So much of digital brand marketing these days resembles a kind of Blitzkrieg mentality. The marketing team enthusiastically jumps into social media channels, sets up a clever Facebook fan page, for example, and loads it with advertising goodies for its thousands of fans to digest. What happens next? The financial quarter ends and the marketing guys pull out, abandoning everyone. Facebook is littered with dead campaigns like this MTV and Honda joint promotion for the once loved “Roadies” TV program. When will marketers learn?

Two staunch advocates of ditching the social media ad campaign and instead using the medium to create an ongoing, evolving dialogue with the public are Antony Mayfield, head of social media at iCrossing UK, and Ruth Speakman, head of corporate communications at Sony Electronics Europe. On June 22nd at the Social Media Influence conference, they will participate in a panel discussion that examines their experiences with turning social media engagement into something a meaningful diague, not a bolt-on to an existing ad campaign.

Sony, for one, has seen the power of social media help it reach new markets, engage directly with customers that it otherwise would have never met (after all, Sony has a limited direct-sales retail presence), and learn a bit more about its business operation and performance. It stresses that it does not see social media as purely a domain for marketers. On its social media philosophy, Sony Europe told us earlier this year:

For us, there’s a balance to be established. Our whole perspective on social media is we’re in this for the longterm. We want to use it to engage with our customers. That’s very different, we realize, from how some companies perceive social media, as an add-on maybe for a new product launch or marketing campaign, and then leave it for dead when [the campaign or product launch] is over.

The fact is, as social media brings consumer discussion to a whole new level, companies need to be socially literate in order to survive and prosper, something that VP at iCrossing, Antony Mayfield, has been preaching for some time. After all, a customer’s impression of a brand doesn’t end at the culmination of a marketing campaign; it’s just getting started.

Editor’s Note: If you want to learn more about social media best practice and hear iCrossing UK and Sony Europe in person please join us at Social Media Conference, June 22. Members of our LinkedIn Group are eligible for a great discount.