All posts in “SxSW”

Was SXSWi Worth It?

March 22, 2012 / 2 Comments / Posted in: Blog

Karly Gaffney is a Manager on the Content and Community team at Social Media Group.

After years of envious tweets and serious SXSWi FOMO, I finally made it. 2012 was my year! I scoured the schedule for days before stepping on the plane to Austin, eagerly added every single nerdy Foursquare meet-up/event to my calendar and created a ‘how-to’ list for each SXSW/Austin-specific Foursquare badge. (I do that with every new city I visit. #nerdalert)

After Day One was complete, I was somewhat disappointed.

I think at one point I was certainly the SXSWi target audience, but 2012 was all about mass appeal, big companies and bigger sponsors. Opinion: SXSWi is no longer a hotbed for cutting edge new ideas or a small group of big thinkers. It’s a huge group of people looking to learn more (just like so many other marketing/interactive conferences.)

SXSWi 2012 was bigger than ever. According Austin360 the festival said its official paid attendance count for 2012 was 24,569, up from 19,364 in 2011 (nearly 27%) and 14,251 in 2010. (This isn’t surprising considering the over-crowded halls at the Austin Convention Center and the 3.5+ hour wait in line to pick up my badge.)

Pros:

Cons:

  • None of the sessions I attended that directly related to my day-to-day work provided new insights or takeaways. I had no “Eureka!” moments, no inspiring “I can’t wait to try that!” moments, not even an “Oops, I’m doing it wrong” moment.

Maybe I missed out on the really valuable sessions. At any given time, there were three or four sessions that I wanted to attend and had to choose but one. Maybe I chose wrong.

I have a friend who found great value in the mentor sessions and networking events and friends who had a blast at the parties. (Something that was lost on me because I’m sorta lame and need my sleep.)

Verdict: I’m not sure I’ll go back. If I do attend a future SXSWi, I think I will focus on networking, mentor sessions and the big talks/keynotes. I may not come away with huge learnings that apply to my field, but I’ll likely end up with some valuable new connections and perhaps a touch more inspiration than this year.

The Next Wave of Visual Content Curation

March 19, 2012 / Comments Off on The Next Wave of Visual Content Curation / Posted in: Blog

Last month, during Social Media Week, SMG hosted an Ignite-inspired event called Spark. I was thrilled to be one of the six speakers and chose to speak about a topic near and dear to me: Vistual Content Curation. Over the past year, visual content curation sites have been making some big waves. The most popular are Instagram, Tumblr and, of course, the new kid on the block, Pinterest. In my presentation I spoke about how brands are leveraging these platforms to engage with users and showcase their products. I also gave some data points about the number of users on each platform; Instagram had 15 million users, Tumblr had 44.3 million blogs and Pinterest had broken the 10 million-user mark with 11.7 million.  To me, a month in internet land is like six months in real life, and some exciting and interesting news has been announced in that short time that will really push these visual content curation platforms further into the mainstream spotlight.

Instagram announced last week they have reached 27 million users on the iOS-only app, nearly doubling their user base in two months! With more and more brands utilizing the application to promote products and integrating the API for content creation, the pressure to expand to more mobile devises is on. There have been rumours swirling for months of Instagram expanding to an Andriod app but last week at SXSW they announced it was in beta testing and would be coming “very soon”.

Tumblr boasts 48.6 million blogs to date and recently rolled out their ‘highlighted posts‘ feature early last month. Well-known for not wanting to integrate advertising to the platform, Tumblr has struggled to turn a profit. The highlighted posts feature could be a way to remedy this and get brands to pay for their posts to be featured. Essentially, for one dollar you can mark a post ‘highlighted’ and it will show up on the dashboard with a customizable sticker. This announcement was received with mixed reviews. Understanding and commending the desire to keep Tumblr authentic for artistic expression, some still feel that ‘highlighting’ is the same as advertising.

Pinterest, which estimates to be at 13 million users,  announced last week at SXSW that it would soon be introducing new and improved profile pages which were launched Friday. The profile esthetic is very similar to the new Facebook timeline, clean and visual with less content, and allows for larger images to be visible on the profile. For brands, this is an exciting opportunity to create a customized brand experience in an interface that users are familiar with. The infograph below has some really great information the growth of the platform and features brands that are seeing success on Pinterest.

What can we expect in the coming months as these content curation platforms continue to grow and more and more brands get on board? How can you leverage your brand now on these exciting platforms and prepare for what’s to come? Check out my full presentation from Spark to inspire and ignite your content:

 

 

Some interesting points on Pinterest:

The Power of Pinterest

 

SXSWi 2012 Panel: The State of B2B Social Media

September 2, 2011 / Comments Off on SXSWi 2012 Panel: The State of B2B Social Media / Posted in: Blog, Social Media Conferences

Do you want to see a B2B panel at SXSWi this year? We do! Please take a minute to read through the panel description for The State of B2B Social Media and give this great panel including Maggie Fox your vote!

Description: What are the latest developments and trends in B2B social media, how are organizations using social to reach buyers of select products and services and what distinguishes B2B from B2C approaches? Join a panel of B2B experts and find out how social is changing the way B2Bs communicate, and the way business customers research and make purchasing decisions.

Questions Answered:

  1. How are B2Bs using social media differently from B2Cs?
  2. What are the biggest challenges to successful B2B social media outreach?
  3. Content marketing, community management and social automation: What works best in B2B?
  4. How are organizations calculating a return on investment for B2B social media initiatives?
  5. What is the role of mobile in B2B social media communications?

Speakers

  1. Mark Story – United States Securities and Exchange Commission
  2. Matthias Lufkens – World Economic Forum
  3. Maggie Fox – Social Media Group Inc.
  4. Eric Schwartzman – Schwartzman & Associates, Inc.
  5. Marcus Nelson – salesforce.com

What other questions would you like to see answered as part of this discussion?

Vote for The State of B2B Social Media panel here.

Social Media Roundup for March 11, 2011

March 12, 2011 / Comments Off on Social Media Roundup for March 11, 2011 / Posted in: Blog, Social Media Roundup

Today, our thoughts are with the people in Japan. We expresses sympathies and condolences to those who have been devastated by the earthquake and tsunami.


Earthquake rocks Japan – photos on CNN.


Here are some things that caught our attention from around the ‘net this week:

Updates for apps we love

From SMG analyst Brandon comes news that a few popular apps were updated this week. All of which included major social/sharing related features and improvements.

  1. Flipboard now supports Instagram: http://wp.me/pZtZH-Z0
  2. Linkedin launches LinkedinToday and updates iOS app to include functionality: http://www.linkedin.com/today/
  3. Instapaper updates to 3.0 includes native article sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinboard and a whole whack of other social features: http://blog.instapaper.com/

Music aficionado Brandon adds, “Oh and SoundCloud’s “local focus” was Toronto yesterday.”

Paula Deen embraces her eponymous meme

[Paula Deen Rides Bambi]

Speaking of fans, it was very cool to see celebrity chef Paula Deen respond in such an enthusiastic way to the ‘Paula Deen Riding Things’ meme.

Via The Daily What:

As if you needed another reason to be madly in love with Paula Deen, it seems the Butter Queen is not only aware of her Internet meme, Paula Deen Riding Things, but is actually quite fond of it.

“I think its great to see how creative my fans are!,” she recently told Bites on Today. “I feel like I’m the new ‘Where’s Waldo.”

Not a Viral Video

Michelle’s submission this week comes from AV Club with a critique of a recent “not-a-viral-video” campaign featuring Jennifer Aniston. Given the focus we’ve got on content strategy with our clients, this resonates with us big time.

Genevieve Koski writes:

vi•ral vid|e|o (vi´rel vid´ē ō) n. a video that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through internet media sharing websites.

not a vi•ral vid|e|o (not a vi´rel vid´ē ō) n. a video that’s been brainstormed and test-marketed by a well-paid ad agency, which stars one of the biggest, beigest celebrities in the world slumming with a bunch of viral-video shorthand, released to a bunch of media outlets via a press release titled “Jennifer Aniston sex tape” that urges them to help make it the next “Internet sensation” along with a gentle reminder to mention Smartwater.

Read the rest of the column and watch the video at AV Club.

True blue Fan sites rule.

The cult following of Disney’s Haunted Mansion caught Maggie’s interest this week.  Chef Mayhem, the creator of  DoomBuggies.com explains the site “…is a celebration of imagination — it’s as simple (and as complex) as that.”

SMG-ers at SXSWi

Steve, Jeff and I (Leona) are enroute to Austin. We are all looking forward to catching up with friends and making new connections. See you there!

Vote Canadian: panels at SxSW 2011

August 19, 2010 / 5 Comments / Posted in: Blog, Social Media Conferences, Social Media News

I know it’s months away, but the buzz for SXSW 2011 has already begun! As SMG is proud to be Canadian, we thought it would be nice to show some ‘Canada love’ and post (and strongly encourage voting for!) Canadian panels that were proposed for next year. The team here worked hard to find as many Canucks as we could, so if we’re missing anyone, please let us know in the comments and we’ll add ’em. Let the voting (and don’t forget commenting – that counts, too) begin!

Kevin Richard also has a great post on the same topic here. Voting closes on August 27th. Vote well and vote often – we’ll see you in Austin in March!