The social media explorer and bourbon man himself, Jason Falls, is heading to Phoenix for a little biz. As such, I can think of no other reason to get together for a little Tweetup action. If you haven’t had the opportunity to meet Jason, he is a super friendly guy who knows just a little about social media strategy . Read more about him here or follow him on Twitter @JasonFalls.
So, let’s knock a few pints back, have a bourbon or two and mingle. RSVP using the twtvite here so we can tell Robbie Fox how many to expect.
Last week, I had the pleasure of sitting on the Tools and Trends panel for Social Media Club Phoenix. The panelists and I talked about what we heard and liked at South by Southwest 2010, and the tools and trends we thought will be important to watch and leverage.
Lots of juicy goodness in this video including information on local marketing and its implications on local and search marketing, mobile payment applications and the integration of social across different marketing channels. For more information and notes on the session, go to http://smcphoenix.com.
Thanks to the following panelists for the fun and sharing great information. Also, big kudos to Jeff Moriarty and Oden Hughes for moderating the panel and taking notes, respectively.
Kevin Gawthrope, Sr. Manger of Web Services – Isagenix International, @gawthrok
Katie Van Domelen, Social Media Manager – Off Madison Ave, @ktvan
Kathy Jacobs, Social Media Credit Analyst – The Social Media Party, @callkathy
Chuck Reynolds, Strategy & SEO at rYnoweb, @chuckreynolds
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.
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.”
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
About a year ago, I came across the story of Stephanie and Christian Nielson through a mutual friend and former colleague, Andrew Bagley. Stephanie, the popular “mommy” blogger behind the NieNie Dialogues, and her husband, Christian, were traveling back from a family trip when they were involved in a private airplane crash (Today Show story here). Their flight instructor was killed and both suffered serious burns; Stephanie’s being more extensive.
I’m not quite sure why, but I felt an immediate connection to Stephanie. It could have been because my first recollections of pain were from serious burns that I experienced as child or the passionate love for her children she illustrates through her posts that reminds me of my Mum’s love for my sister and I. Alas, it could have also been related to my general nature as a complete softy.
Regardless of why, I followed Stephanie and Christian’s recovery through Twitter conversations, her family members’ blogs and then Stephanie’s when she returned to writing a few months ago. Though I have never met Stephanie or Christian, I have often cheered their successes and shed a few tears during their set backs. It’s odd to have such deep feelings for people who you have never shared more than casual interactions through their writing, and one that can only be somewhat explained through one of my favorite blogger’s, Leisa Reichelt, theory of Ambient Intimacy. Leisa describes Ambient Intimacy as, “being able to keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldn’t usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible.
Social networks and the tools built around them are giving everyone participating levels of ambient intimacy with people we have never seen before. As Leisa mentions, Twitter gives us the chance to find out what people are doing at any given moment of the day, Flickr lets us see the world through other people’s eyes, event-based networks such as Upcoming show us where people might be going and Yelp gives us the likes and dislikes of everyone leaving reviews. We suddenly know more about individuals we follow than their own personal friends or family might now, and this creates significant levels of intimacy. Sometimes this intimacy can leave one feeling sad as David Armano wrote about when he heard about the passing of Megan Porter, and other times we feel uplifted as I felt when I read about Stephanie climbing a nearby mountain to celebrate one-year of life after the accident.
Ambient intimacy is an interesting theory and definitely needs more exploration. As social networks evolve, it will become more important not only to how humans interact on them, but also how brands apply the theory to humanize themselves.
What are you thoughts on ambient intimacy? Is it a bunch of hodgepodge or does it explain the emotions we feel for those who we only have a digital relationship with? How could brands apply this theory to humanize themselves across the social web?
The social media explorer and bourbon man himself, Jason Falls, is heading to Phoenix for a little biz. As such, I can think of no other reason to get together for a little Tweetup action. If you haven’t had the opportunity to meet Jason, he is a super friendly guy who knows just a little about social media strategy 
. Read more about him here or follow him on Twitter @JasonFalls.
