Monthly Archives: November 2011

9 timely social media and brand communication insights from SIC 2011

SIC LogoI recently attended the 2011 Seattle Interactive Conference (#SIC2011) at the downtown Seattle convention center. Besides enjoying the opportunity to catch up with friends in the local marketing and social media communities, I was impressed by the overall caliber of presenters and the hard-won insights they shared. Looking back, they gave us a snapshot of the state of the industry as of Q4, 2011.

The following are some of the presentation takeaways I jotted down at the event (click on any of the items in this list to jump down to the details):

1: Identify and engage with your brand’s social media advocates
2: Brands must plan in advance to be authentic in social media conversations
3: Preempt negative comments about your brand to rob them of their power
4: How to make a “good” social media video
5: Comcast “sucks” if it still hasn’t addressed the underlying problem
6: Social media ROI requires a multiple touch attribution model
7: Brand advocates disproportionally influence content consumption, conversions
8: Content is the carrier, the click is the action
9: Seek to increase social media engagement with actual customers
More insights from SIC 2011

#1: Identify and engage with your brand’s social media advocates

Kim Johnston, VP of Marketing, Desktop Virtualization, at Parallels, spoke Continue reading →

Who’s Occupying the Occupy Movement?

Ironically, rigid adherence to an “open” communication process undermined communication.

Occupy Seattle General Assembly (by Jaxon Brooks via Wikipedia)

Occupy Seattle General Assembly (by Jaxon Brooks via Wikipedia)

Here in Seattle the local offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement, appropriately named Occupy Seattle, recently occupied itself–or so it was reported by Dominic Holden in the weekly arts, entertainment, and politics publication The Stranger: Occupy Seattle Disrupts Pro-Occupy Wall Street Forum, Drives Away Supporters.

To summarize: while certain Occupy Seattle “representatives” were participating in a pro-Occupy public panel discussion including prominent local sympathizers, other “representatives” effectively prevented the panel members from speaking.

I spent some time reading the comments to the Stranger post, trying to understand what had happened, and gleaned two insights: Continue reading →