Event
Social Media is Just a Hobby
Jason Falls delivers a little Gary Vaynerchuk impersonation at Social Fresh Nashville, a social media conference for marketers.
A good portion of Social Fresh spoke to what social media can really do for business, including Jason’s talk on “Moving the Needle, Social Media for the Bottom Line”.
In the quick video above, taken at the Social Fresh photo opp zone, Jason recaps why the social media purists (dirty hippies and treehuggers) do not get that if social media is not making you money, it is just a hobby.
Why Do Conferences Suck?
I absolutely crave face to face time with people. I see offline relationships as the heart of marketing.
This is why I keep going to conferences despite the face that most conferences suck. I am in the heart of this world now since creating my own social media conference series, Social Fresh. Here are just a few of the things that encouraged me to find my own solution.
The Four Horsemen of the Conference Apocalypse
Too much hyperbole there?
- No Networking – Many conferences just cram as much content in as possible and lose track of encouraging conversations. Provide physical space that encourages connecting. Provide time in the day that allows connecting. Create reason for people to connect.
- Bad Speakers – Where to begin… Unreadable slides, reading from slides verbatim, simply boring, no examples, no case studies, and please, I do not need your life story as an intro. Cut to the meat.
- Too Big – Don’t get me wrong, I love SXSW and Blogworld, and Web 2.0 for the shear scale of what they do. And they fill a need. But at some point, finding good content, relevant connections, and just navigating these events successfully takes too much effort.
- Too Serious – Yes we are there to learn. No, I don’t need an all day happy hour. But, please lighten up a bit. Throw some spice into the recipe. People like getting away from their desks. Make the day a little more than just instruction. Make it an experience.
Complaints that don’t bother me so much
- No Wifi – I get it, we all want to tweet about an event. It is worth complaining about, but let’s face it, there are plenty of venues and cities that just have crappy cell and wifi capabilities. Wifi does not make an event. And I can attend a great event with no wifi and get just as much out of it.
- Bad Food – Again, I am not there for the food.
- Too Expensive – It is business. Charge what you want. I either think it is worth it or I don’t. Conferences can be expensive endeavors. This value equation is completely different for each person.
Over the last year I have shifted from spending most of my professional time on social media consulting to spending most of my time working on Social Fresh. It is much more rewarding. But it is also not for everyone.
Social Fresh is simple. It is specifically for marketers that want to see the full potential of social media. We bring big brands and smart people in the social media space to a city near you. Big event content, small event networking and discussion.
Social Media: The Bad and The Ugly
In response to Patrick O’Keefe’s ManagingCommunities.com post on his BlogWorld Expo Panel “Social Media: The Bad and the Ugly”. My ugly social media is simply the knee jerk attack responses that I seem to see more and more of each day.
I try not to be negative at all online outside of customer service complaints. But especially when a more constructive response or the offering of a solution would be a better response.
I hope more people will decide to stay positive when reacting to individuals and companies that are making a strong effort to enter the social media space.
Patrick’s Blogworld Expo panel will include Patrick, Wayne Sutton, Amber Naslund, and Robert Scoble.
4 Free Tickets to Social Media Business Forum
Social Media History Trivia
- October 9th, 1pm EST
- Follow @jakrose for questions
- Random draw from the first 5 correct answers wins a ticket for each question
- 4 Questions
4 Free Tickets to Social Media Business Forum (October 23rd – Durham, NC)
Speaking with Bank of America and LendingTree
I was lucky to join local Social Media professionals from Bank of America (Brian A. Wright) and LendingTree.com (Nicole Hall) last week for the local Interactive Marketing Association. It was great to hear the unique perspectives from these two financial players and the challenges they face.
Overall, I was impressed by how savvy many of the attendees were. It was a great mix of interactive pros from E-retail to NASCAR to Fortune 500.
David Wells not only caught the whole thing on video, but took out some of our key points (with Timestamps, wow). Oh, and he has an audio download. Check out the video below and go read David’s blog post for the extended content. The lighting was pretty poor, so excuse the shadowy table from which we speak.
“The panel explores how to determine if social networking is right for your business, which social media is right for your business, what to outsource and what to keep in-house, and how to know when your social media strategy is working.
Put on by the Charlotte Interactive Marketing Association“
