So, we're about five days after BlogWorld and I am just now getting to write my recap. I suppose I could come up with some ridiculous excuse of wanting to gather my thoughts (and I was doing that, actually), but it was mostly because I was trying to enjoy my Memorial Day weekend. Plus, like most of you I'm sure, after five days of talking about social media the last thing I wanted to do was to come here and write more about social media. Enough already!
Anyway, BlogWorld NYC offered much of what I love about this business: an opportunity to interact with some of the brightest minds in this business. I've talked about it before, but these conferences are valuable to me just from a networking point-of-view. If there are a handful of sessions that I get something out of then that is a bonus. And no, I mean actual networking...not just attending every party under the sun and getting hammered.
So besides networking, what did I take away from this year's BlogWorld? Oh, before you ask, no, I didn't take anything away from the closing keynote. Yes, I mentioned to Rick Calvert that it wasn't my favorite part of the conference. No, it's not because I was offended by the content, though I can see how some people took it the wrong way. My bigger beef was with the overall style of the closing keynote. I want to leave on an up-lifting note, and not on a comedic one. But, these are all things I've said to Rick so I'll just leave it at that...On a more positive note...
- Tactics win out over strategies - With as much as the blogosphere talks about strategy, I think we're in danger of turning it into a buzz word. Most bloggers are actually talking about tactics and not strategies anyway, but I'm not sure how well talking about strategies translates to conferences anyway. Most attendees that I talked to told me they wanted to hear from others about what worked. Sure, there are strategic elements in that, but mostly people are concerned with what tactics worked. They can then take those tactics away, adapt to fit THEIR strategic goals and everybody wins.
- Tom Webster - One of my favorite sessions (I'm a numbers guy, right?) was Tom Webster's presentation on "The Social Habit." If you missed some of the tweets, or Tom's talk, you can download the research here. It was a fantastic talk with very actionable items coming from the data. Tom delivered the goods...if you have an opportunity to see him in the future, please do so!
- Cautious optimism about the power of social media - This has something to do with the data Tom presented, but I left the conference feeling only cautiously optimistic about the power of social. Yes, I think social is valuable. No, I don't think that's changing anytime soon. However, Tom presented a data point about the power of social channels in influencing purchasing decisions. In the survey, 72% of respondents said that no social network influenced a purchasing decision. Only one social channel - Facebook - was above 1% (Facebook was 24%).
- Is location-based marketing really all we think it is? There were multiple presentations about location-based platforms, including a keynote with Aaron Strout and representatives from very large brands, but I left wondering just how useful these are for the mainstream brand. Tom's presentation mentioned that while a larger percentage of American's are aware of LBS tools, a very small number actually use them daily. I sense, as Tom noted, that this is a great opportunity for other mobile platforms that we've been ignoring in our race to satisfy our shiny new object affliction. We'll see...only time will tell who is right.
- People are measuring the right things! - I've become overly jaded by case studies. Yeah, there are some fancy, creative ideas floating around, but I could care less about fancy and creative. I care about whether something works or not. To date, I was never sure how often the "right" things were being measured in social media. However, leaving the conference and hearing presentations by Lisa Grimm, Shannon Paul, Jess Berlin and many others I feel better about how people are measuring social. They aren't just looking at reach, but more tangible business metrics that executives care about. Perhaps we're on the right track after all?
- Damion White - Damion is a very good friend of mine (we were colleagues at WCG), so I was happy he was able to make it out to the event. I've always known him to be an incredibly smart guy, but seeing him exposed to other smart people pumped me up. He was a huge hit, of course, with his ability to drop beats (yeah, I just said drop beats on a social media blog), but so many people told me after the conference how smart he is. I've always known, but I'm glad everyone else has had the same experience.
I could go on for awhile, but what were your big takeaways? Anything you'd like to see in LA that wasn't present in NYC? We're going to be starting to plan for LA here in the next few weeks (gasp), so please let me know.
