Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

Five Lessons from Five Events in 24 Hours

This week I did something that I had no intention of doing: I spoke at five events within 24 hours. This was largely due to the unexpected timing of several events that were part of Social Media Week, but a couple others came up around the same time. As I hate to run after events, only once - albeit at an event where I was filling in for a traveling colleague - did I really cut things short, and for three I stuck around until the end or far longer.

Several months ago, I shared over 100 lessons from 100 events, but this list is a little more manageable: (at least) five things I've taken away from these very different events:

Event 1

Binghamton University's Cool Connections, Hot Alumni 
-Featured speaker in this pilot of a new teleconference series hosted on campus for students

Lesson:

When you get a bunch of people who are in the room on their own volition and have a lot to gain, they tend to take advantage of the opportunity and ask the best questions. Really, the students at Binghamton were phenomenal, even when they couldn't look me eye to eye and we were 180 miles apart. Also, using the Polycom in the office, it was one of the most seamless teleconferences I've done. Lastly, a real highlight was when the first two students to follow up did so via Twitter. These kids grow up so fast.

Event 2

Social Strategy Cage Match: Offense vs Defense by Kickapps 
-Caged speaker

Lesson

Dress the part. Thanks to Kevin Haughwout for the photo above (via his coverage of the session on his blog), catching my Ultimate Dragon entrance. Really though, the best part of the night was the format, where Alan Wolk, Anthony Iaffaldano, and the KickApps crew managed to bring together nine people - a moderator and eight panelists - in a four-on-four matchup with lots of audience interaction. It lived up to the Social Media Week challenge of being creative and conversational. It makes me want to mix it up more next time.

Event 3

Social Media Club's Social Media Camp 
-Keynote: 10 Reasons Why Social Media Week Should Be Every Week

Lesson

Find new-old ways to concisely tell the story. Just check out the image below from Dean Meyers, who summarized two panels - nearly an hour of content - on a single page. Awesome work, Dean. Aside: you can find my really boring one-slide version of the top 10 here, and then the full presentation. There's also video.

 

Event 4

Association of National Advertisers (ANA) TV and Everything Video Forum 
-Speaker: Bravo Top Chef Just Desserts Case Study 

Lesson

Passion rules the day. I followed Ellen Stone, Bravo's SVP of Marketing. In just a few minutes, she got everyone in the room so excited about what her organization is doing that it rubbed off on me. During my section on the case study, I had notes on hand, which I don't usually do, but there were a lot of facts and figures to share. Still, after following Ellen, I was able to run with it. I felt the brand, and I had far more fun sharing the case study live after seeing her in action than I did during any dry run. 

Event 5

How Mobile-Social is Changing How Brands Connect with Consumers by 360i 
-Moderator and host

Lesson

There was a lot I learned or at least appreciated here. First, it's a real luxury to get to pick your own panel. Noah Elkin of eMarketer, Craig Davis of TextualAds, and Tom Dorf of Mocospace were all my top draft picks, and Adam Mirabella of Nokia came highly recommended through Toby Daniels, who organized Social Media Week.

Next, when wireless access fails, cut your losses and move on, even if here it meant doing without mobile polling.

Third, you don't always need moderated Q&A. This was the first time I ever ran a panel and didn't have a list of my own questions. We did short presentations followed by audience Q&A, and I just asked a couple clarifying questions to build on what the audience wanted. By the end of the session, it seemed like everyone who wanted to ask something publicly was able to, and many others stuck around quite awhile after it was done.

The slides from the session are embedded below, and you can watch the full video of the mobile social panel online. Also, check out Kevin Haughwout's coverage on his blog. 

How Mobile-Social is Changing the Way Brands Connect with Consumers

View more presentations from 360i.

Bonus lesson: Give thanks and credit where they're due:

While there are too many people who contributed to all of these events to name properly, I have to thank Melinda Holicky and Al Vos at Binghamton University (not SUNY Binghamton as I nostalgically referred to it during the cage match), Alan and Anthony from KickApps, Howard Greenstein and Chris Kieff from Social Media Camp (along with Dean Meyers, plugged above), Ellen Stone from Bravo, Marni Gordon and Cara Schultz at the ANA, Katie Perry and Amanda Bird from 360i, and Social Media Week's Toby Daniels, Ben Scheim, and Lauren Hurst. Of course, thanks to everyone who came to these events, and even more to those who shared feedback during and after, whether virtually or in person, as they'd all be pretty dull for me if I couldn't constantly learn from the participants.

Social Media Club Keynote on Ten Reasons Social Media Week Should Be Every Week

I just posted a column on why Social Media Week should be every week, and the column was inspired by the talk below that I was concurrently preparing for Social Media Club New York's Social Media Camp. The top ten reasons are the same and the examples overlap, but they're not identical. Do you need to read both? If you like the subject, please do of course, and some of it will depend on whether you like a more visual story or a quickly skimmable block of text.

I welcome any feedback though, and if you're around during Social Media Week, be sure to say hi.

 

10 Reasons Why Social Media Week Should Be Every Week

View more presentations from David Berkowitz.

Why Social Media Week Should Be Every Week

Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

10 Reasons Why Social Media Week Should Be Every Week

View more documents from David Berkowitz.

Happy Social Media Week! Yes, boys and girls, it's that time of year when you drop what you're doing and go to any of hundreds of amazing events around the world that explore the infinite facets of social media. Why, for people like me, it's like Christmas and Diwali and National Fried Chicken Day rolled into one.

In honor of this sacred week, I'll offer ten reasons why Social Media Week should be every week. This is a sneak preview of a talk I'll be giving this week during Social Media Camp in New York; you can soon find the presentation itself via my blog or Twitter feed. You can also find a convenient one-page summary of this liston SlideShare.

On to the top ten:

1. It's where we live.

I'm not rolling out the stat brigade this time, but social media properties have come to dominate metrics for time spent online and on mobile devices. More importantly, sharing, commenting, rating, and other social actions are seamlessly embedded into just about every other kind of digital activity, from browsing recipes to reading the news.

2. Some people care about what you ate for breakfast.

Social media is often mocked for being the playground of egomaniacs to share meaningless minutiae of their lives. Yet how many posts have you seen from your friends about some food they ate, a TV show they watched, or a complaint about the weather, with a slew of responses following suit? We should embrace such minutiae, as they collectively make up who we are, and our friends are precisely the ones who will care.

3. Crowd-sourcing empowers us to come together.

Communities keep coming together to achieve goals that individuals often can't, or wouldn't, or would do in some different way. From Wikipedia to the product design and retail site Quirky, we're just starting to embrace the possibilities.

4. We trust total strangers.

I've written in this series how powerful it can be to get advice from total strangers via social properties. While I fear being accused of hyperbole here, there's something magical about it when your life is positively influenced by someone you may never meet.

5. Meet your most important social network: your family.

Genealogy has become a hobby of mine, and it's thanks in large part to social channels. On Facebook, for instance, I recently connected with a fourth cousin; our great-great grandparents were siblings. He even shares my name, and we're named after the same ancestors. The value of social media can hardly get more personal than that.

6. It's the ultimate defense against bullshit.

Kenneth Cole just entered the social media fiasco hall of fame, joining the Tropicana and, Gap rebranding, "United Breaks Guitars" and the Comcast technician asleep on a customer's couch. Sure, word of mouth about such blunders spread before social media was around, but now there's an added layer of protection for consumers.

7. It's how we get support.

Customer service is one part of the picture. For instance, GetSatisfaction powers customer support forums for a number of different marketers and sites. Part of the benefit is making it easier for customers to help each other. Then there are moments where support is even more critical, such as for issues around health and parenting. I touched on this before when writing about CarePages (an aside: my cousin featured there has healed perfectly and has never felt better).

8. It brings us face to face.

Social media helps us get away from our gadgets. One of the reasons I'm most loyal to Facebook is for the events; if you're not there, you won't get invited. Then there are sites like Meetup, which is all about bringing people together, and Plancast, which helps you figure out what your friends are doing.

9. It's changing the world.

It will be a while before we really know how much social media has had an impact on Tunisia and Egypt, or if large-scale protests will resurface in Iran. Even if Frank Rich and others are skeptical about whether the brave demonstrations against despotism were fueled by social media, social tools have given us direct access to some of the participants. During Operation Desert Storm, I remember the access CNN provided, night-vision smart bombs and all. That's nothing compared to hearing from Tunisian blogger Slim Amamou, who is now a minister in his nation's new government.

10. We love it because it's fun.

I have two words for you: Cat Paint. Or take three words: Barbie Video Girl. Try one word: Kinect. And then there are the more day-to-day examples of fun, like the thrill of bringing people together to connect around shared interests. Whatever your definition of fun is, social media can play a role in it, so let's enjoy every minute of it.

 

Partner Plug: Join BDI for The Social Consumer Event March 23

Marketers Studio is an official media sponsor of this event. You can read my media sponsorship policy here.

For additional information, including registration, please click here to visit the event website. Use promo code MS for a discounted rate of$155.

Date: Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Time: 8:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Location: The Graduate Center of the City University of New York; 365 Fifth Avenue; New York, NY 10016
Registration Fee: $195
Website: http://www.bdionline.com/socialconsumer2011.html

About the Event:
We all know that consumer behavior is rapidly changing. This half-day conference will showcase very specific case studies that demonstrate how leading brands engage, influence and service consumers through innovative social programs.

We will answer the following questions:

• How are brands using content strategy and content marketing as valuable currency to attract and retain customers and prospects?
• What are specific examples of how consumer marketers provide better customer service through social CRM?
• How do you embrace mobile social strategies including location based programs to increase sales and strengthen your brand?
• How are leading brands engaging customers through social games?
• What are the best examples of how leading e-commerce brands embrace social commerce to increase sales and provide better service?
• How does Facebook's open graph and the explosion of the "like button" impact consumer marketing?
• How do leading organizations use and integrate social data to shape and refine their marketing and communications strategy?
• How do leading brands organize themselves to integrate social with their overall marketing, communications and customer service platforms?

Speakers:
David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy, 360i
Bonin Bough, Director of Social Media, PepsiCo
Stacie Bright, Senior Communications Marketing Manager, Unilever
Marcy Cohen, Senior Manager, Social Media, Sony Electronics, Inc.
Mark Fishkin, VP Digital Sales and Marketing, Wall Street Journal Digital Network
Julie Lee, Executive Director, Engagement Management, Organic, Inc. for Kimberly-Clark's Kotex Brand
David Weiner, PepsiCo 

Hotel Sponsor: The Roger Smith Hotel is the official hotel of BDI's events. Use promo code BDI for 10% off rate by clicking here. 

Sponsors:
PRNewswire / MultiVu ; The Wall Street Journal Digital Network; Adrants; International Association of Business Communicators - New York;ipTVevangelist; MarketersStudio.com; Mashable; National Association for Female Executives; New York University School of Continuting and Professional Studies ; New York American Marketing Association; PR News; Social Media Club; Social Media Today   

For additional information, including registration, please click here to visit the event website. Use promo code MS for a discounted rate of$155.

 

Watch Social Media Week Livestreaming to Catch Your Favorite Events

Even if you can't get to Social Media Week, you can watch a lot of the events here: http://www.livestream.com/socialmediaweek 

It's an amazing list from around the world, and if you're at all interested in these topics, you'll want to tune in. 

Here are a couple where I'll make an appearance:

Wednesday, Feb 9th

Social Media Camp NY

8:00AM EST (I'm on at 9:30)

http://www.livestream.com/smw_newyork4

Wednesday, Feb 9th

Keynote interview with Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, Followed by 360i Panel How Mobile-Social is Changing How Brands Connect with Consumers

2:30PM EST (I'm on around 3:30)

http://www.livestream.com/smw_newyork_jwt

What sessions are you attending or watching? Perhaps I'll see you out and about this week.

Hulu's AdZone Winners for Super Bowl XLV

I don't normally post press releases, but I haven't seen this list of top Super Bowl 45 spots on Hulu or elsewhere yet, so I figured you may enjoy the whole thing. How many of these spots do you even remember the day after?

 

HULU ANNOUNCES 2011 SUPER BOWL XLV ADZONE WINNERS

Volkswagen and Bridgestone Ads Scored Major Points on Hulu

WHAT
Only hours after the Packers were crowned Super Bowl XLV champions, Hulu users have determined the Super Bowl ad winners as well. Votes have been cast across the 69 Super Bowl ads on Hulu’s AdZone. (www.hulu.com/adzone)

HIGHLIGHTS
The “most liked” category was led by Volkswagen’s “The Force,” narrowly edging out Bridgestone’s “Carma.” But this was a very close race:  Voters in the South and East preferred Bridgestone, while the voters in the West and Midwest cast more votes for VW.
 
Dorito’s “Pug Attack” and Bud Light’s “Hack Job” were two of the most viewed ad on Hulu’s AdZone.
 
“Chrysler: Imported From Detroit” made the Top 5 “Most Liked” list in the Midwest, while the voters in the West showed a preference for “BMW: X3”
 
RESULTS

Overall Most Liked Ads
1.       Volkswagen: The Force
2.       Bridgestone: Carma
3.       Volkswagen: Black Beetle
 
Most Viewed Ads
1.       Doritos: Pug Attack
2.       Volkswagen: The Force
3.       Bud Light: Hack Job

Overall Most Liked Ads by Women
1.       Volkswagen: The Force
2.       Bridgestone: Carma
3.       NFL: Super Bowl Celebration
 
Overall Most Liked Ads by Men
1.       Bridgestone: Carma
2.       Volkswagen: The Force
3.       Paramount: Captain America: The First Avenger
 
Most Polarizing by Gender

Women Strongly Favor
1.       Chevrolet: GMME
2.       Play60: Who's Next?
3.       Twentieth Century Fox: Rio
4.       Chevrolet: Cruze Status
5.       Living Social: It'll Change Your Life
 
Men Strongly Favor
1.       Columbia Pictures: Battle: Los Angeles
2.       Universal: Cowboys and Aliens
3.       Skechers: Kim Kardashian: Hello Skechers
4.       Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY: Surgeon - Extended
5.       Paramount: Thor
 
Overall Most Disliked Ads
1.       Salesforce: Chatter.com Launch: Still Doing Impossible Things
2.       Salesforce: Chatter.com Launch: Do Impossible Things
3.       Go Daddy: The Contract
 
Most Active States (Most Votes)
1.       California
2.       Texas
3.       New York
4.       Washington
5.       Florida
 


 
Most Liked, by Region

West
1.       Volkswagen: The Force
2.       Bridgestone: Carma
3.       Volkswagen: Black Beetle
4.       NFL: Super Bowl Celebration
5.       Doritos: House Sitting
 
Midwest
1.       Volkswagen: The Force
2.       Bridgestone: Carma
3.       Chrysler: Imported From Detroit
4.       Volkswagen: Black Beetle
5.       NFL: Super Bowl Celebration
 
South
1.       Bridgestone: Carma
2.       Volkswagen: The Force
3.       Volkswagen: Black Beetle
4.       NFL: Super Bowl Celebration
5.       Doritos: House Sitting

East
1.       Bridgestone: Carma
2.       Volkswagen: The Force
3.       NFL: Super Bowl Celebration
4.       Volkswagen: Black Beetle
5.       Coca-Cola: Border

Join Mashable and Me as We Live Blog the Super Bowl

I'm live blogging the Super Bowl with the Mashable crew. Join in below or over at Mashable. 

The Clay Matthews Social Media Combine

Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

Think he's good as a linebacker? Just wait until you see what Clay Matthews III does with social media!

The Clay Matthews Social Media Combine 

If you missed MediaPost's Social Media Insider Summit this week in Florida, you can still learn a lot by paying attention to just one person, albeit someone who wasn't even there. His name's Clay Matthews III, and he says on Twitter that he's "just an average American... with extraordinary hair!!" Most know him better as the Green Bay Packers linebacker who will soon play in the Super Bowl.

Even if he couldn't make it in person, he found a pretty good cheerleader in Allie Savarino Kline, vice president of marketing at Brand Affinity Technologies, a compay that manages celebrity endorsements. Allie was on my panel about "Making Social Data Rock," along with Miami Dolphins senior vice president of corporate partnerships and integrated media Jim Rushton, FanAppz founder and CEO Jon Siegal, and 33Across founder Eric Wheeler. While all of them were quotable and tweetable, Allie livened up the panel toward the end, first by picking fights (humorously) with the audience over sports rivalries, and then by sharing why Clay Matthews is a true social media champion.

Clay is one of Brand Affinity Technologies' celebrity endorsers. He doesn't have the most fans of all of the athletes in BAT's portfolio, but he does drive results from his audience, and he's more effective than certain household names such as Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Terrell Owens. Why, though? What makes a rising star like Clay so powerful? Allie offered three lessons from him, and I'll then elaborate why they are more broadly applicable.

1) Limit the number of brands you endorse.  Clay needs to be selective and won't accept every offer. He appreciates that if he wants his fans to take an action based on what he says, he has to pick and choose what he'll promote. On a bigger picture, marketers can often be more selective with the campaigns and messages they're sharing so that they make it clear for their fans what matters.

2) Align with the brands you endorse. If Clay endorses a breakfast cereal or shampoo brand, I'd probably consider it, even as a Giants fan. If he endorses enterprise resource planning software, I'll be really suspicious. If he endorses shampoo and it turns someone's hair green so he or she winds up looking like Kimberly Drummond in that episode of "Diff'rent Strokes," his days as an endorser are over. Marketers tend to give this more thought with celebrities, but not always as much with technologies. How many times have you wondered what a marketer is doing promoting a check-in service or some half-baked application that doesn't seem to fit with its brand?

3) Get to the Super Bowl.  Clay has been named to the Pro Bowl in each of his two professional seasons. He's now going to play in the Super Bowl and may wind up bringing home the trophy. What's true for Clay is true for marketers: the best way to succeed in social media is build a great brand. If you work with a brand people love and it stands for good things, people will want to align with it. People align with winners, and with brands that have a positive momentum.

Later on during the Summit, Brand Affinity Technologies CEO Ryan Steelberg added more to the list: Integrate endorsements with other media and community programs. Be patient. Measure results against actual goals, not directional goals like effective CPMs or cost per clicks.

Perhaps the most poignant lesson of the day came from another athlete -- one who did come to the Summit -- professional basketball champion John Salley. He is personally motivated to make sure his social media presence is perfectly on-brand. Noting he has three daughters, he said, "They follow me on Twitter and Facebook, so I'm very particular about what I say."

 

 

Amazing Mobile Growth Projected: Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2010–2015 [Visual Networking Index] - Cisco Systems

The Mobile Network in 2015

Global mobile data traffic will increase 26-fold between 2010 and 2015. Mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 92 percent from 2010 to 2015, reaching 6.3 exabytes per month by 2015.

There will be nearly one mobile device per capita by 2015. There will be over 7.1 billion mobile-connected devices, including machine-to-machine (M2M) modules, in 2015-approximately equal to the world's population in 2015 (7.2 billion).

Mobile network connection speeds will increase 10-fold by 2015. The average mobile network connection speed (215 kbps in 2010) will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 60 percent, and will exceed 2.2 megabits per second (Mbps) in 2015.

Two-thirds of the world's mobile data traffic will be video by 2015. Mobile video will more than double every year between 2010 and 2015. Mobile video has the highest growth rate of any application category measured within the Cisco VNI forecast at this time.

via www.cisco.com

There are some mind-boggling numbers here. Click through for the full list.

Mobile Shopping Framework - a New Study by Yahoo and Nielsen

Key findings include:

1. Mobile devices are accessed frequently in stores, making them a great advertising vehicle for retailers. 9 out of 10 mobile users have accessed mobile web while at a store (see chart 1), and approximately 50% of in-store mobile web activity is related to shopping. For example, 48% of in-store mobile users take and/or send a picture of a product to a friend or family member.

via advertising.yahoo.com

This is great, actionable research from Yahoo and Nielsen showing mobile's role in the shopping process, as well as during other activities like watching TV. With commerce in particular, even if mobile commerce is tiny and will be for awhile, shopping via mobile devices is already significant, regardless of where the purchase occurs.