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)
Late upload (all my fault) but here is the 6th episode of The GennY Podcast once again with Dorothy and myself talking about things that that happened at Ad:Tech 2009, and our observations.
The show notes:
00:00 – Starting off “live” from Ad:Tech
00:24 – A slight comparison of Ad:Tech 2008 and Ad:Tech 2009 and trends we’ve noticed
00:51 – First trend: The audience still seems to be semi to largely clueless!
01:51 – Is there a trend of inertia of companies not wanting to get their feet wet?
02:52 – Second trend: The idea of strategy vs tools. Shouldn’t this be common sense?
03:20 – There really needs to be a bigger strategy than “collecting followers”
03:32 – Should marketing move up from the tactical level to the strategic level?
04:52 – There should be a budget shift from expensive TVCs that no one is watching, especially when numerous presentations show data that TV isn’t as powerful as it used to be
05:45 – If your digital initiatives aren’t working for you, prove that your traditional media initiatives are
06:36 – Maybe the truth hurts? The blind faith of buying an ad makes you feel better?
07:22 – So how do you deal with intangibles? Maybe you can’t have it both ways?
07:49 – Maybe online interactions have a different angle. Maybe it’s not about sales. Maybe it can be used for feedback?
08:12 – Are advertisers just conning themselves? What does 4.5 million eyeballs even mean?
09:00 – Dorothy sighs in utter exasperation. You’re doing this to her advertisers! You!
09:08 – Maybe we’re just in a stage where we don’t know what the different numbers mean
10:50 – How is employing one person to take care of your social media presence a more expensive investment than producing and buying a TV ad?
11:08 – In the future, advertising should be come “invisible” and woven in
11:52 – There seems to be a universal Generation Y culture
13:27 – Maybe they just want to reach more people, but as Seth Godin says, the world has shifted from the “how many” to the “who”
14:32 – Hopefully we’ll have the rest of the crew back soon and we’re trying to make this regular!
I was previously blown away by HBO’s level of personalisation with their outreach attempts, which was really the catalyst for me to meet Karen, Angela and Yin Qi for lunch awhile ago.
What They’ve Done
The first time I met anyone from HBO, was at Social Media Breakfast | Singapore 3 way back in August of 2008. Yin Qi was there and the first casual connection was made. Stemming from that, there was an event for one of HBO’s shows, “Flight of the Conchords“, and ended with a regional contest which was well-talked about.
The Inspiration
When I asked them about who/what prompted the dabble in social media, surprisingly, there didn’t seem to be an “Eureka!” moment, but rather something that grew organically. Ultimately, it all came down to fit: “Flight of the Conchords” is very heavily viewed via online channels like YouTube, they resonate with the younger audience who is online, and the very nature of the show made it the perfect talking point.
Obstacles
From our discussion, the difficulty faced wasn’t so much organising something in Singapore, but organising something regional. This is something agencies should definitely take note of in Asia, because differences between countries within the region can be pretty big, and at the minimum, a basic understanding of that would be added value.
Metrics
As their first foray into social media, it was as much an experiment as anything else, so hard metrics were not particularly the focus. However, they were sufficiently satisfied with the online discussions and conversations to be convinced it was a worthwhile avenue for future efforts. Even though no hard metrics are available, just looking at the YouTube videos produced on the “Flight of the Conchords” blog from all over the region, the comments and the links, it looks like it certainly did not go unnoticed by the blogosphere.
What’s Coming Next
I got the benefit of discovering that a second blogger outreach event will be happening this year, this time for a different show, “True Blood“. Given that I missed the “Flight of the Conchords” event as I wasn’t in Singapore, I’m looking forward to this
What do you think are they key points from HBO Asia’s social media journey? Is it an issue that agencies don’t have regional capabilities as yet? What do you think HBO Asia could do better? Comment away!
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