One of the great things I really like about being in Louisville is the fact that it is considered to be a great social media community. Many professional associations and groups are located in the city and are dedicated to research, consulting,and practices involving new media. One of the great annual events that occurs in the city is the Emerging Media Summit.
I had a chance to go to the event last year and took away many good practices and tips to bring into my research and in the classroom as well. Some of the highlights of the event came across in some of the presentations including:
- Shannon Paul: There is a love/hate relationship for social media among brands. We need to focus more on transforming social media marketing into a social media business strategy. Governance (policies, appropriate communication across levels in management), education, and tools and talent are key for success in social media.
- Allison Groves: The focus and transition of SEO, PR, and Social is here. SEO + Social + PR equals the new marketing reality. The focus on content creation within storytelling and how it translates to brand storytelling and relationship building (PR) and how listening, managing, and building relationships (social) is the focus for PR professionals today. The individual users discovers your content and story and has the ability to share this with their communities, and the brand finds the user to build a positiveand long-term relationship (ongoing cycle across brands and users). Tell your story and be authentic, but make sure it is relevant and meaningful for audiences.
- Nichole Kelly: The focus of this presentation was around the issue of ROI and measurement when it comes to social media. Lead generation, customer retention and brand awareness are good metrics for social media. If you are able to translate and align social media goals with the sales funnel, then you are getting to your customers at an earlier process. The issue of influencers came up in the presentation and its role/power over the metrics associated with social media marketing and business transactions. Engagement focuses on exposure and action on the behalf of the user and the brand. Translate some of the business metrics into social media community while adapting other key components associated with social media into the ROI mix. Here is the link to Nichole’s great presentation via Prezi.
- Ben Loetz (Verizon): Highlighted the various new tools offered from Verizon, even a robot (yes, I said robot) or a virtual press conference device in case you are having a press conference and your CEO can’t make it physically, he can be there virtually through the robot. Interesting and exciting developments in technology for businesses and healthcare.
- Cody Vest (Vest Advertising): Discussion on how to return on awesome and how to get impractical, and how social media does fit into this category somewhat in PR and marketing. Augmented reality, holograms, and other new emerging technology platforms we were thinking were the future are here today in advertising and PR campaigns as well as internal communications. Focusing on awesomeness will be better than focusing on ROI because it will be a “home run” waiting to be hit. You have to take initiative and listen to your gut instincts when it comes to emerging media and understand the personal connection for brands and other businesses.
Overall, this a great event not only for practitioners in the area, but also professors and students interested in engaging in social media as well as in research purposes. If you would like to see what were some of the other updates coming from the event, you may want to check out the hashtag #iabclda.
Hope you all are having a great day.
Best Wishes,
Karen
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