Social Media Week New York: Day 1 Recap

by | Feb 18, 2014 | Uncategorized

Welcome to Social Media Week New York

My first impression of SMWNYC was how similar it seems to Big Omaha at Kaneko in terms of its artistic vibe. But at 45,000 square feet, it has 5x the capacity. At times it also reminds me of a mini South by Southwest with an entire room dedicated to exhibitors, food and drink vendors (albeit much cheaper than SXSW), and, perhaps most recognizable, long lines.

Similarly to South by Southwest, if there’s a session you want to attend and it’s likely to be popular, you quickly learn you need to get there early (sometimes even missing a session prior you wanted to attend) to make it.

But this is not South by Southwest, it’s a relatively new, low-budget conference, and people weren’t expecting sessions to “sell out.” One of the questions I heard someone ask was, “If it’s first-come, first-serve, then why did I register?” It’s a valid point. The crowd wasn’t asked to form two lines: one for registered attendees and one for those who wanted to be put on an overflow wait list. At other conferences where it is truly first-come, first-serve, exasperation is expected, but for these attendees who carefully planned the sessions they wanted to attend ahead of time and were asked to cancel should they choose to attend a different event, it’s a whole different kind of frustration.

My first session was a popular one, and I was glad I found the room early. As the room filled to capacity, we learned there were about 100 people in overflow waiting for early bouncers.

The Content Marketing Revolution

The first session of the day was really many in one. We got to hear from IBM, Mastercard, Smirnoff, LinkedIn, Percolate, Facebook, and Tumblr. Here are the highlights:

Key Points from Percolate’s Talks

  • It’s time to think about your audience on a global scale
  • “Pulling to refresh” is likely the most-used gesture in the world (on our need for continuously fresh content)
  • Page ranking is affected and motivated by how people are engaging your content on social media
  • Marketing has shifted from campaign-based communication to sustained communication
  • Right now, only 40% of the world is connected to the internet – By 2018, almost everyone will be
  • By the end of 2015, we will see emerging technologies from China that are going to compete with ours
  • The building blocks of content that all brands have in common include audience, trigger, brand element, topic, campaign/event, business objective, platform

“Pulling to refresh” is likely the most-used gesture in the world.”

Key Points from LinkedIn’s Talk

  • It used to be that people just updated their LinkedIn account when looking for a new job or starting one – Now people are now investing time in their professional network and looking for ways to continuously improve themselves
  • Hubspot uses a/b testing of organic content and then sponsors the content that performs better to reach more people

Key Points from the IBM, MasterCard, Smirnoff Panel

  • It’s cool when brands – like RedBull – take advantage of the relationship between real-world and online
  • Does video has to be central to marketing strategies? More often than not, 10 words and a powerful image can be the golden ticket
  • Today, we have to do better than show fan engagement online, we have to show statistics and analytics that go back tot he business objectives
  • How do we find out what people are talking about and insert ourselves? What can we gather from comments?
  • We have to look at where the buyer is in their journey with us and what content resonates with them
  • Right now brand content is seen as advertising by consumers, which is counterproductive – The more we go down that route, the more people will view it as an interruption
  • Brands are only as useful as the conversations around them, need to create content relevant to those conversations

“More often than not, 10 words and a powerful image can be the golden ticket.”

Key Points from Facebook, LinkedIn, and Tumblr

  • Iconic campaigns didn’t start out as always-on campaigns (e.g. Leno’s Top Ten list) – Create structured franchises that tell consumers when the content is coming – There really is no value to campaigns anymore
  • Any small business can be global – we have the opportunity to speak to whoever you want – It’s no longer an obstacle to reach that impossible target audience – Mass media never gave brands that opportunity

“There really is no value to campaigns anymore.”

Building a Digital Publishing Brand and Making Money

Refinery 29 and Armani Exchange

  • I don’t think there is a customer journey anymore. I think people are either inspired by your message and they buy or they don’t
  • Things don’t have to be as controlled or perfect as they used to be
  • With great content, distribution will happen, so the concept of velocity and quantity is important to a digital brand
  • If there’s a budget, use it to get as many pieces of content out there as possible
  • People want a different lens on topics they’re talking about that is thoughtful and intelligent
  • Smart marketers aren’t creating buckets anymore, they’re thinking What combination of things can I use to achieve my goal? How can I leverage one to increase the other?
  • It’s not just the science, it’s the art
  • It starts with your definition of success
  • Armani Exchange: At the end of the day, we look at hard business metrics vs. social metrics
  • How do we take something that’s successful, and take it to the next level?
  • Shy away from platform specific goals, it should be tactical

“I don’t think there is a customer journey anymore. I think people are either inspired by your message and they buy or they don’t.”