Last week, I had a chance to work as a volunteer for Social Media Week New York (SMWNY). SMWNY is a weeklong event hosted by different cities, that aims to foster discussion about social media and its impact on businesses and the world as we know it. We are currently living in an unprecedented age of connectivity, where social media has become an integral part of daily life. So, company entities and professionals in this industry want to figure out a way to make the most of this new framework because there are new opportunities and challenges that come with this new paradigm. The format of SMWNY is a series of lectures and classes given by industry leaders, which revolve around themes of Change, Engagement, and Innovation, and aim to tackle some of these challenges.
As a volunteer, I helped out with day to day event logistics and assisted event producers with whatever they needed. As a wonderful bonus, I had the privilege of attending a bunch of informative sessions on the current social media landscape. What I'm writing below are five personal, "post-mortem" takeaways of the event.
"What happens at SMWNY, doesn't stay in SMWNY"
Coverage of SMWNY was all over various social media platforms, which makes for an interesting case study in the double-edged-sword-ness of social media in itself. The #SMWNY hashtag allowed attendees to share their impressions and insights of the event, and allowed non-attendees to follow along with what everyone was saying. The great thing about the hashtag was that I could scroll through it and read about events I couldn't attend. The audience was surprisingly prolific in tweeting quotable nuggets from the speakers. However, the audience was just as active at tweeting all the things that went wrong about the event- enough to discourage other people from attending. Event producers monitoring SMWNY's Twitter account were able to address numerous complaints immediately, a testament to using social media for customer service purposes. This measure appeased some, but unfortunately failed to placate others. In the end, the hashtag served as a great way to get social media afficionados to share and discuss helpful nuggets, whether these were about specific lectures or the general event as a whole.
Moving from the age of search to the age of discovery
[Inspired by: "The Future of Now: Connecting the Dots Between the Virtual and Real Worlds" and "The Content Marketing Revolution"]
A few years ago, the big trend in marketing was in search. SEO and SEM became priorities for companies because getting on a search engine's first page is a huge advantage in the race for impressions and click-throughs. This year, it seems that the trend has moved towards content marketing, the act of creating relevant content to attract customers to your page. People have been smarter about dealing with information overload and are no longer lured by cool buzzwords. "The Future of Now" presentation summed it best when they said that consumers want meaning and relevance and would rather discover things through their networks than actively search for them. The best way to get people to share things with their networks is to provide genuinely good content that's worth sharing. To paraphrase an insight gleaned from the Percolate presentation, content needs to be sustainable and not just pertinent to one campaign.
It's an art and a science
[Inspired by "Social Analytics for Agencies: Getting Richer, Deeper, and Smarter in 2014" and "The Science of Viral Video Sharing"]
Many people assume that you just need to be creative to be awesome at social media. However, true awesomeness seems to be rooted in an ability harness both creativity and analytics together like a one-two punch. Sarah Wood from Unruly Media states that content strategy and figuring out the "social sweet spot," where everythign comes together, needs to be rooted in good data. While there is much debate about which specific analytics are the most important for one's campaign, there's no denying the importance of being able to quantify and measure factors that affect user engagement, in order to build an effective and repeatable recipe for success. Melissa Zimyeski from Droga5 hit the nail on the head when she said that it boils down to figuring out which analytics coincide with specific campaign goals and tweaking around it. Will McInnes from Brandwatch chimed in afterward and added that here's powerful insight in data, even seemingly odd nuggets, as these can be turned into compelling insight that impacts the campaign."
Have fun
[Inspired by "Secrets for Not-for-profit Tech Success"]
"When the Berlin wall fell, teenagers were drunk and chipping away at the wall. Social change is supposed to be unplanned, emotive, and raw" says Nancy Lublin of DoSomething.Org. This event was a really interesting one because the panelists, Nancy Lublin and Charles Best, are two down-to-earth and genuine people whose charm and authenticity simply shine through. The non-profit world is surprisingly territorial because raising money from donors is a hard task. However, these panelists both run successful non-profit organizations that have found a way to stand out from the crowd. A notable example that was shared was how they managed to combat depression in senior citizens by getting school children to write love letters to them. By adding elements of fun and creativity, adapting to change/ going with the flow, and still staying true to the core values of the organization, they've managed to help numerous non-profit causes get attention and funding. Fun is terribly underrated, but it shouldn't be.
Last, but not least
[Inspired by the whole week]
Technology has given marketers the tools to make an impact, but it's really up to us to use these wisely. Social media marketing isn't about getting on every single platform, it's about picking appropriate platforms and using them wisely.
<3,
Tiffy
As a volunteer, I helped out with day to day event logistics and assisted event producers with whatever they needed. As a wonderful bonus, I had the privilege of attending a bunch of informative sessions on the current social media landscape. What I'm writing below are five personal, "post-mortem" takeaways of the event.
"What happens at SMWNY, doesn't stay in SMWNY"
Coverage of SMWNY was all over various social media platforms, which makes for an interesting case study in the double-edged-sword-ness of social media in itself. The #SMWNY hashtag allowed attendees to share their impressions and insights of the event, and allowed non-attendees to follow along with what everyone was saying. The great thing about the hashtag was that I could scroll through it and read about events I couldn't attend. The audience was surprisingly prolific in tweeting quotable nuggets from the speakers. However, the audience was just as active at tweeting all the things that went wrong about the event- enough to discourage other people from attending. Event producers monitoring SMWNY's Twitter account were able to address numerous complaints immediately, a testament to using social media for customer service purposes. This measure appeased some, but unfortunately failed to placate others. In the end, the hashtag served as a great way to get social media afficionados to share and discuss helpful nuggets, whether these were about specific lectures or the general event as a whole.
Moving from the age of search to the age of discovery
[Inspired by: "The Future of Now: Connecting the Dots Between the Virtual and Real Worlds" and "The Content Marketing Revolution"]
A few years ago, the big trend in marketing was in search. SEO and SEM became priorities for companies because getting on a search engine's first page is a huge advantage in the race for impressions and click-throughs. This year, it seems that the trend has moved towards content marketing, the act of creating relevant content to attract customers to your page. People have been smarter about dealing with information overload and are no longer lured by cool buzzwords. "The Future of Now" presentation summed it best when they said that consumers want meaning and relevance and would rather discover things through their networks than actively search for them. The best way to get people to share things with their networks is to provide genuinely good content that's worth sharing. To paraphrase an insight gleaned from the Percolate presentation, content needs to be sustainable and not just pertinent to one campaign.
It's an art and a science
[Inspired by "Social Analytics for Agencies: Getting Richer, Deeper, and Smarter in 2014" and "The Science of Viral Video Sharing"]
Many people assume that you just need to be creative to be awesome at social media. However, true awesomeness seems to be rooted in an ability harness both creativity and analytics together like a one-two punch. Sarah Wood from Unruly Media states that content strategy and figuring out the "social sweet spot," where everythign comes together, needs to be rooted in good data. While there is much debate about which specific analytics are the most important for one's campaign, there's no denying the importance of being able to quantify and measure factors that affect user engagement, in order to build an effective and repeatable recipe for success. Melissa Zimyeski from Droga5 hit the nail on the head when she said that it boils down to figuring out which analytics coincide with specific campaign goals and tweaking around it. Will McInnes from Brandwatch chimed in afterward and added that here's powerful insight in data, even seemingly odd nuggets, as these can be turned into compelling insight that impacts the campaign."
Have fun
[Inspired by "Secrets for Not-for-profit Tech Success"]
"When the Berlin wall fell, teenagers were drunk and chipping away at the wall. Social change is supposed to be unplanned, emotive, and raw" says Nancy Lublin of DoSomething.Org. This event was a really interesting one because the panelists, Nancy Lublin and Charles Best, are two down-to-earth and genuine people whose charm and authenticity simply shine through. The non-profit world is surprisingly territorial because raising money from donors is a hard task. However, these panelists both run successful non-profit organizations that have found a way to stand out from the crowd. A notable example that was shared was how they managed to combat depression in senior citizens by getting school children to write love letters to them. By adding elements of fun and creativity, adapting to change/ going with the flow, and still staying true to the core values of the organization, they've managed to help numerous non-profit causes get attention and funding. Fun is terribly underrated, but it shouldn't be.
Last, but not least
[Inspired by the whole week]
Technology has given marketers the tools to make an impact, but it's really up to us to use these wisely. Social media marketing isn't about getting on every single platform, it's about picking appropriate platforms and using them wisely.
<3,
Tiffy
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