#SMCSEA

The event with Jason Falls was probably a bit hard to take for some of those in the audience – people Falls would lovingly refer to as “hippies” or “social media purists.” Falls focused on how social media can actually be used to move beyond the lovey-dovey feel good and have a true impact on sales and the bottom line.

You could actually hear the gasps from people in the audience during a couple times when Falls would say something that no one expected a “guru” to say, but that’s because he doesn’t see himself as a guru, but part of the larger marketing mix. Falls also showed some great examples of how brands are using social media for real results, even without gimmicks and fancy campaigns (in fact, one was even a drug store that simply gave their users an easier way to access their circular via their Facebook page).

For more info on moving the needle, you can check out http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/.

gdgt Live

If you’re into shiny gadgets, free drinks and swag, then you should’ve been at the gdgt Live Seattle event last night. Some of the makers of the hottest new gadgets on (and about to enter) the market were on hand to demo their products and let users get a little handsy.

The SCG team made the rounds and were delighted to see Dragon Dictation (from Nuance) there demoing their speech-to-text application for iPhone and iPad. The software makes it fairly easy to dictate and then allows you to send it to text, email, Twitter, and even Facebook.

The team also met the social media players from @virginamerica and got to talk shop with the growing team about what tools and tactics they’re using in their quest to make passengers’ travel just that much better. They recently rolled out a new version of their in-flight entertainment system, Red, and were showing video and talking about some of the new features which include: The Red Store (think SkyMall in digital form, but with a $38,000 diamond encrusted iPhone), the ability to keep a tab in the system, and Google Maps integration that brings terrain views to passengers.

Lastly, we got a chance to get hands-on with the Windows Phone 7 operating system (but sadly not an actual handset) as we stopped by the Windows booth and talked with our friend Brian Seitz (who also works with a great Seattle group called Cold Pavement). Besides the new mobile OS, the Windows area also had some Windows 7 goodness going on as well as an Xbox set up (although I’m not sure what they were doing on that thing other than playing games).

And now for photos…

Ron, Courtney, and Aaron with Microsoft’s Brian Seitz. See the Windows Phone 7 on display?

Aaron with our new friend Jill from Virgin America. She runs the @virginamerica Twitter handle! Sorry for the lack of focus.

With more than 700 meetups held in 93 countries, and more than 11,000 confirming their attendance, Social Media Day was a success, and now Mashable is continuing the social movement with monthly Mashable meetups where the offline dialogue about social media and Mashable (the brand) will continue. I won’t be surprised if a few social media projects and tools originate from these conversations.

Meetup is all about creating opportunities for face-to-face conversation no matter the place or subject, allowing people with similar interests to connect online, and meet offline. The following statistics begin to capture how Meetup is bringing people together:

• 6 million monthly visitors
• 7.2 million members
• 2.2 million monthly RSVPs
• 250,000 monthly meetups
• 79,000 local groups
• 46,000 topics
• 45,000 cities

While informal groups started by individuals are the norm at Meetup, brands like Mashable understand that face-to-face engagement complements online, and that businesses can benefit from creating, organizing, and hosting events as well.

Additionally, businesses can sponsor groups, providing them with a place to meet, offering discounts on products or services, or helping to pay their monthly Meetup subscription fees. Groups supported by sponsors can then display their logo on their page, allowing members to engage directly.

As noted above, more than 700 meetups were held on Social Media Day. Since many of them were hosted in gathering places such as coffee shops, restaurants, bookstores, and so forth, these space providing businesses can, and many probably did, cater to them. As a member of a local meetup, our group regularly meets at five or six places because they’ve been gracious hosts, and we thank them through generous tips. I recently discovered a very meetup friendly place—Zippys Java Lounge—which highlights hosted events and links directly to their venue Meetup page.

Have you ever played the game Taboo? Your partner picks a card with a specific word on it. They try to get you to guess the word without using five “taboo” words, which would likely give away the answer, while an hourglass quickly empties.

BlogWell may be the “Taboo” of social media conferences. In a series of “lightning round” case study presentations, speakers had 20 minutes to boil down multi-million-dollar global integrated marketing campaigns into actionable takeaways for an audience comprised of marcom consultants, agencies and brand managers from companies like Cisco, McDonald’s, TiVo and Kraft.  Each presenter shared their success stories, all without giving away the secret sauce (those “taboo” words).  After 20 minutes, the audience left feeling like either winners or losers, depending on their ability to guess the key takeaways from all the content.

For those with “140-character” attention spans, the model was likely a refreshing change of pace compared to conferences where PowerPoints feel more like Monopoly than War. I left the conference wondering what key messages attendees would bring back to their companies.  Here’s what I heard:

• Read the directions to everyone. Whether you like it or not, your social media presence is touching every person at your company in some fashion, turning everyone into a potential spokesperson, evangelist or fire-starter. So, while social media is often “owned” by some sort of marketing team, infusing best practices into the broader culture is key.  At one end of the spectrum, Frank Shaw from Microsoft discussed the simple advice his company gives employees:  “Be smart.” On the other end, Bryan Rhoads from Intel described a robust employee training program with a series of 100-400-level course videos followed by a formal certification. Regardless, instituting a social media policy and sharing it company-wide is imperative.

• Decide how to keep score. Todd Blecher from Boeing noted that while he has no idea whether they should have 800 or 800,000 Twitter followers, he does know that Boeing’s overall reputation is what he needs to measure success against. On the other side, Molly Schonthal from Nokia said they have more than 10 metrics that they break into categories of success: 1) Fostering Dialogue, 2) Promoting Advocacy, 3) Facilitating Support, and 4) Spurring Innovation. You can make up your own scoring system, but at least make sure everyone on your team knows it.

• Don’t play Solitaire. Integration across the marketing mix is key. We all talk about it, but getting multiple business groups, agencies and a cross-section of paid-owned-earned media marketers at one table is as easy as guessing the killer-weapon-room combo during a rousing game of Clue. Alex Wheeler’s presentation of Starbucks’ social media efforts demonstrated a uniquely integrated approach, which Alex attributed to two critical things:  1) integration among senior executives and their buy-in that an integrated approach is imperative, and 2) putting the customer at the center and looking at social media from their point of view, vs. planning and making decisions based on an org chart.

• Win at a losing game. Viral videos! Likes! Deals! Mayors! Don’t forget about the not-so-fun online conversations that are impacting your brand perception. Audiences have taken the customer service issues away from the call center and plastered them all over the internet – and away from your owned properties, no less!  These conversations have changed the customer service game entirely, because now the whole world can watch the issue unfold (if they care). Suddenly, a small issue has evolved into a Jenga tower, teetering on the verge of collapse. Nestor Portillo of Microsoft’s customer service org described how they have a team of social media agents, escalation processes and listening tools in place to track customer service issues across the internet.

Surprisingly, common hot topics at most recent social media conferences like mobile, geo-location, and measurement tools weren’t really discussed at BlogWell…perhaps because of time limitations?

Thanks to GasPedal, the Social Media Business Council and Microsoft for putting on an interesting and unique conference.

What did you think of BlogWell?

The BlogWell series, presented by GasPedal and the Social Media Business Council, is coming to the Microsoft Headquarters on May 5^th. The event will feature corporate social media case study presentations from major brands including Microsoft, Starbucks, Xerox, Nokia, PEMCO, ExOfficio, Boeing and Intel.

The conference will focus on practical, how-to advice on creating great content, getting management buy-in, educating employees, keeping lawyers and regulators happy, simple and ethical disclosure, and engaging fans.

 Learn how to get started, get past roadblocks, and make your social media program phenomenal — in one afternoon.

For more details visit: http://www.gaspedal.com/blogwell/seattle. Apply the coupon code SCGSENTME to get 20% off registration.

I’m fairly sure that most in attendance at last week’s Social Media Conference Northwest 2010 would agree that the event was a hit. Check out this article in the Herald which features our very own Clay McDaniel for a good overview of the content.

Also, check out the Social Media Conference Northwest 2010 site for great video interviews with attendees and presenters.

Here are a few of our favorites:

But I’m glad that Cheezburger Network’s Scott Porad wrote about the other side of SXSW – the people. This started as a people-driven conference, and for a people-driven industry like social media, SXSW is the epicenter of connections. Here’s a link to the post Scott wrote for Seattle20. We’re not usually in the business of driving traffic *away* from our blog, but Scott gives a good recap of some non-measurable reasons to attend events such as this.

If you’ve been watching, well, pretty much anything that’s not basketball today, you’ve no doubt seen the debacle that’s unfolding over on the Nestlé Facebook page. If not, check out this AdAge article for an overview.

However, this could just have easily been a case study full of WIN instead of a case study ripe with FAIL that will no doubt be included in the “what not to do” section of decks for years to come.   At the core, the mistake wasn’t necessarily made on the Facebook page, but in the communication layer that exists between Nestlé and their agency (or possibly agencies).

To make sure this never happens to you, here are our five steps for creating PR and SMM WIN:

1. Have a Plan – Oftentimes the jump into social media is made with a sort of “well, everyone else is doing it, we might as well do it too” sort of thinking – bad idea. Have a plan for what you want to accomplish in the social media space. This will help you divide duties among your groups and agencies.
2. Divide and Conquer – Overlap isn’t your friend. When overlap in responsibilities occurs, that’s when things fall through the cracks. Give distinct responsibilities to your teams/agencies and hold them accountable.
3. Lay the Groundwork for Communication – Funnily enough, communications companies are notoriously bad at communicating. By creating a clear path for escalation of problems/questions, you can sidestep the bullets being slung at your brand and gracefully respond with the correct information.
4. There’s no I in TEAM – If your agencies decide to go all-out in competing for themselves alone, your brand will be the one that suffers. Create a sense of team within your larger group and emphasize that wins for the brand outweigh an individual’s wins— despite the compartmentalized nature of the work.
5. If You’re Not Early, You’re Late – The social media world moves at a breakneck pace. In order to be on time, you’ve got to be early in thinking about what the next issue you’ll be faced with will be. Then you can bring your agencies together and create a plan of attack.

*NOTE: The Nestle image above was not changed in any way.

We’re about to give you the chance to actually follow through on one of our favorite empty threats from childhood.   “I’m going to run away and join the circus” used to just be an unfulfilled promise you made to your parents when you didn’t want to eat your vegetables, but at the upcoming Twestival Seattle on March 25th, we’re giving you the chance to make it a reality.

Since Twestival Seattle is going down at Emerald City Trapeze this time around, Spring Creek Group decided to sponsor a little “Air Time,” where a few lucky attendees will get their chance to fly through the air with the greatest of ease (under the guidance of some trained trapeze professionals, of course).   If hurtling through the air at rapid speeds isn’t your bag, you can still get your trapeze fix as you check out a professional flying show later in the evening.   For all you former circus runaways, there are 60 flying spots available– so if you’re interested, be sure to drop a line to ShaunaCausey@gmail.com. 

One hundred percent of this edition of Twestival Seattle’s proceeds will go directly to Concern Worldwide, an international humanitarian organization that works to make education more accessible for some of the world’s poorest children.  

Bottom line:  Twestival Seattle is benefiting a great cause, and it’s always a good time with some good folks- so we hope to see you there!  For more details, and to register for the event, head here.

For a shop that focuses on three key areas (analytics, engagement and campaigns) dividing and conquering the massive list of available panels at SxSWi becomes a somewhat easier task.  However, even when you attack the festival with a team of eager attendees, you’re left with that nagging question:  “What if I missed the single most-important panel of SxSWi?”

On that note, here are just a few of the things that caught our attention at SxSWi so far:

The Future of Mobile

When you think about the Web, it’s easy to picture a laptop or even a desktop, but the fact of the matter is that more Web traffic comes from handheld mobile devices these days than from any other types of devices. In this talk, Nielsen presented their outlook for the mobile market and predicted that smartphones will dethrone feature phones as the dominating type of mobile device by Q3 2011. Nielsen also talked about the importance applications play in the fast-approaching world of mobile. According to their research it is the teen set that is driving the market for paid applications, but mysteriously, those purchases of applications suddenly drop once those teens reach college age . . . weird.  

From the looks of things, the revolution will not be televised, my friends.  Instead, the revolution, led by teens with their parents’ credit cards, will be live-streamed and simultaneously talked about on social networks – all from mobile devices.

Wall-E and Eve: A Story of Great Content Development

You’ve all heard the phrase “Content is King” more times than anyone would care to admit, but it’s not volume that creates lasting impressions and cohesive campaigns, it’s cautiously-executed content that tells a story. When author and CEO of Brain Traffic, Kristina Halvorson, started off with a story about Wall-E, you immediately knew the presentation following would be a great one.  What Halvorson did, rather eloquently, was equate the eternal search for great content to Wall-E’s daily grind of picking through the garbage left on Earth and sometimes, when he’s extremely lucky, finding a treasure that is so precious he takes it home and essentially catalogs it for later. Even more than that, once Eve comes along with her shiny, Apple-like design, Wall-E shares the treasures he’s picked out of the junk – that’s the great content, people. For more on Halvorson’s content strategy teachings, check out her book Content Strategy for the Web.

Digging Just Got Easier

As Saturday night fell on the anything-but-sleepy Austin, the two guys famous for sitting on a couch and talking about stories that other people brought to their attention took center stage at Stubb’s for a live version of Digg Nation. Besides Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose’s normal antics and banter, the show also introduced the new and improved Digg.com that will be launching soon. The site boasts an entirely new backend and tech that allows for one-click Digging as well as bringing back leaderboards. You can sign up for the new Digg here: http://digg.com/new.

The event was packed and although we never found two people we were looking for, I did manage to see iJustine and stood in Robert Scoble’s way as he was trying to get up the stairs.

As a bonus cherry on top of the sundae of awesome that actually turned out to be the Digg event, Leo Laporte showed up with his live-streaming backpack and camera rig and crowd-surfed the mob of Digg Nation onlookers.

Finally, as if the show needed anything else before The Walkmen took the stage, Alex brought out Robert Rodriguez to talk about his new film (one that he scripted and originally had turned down), Predators. The flick is a reboot of the original Predator franchise and takes place on the Predators’ home planet.

More to come from deep in the heart of Texas. . .

So come see Clay talk about Measurement and Analytics tools, and come say hi to Grant and I as we walk around soaking up knowledge.  Hope to see you all there tomorrow.