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10 Thoughts about SXSW 2010

Well, I’m waiting at gate 7 to board my flight back to Phoenix from Austin and I thought I’d share a few of my own thoughts on South by Southwest Interactive 2010. Thanks to all the friends, old and new, who made it memorable.

1. Austin is for foodies.
Most of you know I love food. Minus family and friends, there really is nothing that makes me smile more than food. Austin is chocked full of unique, independent food haunts. From street vendors to uber-chic eateries, Austin has something for anyone.

We had the chance to check out plenty of hot spots, but I’d recommend the following when visiting Austin: Frank | Hot Dogs & Beer, Imperia, Pizza Vendor at 6th and Red River, Maria, Maria, Moonshine Bar and Grill,
Ironworks BBQ and Iron Cactus.

2. Mobile marketing didn’t get the spotlight it needed.
2010 has been called the year of mobile. If SXSW is truly a reflection of upcoming trends, then I’m concerned we may have to wait till next year to see a strong focus on mobile marketing strategy. Sure, there were plenty, if not too many sessions on geo-location, mobile commerce and mobile advertising (see my notes on Mobile Advertising), but there was a big missing hole without a session on mobile marketing and based on what I heard from participants it was needed.

3. AT&T’s network can be great.
Contrary to 99.9% of people who enjoy the loveliness of AT&T’s patchy network, it can actually be great when AT&T wants it to be. You only needed to walk around Austin to see the massive investment made to make sure the blogosphere didn’t unite in razing the company like they did in 2009. From massive cell towers atop and around the convention center to mobile tower trucks sprinkled strategically around hot party locations, AT&T made a major effort to ensure the network was solid. They only time I experienced any issues was inside Ironworks BBQ. If only they could replicate this experience around the country, we would have a happy group of iPhone owners.

4. Jay Bear has a twin. We call him Gowalla Baer.
Apparently, the world is large enough for a Jay Baer lookalike. Cindy Kim, Scott Kaufmann, Elizabeth Hannon and I call him “Gowalla Baer.”

5. Where were the social media measurement sessions?
For all the talk about ROI and measuring social media’s impact on business from practitioners, it’s clear that we have a long way to go. I attended several social media sessions (see notes from the Future of Social Business)and none of them focused on metrics.

Even when audience members asked ROI questions, many of the panelists skirted around the answer and didn’t offer specific metrics for different objectives. Major disappoint for me, and I think others too. I hope to see a decent set of panelists from different sized brands that offer specific metrics next year. There a lot of companies that need help in defining those metrics so they can sell the plan up the chain.

5. Foursquare will win the location game.
Location, location, location. Everywhere you went at SXSW, people and panelists were talking about Gowalla and Foursquare, location-based social apps that allow users to check into locations and potentially earn deals and/or virtual goods.

My opinion is Foursquare is going to win the battle of the current location apps out on the market. It has a better user interface, larger user base and will appeal to both businesses and consumers as they roll out some of the upcoming features. Businesses will be attracted to the dashboard services that will offer them a deep understanding of their most frequent and core customers, and consumers will be attracted to the Yelp-like model of being the most frequent user, or “mayor” as they are called on Foursquare. Sure, Gowalla and other platforms, including Facebook, will share a piece of the pie, but I’m putting my money on Foursquare.

7. It’s about way more than the conference.
Like everyone on Twitter, I saw a boatload of tweets knocking SXSW as simply being a conference to go party and have fun. Sure, most of us stayed up into the wee hours of the morning and partied our assess off, but South By is about much more than that.

If you are new to the web space, you can get a lot of value out of the sessions. And if you have been around the block for a few years, chances are you have made some like-minded friends across the globe. SXSW gives you the chance to reconnect with those friends and make new ones. You never know when a conversation is going to lead to new business or when a session will spark an idea for a current client.

Stop bashing SXSW and come see what the hoopla is all about.

8. Phoenix has it better than most.
The number of folks I talked to about what is and isn’t going on in their hometowns was incredible, and their insight has given me a fresh new perspective on the little city I call home. Yeah, we aren’t San Fran or Silicon Valley, nor are we Boulder, Portland or Seattle, but Phoenix has a lot more going for it in the marketing, creative, web development and community space then most towns.

You won’t find me complaining any more about our gem in the desert. We have some of the best marketing and creative minds in the country, one best Ignite’s in the World, coworking spaces like Gangplank and others that most cities don’t have and we all have done a pretty decent job of getting to know each other. Let me know tell you that these types of events, places, organizations and the connected community that we have are not found in many places.

9. Long hashtags suck.
Nothing more to say here, but long hashtags suck. Even if the SXSW committee is going to compile the conversation based on those hashtags and publish them, find a better way. Maybe each session can have a unique number (i.e. SXSWi109). Sure you’d get some rogue tweets or messages, but at least every freaking panelist and audience member wouldn’t be complaining about the excessive number of 20+ character hashtags. Long hashtags mean less context. Less context means crappy conversation.

10. Content strategy is still not getting enough attention.
Don’t get me wrong, there were a few sessions on content strategy, but only one of them was worth the time and that was Kristina Halvorsons’ (see the notes from Mike Corak or read her book). I’m not sure why SXSW and other digital conferences are not this discipline more focus. Businesses with any sort of web presence are going to get bit in the ass if they don’t start paying attention to their own content strategy. Those that do will win.

(Photos by yours truly.)

Notes from SXSW: Mobile Advertising in 2010. How to pay the bills?

Much like social media was last year, the hot topic at SXSW Interactive 2010is mobile. There have been a ton of panels, sessions and talks about all things mobile from QR codes to Foursquare and everything in between.

I had the chance to attend the Mobile Advertising in 2010 session which focused on how mobile platforms are paying the bills. In other words, how they work with advertisers to keep the lights on. The session included Foursquare Co-founder, Dennis Crowley, and a rep from MocoSpace. Here are my notes.

Mobile Advertising in 2010: How to pay the bills?

MocoSpace

http://mocospace.com
Most visited mobile site after Facebook, MySpace and Google

Audience

95% from US
75% is on mobile
Site users is 1/3 caucasian, 1/3 hispanic, 1/3 African American
Faster growing segment – iPhone and Android

Monetization

Work with the ad networks (3 billion pages per day), robust mediation layer, targeting abilities (gender, ethnicity, location, age).
Working with music labels to distribute music to create instant feedback loop.
SpikeTV Video Game Awards: get people to vote on video games through MocoSpace.
Branded experiences.
Virtual currency. Example, MocoGold creates ancillary benefits within the experience.

Foursquare

http://foursquare.com
Launched 2009 at SXSW, smarter city guide with gaming on top. Exciting way to find places.

Monetization

Didn’t like the mistargeted ads. So created specials within the app.
Created branded experiences with Bravo, NY Times, working with CPGs and other brands.
Take offline experience to the phone. Bravo example. Find out celebrity chefs

Additional topics/questions discussed:
How do you go beyond the media buy, CPM etc?

Leverage the features of the phone, call-in, audio and visual impact.
Branded experiences that go beyond the CPM, badges, etc.
Content creation mentioned again, create content that matters to audience where they are.
Foursquare potential idea is cost per checkin with an action that has to be taken to complete conversion.

Look to the future.
Foursquare – Local biz opportunity. Give them incredibly easy dashboards to use, active their fans and drive repeat business.
Moco – Better experiences within mobile browser, virtual goods.

Notes from SXSW: Future of Social Business

It’s been a hit-or-miss experience with social media-related sessions at SXSW. They are either rich with concrete strategies and takeaways or simply devoid of good content. The Future of Social Business session was of the better social media related sessions I attended.

Lead by David Mearmann Scott, author of New Rules of Marketing and PR, the session focused on how different organizations have leveraged social media within different parts of their respective organizations. From Newell Rubbermaid to the United States Air Force, panelists discussed social media strategies related to marketing, internal communications, media relations and more. Here are my notes.

Future of Social Business

Social media and marketing

David Mearman Scott – New Rules of Marketing and PR – @dmscott

New rule is marketing with content.
1. Lose control
2. Nobody cares about your products except for you. The Gobbledygook Manifesto. “Innovate” Speak to buyers in their words
3. Create triggers for people to share. If they are interested in it, they will spread it. No need to cooerse.

- Old rules of measurement = press clips.
- New rule = content from your customers. David showed the HP example, shown below, that was created by students for awards.

Social media and media relations

Captain Nathan Broshear- United States Air Force – @usairforce

Air Force opens up all computers for social media.
- Try to humanize Air Force members (HUGE). Show it to the American people.
- The days of us calling the media are over.
- In Irac, there are whole units that post information to media through Twitter. No more press releases.
- Can talk to small – large media outlets without scaling.
- Whole office in DC monitoring social media. The Ann Curry example. Curry tweeted about not being able to land in Haiti after earthquake. Tweet was routed back to Air Force who helped start to organize air traffic.
- Shows Air Force Haiti response video created by actual USAF officers.

- People use the networks when they need them. You need to be there.
- Social communication cannot be about you. It has to be about your people or YOUR customers. It’s about an experience.
- Capt. Broshear used the following example when explaining to his ranking officers why you should allow service members access to social media. “You’ve got a 25 year old kid with $50 million airplane and you can’t trust them with a Facebook page.”
- He also said “The blogs that fail are about a person and the ones that succeed are about an experience.”

Customer service goes social.

Melanie Baker – PostRank – @melle

- Customers don’t care where you are, they just want to be able to get a hold with you.
Build the trust, can’t wait to come back.
- Look at the decision making process of your customers. Make sure you can connect with them at every point in that process.
- Customer service needs to learn about different types of no’s. Example. “No we don’t have that product, but check back in 6 months.”
- If the rest of your company beyond your community is not empowered to help via social, you are creating bottlenecks. But, you have to train your customer service agents where and hot to interact.

Hiring and recruitment goes social

Jeff Berger – Koda – @GenYjobs

- Online job industry is 8 billion industry. KODA aims to to use online recruiting to find people with zero to 5 years experience.
- Significant lack of innovation with job sites, as it relates to Gen Y’ers.

Where does Gen Y go to find jobs online.
1. They rely on the major job boards. More isn’t more to people who don’t know what they want.
2. They have no professional network so Linked doesn’t work.

Workplace collaboration goes social.

Glen Lubbert – Mojo Interactive – @glubbert

- Shows the New How Book by Nilofer Merchant. Says we should all read it if were interested in this topic.
- Social allows for real-time learning for employees.

Tools:
1. Twitter – Be open and transparent. Promote your people. Join us page shows tweets and people.
2. Yammer – For business related items, that don’t need to promoted on email (kids email, latest cause), shout outs for good work, updates etc.
3. Facebook – Let your employees friends promote themselves and your biz to their friends.

Outsourcing goes social

Bert Dumars – Newell Rubbermaid – @BWdumars

Background
In 2006, Rubbermaid was focused on retailers, Wal-Mart, Target, etc. Customers were looked at like the retailers problem.

Fast forward to 2008
- Rubbermain launched the Adventures in Organization blog.
- Rubbermaid partnered with BazaarVoice to publish consumer generated product reviews on Rubbermaid.com

Product Saver Response – Example – Showed reviews
- 7 reviews – 2 great, 5 awful
- If you a brand marketer, this should give you cold sweats at night.
- Brand team read the reviews and talked with the customers. Found out those with bad experiences ripped off the label and threw it away. Didn’t review the instructions. Those customers that did had great experiences with it.
- When you figure out the problem put it on the review, put a blog post up. Key is response.
- Brand team now reviews every review, every day. Changed the way they responded.

Rubbermaid sink mat example
- With all the flu, SARS, anti-bacterial sink mats, Rubbermaid though an anti-bacterial mat would be great new product. To get anti-bacterial, they had to give up staining issues. Customers didn’t want to look at perceived dirty sinks.
- Reformulated, and then outreached to those who didn’t like it.
- Customer responses were tremendous. Showed they cared.

Brand, customer service and ecomm teams work together. Have to share a common goal. That goal is customer centric products.

Takeaways
- Build a foundation on relationships
- Consumer driven insights drive change
- Move from listening to responding and acting
- Dont fear negative reviews
- The truth will set you free
- Respond and show you care.

Questions:

How does brand, ecomm and customer service work together?
Groups and company have to be ready to work together. Have to evolve. Make your customers successful. Headed toward working together on content & common goal.

How do you learn what consumers want?
Newell Rubbermaid does ethnocentric studies. They follow their customers in real life.

Who do you identify those social people in the organization?
Those that are passionate and willing to learn. Rubbermaid went from 4 to 80 employees on social media.

How do you get brand to accept Bazaarvoice?
Moving from channel, brand focus to customer centric model. Build them what they want and it will sell.

How has it helped relationships with retailers?
Understand what is selling and what isn’t and why quicker.

Notes from SXSW: Peter Shankman on Self-Promotion

Here are some notes for anyone who isn’t attending SXSW or didn’t the chance to attend Peter Shankman’s session on self-promotion. This was one of the best sessions I attended thus far. Lots of great content and takeaways. If you ever get the chance to interact with Peter via email, at conference or in-person, it is well worth it.

How Self-Promotion Will Save the World – Peter Shankman

- Self promotion is getting other people to want to do your promotion for you.
- If something works, do it again. If it doesn’t, don’t keep doing it.

If self promo is done right, then:
- Its helping
- It’s giving people something to talk about.

Self promo is being, simply, “That Guy.” The person who can get you out of the shit.
Who is that guy?
- He’s the one whose emails you read.
- He’s the one who never wastes your time.
- He’s the one who always has the answer.
- He’s the one you never hesitate to recommend.
- Because he’s the one who makes you look good.

4 quick rules on how I do self-promo
Transparency
Relevance
Brevity – good writing, nothing more.
Top of mind presence – Barry Diller example. Called people, and got them to call you back.

HARO launched as self promotion slice of cantelope, wrapped in a bacon slice of help.
But no one saw it that way, because HARO helps people more than it promotes me.

We love to be “finders” -
And people love “finders:
Because they secretely, they want to be finders too.

What Finders find – Pedigree Example

Examples of self promo is “helping”
The Great Bellagio Photo Event – 300 new fans, Las Vegas newspaper, wedding invite.

- There’s no reason NOT to do this. Including $ and .
- When people like it, it’s not self-promo. It’s not self-promo, if people are loving it.
- Self promo is giving everyone else what they want.

If more people in the world actually incorporate helping in to their self-promotion, more people in the world will be helped.

Limit the number of things you post, say tyupe or tweet that start with the word “I”. Using the word “I” is the key to self-promotion failure.
- Find the hidden value in what you have
- I don’t just talk about skydiving, marathons, triathlons etc because I love them, I talk about them because I know they can change people’s lives.
- If you don’t believe in what you do, don’t bother promoting it. End of story.
- If perceived value is greater than perceived, self-promotion everyone wins. Give out value. Example: http://iwearyourshirt.com

How to do it.
- Be thankful. Thanking people is the most underrated action in the entire world. It can leapfrog you from someone to “That guy” in one hundred forty characters.
- Respect other people and say thank you.
- Sharing happiness is good self-promotion.

Everything you post, say, tweet, promote, friend, buzz, wave, foursquare, plancast share. Increases or decreases the credibility of your personal brand.
- Only you can control whether you’re a self promoting douchebag, or someone offering good stuff people actually want.
- Its never anyone else’s fault if you’re not perscerived as you want to be.

Final thoughts.
- Fun is contagious.
- So is smiling.