Digiday Social yesterday at the Mariott Marquis New York was a day full of insightful and engaging discussions and presentations from an impressive slate of industry leaders about how agencies, brands and companies use social media and what they think social media holds for the future. From the very honest “Brands & Social Media” discussion with MTV’s Don Steele and Virgin America’s Gale Porter, to Rishad Tobaccowala’s eloquent keynote presentation “The People Network,” to Adam Kmiec’s persuasive Hypebusters presentation “The Social Media Gravy Train is Over,” and more, here are some key quotes from the day.
“Go see Moneyball this weekend, and replace the Oakland A’s with your client. That’s how you should look at ROI.” Ian Schafer, CEO & founder, Deep Focus
“Everybody says the same thing on our social media channel: bring back Chappelle.” Don Steele, vp of digital marketing, Comedy Central
“At their core, people are analog.” Rishad Tobaccowala, chief innovation officer, VivaKi
“Facebook-sponsored stories are the magic pixie dust of social network advertising.” Rick Bruner, vp of product management, Marketing Evolution
“Anyone know Apple’s social media strategy? Great frickin’ products.” Adam Kmiec, director of social media, Walgreens
“Gaming is the only medium that has a lean-forward undivided-attention element.” Dave Madden, svp global media solutions, Electronic Arts
“Brands must compete against 30 billion status updates, 200 million tweets, and 5.3 billion video ads.” Shiv Singh, global head of digital, PepsiCo
“I’ve been fairly bearish on Google plus. I don’t think it’s working. I thought it was over-architected.” John Borthwick, CEO, Betaworks
“Facebook is increasingly a content-distribution network, not a social one.” Rishad Tobaccowala, chief innovation officer, VivaKi
“The concept of the website is outdated.” Jim Bankoff, CEO, SBNation
More in Media
Inside Bloomberg Media’s survival guide for the AI era
The business news publisher has yet to sign a content licensing deal with an AI company, but it did recently implement a new AI-powered on-site search engine.
Media Briefing: Overheard at the Digiday Publishing Summit, September 2025 Google search edition
Media execs aired their grievances about Google referral traffic and their souring relationship with platform during the Digiday Publishing Summit.
How EssentiallySports’ creator program benefits both sides of the equation
Over the past year, sports news publication EssentiallySports has employed creators to make in-house video and editorial content around major tentpole sporting events — and thus far, the experiment has paid off.