The Next Chapter: SXSW: Day #4

People usually complain about Mondays. I'm one of them (I LOVE my weekends), but this particular Monday was an amazing one. Great panels, awesome good, fun parties. Here's your Day 4 recap!

The day started out foggy and humid. Made for some eery photos (not to mention a bad hairday), but luckily the sun came out that afternoon.

"Brand Journalism in the Real World"

*Panel was cut short by a (false) fire alarm.

Featuring the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs and the Editorial Director at Twitter

The biggest content marketing challenge is producing the kind of content that engages prospects and customers.
Brand journalism: researched storytelling that is not a traditional media outlet, but rather an in-house voice for a company.
It's in the company's best interest to have someone telling stories and breaking the news on their company. It has to live in a communications/marketing role.
Talk to people in a very human way. Go to where the people are that you want to reach.
Should be an ongoing conversation, not sporadic interactions.
The best way to have a reputable brand is to be honest and be open. Go off message and show that everything doesn't have to be so slogan-y.

"Social Media in the Underground World of B2B"

No photo for this one - I was too busy taking notes. Some quality social media tips here! Panelists represented Text 100, Xerox, NVIDIA, Cisco and IBM.

Be a trusted leader in your industry.
The two biggest issues in Social B2B: measuring ROI (return on investment) and resourcing.
Find the best social citizens within the organization to enact the social strategy.
Create a safe environment for people in your organization to learn about social media and how they can use it for their job.
NVIDIA and Cisco have screens (LCD, iPads, tablets) in high traffic areas in the office - these devices show real-time Twitter feeds so that employees can see what's being said about their brand. This generates curiosity.
Demystify the idea that "social" is scary and has no impact on their job.
Who better to represent your company than your own employees? No one knows your brand better than them.
It starts with listening. If you're not going to listen, don't do social media.
Don't have the "launch it and leave it" mentality. You need subject matter experts to invest time and help sustain it.
Know the value of being present. If you're not present, your competitors will be.
When deciding how to measure ROI, go back to what you're trying to measure, what your goal was when you started.
The standard approach to ROI - Are you reaching your audience? If you are, are they engaged? And if they're engaged, are they advocating on your behalf?
ROI isn't just about numbers.
Stop thinking about "what is my Twitter/Facebook strategy?" and instead "what is my business objective?"

The team met up for lunch at the Turf N Surf food trailer. I got the blackened tilapia tacos and they were delicious!

"Getting Good: Practical Tips for New Designers"

This was a discussion led by a designer and a front-end developer from web design firm Happy Cog. While the panel was geared towards other web designers, I really got a lot out of it! They had a lot of wonderful tips for creativity and work habits.

There are many roadblocks to creativity...
1 - So much inspiration, so many resources - it's overwhelming!
Write down your objectives before you start hunting for inspiration.
Don't start each project looking for inspiration, and don't start each one from scratch. Rather, create repositories of ideas to pull from. If you find an inspiration and use that single piece, your work/project will end up looking too much like the original.
2 - Workflow.
Create an elegant workflow. Explore shortcuts.
If you feel clunky and cluttered when you work, your work will reflect that. Leave the office with a clean desk so when you return in the morning, you don't feel out of sorts.
3 - Disappointment, your work is not meeting your expectations.
The "creative gap" - we have amazing taste, but we don't quite know how to recreate it. That leads to frustration.
Train your inner critic to evaluate what worked and what didn't.
Improve the quality of your questions when you ask for feedback from coworkers/superiors.

"Blogging: Why So Many Women Are Doing It"

Indiana Adams of Adored Austin and Alessandra Colaci of Republic of Wow.

Traditionally, women have been storytellers in their communities.
Blogging is a modern day quilting circle. Women share their hearts and lives with each other. Women have an inclination to be more social than men.
Women are trusted and brands approach them to be a voice and influence their readers.
Indiana Adams example: loved the new Tom's wedges, wrote a blog reviewing them with an affiliated link to the Tom's online store, and she sold 750 pairs through her blog!!
Women are not one dimensional. Women's blogs make more sense when they share several different areas of their lives. Don't make your blog about a single topic.
Are you writing as a catharsis for yourself, or are you writing for others? Everyone has a story to tell, but there is certainly a struggle between the two - sharing everything, or being more reserved and censors with others in mind.
Write your posts and add the links later. Be authentic.
Start conversations on Twitter. Brands read them!

After the 5:00 panel, the marketing team walked over to Rainey Street (where Google Village was set up the day before) for the Bazaarvoice party. Free tacos for dinner meant that I'd successfully eaten tacos for FOUR MEALS in two days. Loved them all, but was glad to have something besides tacos once SXSW was over after Tuesday.