Social Media & Digital Marketing in Singapore

5 Things Conference Speakers Can Do To Make Their Sessions Better

I just finished attending a two day conference, the Singaporean leg of the international Social Media World Forum and instead of giving a run down of the two days, here are my thoughts on what differentiates a great conference speaker from a mediocre one (and let’s face it, we all appreciate the great ones):

1) Add context

Sony Pictures showed a short clip of Sophie’s Diary which really helped solidify the concept of the programme way better than just talking about it could. We’re in a fast-paced industry where things change all the time and while your material may be familiar to you because you work with it everyday, it doesn’t necessarily mean everyone in the room has the same level of familiarity (and you shouldn’t assume that they do),so it really helps to bring things to a ground level before examining it. (tweet from John Kerr)

2) Be relevant and current

Dell Hell? Comcast technician asleep on the couch? Old news, let’s move on. Either do the homework necessary to keep current at such events, or don’t speak. (tweet from Dorothy Poon)

3) Share your own examples

Don’t be afraid to share. Intercontinental Hong Kong shared their small success of using a Facebook Fan Page for a chef with only a hundred fans to reach out to customers and directly bring in revenue. Is it a bad or small example because they only had just over a hundred fans? Certainly not. Also, when you talk about what other people are doing and not what you’re doing, it doesn’t make you sound very credible. (tweet from Claudia Lim)

4) Be specific

I know no one has all the answers for certain subjects like social media measurement measurement, but I think speaking with general vagueness like “there’s no one size fits all solution” doesn’t help anyone. Suggest one or two metrics if there isn’t the whole package (tweet from Bernard Leong)

5) Share your slides

The audience loves it. (tweet from Chris Schaumann)

So there are my thoughts on speakers and conferences. What tips would you have added in? Do leave a reply in the comments!

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Posted in Events, social media | 1 Comment »

Responsible Participation: A Discussion At Edelman

Michael starts on the beer

I got invited by Mark a few weeks ago for a discussion at Edelman regarding responsible participation and what it means. Also present was Phil Gomes, John Kerr, Michael Netzley, Ben Koe, Preetam Rai and Eastcoastlife.

I’m not going to say too much about the discussion itself, as Michael has written a very comprehensive post detailing the discussion, but I will make two quick comments:

1) No one seems to really know what responsible participation means. Does it mean different things depending on context? For example, does “responsible participation” take on different manifestations in a B2C context as contrasted with a public-sector context?

2) Responsible participation, regardless of the context, needs to be two-way. I’m astounded at the sentiment on one side of the fence that calls for, or demands responsible participation, without even being engaged and participating themselves in the first place. Reciprocity is a global norm, no?

John collecting opinions

As a side note, I had a subsequent class visit to Edelman the following week, and the topic of discussion was “Crisis communication”. Before any of us could bring up the Wal-Mart example, the speaker brought it up first as an example of how they had to deal with it and it’s nice to see them openly acknowledge past mistakes and use them as a learning experience.

All in all, it seems like Edelman is genuinely trying to tap into the community to aid them in their social media efforts and this is only the first of such discussions. I’m looking forward to see what comes next.

Tags: b2c, ben koe, communicate asia, crisis communication, discussion, eastcoastlife, Edelman, john kerr, michael netzley, Phil Gomes, preetam rai, reciprocity, Responsable Participation, roundtable, wal-mart

Posted in Marketing, SMU, Singapore, Tools, case studies, collaboration, community, social media, twitter | 1 Comment »