SXSWi: Let's Get Engaged!

This year’s South by Southwest Interactive Festival started off tragically with the news of the Japan disaster casting a shadow over the otherwise jubilant festivities. But by the time SXSWi was over, the crowd-funding was in full swing, and all of the ubiquitous “dudes with beards and glasses” were heading to the airport to be replaced by more dudes/dude-ettes with tattoos and piercings arriving for the music festival. One thing was clear to all: marketing in the modern era is all about ENGAGEMENT.

As NYU professor and author Adam Penenberg described on one panel, when people engage with each other (tweeting, writing on their walls, checking in, blog commenting, gaming) the body releases the chemical Oxytocin, also known as the hormone of love. The same hormone that bonds mothers to their newborns also increases empathy 13 percent in males. So, you could think of all the networking that takes place at SXSWi as a love fest of sorts. Certainly, for Seth Priebatsch, the founder of next big thing SCVNGR and keynote speaker, the future is all about engaging with others through the “gamification” of social apps and sites. If we only transform all challenges of the modern era – education, the environment – into a game that we all solve together, the world will be a better place. And this is a theme I heard throughout the event — education is broken, work is broken, social media is broken — now lets change the rules and play some games!

I appreciated Jason Brown of Zynga’s sentiment that “games are becoming indistinguishable from real life communication” and as I watched all attendees staring at their screens throughout the show this truth became self evident. But the funny thing about “South By” (as you should call it if you want to demonstrate street cred), is that it’s a cul de sac of future thinking that will eventually hit Main Street once everyone catches up. So, while Location Based Services (LBS) are the rage at the show, the market of smartphone users that actually use them is still immature. And by immature I don’t mean that they wear bright orange tee shirts with matching orange frame sunglasses (love that Priebatsch style). Watch the mobile LBS/gaming market take off as brands aim to increase engagement with consumers through loyalty-creating games that encourage them to “level up.”

But, lest we believe that people will play games without incentives, consider the promotion that Jill Okawa Fletcher of Virgin America did with LBS provider Loopt to drive people to check in at taco stands to win flights to Mexico. On the “Go Here, Do This” panel she shared with LivingSocial, Foursquare and Yelp! everyone agreed that “you need a big carrot” and that Facebook Places will be the check in hub for LBS. In counterpoint, in a panel on the true value of a Facebook fan, everyone concluded that it’s important to not focus on your brand’s most influential fans, and that giving away free ice-cream dilutes the value of a fan base. What’s most important is what you do with the fan (engagement, again). But it was beneficial to hear from Paul Ollinger of Facebook that the average fan spends $77 more than non-fan customers.

So if engagement via gaming, LBS and social media is the key for brands relating to consumers, the bar is even higher to produce content (stories, videos) that will create better engagement. Social isn’t about just creating pass-along viral buzz, it’s about dialogue, and the dialogue should never be just about the brand. This was made even clearer when I met my personal hero Victor Pineiro of Big Spaceship who posts for Skittles and was on a panel with the guys who created Whopper Sacrifice and American Express Open Forum. Their advice: fail and fail often. This is a process of constant reinvention. Conversational posts are 8-10 times more likely to get responses. Stories are not about us (brands). Focus on the topics that brands share with consumers because that’s what forms dialogue. If Oreo’s fan page can out-do Lady Gaga’s fan page in engagement with posts to the community, it’s more than just celebrity fueling engagement.

The same thoughts were expressed by Robert Brunner of Ammunition Group in his solo session “Ideas not Objects.” Product designer Robert Brunner has played a role in designing some of the seminal devices of our time: the Kindle and Beats by Dre headphones to name two. His philosophy of design is that every product must tell a story. “It doesn’t help to wrap a story around a bad idea. We get our stories from the community. The creation myth can no longer be a myth. Designer and storyteller need to work together. You cannot control your brand, you can only influence what people feel. Today, not taking risks is risky.”

“Content is still king” was heard from several during the show, but one risk-taker in particular hit it home: artist and designer Marc Ecko. He outlined his mathematical formula for authenticity. Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, he took a dizzying Prezi.com-powered presentation trip inside his own mind to uncover what defined his personal brand, on a personal road of discovery that has lead him to promoting UnlimitedJustice.com a cause to stop the use of paddling in corporal punishment in the 20 states that still permit it. He’s using the tools of outsider art and protest tactics to use social media for good and benefit education. Check out the site to stop the dropout rate from climbing. The SXSWi show ended with the news that Owsley Stanley, the “Acid King” who ushered in the psychedelic movement of the ’60s, had died. In many ways, his passing was a passing of the torch to a new generation of adventurers gathering in Austin to tune in, log on, and check out (the modern era’s version of “tune in, turn on and drop out”). Comedian Marc Maron closed the festival with a live podcast of his WTF Show and he called Austin “Hipster Alamo” as the last bastion of cool in Texas. I prefer to think that the “Love In” lives on at SXSWi.

Social Insecurity

I recently read the fantastic book Born to Run by author Christopher McDougall about the amazing Tarahumara runners from a remote part of Mexico who run hundreds of miles in bare feet. It was a great read, and in addition to eating chia seeds by the tablespoon now, I bought a pair of Nike Free sneakers to get back in shape.

But that’s not what this post is really about. Reading the book, I loved a quote attributed to social philosopher Eric Hoffer who said “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” It got me thinking about social media marketing today. And as I pack my bag and head out for the South by Southwest Interactive show (barefoot running sneaks in tow), I’m wondering whether this year’s event will make me feel that social media is a movement, a business or just a racket.

No matter what I ultimately conclude from my experience, I can guarantee that this SXSW will be a hotbed of insecurity. When you throw a bunch of people together in one location that have basically only known each other virtually through tweets, posts, videos, comments and check-ins, it’s bound to be awkward. Why else would South By have a session titled “How to not be a Douchebag at SXSW’”? Clearly, attendees are eager to network with old connections and build up new ones, and it does require you to come out of your shell.

Beyond this interpersonal insecurity brought out by the show, there’s the insecurity of being a social media practitioner today. What other field of work can engender so much unease as social media marketing? (Certainly brain surgeons aren’t questioning themselves as much as we do. Or at least I hope they’re not!)

Old school, big ad agencies are wondering if they’re going to be usurped by smaller, more nimble interactive/digital agencies. Traditional PR practitioners (like Charlie Sheen’s publicist) are wondering if social tools are going to put them out of a job. Clients are asking who needs to take responsibility for social media within their organizations – customer service, brand marketing, online, advertising, PR, sales – all, one, a mix of several departments?

So, while we all have some knowledge of the social scene, and name drop (and retweet) to prove our bona fides, social is so all-encompassing, and ever-changing, that total knowledge of the space seems forever out of reach.

Like any other movement, social media marketing has its crusaders. Last year I was underwhelmed by Chris Brogan, Julien Smith and Peter Shankman. They made me feel that social really was becoming a racket in which self-help gurus teach corporate America to act human. Their very authenticity felt disingenuous to me. So, this year I’m avoiding any sessions where self-created Vaynerchuks espouse the virtues of letting it all hang out. This year, I’m focusing on the technologies powering social and how brands are adapting social into how they market.

Admitting that you don’t know everything is the essence to preparing yourself to learn (social media marketing or brain surgery). The risk in admitting this is that it reveals your own insecurities. But, I really enjoy this quote from Hoffer: “In a world of change, the learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned shall find themselves perfectly suited for a world that no longer exists.” As the Tarahumara already know, if you don’t keep running, you die.

Stay tuned for my notes from the show.

Social Media Food for Thought

When I was five, I went to New York City with my family, and I visited the Automat. The Automat is a relic from a bygone era. You put your money into a machine, and out popped your lunch from a special vending machine-like portal. Consumers could see what they were going to order through the window in the portal, and they had a wide variety of choices. Your interaction with a waitress or a waiter was nonexistent. And you had zero control over what toppings you got with your sandwich. So, customization was lost at the expense of convenience in the name of low overhead. 

As a kid I loved the novelty of this experience with a physical machine serving as my connection to my food. But as I grew up, and my tastes grew up with me, I wanted greater choices. Burger King had a memorable campaign with their “have it your way” and I can still recite the McDonald’s sing-song mantra “…pickles, lettuce don’t upset us….” Big brands were beginning to understand that consumers want choices. There is no perfect, only “perfects” to suit all of our individual needs (thank you Malcolm Gladwell).

Fast forward more than 30 years, and I’m back in New York City again, eating at 4food, a new restaurant that is taking over where the Automat left off, with a mission to de-junk fast food in the age of social media. When you enter, you are overwhelmed by a massive video wall that showcases your social check-in on Foursquare back to the lunch crowd. And it’s impressive to see that you can play with iPads that they’ve conveniently placed around the restaurant (just wipe the ketchup off your fingers first). Then you are overwhelmed by how many choices you have to customize your food to your tastes. There are thousands of possible combinations, and the burgers have a big hole in the center just to cram all of those toppings inside (check out the video below).

4food does a great job of manning its social presence, with active engagement on Facebook and Twitter. And in the real world, the staff is friendly and attentive. But 4food runs the risk of providing almost too much choice to meet the new consumer’s need to feel engaged with his food by remixing it into a personal masterpiece. I found myself wanting to order something popular named after a movie star, as I could do at any deli. And I realized, as I ate my personalized burger, that I really didn’t like what I created.

This is a powerful message for anyone working in social media today. Brands can provide the forum and the content for consumers to create something personal for themselves, but ultimately what the consumer creates is the consumer’s responsibility, not the brand’s responsibility. The fact that I didn’t like my burger wasn’t 4food’s fault, it was my fault for not creating something good out of what they had to offer.