Final SxSWi Post: Major Lessons Learned
It's been a week since I returned from SxSWi and while I did my Lessons Learned from each day posts I just felt the need to do one more final posting.
Honestly this will help me with a few presentations I'll be giving so it's more for me than for anyone else.
I've boiled it all down to 5 C's:
- Crowdsourcing: Great conversation about that one from the session on Digital Tsunami: Breaking News at Breakneck Speeds. How do you crowdsource for a crisis? How do you crowdsource for marketing? Amazing examples from NPR. Including Ushahidi which highlights just what this kind of technology can really do. Wow. The Power.
- Convergence: As Charlene Li said, "Social networks will be like Air". Different tools abound and the focus seems to be more and more to bring them together in a mashup of communication technologies. Facebook Connect...on steroids.
- Consumer Power: The tools will allow the consumer to exercise more and more power and internet culture will become even more ubiquitous. If you aren't listening as a Marketing or PR professional it will be a big Fail Whale.
- Communication: The theories of communication (listening being a big part of that) are even more vital in our ever more connected world. Which tools to use when? How to accommodate new tools and old tools and make them all work for your target market? The amount of communication power Marketing and PR professionals have now is amazing -- and we haven't even begun to leverage it. Imagine what is coming our way in just a few years? Then of course there's the power of visual communication as well.
- Content: Even more now the understanding of how to post content that is engaging, that reaches your market and connects with them is going to be the hallmark of excellent PR and Marketing.
- Charlene Li's presentation on the future of social networks. Here's the podcast. Listen to it. Highlights were really about how we are going to move from management separate social networks to a point were our focus will be on IDENTITIES and those identities will be connected to different social networks.
- Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos: So not so much about social media and technology (although Zappos is an online company) but more about customer service. The podcast is here, but the graphic information representation is here. Spend some time checking it out -- it tells the whole presentation visually (note to graphic design majors -- here's the business you should be in!)
- Emerging Trends of Mobile Technology: Big learning here was the focus on "Augmented Reality". These folks talked about some very cool things including Topps Baseball Cards
- Is the PR Agency Dead?: Great session and very relevant. What I wrote from my day three recap still stands:
1) the news release as we have known it is dead. PR professionals have to know how to leverage their content into social media releases with strong keyword density so it can get indexed by Google as well as utilize the right channels to reach the journalists. This means blogs, podcasting, Twitter, FB, email, phone, wherever your journalists are.
2) if you can't write, then you are in the wrong business. Period. There isn't anything magical to writing a news release. You must tell your story in an authentic way that is clear and to the point with no hyperbole.
3) Listen, listen, listen and monitor EVERYTHING. There is no excuse, given the tools that are available for not knowing what people are "saying" about your brand. From Blog alerts via Google, to Twitter Search you need to know what is going on AND you must respond...quickly.
4) Listening is not enough. You must respond and take action when necessary. You must understand how you can leverage the tools available to connect with your media channels in the most effective way. If people are talking negatively about your brand, you must respond. Listening without Action is almost as bad as not listening at all.
That's it for SxSW. I promise.
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