What I learned at BlogWell Atlanta
I’ve already posted on the 10,000 foot view, so I wanted to get at about what I actually learned BlogWell Atlanta.
Andy Sernovitz had some important points on ethics and disclosure. He outlined dangers to a brand of not having clear, legal agreements with vendors acting on a brand’s behalf and opined that the new FCC guidelines a positive development for the industry. His belief is that social media will be much better served by government policing than it would by being allowed to evolve on its own the way email did.
There were some compelling BtoB stories. Orange and SunGuard had showed how social media benefited their bottom line through providing helpful information to clients and potential clients.
Also there was a terrific UPS crisis management story. And I enjoyed hearing about Coca-Cola’s Expedition 206 campaign.
But what did I really learn there? That there’s a vibrant community of professionals trying to figure this social media thing out. That it lives beyond the blogs and tweets. That people are engaged, smart, and want to do the right thing. And frankly that’s damn refreshing place to be compared to discussions about direct mail, email marketing, or print advertising. People really are seeing a brighter horizon in this space while in traditional marketing the world is shrinking.
So even if Twitter does turn out to be a stupid fad, I think social media is a pretty great space to be in.
11.11.09Quick take on BlogWell
As an agency professional, I really enjoyed BlogWell. It provided a great insight into how social media efforts are viewed, integrated, and deployed by big brands.
There was a lot of learning to be had from the individual presenters which I’ll go into in a later post. But there were a few 10,000-foot view take aways too.
I was impressed with the level of dialog. No presenter thought that had to tell people why the subject was important or gave a 101. And no remedial questions were asked in the sessions I attended. This to me means that this subject that is so near and dear to us is becoming less esoteric.
None of the case studies were presented as experiments. These were all projects with senior by-in and are being taken seriously as part of a broader communications strategy.
No obsession with ROI that I’ve seen at other venues – mostly coming from agency professionals.
Obviously, this could be an anomaly, but it seems to me on a day in November, in Atlanta, GA, social media had grown up a bit.
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