening to the conversations people are having about your brand, you can have a solid idea of what topics, products, features are interesting or unfavorable to your audiences, which can help inform marketing and creative strategies.

And for those who might speak negatively, you can also size that audience to gauge if that person has the potential to reach a much broader audience and kickstart a very negative reputation for you. Once you have an identification and escalation procedure in place, you can then swiftly address the situation with the right team.

MCC: How would you explain the value of Social Media to a brand/company just testing the waters?
SH: The Internet is a real-time focus group – providing you with a tremendous amount of access to how people speak about your brand, your competitors’ brands, and your industry.

And this is not just for early adopters anymore – YouTube has more US viewers than CNN, MSNBC and Fox News combined. Facebook has more US registered users than The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and TIME magazine combined. These are large, scalable platforms where people are openly talking about you.

As a brand, you have two choices: you can cover your ears and pretend it’s not happening, or listen and analyze those consumers’ active discussions to then inform whether or not you participate. An online listening program can be a great way to get a lay of the land, understand the competitive landscape, and then determine if and how you may want to participate.

MCC: What do you most want folks to know about you?
SH: Depends on the folks, I guess. I’m a mom of two wonderful kids – a 10-year-old girl named Abby and a 7-year-old boy named Sam, and I also have the fantastic job of running the social marketing group at 360i, a digital agency with specialty in search and social marketing. It’s fantastic because I have the opportunity to work with exciting brands and partner with them to integrate social marketing into overall marketing programs, and because I have a phenomenal team at 360i who consistently up their game daily and get me excited to come to work every day.

MCC: What’s the most exciting stuff you’re up to?
SH: Wish I could tell you but then I’d be exposing all my clients’ secrets.

My most exciting project last month was working on our Social Marketing Playbook (free download at www.360i.com/playbook) which is the first industry report of its kind that provides strategic guidance to help brands capitalize on new opportunities in social marketing. The book was co-authored by our social marketing team of experts, and we also have some great contributions from industry experts like IAB Chairman Randall Rothenberg, Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore and more.

We hope this will provide  a framework  for  establishing a  set  of  clear objectives and strategy when approaching social marketing, and advance discussions on amplifying marketing results through the integration of social marketing and offline campaigns.

MCC: Finally, where can our marketing/social media peeps find you online?
SH: It’s always challenging to keep your personal and professional personae separated, but I try. Of course, I have lots of professional contacts who have become my friends, so it makes it all the more messy. I use Facebook to keep up with friends and Twitter and Linked In for work. Follow me @Pezmeister1 or @360i.