For all of you who weren’t able to attend, or missed the millions of tweets, here’s a quick rundown on day one of Social Media Marketing World 2013 in San Diego, California.
The opening night networking event at the local Natural History Museum allowed social media tragics to network in person – a difficult task for some. But with a few drinks and some laughs later (including a fairly competitive round of event bingo), networking wasn’t a problem for most.
Morning Keynote – Event creator Michael Stelzner, Social Media Examiner
Heavy head aside, day one of #SMMW13 opened with a semi-interesting keynote from event creator Michael Stelzner, and I can only say ‘semi’ as a lot of the info I’d seen before (some interesting newer stats about industry expectation in there though). Using the event to announce a product (MyKidsAdventure) is always risky, especially at the very beginning of a two-day event. Stelzner is certainly passionate about social media and its place in the marketing mix.
Session 1: 10 ways to improve your Facebook reach
Despite some early tech issues and the seating-the-floor room only, id session featured great info on the Difference between fan reach and organic reach (can get these numbers from the csv file download). The biggest piece of non-Australia info is that Facebook is coming out with a new News Feed design.
Make sure your Facebook Page Calls to Action are clear is key. Another revelation was data showing that consumer expectations on response time on Facebook Page queries is 30 minutes in the USA (socialBakers), though I wonder weather it would be higher in Australia.
Session 2: Social strategy for B2B
While there was some interesting tips on handling data for big company social accounts, I felt that this session missed the mark. The focus was entirely too focused on Facebook and background info/relationship of the panel members (reps from SAP who formerly worked at Cisco, rep from Cisco who was hired by the other panel member – incestuous). Nothing was said about LinkedIn or any other useful B2b platforms.
Session 3: Turning social advertising into leads and sales
Brian Carter from Infinigraph is a natural entertainer. This Hamish Blake look-alike had the crowd in the palm of his hands, revealing interesting case studies on the success of content curation and video content in support social advertising (see the Marketo ukulele song). This was also the first time I heard the buzz term ‘Re-marketing’, repurposing existing content for marketing. A nice LinkedIn tip was that company pages don’t work as well as groups, because groups allow you send announcements once a week, where company Pages don’t allow you to send notifications. Key message: Be proactive rather reactive – ie create content to encourage interaction with your audience.
Session 4: Steve Spangler – Science Teacher and Content Genius
That wasn’t the name of the session but it should have been. Host of numerous online science channels in the USA, such as the Sick Science YouTube channel, Steve Spangler is no marketer but truly knows the meaning of ‘value content’. Simple science experiments turned into online video gold. And with over 80 million hits on YouTube, Spangler’s vision should be taken notice of.
Key message: There’s nothing like telling kids to eat chips the go play with the microwave.
Afternoon Keynote – Sally Hogshead, HowtoFascinate.com
The moral of this story is I’m a Rockstar. My trigger is… oh who cares. Really. Personality Profiles are humorous at best, but I think many of us have better things to do than look too deeply into these kind of initiatives.
Stay tuned for Day Two.
