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First takeaway. DigitalNow 09 was the best conference I've attended this year and including all of 08 (Sorry Association Technology 08/09). I think much of it had to do with the overall mood and mission of the attendees to figure out this social media thing together. In the spirit of collaboration, I had great exchanges with everyone I sat with at the sessions, keynotes and especially during the meals. Ah yes, the meals.
Kudos to Disney's Yacht Club crew for the awesome grub. It's been a long time since I looked forward to breakfast at any conference. The omelet bars rocked as well as the juice and coffee service at the table. You never had to make a second trip just for the beverages.
DigitalNow effectively practiced what they preached by using many of the great tools discussed at the conference including twitter and a live blog of the conference. The conference had my mind in overdrive and the issues could be immediately applied to the many challenges SAF is facing in regards to social media.
Following are my 20 plus takeaways we plan to apply - they are ordered by presenter not by priority:
From Charlene Li.
- Establish your social media strategy by focusing on your organization's relationships, not the technologies. You will apply the technologies to strengthen those relationships.
- Link corporate strategy with digital goals - revisit your organization's strategic directives and see you where can apply social media technology to enhance and promote the included products and services.
- Social networks will be like "air," where the people you know and whose opinion you respect will be available to you wherever you go through your portable device and the applications that connect to your social networks like FB, twitter, etc.
- Boost engagement through your social networks by building trust among the levels of the "Engagement Pyramid" including the watchers or lurkers, those who share - links via email, photos, etc., the commenters, those who comment but don't necessarily spark conversation, content creators and finally curators, those who create, manage and aggregate all the information.
- It's important to get all types of people on the bus, these include: the fearful skeptics, cautious testers, realist optimists, transparent evangelists and the revolutionaries.
- Start real small and listen carefully to the response. Experiment - just do it, rather than developing a grand strategy.
- Measure the right thing. How many posts, FB signups, comments are great metrics, but don't forget to measure the value you are getting. Ask the member how likely they are to recommend this service to another non-member? How often they use the service and why?
- Embrace failure because you will fail in your social media efforts. Dealing with social media is like a relationship and who has a perfect relationship?
- In regards to addressing the issue of how much control do you need let go, consider this: if you think you're in control, that's a fallacy because you are not. The audience has taken this control from you and will never give it back.
My complete notes from Charlene Li's keynote can be found here.
From Peter Hirshberg.
- Editorial power has shifted to the audience - the audience is now the producer. Web 1.0 was about a platform for the traditional content creators, Web 2.0 is all about the people/audience who now can produce content for one another.
- More than 100 million blogs can be placed into three buckets: 26,000 with more than 1000 inbound links tend to be from broadcast; 100,000 in the middle with 50 inbound links are the topical experts and the rest which are personal blogs with a few inbounds.
- Social media is a new way to relate with customers in a "campfire" setting, where you have to create you story which people will want to share which in turn will make your brand more meaningful. Your Website should be the hub of where conversation happens and find ways to syndicate this to those on the "edge."
My complete notes from Peter Hirshberg's kenote can be found here.
From Amber MacArthur.
- The ABC's of new school style include: A for authenticity - you need to be open and accessible and share your passions. B for bravery - it's important to experment, invent and innovate with social media; and C for community - practice "power friending" with people who are key influencers.
- Awesome tools include: squarespace to establish blogs and website, creating podcasts with Apple's garageband, libsyn.com = liberated syndication - $30 to host podcast, all the Google's free online apps - docs, calendars, etc.; hootsuite - allows you to schedule tweets and multiple accounts.
- There are 3.3 billion cell phone subscribers and this is how people get their information so it's important to establish and build your personal network to have a solid base of information.
- New school resources include: readwriteweb.com - a great blog on social media, techcrunch.com - business blog and mashable.com - great site for social media news.
My complete notes from Amber MacArthur's keynote can be found here.
From Clay Shirkey.
- Group action just got easier through the mobile phone - it's easier for people to collaborate, share and participate in collective action.
- Services like Flickr reversed a pattern - we now share, then people gather. One person is able to create a tutorial from which countless people can learn, and it's archived forever, including any follow-up content. This is now a community.
- Inside every large collaborative effort is a small collaborative effort so you have to create an ecosystem that allows the passionate contributors to thrive as well as those who contribute sparingly.
- We are living in the most expressive era known to man following the previous four eras including: the printing press; telegraph/telephone, encoded media - records and tapes and TV/Radio. Prior to the four mentioned, we didn't have media where groups to talk to one another. For the first time, the Internet not only accomplishes establishing groups it connects all the previous media.
- It's not until people take technology for granted when you can start taking advantage of the tools. The biggest tools out there is email!
- The thing about most blogs. They're not for you (the stranger audience member who happens upon a blog) rather for the blogger's group of friends. Remember, there is no external logic affecting a person's blog posts, she is just doing if for herself.
- Back to the mobile phone. The thing in your pocket is a global publishing platform.
- It's easier to build a large system but starting with a small system and making it bigger thant starting with the large system and making it better.
- No press release for any social media attempts - just start small. It's one of consistent strategies for successful social media implementations.
- If you want to figure this thing out, find the person with that one transformational idea and throw them out the door. Let them in once they have a list of 10 things that will work.
My complete notes from Clay Shirkey's Keynote can be found here.
Cool tools I will try out that I discovered at DigitalNow
Evernote: "Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere. Did we mention that it's free?"
Mogulus: "Watch Live TV or Broadcast Live On Your Website, Free or Pro, Live Streaming Video, Video Chat Rooms, Internet TV, Free Live TV." (Thanks Ben Martin for the demo)
Google Apps for Business:"Whether your business is moving everything to the cloud, just wants an affordable email solution or struggles to give employees access to critical information, Google Apps will help you stretch resources and work smarter."
Hootsuite: "HootSuite is the ultimate Twitter toolbox. With HootSuite, you can manage multiple Twitter profiles, pre-schedule tweets, and measure your success. HootSuite lets you manage your entire Twitter experience from one easy-to-use interface."
Squarespace: "A fully hosted, completely managed environment for creating and maintaining a website, blog or portfolio."
Liberated Syndication: " Liberated Syndication goes beyond traditional webhosting- we are syndication providers. You get a home to store your media, a simple but powerful blog engine, an RSS feed, and an interface to distribute your podcast to a limitless audience. Our service also works with your existing blog. Use LibSyn just for storing your ever expanding media library and manage your RSS feed yourself."
Radian6: "Radian6 gives you a complete platform to listen, share, learn, and engage – both inside your company, and with your customers across the entire social web."
HowardForums: "HowardForums is discussion board dedicated to mobile phones with over 500,000 members and growing! For your convenience HowardForums is divided into 7 main sections; marketplace, phone manufacturers, carriers, smartphones/PDAs, general phone discussion, buy sell trade and general discussions."
pbwiki: "On-demand collaboration to solve real problems."
Wetpaint: "Create a free website about anything you love!"
12seconds: "12seconds is the best place online for video status updates. It's a super easy way to share what you're doing with your friends and family using short video clips. You can use your web cam or mobile phone. Show your friends where you are, share your thoughts, or tell them how you're doing. We are building a video status platform that will help you keep up to date with your friends 12 seconds at a time."
Books to read
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