Last week I finally made my first trip to the Geekfest that is South By Southwest. And if SXSW really is a sign of what’s to come, there were some interesting trends that marketers should be following.
1 – Twitter was everywhere. Often I would be talking to several people at once, and someone would pull out their phone then announce to the group what someone had just said on Twitter. Last Tuesday, I went to attend a panel on new media in entertainment. When I arrived in the room, there were maybe a dozen people in the audience. But apparently, Robert Scoble had been added as a panelist at the last minute and wasn’t listed in the program. I immediately told everyone on Twitter that he was there, and within minutes the room was almost full. Not saying they all say my tweet, but I’m sure many of them did.
Kami Huyse even tweeted to her followers DURING our panel asking them if there were any topics we should be covering.
2 – As much as we geeks love communicating online, we seem to love offline meetups even more. There were several companies and groups that were smart enough to realize this, and hosted meetups/parties for us. A great way for sponsors to create a fun time for everyone, and leave us with a positive impression of them. Chris Brogan has a great writeup of a party he attended on the last night of the interactive portion of SXSW. He adds:
“I want to encourage companies thinking of creative ways to get involved with conferences to think about throwing a Rock Band party. For the dollars spent, I promise you that it was one of the most memorable nights ever. I think that bringing an experience to an event far trumps a simple branding effort these days. Agree?”
But perhaps the biggest takeaway for me was…
3 – Bloggers are incredibly social and incredibly good people. Well at least the ones at SXSW were 
It was like one big happy family, and it really did feel like a community. Marketers need to realize this and understand that we care about each other, and aren’t going to accept you into our family unless you enter on terms that serve the greater community, and are willing to listen first, and market later. I will have to praise Dell here, as Richard Binhammer, John Pope, Amie Paxton, Laura Thomas and Lionel Menchaca were all active at SXSW, and were quite popular with SXSW attendees.
If SXSW is a glimpse into the future, it seems that we are in for faster communication tools and more willingness by companies to involve customers and communities in their marketing. I’m ok with that.
Mack: Did you start to find all the tweeting disconcerting? I just have this vision of 200 people in an auditorium with blackberries, iphones and laptops out, all tweeting away and ignoring the speaker. An exaggeration, I realize, but still…
I’m still wondering too if Twitter has much life beyond a bunch of self-promoting new media types and people who are already prone to blogging.
I think people were paying attention, because they were wanting to share the ‘high points’ with everyone on Twitter. For me I was having trouble using the wifi the whole time, so often I had to close the laptop and actually listen to the panel
I am always amazed at how well techno-geeks can multi-task. I’m in a conference session now commenting on your blog, Mack. But, that’s because I’m not 100% engaged on the content at this moment. I needed a diversion.
LOL! Elaine does it look like anyone else is on Twitter in the audience?
I tweeted during our panel because I think that it is important to pay attention to the back channel. You have to know your audience and use THEIR communication tools. At SXSW it was Twitter, a week earlier at the Texas Public Relations Association meeting, Twitter wasn’t really in play. So, I didn’t use it.
Kami I think that was a good example of understanding the audience at SXSW. I heard rumors that this was a problem for some speakers there
Wish we could have met in person!
Gotta love SXSW.
Hi Mack
enjoyed this write up and I too love making the online relationships vibrant and real in the real world too. Thrilled you got to meet more of the Dell team, as we grow and seek to listen and learn from more and more people…and forge ahead in this field
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