The SMG team had a great time at our Friday Feb 15th Spark event. We shared our thoughts on content, data, and the digital and social world—now it’s time to hear from you!

Check out these videos of each of our speakers, feel free to share them with your networks, and let us know what you think. Each speaker will be blogging on their topics over the next couple weeks, so post your comments and questions here and we’ll address them on the blog!

If you’d like to find out more about SMG and what we do, please fill out our contact form and we’ll get in touch to set up a time to chat!

James Cooper @jamescooper
Strategist, Content and Community

James explores the emerging trend of transmedia storytelling, which is storytelling across multiple platforms and formats using digital technologies. This talk will illustrate how, more than ever, brands have an opportunity to create a continuous content narrative that engages an audience through multiple media formats.

Patrick Gladney @pgladney
Group Head, Research and Insights

Patrick discusses the democratization of data. The new online world and communication landscape has made consumer and market data ubiquitous. Marketers of all stripes have unprecedented access to consumer information and are looking to action that data in almost real time. The reality is that clients and agencies have always had access to data, but the real target is insights, not anecdotes.

Cam Finlayson @camfinlayson
Client Engagement Director, Client Strategy and Innovation

Cam discusses data mining and social good. Big Data has quickly become an industry buzz term and with it comes promises of exciting opportunities for consumer intelligence. However, increasing privacy concerns and the logistics associated with data refinement bring their own unique set of challenges for marketers. In his session, Cam outlines some emerging solutions to address these concerns as well as innovative opportunities for social good through real-time data analysis.

Lindsay Stanford @lindsaystanford
Client Engagement Director, Content and Community

Lindsay’s talk is called “Inspire and Ignite: The New Wave of Visual Content Curation”. With less time and more content to sift through, new emerging visual curation platforms have taken off in a big way. Tapping into our desire for authentic and personal inspiration, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest have changed the way we explore and share content. Find out how brands get on board and ride the wave.

Michelle McCudden @mmccudden1
Manager, Client Strategy and Innovation

Michelle addresses a popular, but misguided request in social media marketing: making a piece of content “go viral.” This session covers why “viral” isn’t a useful term, what executives really mean when they ask for content to go viral, and how we can design content so that users are likely to spread it throughout their networks.

Brandon Oliver Smith @brandonXoliver
Analyst, Research and Insights

Brandon explores how brands and individuals cut through the noise. The barrier to entry for anyone to create content has dissolved in the age of affordable technology. How can your content make an impact when it’s competing with nearly everyone on the planet? Brandon will talk about pop culture and the importance of taking the road less traveled to make an impact in the digital age.

Maggie Fox @maggiefox
Founder and CEO

Maggie Fox is the founder, CEO and Chief Marketing Officer of Social Media Group. Maggie was the host of SMG’s Spark event.

Last week I had the great privilege of being asked to participate in SAP’s Social Media Day in Silicon Valley; part of global Social Media Week (see here for SMG’s own contribution to SMWTO).

Organized by Natascha Thomson of Marketing Xlerator, speakers included SAP’s CMO Jonathan Becher, who opened the day with a keynote that asked the question, “How Social Should Your Culture Be?”, followed by a panel discussion that I participated in along with Constellation Research CEO Ray Wang (video of all sessions can be viewed here). Possibly the most interesting outcome of our chat? The hashtag #deadpuppy (watch the video to see what I mean).

Subsequent discussions included:

The Social Culture, lead by SAP Vice President of Social Media Brian Ellefritz, which included a panel that discussed the challenges of building a social brand, which featured Maria Poveromo from Adobe, Len Devanna from the most excellent Ant’s Eye View, Lisa Rosner, CMO of Netbase, and Becky Ann Brown, Director of Social Media at Intel.

The Social Audience, lead by SAP’s Mark Yolton, Senior Vice President of Communities and Social Media. The amazing Rachel Happe, Co-Founder of the Community Roundtable, delivered a presentation titled, “Why People, Relationships and Communities are Becoming Strategic”. I delivered a talk about Content Marketing and how marketers must learn how to use it to earn attention in a “billion channel universe”. We finished up with a great panel discussion that included Deidre Walsh from Jive Software, Kimarie Matthews from Wells Fargo and SAP Mentor Srini Tanikella.

Social Technology, the final session, was moderated by Timo Elliott, Senior Director of Strategic Marketing at Business Objects (who also takes the most fantastic pictures on Instagram) and explored how social techniques can be used to enhance and improve the way products are made and sold.

Overall, it was a tremendous day filled with incredibly high-quality content and speakers, and it was a pleasure to have been invited to contribute. I took away a ton of information and insight, as I’m sure the room full of attendees did as well. For those of you not able to be there, video of the entire day is available here.

[disclosure: SAP is an SMG client]

Social Media Group’s offices in Toronto are closed Monday February 20, 2012 for Family Day. We’re back in the office on Tuesday February 21, 2012.

Have a safe and happy holiday spending some quality time with your families!

Image: photon_de