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Advertising,Blog,Internet

Being the online marketing guru and social media enthusiast that I am, I’m really looking forward to Monday and Tuesday because it is the nextMEDIA conference in Toronto! I’m looking over the schedule and making my picks of what to attend and there are so many interesting things!

Some highlights for me are:

Making Whuffie

Speaker
Tom Jenkins, Executive Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer – Open Text

Online communities are changing culture, business and the environment of Web 2.0. Join Tara Hunt, a true pioneer in online marketing, blogger at horsepigcow.com and the renowned author of The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business, a breakthrough book on community marketing. More recently, Fast Company magazine named Tara Hunt one of 2009’s Most Influential Women in Technology. Find out how to master community marketing, avoid alienating newly emerging sensibilities and succeed in the participatory web economy.

Hunt

Speaker
Tara Hunt, Author – The Whuffie Factor

Casale Media Workshop
The Transition from Content Producer to Breadwinner – Using Advertising to Monetize Your Content Online

In Partnership with:
Casale Media

You had an idea. You turned that idea into content. You put that content up on a website. Now what? How will you translate your up front production efforts into a sustainable business model? How will you finance the everyday operations involved in managing and building on your content base? With advertising, of course! In this workshop, Casale Media’s Alex Gardner will provide you with an introduction to the most widely adopted methods of ad-based online content monetization (including a checklist for assessing your site’s advertiser appeal) and arm you with practical strategies for selecting an ad network best suited to your needs.

• What are my options for building an advertising-based monetization strategy?
• How do I assess the advertising revenue potential of my website?
• What is an ad network and how do I differentiate between the options?
• How do ad networks work with content producers?
• What are the benefits and challenges of working with an ad network?

Book this session.

Gardner

Speaker
Alex Gardner, Director of Publisher Relations – Casale Media

Keynote
Stop Advertising and Start Socializing

In Partnership with:
First Maximilian Associates

A consumer demanding more for less, buying value and values, and leveraging their social network to make decisions, a retail infrastructure consolidating its power base, looking to their own labels for differentiation, and in turn setting an ever increasing access tax for National Brands, and a media landscape that is cluttered, fragmented and lacking scale presents the perfect storm for organizations. To survive organizations will need to adapt their marketing process, and how they are structured to deploy it. They will move from spending to investing marketing dollars and will need a model that is actionable, measurable and accountable. Marketing budgets will no longer be capped but instead be deployed continuously until they stop generating a return on investment. Our guest speaker, Tony Chapman will delve into such question as:

• Will Canadian marketing offices survive in this flight to efficiency and global consolidation?
• Is social media the flavor of the month, or will it become the definitive channel for communication?
• How will organizations and their agencies have to reorganize to adapt to a faster, better and more efficient model?
• What role will mobility play in how consumer’s perceptions are shaped, and behavior is motivated?
• Do you think mass media can survive? If so which ones?

Chapman

Speaker
Tony Chapman, Founder and CEO – Capital C

Trendsetting: Digital Youth Uncut

It’s no secret that today’s youth presents a significant opportunity to savvy content producers who understand the lay of this new land. Young people’s use of digital media, from their appetite for free online content to the popularity of videogames, continues to redefine what it means to ‘watch television.’ This presentation will examine the core digital life and media trends in this demographic including an in-depth look at the Millennials, their growing appetite for mobile programming, online video, bite size programming and what this means for content producers. Consider such questions as:

• Who are the Millenials?
• What are their content expectations?
• How do they use different platforms to create their custom content menus?

Yigit

Speaker
Kaan Yigit, Founder and President – Solutions Research Group

TV Reframed
Who Said TV is Anti-Social?

In Partnership with:
Banff World Television Festival

The shared TV experience is returning, in a new form. The typical family room is being replaced by online virtual communities accessed through personal devices. These communities continue to amass millions of more members each week, and as the Internet finally comes to our living rooms with a new generation of devices like Boxee, it’s only a matter of time before television becomes social and social. This workshop will assess the partnership of social media and TV: will social media interactivity bring unique value to TV users?

• How can you connect TV channels and shows with Facebook, Twitter and Google to engage today’s masses?
• Will social media interactivity bring unique value for TV users?
• What does the social media sector offer the TV industry?
• What social TV apps are available for Integration?
• Are social networks the new entrant to the video market? Will social networks be a platform for future TV content delivery?
• What opportunity does this present for targeted advertising and bespoke TV programming?
• Who will benefit from the parasitical relationship of social media and TV?

Book this session.

Fox
Scissons
Sotto
MacArthur

Moderator
Amber MacArthur, New Media Journalist – Webnation for DiscoveryChannel.ca and CP24

Speaker
Maggie Fox, Founder and CEO – Social Media Group
Michael Scissons, President & Chief Executive Officer – Syncapse
Elmer Sotto, Head of Growth – Facebook Canada

PWC Workshop
$ Who’s Spending, Who Isn’t – The Next 5 Years in Entertainment and Media

In Partnership with:
PricewaterhouseCoopers

The nextMEDIA master class series includes interactive discussion and hands-on tutorials, uncovering key skills needed by 21st century digital executives. In collaboration with PWC, Michael Paterson will discuss the 2009- 2013 Global Entertainment and Media Outlook, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ independent forecast of spending for the next five years in 12 entertainment and media industry segments. In this data rich presentation you’ll understand how unprecedented economic conditions and technological change will significantly impact prospects in the near term for media companies and may expose long term weaknesses in some traditional media sectors. Book this session.

Paterson

Speaker
Michael Paterson, Partner, Canadian Entertainment & Media Practice – PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

NEW! On Radar…..Companies & Change Agents

In Partnership with:
Ontario College of Art & Design

Partner Introduction: Sara Diamond, President

Welcome to nextMEDIA’s On Radar sessions, featuring the companies, gizmos and gadgets that need to be on your radar.

Avner Ronen, CEO & Co-Founder, Boxee
Named one of Rolling Stone’s “Agents of Change” for 2009, Ronen’s Boxee is software that is revolutionizing the way we entertain ourselves online.
Brian Nilles, CEO, Darwin Dimensions
Evolver.com has enabled the world’s population to become Visual Effects Artists and create stunningly beautiful 3D Avatars for use in high growth markets including Social Media, Virtual Worlds, Online Games, others.
Ori Inbar, Co-Founder, Ogmento
Prepare to have your reality reinvented! Ogmento is the driving force behind ground-breaking Augmented Reality (AR) and is already bringing revenue. Learn what AR is and how it’s done.
Chul Lee, Chief Technology Officer, Thoora
Thoora helps people discover the news attracting the most attention within social and traditional media by exploring the entire blogosphere, Twitter and thousands of traditional media sources.
Peter Sweeney, Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Primal Fusion Inc.
Primal Fusion is in the business of blowing minds! Just what is Thought Networking and how is it changing the face of social media?

Nilles
Roks
Inbar
Ronen
Sweeney

Moderator
Jason Roks, Founder – Zero In Inc.

Participants
Ori Inbar, Co-Founder & CEO – Ogmento
Brian Nilles, CEO – Darwin Dimensions Inc.
Avner Ronen, CEO and Co-Founder – Boxee
Peter Sweeney, Founder & Chief Technology Officer – Primal Fusion Inc.

Keynote
Creating Conversations

In Partnership with:
Kijiji Canada

Partner Introduction: Eric Pierni, Head of Advertising

Companies still struggle to understand online marketing as a new generation of digital opportunities unfolds. Consumers have never been so powerful, nor have they ever been so connected. Mitch Joel unravels the fascinating world of New Media. Learn how these marketing touch points are creating conversations in which the results are staggering and loyalty is off the charts. Words like Social Media and Web 2.0 control every boardroom discussion in relation to growing market shares and new marketing opportunities. Learn how to take part in these communities and conversations.

Joel

Speaker
Mitch Joel, President – Twist Image

Keynote
Digital Media and the Next Generation Social Web

In Partnership with:
Canadian Innovation Exchange

Partner Introduction: Robert Montgomery, CEO – Achilles Media Ltd. and First Maximilian Associates Inc.

As the Internet evolves, changing consumer behavior is having a direct impact on the types of systems and processes that media and marketing organizations must put in place to successfully reach target audiences. Tape-based workflows are being superseded by file-based workflows. Creative artifacts once deemed extraneous and left unmanaged are becoming critical intellectual property assets. Social networks and modern engagement styles are setting the bar higher for more compelling, immersive user experiences. Non-linear, digital distribution will ultimately characterize the manner in which a majority of media content is disseminated. A population with increasingly-sophisticated mobile devices will connect to a range of media-centric Cloud services, challenging and eventually leading to the obsolescence of many traditional services. Join us as we explore these trends, their implications for media and marketing organizations in the future, and the implied opportunity for digital media.

Jenkins

I’m also looking forward to meeting all of the other people who work in the industry and are working in similar positions to me.

Blog,Internet

Social Media Marketing Meets Huge Growth
‘Digital word of mouth’ changing the face of business
By Cindy Chan
Epoch Times Staff Oct 14, 2009

Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone, at the Twitter Conference in Los Angeles on Sept. 22, 2009. The free social networking and micro-blogging service allows users to post messages of 140 characters or less, known as ‘tweets.’ It has attracted tens of millions of users since its launch in August 2006. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)

As the digital age offers burgeoning choices for people to network online, businesses are increasingly turning to social media like Facebook, Twitter, and blogs to do their advertising and marketing.

Combined with or as an alternative to traditional print, radio, and television, social media marketing is “a market that’s in huge growth right now,” said Dan Martell, an award-winning entrepreneur in the field of social networking innovations.

“We call it ‘digital word of mouth,’ because with social media, if you have a compelling message, with the new tools it allows people to share and essentially create a ‘word of quick marketing’ using digital online as a platform.”

Mr. Martell’s expertise has helped his brother’s company in “an industry that’s very old and archaic” thrive in leaps and bounds.

Pierre Martell owns Martell Home Builders, a construction company in Moncton, New Brunswick, that specializes in the promise that it can build a new home in 99 days.

The company is on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube; runs a blog; and lets buyers follow their home construction progress online, get pictures, and post comments.

“Not only has [Pierre] seen amazing results in his ability to engage with his customers in the market, he’s also seen that translate into real dollars and cents where he’s one of the fastest growing homebuilders in Canada right now,” said Mr. Martell.

Social media is changing the way business is done, he said.

Beyond providing one-way information to the public, “it’s created an opportunity for companies that have the right culture and right brand to build a culture of transparency, and communicate at a frequency that’s never been seen before.”

Companies can have personal dialogues with contacts, resolve problems in real time, and improve their services all around.

“It allows people to know, like, and trust them at a faster pace,” he said.

Find the best fit and plan it out

Chris Burdge agrees. The president of BWEST, a Victoria, B.C.-based consulting firm that helps companies market their business using social media, email, and emerging web technology, Mr. Burdge said that for best results, companies must plan their entry into social media carefully, build a strategy, and then dedicate the resources.

“It’s like any other marketing vehicle. You want to figure out ‘who are we talking to,’ ‘where we are best going to reach them,’ ‘how it’s going to be most effective,’ and plan it out.”

While social media is free, an investment of time—and lots of it—is necessary if it’s going to be used as a marketing channel, Mr. Burdge said.

With the vast range of social networking tools and sites available, which one is the most effective?

“You really need to figure out what social platform is best for the characteristic of that person or that business owner,” said Mr. Martell.

He suggests Facebook for people who like to share information about themselves and things that interest them. For example, customers can follow a company’s fan page as it provides daily updates about its business and ways that people can save time and money in that industry.

YouTube would be a good option for those who like to be in front of a camera, he said. Companies can post corporate videos, everything from executive presentations and event highlights to segments for marketing, training, and customer self-help.

Those who like to write may consider setting up a blog or going on Twitter, which allows people to write short messages of up to 140 characters.

Companies can also post audio and video podcasts on their blogs and have updates instantly delivered to subscribers, Mr. Burdge said.

Among the numerous social media networks out there, LinkedIn has been around the longest, he noted. Over 45 million people worldwide use LinkedIn to make business contacts, according to its website.

And with a service called Ning.com, people can create their own Facebook-like social networks for their own business, hobby, or other interests, said Mr. Burdge.

Businesses of all sizes on board

While Canadians are the heaviest users of Facebook per capita, “there’s no more time investment for [someone] to communicate with one customer who is following him on Facebook, or 10,000,” Mr. Martell said.

To incorporate all this information into a company’s or an individual’s knowledge base, Flowtown, a firm that Mr. Martell co-founded, has built a tool for analyzing the emails of contacts so that connections can be automated and relationships further developed.

Last year, at age 28, he was among 12 winners of the Business Development Bank of Canada’s Young Entrepreneur Awards during its annual Small Business Week. This year’s Small Business Week takes place October 18 to 24.

But social media marketing is not only flourishing among small and medium-sized businesses. Big brands and established companies are also using it, such as Dell, General Mills, Ford, Cirque du Soleil, UPS, Home Depot, Coca Cola, Virgin America, and others, offering special deals as well as forums and other channels to interact with their communities.

U.K.-based comScore did a study in May 2009 on the 1.1 billion people age 15 and older in 40 countries who accessed the Internet from a home or work location.

It found that two-thirds visited at least one social networking site that month, and ranked Canada as the third most engaged social networking audience, following Russia and Brazil, with visitors each spending an average of 5.6 hours and viewing 649 pages per month.

Blog,Internet,Music

I think it’s important when using social network tools like Twitter that with tools like tweetback it can cause you to become very disconneted from your audience. This article helped to remind me as an artist about how to use tools like Twitter… and that this is only the beginning! (how exciting! :))

From: Amanda Palmer
Subject: twitter power, or “how an indie musician can make $19,000 in 10 hours using twitter”

this story has just been blowing people’s minds so i figures i should write it down.

1.
FRIDAY NIGHT LOSERS T-SHIRT, $11,000

about a month ago, i was at home on a friday night (loser that i often am when i’m not touring, i almost never go out) and was, of course, on my mac, shifting between emails, links and occasionally doing some dishes and packing for a trip the next day. just a usual friday-night-rock-star-multi-tasking extravaganza.

i twitter whenever i’m online, i love the way it gives me a direct line of communication with my fans and friends.

i had already seen the power of twitter while touring…using twitter i’d gathered crowds of sometimes 200 fans with a DAY’S notice to come out and meet me in public spaces (parks, mostly) where i would play ukulele, sign, hug, take pictures, eat cake, and generally hang out and connect. this was especially helpful in the cities where we’d been unable to book all-ages gigs and there were crushed teenagers who were really grateful to have a shot at connecting with me & the community of amanda/dolls fans.

i’d also been using twitter to organize ACTUAL last-minute gigs…i twittered a secret gig in LA one morning and about 350 folks showed up 5 hours later at a warehouse space….i played piano, filmed by current.tv, and then (different camera crew) did an interview with afterellen.com.
the important thing to undertsand here is that the fans were never part of the plan..,i basically just INVITED my fans to a press day, the press didnt’ plan it…i did.
i was going to be playing in an empty room and doing q&a with afterellen on a coach with only the camera watching.
it was like….why not tell people and do this in a warehouse instead of a hotel lobby or a blank studio? so i did.

it cost me almost nothing. the fans were psyched.

but back to the bigger, cooler story….

so there i am, alone on friday night and i make a joke on twitter (which goes out to whichever of my 30,000 followers are online):

“i hereby call THE LOSERS OF FRIDAY NIGHT ON THEIR COMPUTERS to ORDER, motherfucker.”
9:15 PM May 15th from web

one thing led to another, and the next thing you know there were thousands of us and we’d become the #1 topic trend on twitter.
zoe keating described it as a “virtual flash mob”.

the way twitter works (if you don’t have it) is that certain topics can include a hashtag (#) and if a gazillion people start making posts that include that hashtag, the topic will zoom up the charts of what people are currently discussing. it’s a cool feature.

so anyway, there we were, virtually hanging out on twitter on a friday night. very pleased with ourselves for being such a large group, and cracking jokes.

how do you “hang out” on the internet? well, we collectively came up with a list of things that the government should do for us (free government-issued sweatpants, pizza and ponies, no tax on coffee), AND created a t-shirt.
thank god my web guy sean was awake and being a loser with me on friday night because he throw up the webpage WHILE we were having our twitter party and people started ordering the shirts – that i designed in SHARPIE in realtime) and a slogan that someone suggested: “DON’T STAND UP FOR WHAT’S RIGHT, STAY IN FOR WHAT’S WRONG”. neil gaiman and wil wheaton joined our party. the fdnas felt super-special.

by the end of the night, we’d sold 200 shirts off the quickie site (paypal only) that sean had set up.
i blogged the whole story the next day and in total, in the matter of a few days, we sold over 400 shirts, for $25/ea.

we ended up grossing OVER $11,000 on the shirts.
my assistant beth had the shirts printed up ASAP and mailed them from her apartment.

total made on twitter in two hours = $11,000.
total made from my huge-ass ben-folds produced-major-label solo album this year = $0

2.
WEBCAST AUCTION, $6000

a few nights after that, i blogged and twittered, announcing a “webcast auction” from my apartment.
it went from 6 pm – 9 pm, my assitant beth sat at my side and kept her eyes on incoming bids and twitter feed.
while we hocked weird goods, i sang songs and answered questions from fans. we wore kimonos and drank wine. it was a blast.

people on twitter who were tuned in re-tweeted to other fans. the word spread that it was a fun place to be and watch.
we had, at peak, about 2000 people watching the webcast.

at the suggestion of a fan early in the webcastm anyone could, on demand, send us $20 via paypal and we would chew,
sign and mail them a postcard. we sold about 70, and we read all those names at the end of the webcast and thanked those
people for supporting us. here’s how the sales broke down:

all the items were signed by moi and hand-packed by beth and kayla._ the items and highest bidders were as follows:_ hilary, ukulele used on the european tour: $640 _jake, “guitar hero” plastic guitar controller used in album promo shoot: $250_ lary b, copy neo2 magazine, plus two post-war trade slap-bracelets & a crime-photo set: $230_ devi, glass dildo, with subtley-sordid backstory: $560 _liz b., “hipsters ruin everything” t-shirt, made by blake (get your very own here!!!!): $155.55_shannon m., my bill bryson book, a short history of neary everything: $280_ nikki, huge metal “the establishment” sign, used at rothbury festival for the circus tent i curated: $450 _j.r., purple velvet “A” dress used in the dresden dolls coin-operated boy video shoot: $400_ jessie & alan: who killed amanda palmer vinyl: $100_ nikki: wine bottle, auctioned BY REQUEST!!! $320 _shannon w., torn-to-shit vintage stockings used in the who killed amanda palmer/ michael pope video series: $200 _jodi,
school-note-book break-up letter, written to amanda from jonas woolverton in 7th grade (i still haven’t emailed him about that….): $250_ daryl, ANOTHER wine bottle, by request, that we had LYING AROUND: $320
and…………..
reto emailed, having barely missed the wine bottle, and asked us to send him “something funny” for $129.99. we sent a heath ledger statuette.

total made on twitter in 3 hours, including the postcards, was over $6000.
again, total made on my major-label solo album this year: $0

3.
TWITTER DONATION-ONLY GIG, $1800

a few days later, i twittered a guest-list only event in a recording studio in boston, to take place a week later.
the gig lasted about 5 hours, all told, with soundcheck and signing. i took mostly requests and we had a grand old time.
first come, first served. the first 200 people to ask got in, for free. i asked for donations and made about $2200 in cash.
i gave $400 back to the studio for the space and the help. we sold some weird merch. i think we should call it an even 2k.

total made at last-minute secret twitter gig, in about 5 hours = $2000
major-label record blah blah blah = $0

…..and for fun, and to thank my fans for being awesome, i’ve been doing some twitter perfomance art, including answering their questions by magic-markering my body until it’s covered, and displaying time-lapse make-up application advice….but that’s another story.

TOTAL MADE THIS MONTH USING TWITTER = $19,000
TOTAL MADE FROM 30,000 RECORD SALES = ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

turn on, tune in, get dropped!!!!!

love,
amanda fucking palmer
http://www.amandapalmer.net
http://www.dresdendolls.com

p.s.
if you want to read the full blogs and see the pictures from the #LOFNOTC events, i blogged here:

1. the friday night that started it all:
http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/111667948/twitter-the-beautiful-losers-lofnotc

2. the webcast and magic-marker/make-up mayhem:
http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/127401792/wasnt-this-supposed-to-be-my-fucking-week-off

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AUTHOR

Lisa Bassett is a Digital Marketing and Social Media professional from Toronto, Canada.

LisaBassett.com | Twitter | Linkedin | Facebook |