It’s easy to get caught up in the buzz that surrounds any event – not talking about TEDx events, here. I believe social media focuses largely on everyone’s very important micro-life. Who hasn’t frantically refreshed his Facebook feed, only to see if someone commented or liked your latest photo upload? The same holds for social media conferences like iStrategy I visited last week. It quickly turned into Holland’s next trending topic on Twitter. Speakers could find entire transcripts of their talks cut up in 140 character-quotes.
Impressed by the line-up of speakers and well-documented experiences on previous conferences my expectations were considerably high.As for the vibe and atmosphere, things couldn’t get better. The food was delicious, and Adam Burns shows some crafty hosting skills, alternating witty comments with sharp-edged questions. The running gag of giving away “social” prizes for certain online efforts as gaining the most retweets (and yes, I won a Foursquare camping mug) was a great addition to the playful touch of the conference.
Completely immersed in the Twittersphere, every breath seemed important enough to be tweeted. A few days later I dare to think differently, with the exception of three speakers (all in keeping with these seven tips to speak for social media crowds).
Randi Zuckerberg (ex Facebook)
Opening keynote speaker Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook’s first marketeer, met my expectations pretty easily. Demonstrating the comfort most Americans tend to have on stage, slipping some new Facebook statistics along the way (99% of fans will see your updates in their news feed, not visiting your page), Randi lived up to her promise and made me think my brain would explode after two days of information overload. Giving a clever tongue-in-cheek example of discovering relevant content by tapping into an existing community with a previously unspoken need, I was amazed by what she missed most about not working at Facebook anymore: “The free food”. The cafeteria staff would inform everyone about the daily menu through a Facebook update, just 20 minutes before the meals were served, so you had to refresh continually and then run downstairs. The Culinary Team currently even has 22,000 fans who literally have nothing to do with it in their daily life – but truly like the content.
Yann Gourvennec (Orange)
Only Yann, head of internet and digital media at Orange Business Services, gave a presentation I had imagined every speaker or panelist would give: transparent, insightful and at some points even daring and visionary. Proclaiming the Return On Engagement over something non-social as an “investment”, he later compared social media to email. One day, far far away in our history, we took baby steps with email policies and integrating that communication tool into other parts of running a business. Still, it is said to be a huge loss of productivity. Now the problem with social media Return On Investment is that we are still stuck in thinking in terms of one-dollar-in equals one-dollar-out, while social networks’ power is more about long term relationships and discovering the weak ties. Talking about social media monitoring, Orange rather spends money on creating engaging content than monitoring tools: “If it takes too much time, it’s not worth it”. Thanks to a custommade social media dashboard (still in progress) shown to the audience, apparently one single person can be responsible for monitoring social media and reporting to the marketing director.
It might be better to just read back his original words. You can find Yann’s presentation (including audio!) on his SlideShare page.
Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia)
What people read on Wikipedia - iStrategy 2011 by Nicolas Griffioen
Only an undisputed big shot as Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was able to bring back the social media gurus playing Klout drinking games at the bar. He made a very worthy closing talk showing insights into cross-country search terms on Wikipedia and handing out funny one liners about those nerdy numbers, too. In a respectful video, the predominantly male “tech geeks” maintaining most of Wikipedia’s pages were portrayed as passionate individuals who finally felt a sense of belonging to an accepting community. Another case of brilliant storytelling is about the writers of tv series Lost: at a time when the plot had become too confusing, they actually used Lostpedia to track and follow details of the story.
Many internet users take Wikipedia for granted, while a lot of work still needs to be done. Mister Wales announced to open their first office outside of the US in India this year to help several Indian languages get onto Wikipedia. It’s aim? “To offer free access to information.”
One week later – back to real life
To me events and conferences feel like going to an amusement park, be it with more content. I like to be completely immersed in the atmosphere feeling like nothing else matters and the world should revolve around that stage. Does that make me a conference buzz addict? Content-wise, I had higher expectations about iStrategy. Surprisingly, the main message there was to deliver relevant content, that adds value to whatever an individual (Angry Bird addict) or group (breast cancer survivors) needs. My greatest learning: I’m addicted to “event buzz”, but at least I know it and try to connect with the real world afterwards.
Further reading:
Randi Zuckerberg’s ten tips for Facebook marketing
iStrategy: wat heb je gemist (dag 1)? (Dutch)
Jimmy Wales knappe afsluiter (Dutch)
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