Get Out the (Powered) Vote for SXSW 2011

It's hard to believe that it's THAT time already but it is THAT time already. What time is "THAT" time you ask? Time to start voting for your favorite South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) panels.

This year, I'm in the enviable position of having several Powered colleagues have panels that made it to the next round. The only downside of having so many great submissions make it through is trying to promote everyone's panels while NOT pissing everyone off that follows me/us. To that end, I'm trying to consolidate efforts by putting everyone's entrees in the same place.

Below you will find the following information for each of the panels:

• The title of the proposed panel
• The first sentence of the panel abstract
• The suggested speakers
• A link to the session (SO YOU CAN VOTE FOR IT)

Just remember, you need to sign up to vote. It takes less than a minute and doesn't cost you anything (and the folks at SXSW are very respectful of not spamming people to death).

1. Marrying for Money: The ROI of Relationships
   You CAN measure the ROI of relationships - personally, and professionally, and this seminar will show you how. No spreadsheets needed for this lecture, and only minimal algebra...
   Jen van der Meer -  VP Analytics, Powered
   
   
2. Flip the Funnel: Retention is the New Acquisition
   What if we got it all wrong? What if we've been going about marketing strategy completely the wrong way?
   Joe Jaffe - Chief Interrupter, Powered
   
   
3. VideoBlogging: Go from Amateur to Outstanding
   You have a video camera and a YouTube Channel – now what? This panel will be a “Master Class” in online video and teach the next steps in building momentum in the online video space...
   Joe Jaffe - Chief Interrupter, Powered
   
4. Is the Marketing Microsite Dead?
   Thanks to advances in technology and the rapid adoption of social media platforms by consumers globally,  marketers,  brand managers and their agencies are all discussing the pros and cons of driving consumers to marketing "microsites" vs. social media destinations like Facebook,  MySpace and even Twitter where they're already spending time...
   Adam Keats, Weber Shandwick, Joe Jaffe, Powered, Bonin Bough, Pepsi.
   
   
5. Everyone’s Wrong about Influence. Except your Customers
   What is influence? For a decade, Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point has served as a touchstone for those who believe that influence resides in the hands of a select few. Not so, says a new generation of marketers. They believe that thanks to the democratizing power of the Internet, anyone can be an Influential...
   Valeria Maltoni - Director Strategy, Powered
   
   
6. Your Content Stinks! Drive results with Content Marketing
    Are you creating content that drives results? Marketers are jumping on the content marketing bandwagon in droves, creating mountains of boring, useless, copycat content that has no impact on their business...
   David Meerman Scott, author, Jay Baer, Convince and Convert, Joe Pulizzi, Junta42, Valeria Maltoni - Director Strategy, Powered
   
   
7. Get Big Results by Thinking and Acting Small
   Each day the world sees more than 1 million new blog posts, tens-of-millions of tweets, hundreds-of-millions of new pieces of Facebook content, and more than 1 billion YouTube videos...
   Greg Verdino - VP Strategy, Powered
   
   
8. Cage Match: Social vs Video
   Social media and online video battle for mindshare among marketers. Which one totally rules? We’ll lock Craig Wax, CEO of Invodo and Natanya Anderson, VP of Content Strategy and Delivery at Powered, in a cage (metaphorically – or maybe literally) to duke it out. Tim Walker will enforce the rules...
   Natanya Anderson, Powered, Tim Walker, Breaking Point Systems, Craig Wax, Invodo
   
9. Using Online Video to Build Your Company's Audience
   With over 24 hours of video being uploaded every minute on YouTube and over 56 hours of video being uploaded per minute to lifestreaming sites such as UStream and Justin.tv, companies are starting to use videoblogs as a way of directly reaching out to new and existing customers...
   Melissa Pierce - VeriSign (Powered client)
   
   
10. The Steroid Culture of Social Media: You Use?
    Ever think about taking shortcuts to boost your numbers? You know, the numb that show the success of all those interactive social media marketing programs. The numbers that decide your end of year bonus...
    Tim Walker (Breaking Point Systems), Laura Beck (Too Short Productions), Kyle Flaherty (Breaking Point Systems) and Aaron Strout (that's me!)
    
    
11. The ROI of Customer-centricity
    While some of us are single-mindedly focused on social media as a phenomenon,  we often lose sight of the source of its importance...namely,  its ability to enable companies to be more customer-centric...
    Frank Eliason (Citi), Jess Berlin (Cirque du Soleil), Reem Abeidoh (GroupM Search) and Aaron Strout
    
    
12. Generation C: Changing the Future of Business... Forever!
    Forget about Gen X and Gen Y,  it's all about Gen C -- the Content Generation. Business is changing and content is becoming king...
    Edward Boches (Mullen), Sydney Owen (Weber Shandwick), Sherry Lowry (Lowry Group) and Aaron Strout
    
    
13. Road Rules for Mentorship: What's Appropriate (and What's Not)In a world where the saying "it's all about who you know" is more and more relevant across multiple platforms,  mentoring is more important than ever...
    Sydney Owen and Aaron Strout

What's in it for you you ask? Include the name of your panel and a link and I promise that I'll go over and throw you a vote as a little thank you for your participation. And if you don't have a panel, just consider that I owe you one should you choose to vote for any/all of the panels above.

Are FourSquare and Gowalla Just Shiny Objects?

If you follow my Twitter stream or listen to my weekly podcast, you'll know that the question of whether I think FourSquare and Gowalla are shiny objects is a loaded one. Of course I am bullish on the value location-based services like FourSquare, Gowalla offer large and small businesses alike. Truth be told, however, I've had a hard time telling clients and prospective clients alike that it's time to go guns a blazing with location-based services for two reasons:

1. There's not enough critical mass... YET
2. Facebook with it's 450 million users could come in and crush both FourSquare (~2 million members) and Gowalla (~1 million members) in a New York minute if it decides to get serious about geolocation

With that said, that doesn't mean that I don't think companies shouldn't be starting to think about how to incorporate location-based services into their marketing and social media mixes. Fortunately, there are a number of big brands that are already starting to test location-based services (more FourSquare than Gowalla). TO that end, I've provided a list of the companies experimenting with Foursquare below [list is courtesy of David Stutts with a hat tip to the folks at SocialPath for pointing this work out).

• Starbucks (side note: I'd like to think my wife and I played a role in Starbucks launching this one) 
• The Bravo Network
• Dominoes Pizza UK (I like this one a lot)
• Jimmy Choo
• Pepsi (interesting note on this one later in the post)
• Zagat (this is a no brainer IMHO)
• Warner Brothers
• Tasti D-lite (what they are doing is very smart)
• The Wall Street Journal
• Marc Jacobs
• Coach Men's Store
• The Financial Times
• HBO
• Harvard (sounds like fun)
• Metro
• VH1
• Pennsylvania Tourism
• History Channel
• Planet Hollywood Las Vegas
• Huffington Post (not using FourSquare but mimicking what they are doing)

And here is the presentation on SlideShare that David put together. Click through to get the details on each program.

20 Interesting Things: Foursquare

View more presentations from David Stutts.

So we've seen who is experimenting with location-based services like FourSquare but let's take a step back and look at why companies might want to engage in location-based services.

Loyalty
At the end of the day, location-based services like FourSquare and Gowalla are ultimately going to be best at creating long-term loyalty with existing customers. Companies like Tasti D-Lite have started to figured this out by feeding their reward programs through point of purchase experiences which in turn check users into social sites like Twitter and FourSquare. And when a customer checks in, he/she earn points toward free food/drinks.

Let's be honest, while it's nice to earn frequent flier or hotel points, the act of earning them isn't all that exciting. Yet earning bragging rights by becoming mayor or even showing off the fact that you are buying jeans at that cool new boutique downtown is much more fun. As a business, incentivizing more checkins and thus more opportunities to buy stuff and share that experience with your customers' networks has nothing but upside for your top and bottom lines.

Discovery
One of the things I like most about FourSquare from a personal perspective is the discovery element -- both in terms of places and people. As someone that is still feeling his way around Austin, TX, I love watching colleagues like Natanya Anderson (big time foodie), Doug Wick and Kathy Warren alert me to good places to get a meal, watch a game or grab breakfast tacos to go. It's also useful if I'm at a conference or sporting event to see where my friends are. Even if we're not connected, many people cross-post their FourSquare and Gowalla status to their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Discovery also comes into play with people. If I'm at my local coffee joint, it's fun to know who else frequents it. In some cases, it can lead to fun connections that one wouldn't normally make. As an example several months ago my now friend, Jenna Oltersdorf, noticed that I was the mayor of her local Starbucks. Curious as to who the person was who laid claim to such an honor, she reached out to me via Twitter and asked if I'd like to grab coffee sometime (at that Starbucks of course). In related fashion, my colleague, Joe Jaffe, tells a similar story of him bumping into a prospective customer at a restaurant in San Francisco while seeking out the mayor.

Reach and Referrals
The win here is that while customers are working to accumulate points, bragging rights or free stuff by checking into your store on location-based services like FourSquare and Gowalla, they are also sharing you with their network. Better than that, they are also implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) endorsing you by letting others know they patronize your establishment. Think about the power of running a promotion where anyone that checks into your store more than three times over the course of a month gets a one day discount of 25% off all merchandise. In doing so, you've created a reason for customers to 1) visit your store multiple times and 2) let their friends know about it when they do.

Hurdles
Before I get you too hot and bothered, there are few additional obstacles that need to be overcome before location-based services really take off:

• Scale - while location-based services are growing rapidly, they still only represent a few million people at best. This could change in a hurry if Facebook gets serious about location-based services but in the immediate future, it's really the early adopters that are leading the charge.
  [POST SCRIPT: in publishing the post, I forgot to pay off the "Pepsi" reference above... several weeks ago, I had a hallway conversation with Bonin Bough, director of social media for Pepsi. We were talking about LBS and I told him my theory about Facebook swooping in and crushing FourSquare and Gowalla. He said that he didn't see it that way and that his bet was on someone like FourSquare that truly embraced business and a desire to help them succeed would ultimately win. This was later confirmed when Pepsi announced that they were partnering with FourSquare as noted above]
  Potential impact on growth = BIG
• Gaming the system - it is still possible to check into a location without physically being in that location. However, Gowalla has always been a stickler about GPS proximity to a location (to a fault when they first launched) and now FourSquare has followed suit by announcing that you can only accumulate points AND earn mayorships by being within a certain proximity of where the location was originally created.
  Potential impact on growth = SMALL
• Privacy - this is a tricky one. More and more people (including myself) are becoming increasingly aware about whom they tell about what they are doing. I think the way LBS providers overcome this is to increase the security and the privacy around who can see what and when.
  Potential impact on growth = TBD
• Pain in the ass factor = while checking in can be fun, it also requires a conscious effort that can sometimes take up to 3-4 minutes to accomplish. This is particularly awkward when you are meeting friends out and they have to wait for you to check in before they can talk to you. My belief is that location-based services over time will allow you to preset places that you frequent (similar to wireless spots that you've connected to in the past on your laptop or smart phone) that will auto-check you in. This would go a long way in increasing the checkins by customers with a lot less aggravation.
  Potential impact on growth = SMALL

Summary

While there are obstacles that could stand in the way of companies adopting location-based services, I am a firm believer that the rewards far outweigh the risks. In fact, if someone were to give me a truth serum and demand that I tell them what the next "big thing" was, I'd be hard pressed to not say location-based services. Don't take my word for it though. Instead, keep your eye on the twenty companies mentioned in David Stutts SlideShare presentation above and see if they continue to embrace these new tools.

What do you think? Am I living in my own universe? Feel free to tell me how you feel about the future of location-based services in the comments below.

Show Me Da Monies: Live from OMMA Social

This morning, I had the pleasure of listening in on a panel at OMMA Social titled, Social Media - Hot to Connect Metrics with Objectives. As you can imagine, the focus was on the Holy Grail of social media i.e., measurement. The list of panelists are below (David B. moderated the panel). Since I'm live blogging, the write up will be more of a collection of notes/tweets vs. a cohesive write up. Depending on where this goes, I may go back and do a second look. Here goes:

• David Berkowitz - sr. director of emerging media & innovaiton at 360i
• Carla Bourque - VP of sales and bizdev at Six Apart
• Steve Kerho, SVP, analytics , media & marketing optimization, Organic, Inc.
• Amber Naslund, director of community, Radian6
• Bill Stephenson, VP social media & client services, Nielsen Online
• Jim Sterne, President Target Marketing of Santa Barbara
  

The panel started off with a discussion of a basic principal of measurement (could be applied to any marketing discipline) namely that it starts with goals. Any company needs to know what they are trying to achieve and ideally, what the benchmarks look like for those measurements. Amber (Radian6) cited a case recently where a company wanted help with measurement yet wasn't benchmarking across other channels. Of course this isn't unique but might lead to future frustration as marketers hope/expect that agencies/service providers in the world of "social" will magicially be able to pull meaningfull statistics out of thin air.

David (360i) asked the question of the panelists, "what one thing do you hear that marketers wish they could measure better?" Some of the answers that came back were:

• Which of all the stuff going on (Facebook, blogging, Twitter) is the most successful?
• What is the reach (personally, this is a huge one and likely will make or break many social media campaigns this year).
• Who are my most influential advocates? What spurs them to take action?

Another question (this time from Twitter), "when will predictive analytics take hold in social media?" A good response to this was captured by DaveYamon on Twitter...

@jimsterne says predictive analytics is data poor, SM is data rich: "Chocolate and peanut butter waiting to happen" #ommasocial

Amber chimed in and said that a lot of companies that Radian6 is working with are still in the early phases of adoption. So understanding second and third level impact is still on the horizon. She also emphasized the need for commonality in language between brand marketers and the C-suite. Knowing what "ROI" means and what the expectations are of what's getting measured (and what's possible) is key.

Carla (Six Apart) mentioned the importance of letting go a little bit of the rigid structure of traditional measurement.

Another good Twitter comment by Forrester Analyst, Augie Ray...

What is the value of a follower? Depends on what they're saying! #OMMASocial panel<-the tweet that proves its own rule

My new friend, Siouxsie Jennett, asked a question that built on Augie's point. She mentioned that the CEO of a client company was complaining about only having 200 followers on Twitter. Her question was how to make the C-suite better understand the relative value of a follow. For instance, the aforementioned company only targeted 1,200 companies worldwide. From that perspective, 200 out of 1,200 looked pretty darn good.

Another topic of focus was share of conversation. This metric measures the share of possible conversation that a company could be part of. For instance, a small B2B company should expect to get the same interaction/share of conversation as Nike. But this company should be looking at the amount of conversation around their industry and specifically, among their competitors.

Bottom line, panels like these never dig as deep into the world of metrics as we'd like but there definitely were some interesting perspectives shared. To that end, keep an eye on the Twitter stream coming from OMMA today for other interesting nuggets.

Panhandling for Change: A Little Vote Goes a Long Way

Yup, I'm that dude. The one with his hand out asking for some change. Well, not actual change but the social equivalent. I'm looking for a vote (thumbs up or down) and/or a comment if you can spare it. It's for the 2010 South by Southwest Interactive Conference (SXSWi) and I am lucky enough to be in the running for three different panels. I've also submitted a fourth panel for my colleague, Kathy Warren, to lead with a client and a couple of other rock star brands.

Here are the details:

Social ROI is Not a Four Letter Word

Organizer/Moderator: Kathy Warren, VP Strategy & Measurement, Powered Inc.

Panelists: Peter Fasano, social media marketing, Coca Cola; Tom Hoehn, director brand communications & new media, Eastman Kodak; Shawn Morton, senior consultant for social media at Nationwide Insurance

If you’ve ever tried tracking down a return on investment (ROI) on “social,” you’ve found that it’s nearly impossible to find. During this interactive discussion, listen as brand practitioners from Coke, Nationwide and Kodak talk about ways that their companies are deriving real ROI from social while providing best practices, case studies and examples of how companies can achieve this elusive ROI Holy Grail.

It's About the Content Stupid

Organizer/Moderator: Simon Salt, CEO, The IncSlingers

Panelists: Aaron Strout, CMO, Powered; Dave Knox, brand manager, digital business strategy, Procter & Gamble; Amber Naslund, director of community, Radian6.

Content, content, content. If you haven't heard, it's the new currency and companies are looking at new ways to create smart, engaging and most importantly, inexpensive content to engage their customers, prospects and partners. From blog comments and community forums to expert videos, this interactive session will answer the important questions such as:

1. Where ownership of content starts, ends and why the lines blur.
2. How to deal with "inappropriate" content, handling negativity, moving beyond the C level fear of what people might say.
3. The best ways to strike a balance between expert, curated and customer generated content.
   
   

Hitting Bombs: Better Social Business through Sports Metaphors

Organizer/Moderator: Tim Walker, Blogger, Hoover's Inc.

Panelists: Aaron Strout, CMO, Powered; Jennifer Leggio, blogger, ZDNet; Kyle Flaherty, director of marketing, BreakingPoint Systems

Teamwork. Preparation. Execution. Sports abounds with lessons for today's socially enabled business. This panel's Murderer's Row of sports fans/social media pros will make you laugh, make you think, and give you fresh perspective on how sports metaphors can elevate social media practice for you and your company.

Where the Hell Are We In the Evolution of the Social Web?

Organizer/Moderator: Bill Johnston, chief community officer, ForumOne Communications

Panelists: Aaron Strout, CMO, Powered; Jake McKee & Sean O'Driscoll, principals, Ant's Eye View; Shawn Morton, senior consultant for social media at Nationwide Insurance

Social media practice and implementation is a dynamic and volatile subject that effects all functions in a company from the obvious (product, support, marketing) to the not so obvious (hr, operations). Hear from 5 seasoned social media practitioners (plus YOU!) about where we are on "the map" of social media adoption and practice, and where we are headed. The mood will be lively, the panel bright eyed and prepared, and the audience smart (and involved).

Social Marketing: This ROI is Too Good to be True

Yesterday, Powered hosted a webcast titled "Social Marketing: This ROI is Too Good to be True (archive coming shortly). The presentation consisted of 20+ slides focused on:

• Branded Online Community Measurement - Kathy Warren, Powered
• Results of the 2008 ROI Benchmark Study for Social Marketing Programs - Bill Harvey, TRA
• Social Media: Why it Makes Sense and How I Prove it to Myself - Brian Halligan, Hubspot

Social Marketing: This ROI is Too Good to be True

View more presentations from astrout.

An archive of this webcast will be available shortly.

Cross-posted on http://blog.powered.com

Experts in the Industry: Paul May (37 of 45)

Paul May, CEO and co-founder of Buzzstream, is one of my favorite people in Austin. So favorite that I had dinner at his house with his wife and his two beautiful children recently. But it wasn't the food that won me over. It is the fact that Paul is interested in the same thing that I am, namely delivering a return on investment in the world of social and online communities (Peter Kim, Kyle Flaherty, Adam Cohen and Lewis Green also fall in this camp).

Check out how Paul (Twitter handle) answered the five questions from the Experts in the Industry interview series -- he does some nice sucking up in question three (it worked btw):

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you're good at it.

I'm the CEO and co-founder of BuzzStream, a startup that's building DIY tools for managing word-of-mouth relationships.  I'm good at starting companies because I love doing it (despite the 24/7 schedule, it doesn't feel like work to me).

 

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?

I like to tinker with new technologies, which drove my initial use of social media tools.  Things grew organically from there for me.  I got into social marketing through my business partner, Jeremy Bencken, who founded ApartmentRatings.com.  He relied on PR and social media participation to build his company, and managing those relationships was his biggest challenge.  That led to BuzzStream.

 

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of "social," which company would it be and why?

Ugh...I guess I should say BuzzStream, but the truth is I don't think that having that kind of money would be good for us.  Companies that need a $10 million investment don't really interest me.  Part of this is simply because I'm more passionate about smaller companies and the other part of this is because I think the really exciting uses of social media are happening in smaller organizations (not that surprising to me, given that social media is a bottom-up phenomenon).  Give me the $10 mil and let me invest in 20 companies like Balsamiq, BreakingPoint, BackType, Powered, etc. Shining examples of scrappy businesses working with small budgets, but leveraging social media and DIY tools to build brand awareness, generate demand and get product feedback. 

 

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?

I like leaders who aren't particularly flashy but build value over a long period of time and engender great loyalty. In politics, it's people like Lee Hamilton and Harry Truman.  In business, it's people like Warren Buffett. 

 

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?

No…but I was on a hiking trip once with a guy who cared so much about white teeth that he brushed them as he hiked.  I'm pretty sure that guy would join a toothpaste community.

 

Freeform

If you've been thinking of starting a company, there's no better time to do it (yes, even with the economic mess we're in).  The great companies of the next 20 years are going to get started now.  And the best part is that there's never been a time where you could get a company up and running for less money.  Google has leveled the playing field for all of us. We just have to be smart about getting our mindshare on Google.

Need Your Advice on Upcoming Webinars

One of my responsbilities as the CMO of Powered is to work with the marketing and sales team to come up with a list of informative and engaging webinars for 2009. Given the fact that I like participating (and sometimes attending) webinars, I'm particularly interested in getting our roster right.

This is where you come in. Can you let me which five most resonate with you? Or if you think they all suck? Or if there are glaring holes? Either way, please add your thoughts in the comments section below. Your help is invaluable to me/us in this process. And if you're willing to help me out, I'm always happy to return the favor (maybe by inviting you to be a guest on one of our webinars)!

Here goes:

• Content & Conversations: Engaging Your Customers Online - this is an almost real webinar that will involve Forrester Analyst, Jeremiah Owyang and Chief Content Officer at Marketing Profs, Ann Handley. The tentative date is December 16th at 2:00 PM ET. Details/registration link to follow.
• Building a Business Case for Social Marketing
• Content your Customers Care About
• Crossing the Chasm of Consumer Consideration (like the aliteration?)
• Tapping the Power of Social in a Regulated Environement (hello financial services & pharma)
• Social Marketing: This ROI Sounds Too Good to Be True!
• Moving Beyond Pageviews: Measuring Real Customer Engagement
• Social Marketing: 5 Pitfalls to Avoid
• 2008 Social Marketing ROI Report (this one's happening whether you like it or not so get over it!)
• Social Marketing: What's in it for Me? What's in it for my Customers?
• Integrating Social Into your Traditional Marketing Mix
• Got Content? If You Do, Is it Driving the Results?
• 10 Ways to Insure Your Social Marketing Plan Succeeds
• Top 5 Reasons Your Company Can't Ignore Social Marketing
• Increasing Customer Retention During a Down Market
• Social Marketing Explained: The Bottom Line on Your Bottom Line
• A Brand's "Place" in the World of Social
• Benefits of "Managed" vs. "Un-managed" Online Community Solutions

There you have it. Let's hear which ones resonate with you and which don't!