STRATEGIST // Spring 2012

Volume 1 // issue 1 // spring 2012

BRAND JOURNALISM’S dissipating TABOOS

Contently

STRATEGIST

Volume 1.01

EDITORIAL PUBLISHER

Shane Snow | shane@contently.com Executive editor

Sam Slaughter | sam@contently.com Community editor

Erica Swallow | erica@contently.com

Published by Contently, Inc. 888C Eighth Avenue Suite 309 New York, NY 10019 press@contently.com

Images & Design Merrick Ales, Saron Yitbarek, Shane Snow Cover photo by Zak Cassar

contact & FEEDBACK www.contently.com | press@contently.com

Special thanks to klout

www.klout.com jones-Dilworth

www.jones-dilworth.com

Š Contently, Inc. 2012.

All rights are reserved.

The greatest care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of information in this magazine at time of printing, but we acknowledge potential errors may exist and will print any corrections at contently.com/blog.

Contently

46

CONTAGIOUS INNOVATION How SXSWi has turned into a petri dish for brand experiments.

52 54

“YOU CAN NEVER GO BACK” The disappearing taboos among journalists working for brands.

PARTY DOWN The parallels between free beer and great content.

58

THE 10 MOST CLEVER CONTENT MARKETING IDEAS AT SXSW How Chevy, NASA, Pepsi and others cut through the clutter.

contents

13

Primer State of the Content Industry 3 Keys to Content Marketing Success Big on Pinterest Gaming + Content Marketing = Win

25

insights

How to Read the World On Beethoven & Brand Patterns We’re All Publishers Now Turning Fans Into Advocates Journalism’s Design Problem Dominating Next-Gen Media Curators VS. The Curated Tim O’Reilly: Creating Value Attack of the Daddy Bloggers Can Syndication Save Content?

Content for Social Change Content Strategy For Interface Getting Content Users Addicted Visual Storytelling Content Strategy & The Movies

08 >>> Contents

How this magazine was made in 10 days (entirely with freelancers)

Day 1: Inspiration struck.

Contently editors pored over the SXSWi schedule and brainstormed topics, adding story ideas to the editorial calendar.

Day 2: Contently’s database was searched for available, relevant journalists in Austin, Texas. A team was built as freelance reporters signed on

(contently dashboard)

to the project.

Days 3-7: Reporters wrote and ďŹ led through Contently’s editorial management system.

Questions, changes, and new assignments were organized and discussed via the Contently dashboard.

Days 5-9: Editors edited, managed revisions, and approved stories. Writers got paid immediately, online. Contently output the stories to the web and PDF for the magazine. Contently editors stayed up late pasting stories into InDesign.

Day 10: One thousand copies went to press.

Learn more at www.contently.com

From the Publisher When I started skateboarding as a teenager, my whole view of the world changed. I suddenly noticed outdoor architecture, gained appreciation for clever landscaping. My subconscious converted everything into a skate park. Parking lots became opportunities.

Concrete steps and metal rails, challenges.

It’s amazing what you see when you know what to look for.

At this year’s South by Southwest Interactive festival, my thoughts were consumed by “content marketing,” a buzzword that’s surged in popularity over the last 18 months, and the subject of this magazine. We’d made plans to swarm the five-day Interactive conference with reporters from our freelance network as a case study of the technology we’ve built at my company, Contently. The goal: showcase examples of brands seizing clever content opportunities.

By the end of the festival, I’d doubled the number of assignments I’d originally intended.

Throughout the event, we “heard” content marketing in places we didn’t expect, like Funny or Die’s panel on the future of comedy and Baratunde Thurston’s keynote, “How To Read The World.” We scaled up our effort with more, Austin-based journalists from our database, dispatched photographers at the last minute, and skipped Al Gore’s keynote to do interviews. And yet, on my way back to New York, I was twitching at the thought of the many more stories that should have made it into this publication.

SXSWi is made possible by some of the most forward-thinking brands in the world. As social media upends everything we thought we knew about marketing, innovative brands are figuring out that creating interesting, enriching content and engaging experiences trumps traditional, one-way marketeering and shortcuts the path to loyalty acquisition and perception shift – in an incredibly cost-effective way.

This magazine is not only proof of the power of the freelance movement; it’s a testament to the way brands are thinking outside of the box, challenging the world’s best publications by creating amazing content. I hope the following stories inspire you to add a content strategist’s lens to your own marketing toolkit.

The world is your half-pipe. If you choose to see it that way.

Shane D. Snow

Shane D. Snow, publisher and co-founder of Contently,

from the publisher <<< 11

Primer op-ed & commentary Photo by Merrick Ales

The State Of The Content Industry

by Patrick Burke

From Napster to Craigslist, Netflix to mommy blogs, perhaps no industry has been as severely disrupted in the past two decades as media.

Content continues to evolve at a rapid pace, changing the way information is compiled, consumed, shared and monetized. At the 2012 SXSW Interactive festival, media mogul Barry Diller offered some words of warning to those unprepared for the seachange: “Unless you are adapting every day to what is possible, you really will be wiped away.”

At the forefront of this shift is the reemergence of original, quality content and the surge in brands acting as publishers.

Add to this changing landscape a redefining of journalism, shaped by social media, and the latest disruption in the broadcast industry, and media analysts see an industry that is both exciting and unsettling.

Original quality content is taking back the web Katrina Wong, vice president of marketing at Socialbakers, a social media statistics portal, says now is a particularly exciting time for the content industry.

“Companies and individuals cannot underestimate the value of quality content,” Wong says. “The most successful companies... are those that are able to relate their product, message or personnel to more pertinent industry trends.”

Loyalty is the new currency in online publishing. No longer are SEO loopholes the paths to content discovery. Relevant, engag14 >>> primer

”Unless you are ad you will be wiped a

dapting every day, away.” -Barry Diller

ing and rewarding content brings impressions through social media and builds fans.

Consumers may look elsewhere, and today Google may point them elsewhere if a website doesn’t put an emphasis on quality content, according to Internet marketer Chris Horton.

“People can’t stop talking about the tech giant’s dramatic shift in favor of fresh and original online content for its search engine,” Horton writes in a recent blog post.

Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence website rankings more than any of the other factors discussed in Google’s SEO best practices, Horton says.

Google favors quality content for three reasons: to improve user experience, refine ad targeting and create artificial intelligence knowledge graphs, Horton says.

Brands are driving business value by becoming publishers Brands are finding new, unique ways to use content and social media to drive serious business value.

“Social media is not about quantity or spamming users. In fact, it is the exact opposite. What separates those [brands] with millions of fans, versus those that fall on their face, is the ability to focus on providing meaningful content,” Wong says.

The surge in brand publishing is due in large part to the consumer hype of social media, but some brands are finding content a cost-effective alternative to ads.

Parker Ward, digital content manager at Weber Shandwick, recently told Advertising Age that stats show effective content costs less to bring a visitor to a brand than display advertising.

Journalists are building careers out of social media Those who aspire to carry on the tradition of journalism are alive and well. Yet Robert Niles of the Online Journalism Review, armed with some bleak statistics on the newspaper industry, calls print journalism, and newspapers in particular, the fastest-dying industry in America.

“As far as jobs go, this is – literally – the worst part of the worst industry in the worst primer <<< 15

“The most successful companies are those that are able to relate their message to more pertinent industry trends.” -Katrina Wong economy since the Great Depression,” he says.

And on the other end of the job spectrum?

“Take a look at the top three growing industries over the past five years.

There’s the Internet at No. 2 and Online Publishing at No. 3. That’s the future of journalism education right there,” he says.

Social media and digital content are providing new opportunities for beleaguered journalists, some of the most trusted of whom now break news and get scoops via Twitter and Facebook.

Online journalist directory Muck Rack, for example, monitors and ranks journalists’ social media activity in real time and shows that journalists are among the most active and 16 >>> primer

followed users on Twitter, apart from celebrities.

Broadcast is the next big disruption Diller, the man responsible for, among other accomplishments, greenlighting “The Simpsons” while running Fox more than 20 years ago, has returned his focus to broadcast television. But this time he’s looking to upend the status quo with the introduction of a web-based television service called Aereo.

“The closed hegemony of cable, etc., is going to break up over time. People are going to access content a la carte,” Diller told CNN Chief Business Correspondent Ali Velshi at SXSW. Aereo is delivered through quarterinch antennas that are placed in data

centers. The service uses the existing signal in a city and allows consumers to bypass the costs of cable and satellite service.

“Behind the simplicity is a lot of technology,” Diller says. “So Aereo is really a brilliant end-run around the TV licensing and rights issues.”

Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, during an interview with Emmy award winning journalist Charlie Rose, predicted this impending disruption of the TV industry.

“The Internet is going to have a bigger impact on content creators than the television ever had,” he says. “And by the way, I think there’s going to be a number of winners. This is an immense, immense industry.”

Big on Pinterest (Marketing) Social media maven Gary Vaynerchuk weighs in on the latest fad network.

Q: How should brands be thinking about Pinterest as a marketing vehicle?

“They should think about it the way we think about any new social platform – which is, become part of the community instead of just talking. Recognize that after you become a member of this community, then you can talk and say what you need to. So in a Pinterest world, this means that you need to make sure you are repinning and commenting – not just pushing out your own content.”

Q: What’s the most interesting thing you’ve seen a brand do on Pinterest?

“The brands that have gone out there and proactively been pinning other content and acting human have been most exciting. I have fun with my own wine boards and have done give-aways on them, which has been great!”

Q: What should brands NOT do when it comes to Pinterest?

“At the end of the day content is king, even though I’m obsessed with context.

You are always one or two big pieces of content away from garnering great word of mouth.”

-Gary Vaynerchuk

“Create eight boards that they categorize based on their agenda and only pin their stuff.”

primer <<< 17

3 Keys To Content Marketing Success with

Josh Jones-Dilworth is the founder and CEO of Jones-Dilworth, Inc., a communications firm focused on bringing early-stage technologies to market.

C

ontent marketing is in vogue, and for good reason.

These days, I often joke that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re no longer in the communications business, but rather in the content creation business.

High-fidelity content spreads messages and communicates with better resolution than most other vehicles â&#x20AC;&#x201C; across the marketing spectrum. Bold predictions, insightful reports from the field, and advice and enablement will never go out of style.

Here are three keys to success

18 >>> Primer

as you begin on your content marketing journey. These are all things that our clients and partners often learn the hard way.

Credibility First, Credibility Always No matter what type of content you are creating, or who is creating it (a full time employee, part-time employee, or freelancer), the temptation early on is always to emphasize visibility over credibility, when it should be the other way around. This is your brand on the line. You

have to walk before you run. Resist the temptation to imbue your content with too much marketing early on. Focus on quality and trust.

But wait, isn’t this all about content marketing? Why are you telling me not to market?

There is a big difference between using great content to market effectively, and pushing out marketing messages in a disguise of content. The former is good content marketing, and the latter is just annoying.

Further, too much marketing just isn’t credible. All of the clients and brands we advise hear the same thing

erage to essentially create articles and videos about yourself that you always wished had been written or filmed.

Great content marketing requires a certain discipline, stemming from the understanding that journalistic rigor actually converts far better than copy and clever calls to action.

Cross-functional Alignment One of the things people underestimate the most about their commitment to content marketing is how much of a conceptual renovation needs to happen cross-functionally across an organization in order for a content marketing

cause you’re not going through a third party (the press, influencers, broadcasters, etc.), content marketing embodies you and your company, in the raw.

This is an advantage and an opportunity. Letting your audience see you as yourself, letting them behind the iron curtain, so to speak – it’s an act of opening up and affecting a transition from a closed organization to an open one, in full view of the public. It’s a powerful gesture that can reinvigorate a brand.

Sound daunting? Be careful. You won’t do well to micromanage your content marketing either. Since the

“High-fidelity content spreads messages and communicates with better resolution than most any other vehicle across the marketing spectrum.” from us – the content you create as a company for content marketing purposes should uphold journalistic standards stringently.

In fact, you may even do well to draw more conservative lines in the sand than your competitors, or journalists themselves. Content is only convincing if it’s credible. And it’s only credible if it is taken seriously – that means it has a voice and a perspective certainly, but it also means that it is well researched, based in fact, cites multiple third-party sources and resources, and doesn’t sell much at all.

Of course, it’s alluring to think about “owning” a media site or an atom of media influence, and using that lev20 >>> primer

program to be successful.

Content marketing isn’t merely about hiring a writer or a filmmaker and waiting for the eyeballs to roll in.

From the very top, at the C-suite, to your most junior marketers and copywriters, your content marketing strategy needs to be aligned with corporate goals in an unusually deliberate way, and individual roles need to extend beyond traditional job descriptions. Don’t put your content baby in a corner.

Why? The upside is, if you’re successful, your content will spread widely. If you’re lucky, it will be picked up by other sources, linked to, cited, quoted, and shared with abandon. But precisely be-

stakes have increased, the temptation here is to exercise control.

The very best content marketers and content marketing programs are underwritten by a strong statement of goals, brand pillars that express consistent values, and at least a developing notion of voice. Content marketing can be a wonderful forcing function for you and your team to get on the same page and orient around real objectives.

But once those objectives are set and you’ve selected your constraints, give your content marketing roles some autonomy – don’t “tame their wildness” unnecessarily, or you’ll end up with watered-down mediocrity.

The takeaway? Great content mar-

keting doesn’t happen in a silo. By its very nature it breaks down traditional departmental bureaucracies, and commits the whole organization to excellence and transparency (literal and figurative). The only way you straddle the fence between risk-tolerance and risk-aversion is to create unusually good communication and internal roles whose mandate is to precisely have a foot in multiple worlds.

A Culture of Intellect One of the best byproducts of content marketing is how it challenges you and your team. You may be keeping a typical corporate blog, but if you’re taking the notion of content marketing seriously, you’re not just blogging anymore. You’re setting a high bar for yourself – maybe even higher than it has ever been – in the hopes of becoming a go-to resource for your audience.

Cutting out the middle-man sounds great on paper, but it only works if you have smart content.

I say “smart” on purpose. Too many content marketers underestimate their audience, and even talk down to them.

One of the lessons we have learned in our own efforts is to assume the very best, and to challenge and inspire whenever and wherever possible. Readers and viewers have so many choices these days. And even if your niche or vertical is under-serviced with sparse content, being smart and displaying smarts is of unusual value. This applies universally.

One of the things you’re going to need to do in order to pull off this kind of content is establish and maintain a culture of intellect. That doesn’t mean you have to be “academic.” Note the difference.

Content that is defining and visionary and insightful sells itself. You and your team need to be always thinking and always brainstorming and always throwing spaghetti against the wall. As in any good newsroom, the majority of your ideas will be discarded.

“We marketers can be fairly accused of churning out more than our share of shitty content over the years; now it’s time to step up.”

You need a tribunal of ideas, one that never starts or stops. Great ideas and smarts on display need to be encouraged, rewarded, and made habitual. If being smart ends up feeling like superhero work then as an organization or team, you’ve failed.

Being smart can be the difference between a successful content marketing program and an unsuccessful one.

Again, “smart” doesn’t mean pedantic, or dense, or full of jargon; smart means fresh and unique and compelling.

Zooming out a bit, as a marketer, the discipline of content marketing requires that you move upstream, and earlier in the life cycle. You’re not just packaging and distributing a product – you’re creating one now, too. Your content is your product. You absolutely have to think about it that way. That requires a very different mindset and a very different expectation internally.

We marketers can be fairly accused of churning out more than our share of shitty content over the years; now it’s time to step up. Hire more for intellect in the future, and encourage intellectual behavior among your colleagues now.

Today, getting started in content marketing is easier than ever, and innovative startups are making the process as plug-and-play as you could ever want.

At the same time, convienently, the pendulum is swinging back from so many aggregators and content farms to high-fidelity content.

That combination of turnkey production and increasing demand puts us all in a great spot. Quality content can be done at scale by almost anyone. But you absolutely have to commit to the three principles above, or you’ll lose the trust of your audience and your users very quickly.

Because the barriers to entry in content marketing have been lowered, the burden to go above and beyond is even greater. primer <<< 21

Gaming + Content Marketing = Win

INTERVIEW JAMIN WARREN, FORMER WSJ REPORTER AND FOUNDER OF KILL SCREEN

How do you see brands integrating themselves in the gaming industry?

I had heard someone once say that the real competition for EA and Activision wasn’t each other, but companies like Nike or Verizon, whose large marketing budgets make them ripe for innovating in the games space. Brands should be looking at games as a form of content marketing, but not through traditional, easily implementable “gamification” techniques.

Game enthusiasts dress in costume at SXSWi’s ScreenBurn Arcade.

Badges and rewards only hint at what games can really do. Brands should be thinking about making their own original content – similar to the successful approach Adult Swim has taken – and putting independent game designers at the helm.

Why do you think gaming needs to be more of a focus at marketer-laden conferences like SXSW?

Well, it’s one of the biggest entertainment mediums in the world right now. The console market alone is more than $40 billion and when companies like Zynga account for more than 12% of Facebook’s revenues, there’s no reason this industry shouldn’t be at the table. More importantly, video games are becoming one of the best places to see innovation. Looking at creative uses of mobile technology in games like Infinity Blade and Loop Raccord (two of my favorites) can point to new directions for other non-game technologies.

More importantly, SXSW is a culture-defining event for film, music, and interactive design. There’s no reason that games shouldn’t be a pillar as well.

People travel from around the world to show new creative work at SXSW and yet game programming still has a long way to go. Still, it’s nice to see games receive a seat at the table at all. .. .

primer <<< 23

Insights Essays, recaps, shenanigans

Photo by Merrick Ales

Baratunde Thurston how to read the world

H

umanity is ready for an upgrade, says Baratunde Thurston, director of digital for The Onion and author of How To Be Black.

For four years, Thurston has made mockery of Amercia’s leading news stories for The Onion, the most popular satirical newspaper in the country.

Anyone in on the joke knows that it’s all for fun. However, there have been times that the naive have mistaken Onion’s fabricated stories were the truth, such as when Congressman John Fleming (R-LA) shared Onion story “Planned Parenthood Opens $8 billion Abortionplex” on his Facebook page after believing it to be true.

Perhaps unwittingly, The Onion has evolved into “a platform for expression and satire,” according to Thurston, saying comedians have always played a role in communicating truth directly.

In a world where change is constant, comedy can be used for more than pure entertainment; it can be a driving force against political injustice.

Freedom of the press is sacred in the

26 >>> insights

Photo by “ragesoss” via Flickr

USA, which is how a publication like The Onion can run without conflict. In other parts of the world, however, the Internet is the only tool to share political opinion. Thurston points to examples of comedians who are committing “true revolutionary magic,” such as Bassem Yousseff, whose YouTube channel reports the serious issues of Egypt with sarcasm; Nigeria’s satirical Wazobia Report; and Iranian satirical news show Parazit, whose creators were told by Jon Stewart that “they had true guts” when they appeared on The Daily Show.

People all over the world depend on digital tools for publishing and communicating – especially in oppressed nations. We have a responsibility, Thurston says, to bring the world humanity through storytelling, and in many cases, humor.

Quoting the Roman satirist Horace, Thurston declares: “A cultivated wit, one that badgers less, can persuade all the more. Artful ridicule can address contentious issues more competently and vigorously than can severity alone.”

by Reb Carlson

A Recipe For Change

by Emmet Cole We need to think beyond content

creation and seize the revolutionary potential of social me-

dia as an agent of change, said Baratunde Thurston, comedian

and web editor of The Onion in his lighthearted and inspirational SXSWi keynote.

The key to achieving this goal

is the marriage of content (our stories, struggles, triumphs, and

sometimes biting satire), with code, Thurston says. Social me-

dia and online publishing can fill

gaps that cherished institutions such as the media and government seem less-willing to fill.

“There is a lot of noise and

confusion and an abundance of

information. This creates the

opportunity for trust because in the midst of confusion we look to institutions for trust,” says Thurston.

On Beethoven &

BRAND

PAT T E R N S

by Robert Macias

by Robert Macias

B

ecause of social media, brands have inherently less control over corporate image than even a decade ago. To combat that uncertainty, explains Marc Shillum, principal at Method, Inc., in a panel at SXSWi 2012, brand patterns must be nurtured. Everything from the curved edge of an iPhone screen icon to the physical maze of an IKEA store should be part of a deliberate construct.

“Patterns are unique in the fact that they create consistency around difference and variation,” writes Shillum in his paper Brands as Patterns. “Creating a believable and consistent brand begins with the creation of coherent patterns.”

The essence of branding is storytelling, and the glue that can turn a pattern into a story, says Robin Lanahan, brand strategy director for Microsoft’s Startup Business Group, is tension.

“All good stories need to have tension and fluctuation, but they all need to stand for something concrete as well.”

For example, with the Old Spice Guy ad campaign, starring the hunky yet hilarious Isaiah Mustafa, “Old Spice reconciled the tension between being a player and being the good guy,” Lanahan says.

Walter Werzowa, a composer famous for creating the Intel “bong” jingle, explains that while the first four notes of Beethoven’s Symphony

No. 5 are repeated verbatim only four times in the symphony, slight variations of them recur 45 times. Hence, a pattern emerges without repetition.

“Beethoven was his own brand,” Werzowa says. “You recognize Beethoven from whatever he composed.”

Businesses should take a cue from classic composers when developing their own brand messaging. “It is a time-based thing,” Werzowa says. “If you are too repetitive, it’s boring. If you get too chaotic and change constantly, you lose your audience. Successful music is built through the right combination of what is expected and something new.” insights <<< 27

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getting started as a brand publisher

by Eli James

H

ow has the changing definition of a publisher sculpted the ways in which we create, publish and promote our content? A five-person panel at SXSW hoped to answer some of these questions, and perhaps offer some advice along the way.

What Do You Publish?

Contently Co-founder Shane Snow says creating a thoughtful content strategy is the first step, “Think of it in terms of a framework. Make an assessment of your current situation, then create a vision of what you want to see in one or two years.” From there, a plan of execution is created, which includes the specifics of who creates, what is created, where it’s published, and how it’s promoted.

Your content strategy is that group of things which will help you to get from the first point to the eventual goal.

Social media marketer Amy Vernon takes this a step further: “Don’t write about content that has nothing to do with what you’re about. Someone who sells air conditioners shouldn’t write about bacon.”

Vernon says such plays are obvious attempts to grab traffic, which is easy to do. The challenge is in driving quality, consistent traffic; you can’t decide on what to publish until you know your strategy.

Once that strategy is established, companies should focus on maintaining a high degree of quality, Snow says. “The best sponsored content doesn’t compete with other brands; it competes with media outlets,” he says.

Where Do You Publish?

Buzzfeed’s Senior Creative Strategist Lindsey Weber says brands must understand where their content will work best, as different types of content are more suitable on certain platforms.

Beyond choosing where, though, it’s a matter of choosing who. Who will run your Pinterest account? If you’re not interested in Pinterest, find someone in your organization who is, Weber says. The transparency of today’s media allows your disinterest to show.

One of the best ways to shortcut the climb to success on a particular platform is to be an early adopter and rise with the tide if the platform becomes popular. For that reason, the panelists agree, publishers should allot resources toward experimenting with new networks.

How Do You Publish?

For budget-strapped new publishers, Snow encourages the repurposing of content: for example, taking a salient quote from an article, placing it onto an artsy background, then distributing the image on visually-focused sites like Pinterest and Tumblr. Any story can be repurposed into bite-sized chunks, Snow explains, and spread across various networks, linking viewers back to the original content.

Vernon urges creators to be generous with their content and help others. As you share interesting things, you’re going to have your own content shared in return. Twitter is ideal for this, she says, as brands are used to monitoring the platform for opportunities to share content with mentions of their names, industry or products.

Weber echoes the sentiment. “Big brands are desperate for positive content,” she says.

Each of the panelists agree brands shouldn’t underestimate paid platforms. Audrey Gray, vice president of executive communications at American Express, says the company’s “Small Business Saturday” program, which generated more than a million Facebook Likes was “basically a Facebook buy.” Likewise, the company’s OPEN Forum blog is heavily advertised around the Internet, and has become popular as a result of the organization’s effort to produce solid content and deliver it to an enthusiastic audience.

Disclosure: panelist Shane Snow is Publisher of this magazine.

Artsy background via Shutterstock. insights <<< 29

5 Tips for Turning Followers Into Brand Advocates

by Erica Swallow

S

ocial platforms are supposed to make communication easier, but if you’ve ever been a disgruntled customer, you probably know how difficult it is to get in touch with brands when the going gets tough. The days of reactionary social strategies are numbered, though, as digital marketers sharpen up their social chops.

At SXSW 2012, Duke Chung, chairman and co-founder of Parature, and Leigh George, director of digital strategy at R2integrated, presented a panel on how brands build brand advocates by anticipating customer needs.

In a room packed full of digital marketers and scattered with a few customer service and PR professionals, the duo discussed a handful of case studies that illustrate the dos and don’ts of turning fans into advocates. Attendees chimed in to share their horror stories (and success stories, too).

From the discussion, attendees took away five solid tips on how brands can turn followers into advocates, without crossing the “creepy line.”

1. Monitor the Need You’re Satisfying Monitoring mentions of your brand on Twitter and posts to your brand’s Facebook Page is a start, but a proactive social media strategy is about micro-targeting and responding to relevant conversations, says George.

Social media monitoring tools like Tracx, Radian6 and Sysomos enable brands to monitor specific keywords and phrases that indicate customer needs.

One audience member, for example, monitors customer satisfaction via social media for McDonald’s. Tough job, yes, but she uses Radian6 to track words like “fail” and “cold” that show up next to McDonald’s brand name. After all, no one wants a cold Big Mac. She can then reach out to the individual with the clammy burger, offer apologies, and make the situation right.

The same can go for energy drink companies, says George.

In this case, a brand should be monitoring words like “tired” or “exhausted,” and then offer up an energy drink coupon.

30 >>> insights

2. Know It’s About the Total Brand Experience “Brands are really about the total experience you have with them,” says George, whether it’s a business card you receive, the interior design of an office or store, or the company’s online experience.

A company’s social media presence should reflect that, too. It shouldn’t only be focused on customer service, or solely dedicated to shelling out discounts.

Instead, social media should be a place where consumers can go to get answers to any of their questions. By anticipating that consumers will have a breadth of needs, your social strategy will be better equipped for dealing with anything that comes up.

Even more important, though, is to make sure your company’s brand identity is being translated throughout online and offline experiences.

Online eyewear retailer Warby Parker, for example, builds its identity on a relationship-fostering approach, rather than a sales approach, says George. The experience starts online, where a shopper can upload a picture of herself and see what glasses look like on her. The experience trails offline then, where she can then try on up to five frames with the “Home Try-On Program.” And then things get social, says George.

After joining, a user receives a personalized email, inviting her to upload pictures to Warby Parker’s Facebook Page of herself with the frames on, where a Warby Parker social media rep will comment on which looks best. Now that’s a well-rounded experience.

3. Have an Escalation Plan in Place If a brand anticipates its customers will have a variety of needs, it is well positioned to take on any problem. In order to do that, though, an escalation plan is necessary.

While planning out your brand’s social media strategy, indicate which departments or team members should handle what.

Journalism’s got 99 problems design is #1

by Ella Riley-Adams

In the early days of newspapers, material costs drove publishers to cram as much information on a page as possible. When news went digital, editorial design hardly changed.

It’s hard to disagree that online news design has grown stagnant. “We’re stuck in a way-back machine,” said NPR lead designer David Wright in a presentation with Boston Globe Design Director Miranda Mulligan at SXSWi. Part of making things right, Mulligan and Wright argued, is putting designers in leadership roles. “Do we have enough design represented in key leadership roles to make sure that [designers] are not just at the meeting table, but before the table?” Mulligan asked.

“Designers should be the powerhouses,” she added, “You should know every person in the building.”

Meanwhile, don’t leave customers hanging. If your community management team receives a difficult question, let the customer know your team is trying to find the right person to answer the inquiry. It’s better to at least let customers know you’re trying than to keep them hanging, says George.

4. Focus on the Customers You Know Brand advocacy is about “converting the people you already know into people that are excited about you and will talk about you,” says George.

That’s right. Sometimes the best way to find new customers is to focus on the ones you already have. Empower your current customers, and they may just surprise you by helping you recruit new customers. That’s what brand advocacy is all about.

Chung pointed to Rosetta Stone’s Facebook Page as

The next step is for news designers to rethink what’s possible. Wright mentioned an example of design disruption on NPR’s health blog, Shots. Wright didn’t want an “ad ghetto” on the right hand of the page and opted instead to place the ads in the header. His team has also experimented with de-cluttering. “We can design a page with fewer but more relevant choices,” Wright said.

Mulligan and Wright recognize that fixing journalism design is an undertaking. But with an increase in design leadership, forward-movement, and smart rogue behavior, news sites can still get a second life.

an example of brand advocacy in action. He says before a Rosetta Stone rep can get to a question, you’ll see nine or ten advocates have already responded Bien hecho.

5. Say You’re Sorry What do you do when you can’t answer a question or fix the situation?

While many brands ignore inconvenient posts, George says it will suffice to just apologize at the very least. Customers venting on Twitter or Facebook sometimes just want to know they’re being heard, and that someone cares.

If you can’t fix the problem, empathize with the customer by saying that you’re sorry about the situation and that, yes, it sounds awful, and your brand is working on making things better.

And remember, sincerity goes a long way. insights <<< 31

The Curators and the curated On Saturday – the first true day of SXSW – media junkies packed the Sheraton Austin’s largest ballroom to capacity. The spectacle? A spirited debate on the relationship between publishers of original content and the world’s most influential curators, some of whom are starting to snag “the ad money that feeds me,” as The New York Times’ David Carr put it. Carr was joined by a murderer’s row of panelists, representing the full spectrum of the curation question. Here’s what they said:

“Curation is done by people. They make choices, while aggregation is done by computers and algorithms.”

Noah Brier

Co-founder of Percolate

“I think there’s something about having a moral lens that makes it curation. There’s a disconnect between what does well and what matters.”

Maria Popova

Founder of Brain Pickings

“Curation is a nice word but kind of twee.

I think that the front page of The New York Times is one of the most important pieces of curation going on every day.”

David Carr

Columnist for The New York Times

32 >>> insights

adapting to the changing media environment

by Erica Swallow

T

o say the world of media is changing would be an understatement. The rug has been utterly pulled from underneath the strong media houses of times past.

But consumers aren’t spending less time with media – in fact, they are spending 20% more time consuming media than 10 years ago, says Ben Elowitz, co-founder and CEO of Wetpaint, a Seattle-based, self-described next-generation media company.

Elowitz says the social web has taken its hold and will change media for good. He pointed to the fact that one in seven minutes spent on the Internet is spent on Facebook, the world’s largest social network.

There are three concepts, Elowitz says, that are now part of the Web’s DNA as a result of social media’s stronghold: Identity: We now have a permanent history on the Web, and it follows us around from site to site, thanks to the “Open Graph” and open APIs. Interests: The first 100 years of media was written as broadcast, Elowitz explains. Media companies guessed what people cared about and presented it in one mode. Now, media companies can determine what individuals care about and respond by adjusting content accordingly.

Relationships: Social media enables us to document our relationships with our friends, family, interests, brands, and even publishers. For media companies, this lends way to opportunities to develop and learn from direct relationships with readers.

Elowitz presented five key tips for publishers looking to become next-generation media companies.

1. Reach Your Audience in Every Channel Media companies must realize that their audiences are fragmented in how they access media, says Elowitz. “You have to be fully connected to match how your consumer is fully connected,” he advises. “Find out where you audience is and when, and connect with them.”

That means making your content available on every channel your audience is on: mobile, social, tablet.

If your audience is 25-34 year old males, Pinterest may not be the place for your brand, says Elowitz. But your video content, as accessible on YouTube and via iPad may be a win, he adds.

big audience, says Elowitz. One person is not like all of the others.

Elowitz says personalization is the ultimate goal. His vision for media is that publishers will someday serve “the right content for the right person in the right place at the right time.”

Segmentation is the first step to personalization, he says, Once personalization is reached, he explains, each segment contains only one individual.

With personalization, you reach maximum relevancy to your audience.

3. Test and Measure Everything In order to understand how content is faring, media companies must collect data on every action taking place on their media channels.

“Don’t just throw [the data] into a giant database,” Elowitz warns. “Instead, make use of it.”

Test, test, test.

4. Create a “Laboratory Culture” In order to get the most use out of your company’s data, its essential to create a “laboratory culture,” says Elowitz.

Stress the importance of testing data in your organization by walking the walk. Run tests.

“Throw each of your channels to the test and measure responses from your audience,” he says. Wetpaint runs 10-20 tests per week so it can tell what type of content resonates with users.

Wetpaint has found, for example, that when writing about Jersey Shore, the company gets a 10% lift when leading with Snooki, versus a 10% drag when leading with Vinny.

5. Institutionalize the Takeaways When your company learns something about its audience or about what type of content resonates, share it with the greater organization, says Elowitz.

Don’t just write it down as tribal knowledge – share it with your greater team and company via a playbook.

“Write it down like it’s on stone tablet,” says Elowitz.

“Treat it like gospel.”

2. Segment Your Audience Media companies must stop looking at consumers as one insights <<< 33

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attack!

of the daddy bloggers

by Emmet Cole

F

ather-focused brands would do well to keep one surprising revelation from DadCentric blog founder Jason Avant in mind when creating and targeting their content. According to Avant, one of five presenters at a SXSWi panel on “Daddy Blogs”, 60 percent of his daddy blog visitors... are female.

As a featured contributor at Man of the House, Babble’s Dadding blog, and pop culture website MamaPop, he’s at the leading edge of a new blogging trend. Mommy (and now daddy) blogs have become a popular and effective way for brands to reach parents, but one big lesson for content creators stands out: be careful of audience stereotypes; you may find opportunities in ignoring them.

Targeting a male demographic has been incredibly effective for publishers like Thrillist and Maxim, but where joint endeavors (and joint expenditures) such as parenting are concerned, it’s difficult and not necessarily advantageous to attract one gender exclusively.

Because social media now touches all genders, classes, races, and age groups, it’s the “share factor” that leads to sudden popularity in unlikely places for blogs like Avant’s.

Man of the House Editor-in-chief Craig Heimbuch recommends optimizing content for shareability first, rather than gender. “Content is dead unless it is shared,” he says.

The takeaway? Maximize your content’s reach by publishing it across several channels. Then let your readers – male and female – do the broadcasting for you.

34 >>> insights

Tim O’Reilly:

“create more value than you capture”

by George Dearing

V

alue is a term that’s thrown around quite a bit these days. And when it lives in the context of the corporation, it tends to get scrutinized even more.

For media CEO and web visionary Tim O’Reilly, the key to continuous business success – and publishing success for that matter – is to create more value than you capture.

Microsoft is, for better or worse, a classic example. The huge value it created during the rise of the personal computer was arguably marginalized as it hung to legacy models and techniques.

“Consider Microsoft,” O’Reilly told MIT researcher Andrew McAfee during an interview at SXSWi, “whose vision of a computer on every desk and in every home changed the world of computing forever and created a rich ecosystem for developers. As Microsoft’s growth stalled, they gradually consumed more and more of the opportunity for themselves, and innovators moved elsewhere, to the Internet.”

While it’s easy to beat up on the big companies, the idea is that an ecosystem is essentially a company’s communal lifeblood. O’reilly implies Microsoft would have been much more successful in its most recent decade had it been less of a black hole.

“If you have too small of a group capturing value, then the whole ecosystem breaks down,” he says.

O’Reilly urges business leaders to stay focused on big, audacious goals, claiming the greatest companies always have a higher sense of purpose.

Google, for example, was famously driven to not “be evil” and to organize the world’s information. However, O’Reilly says, “as Google is increasingly dominated by economic concerns, they will become less successful.”

McAfee, who co-authored the book Race Against the

Machine with Erik Brynjolfsson, says the rise of automation and outsourcing and the replacing of people with machines and overseas labor are taking a toll on the economy.

“It seems the value is going into the paychecks of CEOs, instead of back into society,” McAfee says. “More and more jobs are being taken over by machines.”

Take Apple’s Siri application, for example. A few more innovations in robotic voice-assistance could mean less human-powered customer service, especially in e-commerce environments.

In peer-to-peer consumption, however, businesses can reap the value harnessed inside passionate communities of users to create value for consumers and themselves. O’Reilly cites Couchsurfing and Airbnb as examples.

Manufacturing, government, and education are O’Reilly’s top three areas where huge opportunities for value creation lie.

“Government should focus on being a platform provider instead of a solution provider,” he explains.

This would give innovative technologists the opportunity to build solutions taht create lasting value.

For publishers and content marketers, the analogy is clear: by creating content that serves an audience rather than the creator, one can build enormous respect and eventually capture value from loyalty. By not publishing advertisements under the guise of editorial content, marketers will better serve their audiences and themselves.

In other words, don’t get greedy.

“Find people as passionate as you are,” O’Reilly says. “It’s important to create value for society and make the world a better place to fill in the needs.”

Win/Win: The most successful content creators focus on producing value for the audience rather than for themselves. Paradoxically, this creates even more value for the creator.

insights <<< 35

Can Syndication Save Content?

by Joe Lazauskas

“The best ad for your content is your content.”

So says John Pettitt, CEO at Free Range Content. To that end, syndication can be the answer to many publication woes: low traffic, little recognition and sparse engagement. Pettitt advocates for freedom of content (though that doesn’t necessarily mean “no pay walls”).

“Throw some free content in front of the wall,” Pettitt advises. “Encourage people to repost it widely.”

As Christel van der Boom of Flipboard points out, “Everyone can be a curator; everyone can be an editor.” People are eager to find quality content they can share.

So, provide that material.

“Stop being controlling about who takes your content, and just make sure it carries your brand with it,” advises Pettitt. For example, when an article is shared through Free Range’s service Repost.Us, it is embedded in full, adding to the publisher’s traffic while also maintaining the content’s integrity, any branding that originally existed, and the proper attributions. The article is simply somewhere new, potentially attracting a larger, varied audience.

Todd Martin, senior VP and CTO at NewsRight, emphasizes the importance of analytics in syndication. “Make sure your relationships are performing,” he says. If a partner site isn’t widening a brand’s audience or increasing its traffic, “You can choose to stop putting your content into those underperforming channels.”

What about those who aggregate or steal content? Martin sees them as a weak threat. And in fact, the more you’re aggreagated, the more your “brand” reach expands.

The important thing is to get your work out there for everyone to see. In other words, rather than talk about your content, let your content do the talking.

36 >>> insights

Fashion E-tailers: Redefining Content

by Erick Davidson

W

hen Alisa Gould-Simon’s SXSWi panel on content and commerce was approved in September 2011, hardly anyone had heard of a site called Pinterest. In a few short months, however, Pinterest has come to redefine the already blurry line between content and commerce. When the landscape can change so completely in such a short time, it’s difficult to know what’s next.

The main challenge facing online commerce sites is managing user experience. Questions such as “where does content start and stop” are foremost in the minds of site owners as they find their editorial voice.

Of a Kind CEO Claire Mazur says successful brands are connecting to their users on more levels than just sales messaging. Twitter accounts, Tumblr pages, and even standalone content properties are being used to personalize brands, often with great success.

Editorial-based commerce sites are disrupting the traditional notion that online content has to be monetized by ads. The challenge becomes finding the proper dividing line between telling and selling. The answer, says ideeli Senior Product Manager Allison Kellman, is to find the place where the desire to read becomes the desire to shop, and to make certain that you’re completely transparent about how you’re making money on

links that are used in editorial pieces.

Much of the discussion in editorialized commerce revolves around the fashion industry, and the fact that visual platforms (such as Pinterest and Tumblr) have had so much success in this vertical does not go unnoticed.

The big obstacle in visual mediums is overcoming the tendency to blast out one-way communications.

Having a presence on platforms where readers can converse – and engaging selflessly in community activities – is essential for editorial e-tailers.

And just because one brand is unsuccessful selling on a network – say Facebook – does not necessarily mean it’s fallow ground for an entire industry. The Gap, for instance, has had relatively little success on Facebook, but DKNY has seen staggering results, primarily due to having an engaged, active base of customers on the platform.

While there are no firm rules in straddling content and commerce, good social media principles apply to editorial e-tailing: connect with your users, then provide them with what they want.

Sometimes that means having a big, red “BUY” button, and sometimes beautiful photos and clever copy alone are enough to convert. insights <<< 37

interface design vs. content strategy

by Emmet Cole In the traditional paradigm, an “interface designer” optimizes buttons and menus and usability, whereas a “non-interface content strategist” focuses on curation, workflows, and content audits.

The only problem is this distinction doesn’t work, says content strategist Tiffani Jones Brown.

“You cannot make a division about the interface. The idea that only some content needs a system is wrong. It all fits within a design system,” said Brown.

There is a strong connection between content and design, says Andy Chung, a designer at Facebook. When he worked at Mozilla, one of his content interface strategies was to focus on reducing complex issues into simple statements.

Content strategy is about design; the two are interrelated, says ex-Boeing content developer Keith Robertson. (At Boeing, Robertson sometimes had to choose words based on pixel size.)

“Content strategy is process driven.

There’s workflow and audits. You need to ask ‘Who is the audience?’ and ‘What problems are you trying to solve?’,” says Robertson.

One good strategy is cutting out half the content, Robertson continues. But content strategy also looks at the context to simplify it.

“If you have to do content on your own, make sure every word serves a purpose. This takes time to understand. But one exercise makes sure each content piece is very tight: See how they fit together,” explains Robertson.

Cut half the content.

Give every word purpose.

38 >>> insights

Photo by Joi Ito via Flickr

Content as a means for social change

by Emmet Cole

It is possible to create business models that place value above profit – and content can be key to this shift of focus, says Twitter founder Biz Stone.

“We can change the world, build a business, and have fun,” says Stone, who identified three elements with the potential to “totally transform the definition of capitalism as we know it today.”

These are: 1) a desire to change the world, 2) the ability to build a business and make money from it, and 3) having fun while doing it.

Stone, author, blogger, and Inc. Magazine Entrepreneur of the Decade, calls these three keys the new success metrics for capitalism.

“Change is not a triumph of technology,” says Stone. “It’s a triumph of humanity.” Twitter enables people to communicate in real-time, which in turn enables individuals to become a crowd driven by a common purpose.

“When you think of creativity as a renewable resource,” says Stone, “every challenge becomes fun.”

In order to succeed spectacularly, “you must be willing to fail, be totally embarrassed. You have to go for it,” he says.

As with early adopters of Twitter itself, Stone says the earlier you get involved with causes, “the more impact you’ll have over time.” insights <<< 39

how to get your customers addicted

by Jackson Weinberg to your content

Visitors to Tara-Nicholle Nelson’s Saturday panel at SXSWi learned an important thing about addiction: if you’re a brand, there’s little that’s more rewarding than getting your customers hooked on your content. It took three steps and 15 minutes for Nelson, vice president of digital and content at SutherlandGold Group, to break down her advice on creating irresistable content:

1. Don’t just publish. fuel aspirations.

Nelson posits that people are striving to be smarter, wiser and to live with more passion. With this in mind, her advice is to provide knowledge, rather than a firehose of information. For evidence, she points to applications such as Chartbeat, Mint, and Eatery, where information is distilled into consumable knowledge.

2. Market your manifesto.

Having a public manifesto allows consumers to self-select whether they want to follow your message, says Nelson. She points to the example of the wildly popular Holstee Manifesto, as well as lululemon’s technique of marketing yoga pants with words of empowerment.

3. Double down on experiences.

In this case, Nelson points to companies such as Birchbox and Kiwi Crate, where the experience of the arrival of a new product is shared by customers to their friends. She cautions to never underestimate how important it can be for a customer to have a secondary experience with the brand.

As for Nelson’s personal manifesto? She says it has three parts as well: I am not a diva. I don’t drink alcohol. I only kiss dogs.

40 >>> insights

what inbound marketers can learn from the movies

by W. P. Wells

S

ocial media strategist Carmen Hill believes that like a good movie screenplay, branded content takes a compelling story and breaks it down into individual pieces. The art is to take these pieces and tell the story while moving toward a larger vision.

Hill says a great movie has three parts: the setup, the conflict, and the resolution.

Likewise, a good inbound marketing process has three parts, mirroring those of a movie: discovery, consideration, and decision.

If content strategists think of their customer as the hero in a movie, the analogy starts to make a lot more sense. The strategist needs to identify the customer, provide her with a resources (content) and eventually a triggering event that will cause her to act, and then stay with her through the resolution or

purchase decision.

Hill says the character’s development is important, but perhaps more imperative is the building of a story around that character. She points to IBM’s SmartCloud website as a perfect example of a story progression, showing how there is a scene built around the customer at every level of the decision-making process.

As Hill puts it, this interaction is the popcorn of the content strategy story. It’s that part that is addictive to consumers and keeps them coming back for more.

“We can’t forget our spreadsheets and sales funnels just yet, because the details have to be managed somewhere. But we’re developing new ways of creating, searching for, and consuming content every day.

So the job is to create content that people crave.” insights <<< 41

features proceed with abandon

Photo by Merrick Ales

Since 1987, south by southwest has been a mecca for film, music, and tech geeks. now itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the stomping ground for some of the most innovative content marketers in the world.

by Joe Lazauskas

AUSTIN CAN FOOL YOU. Geeks arriving for their first South by Southwest Interactive – an annual festival of speeches, startups, and debauchery – could be forgiven for thinking they’d arrived at the heart of Texas.

The landscape is open and dry and crisscrossed with highways.

Billboards advertise shooting ranges and barbecue, with plenty

of roadside bars reminiscent of The Landing Strip in Friday Night Lights.

Of course, that’s not all of Austin, not even most of it. Home of the University of Texas and a long-time haven for great music, it’s emerged as the technological capital of the American South, a place where street vendors swipe credit cards through iPhones, cab drivers check into pickup points on Foursquare, and hungry startups battle for a piece of America’s last recessionproof industry.

And for the five days of SXSWi each March, Austin has also become the center of the marketing universe.

It hits you the moment you walk into the Northeast corner of the Austin Convention Center. Attendees scribble messages on a giant, translucent wall, sponsored by Dell. On the other side, film crews shoot self-promotional videos for entrepreneurial attendees. Take five steps, and AmEx reps offer you free tickets to see Jay-Z if you sync your card to Twitter. Fifty yards away, you’re mesmerized by the massive Samsung screens broadcasting the “Party Pulse” of the top events at SXSW. And, before you know it, a cartoonist has sketched your caricature on a new Samsung Galaxy Note.

By the time you reach the massive PepsiCo Central Station at the south end of the Center, you need a bag for all your freebies.

The key word is free. The brands that seem to be spending the most money aren’t plastering advertisements on every pillar. They’re giving away free content and experiences.

And the geeks have no problem with that.

SXSWi hasn’t always been such a hotbed for brand marketing. Cofounder Louis Black – who, coincidentally, also co-founded the alt-weekly newspaper The Austin Chronicle – added the Interactive portion to the popular 48 >>> features

music festival in 1994. However, Interactive remained a cultural afterthought through its first dozen years, dwarfed by big brothers Music and Film. Just five years ago, mainstream brand marketers paid it little attention.

Then something changed.

SXSWi suddenly went from afterthought to the center of digital culture.

The best explanation for the popularity explosion may be that SXSWi is the place where social/local/mobile (“SoLoMo,” as some refer to it) became a dominant force in American culture and thus in American brand marketing. Social media didn’t start in Austin, of course, nor did the smartphone or geolocation technology. But SXSWi is the place where one SoLoMo startup after another took hold and then changed the way we live and communicate.

It started in 2007 with Twitter.

As SXSWi 2007 began, a fledgling status update startup ran an ongoing demo in the halls of the Austin Convention Center. “The Twitter people cleverly placed two 60-inch plasma screens in the conference hallways, exclusively streaming Twitter messages,” reported Newsweek’s Steven Levy at the time. “Hundreds of conferencegoers kept tabs on each other via constant twitters. Panelists and speakers mentioned the service, and the bloggers in attendance touted it.”

The conference appeared to be an inflection point for Twitter. Tweets tripled from 20,000 to 60,000 per day during the festival. By 2008, that number had jumped to 300,000 tweets per day. By late 2009, Twitter was seeing more than a million tweets every hour.

SXSW was the launchpad for a startup that went on to revolutionize communication. The next year, startup founders poured in to the conference.

And suddenly, brands which fancied themselves “cutting edge” wanted to be there, too.

PepsiCo was among the first to get

it. Recognizing the festival’s power to define digital culture, the company decided to make the kind of “value-add” branded marketing push that’s become commonplace at the conference today.

In 2009, PepsiCo launched a content creators lounge, filled with ministudio pods where journalists, vloggers and filmmakers could mute the outside noise. Attendees were so thrilled, they plugged PepsiCo in the content they created. The lounge soon became a hub for “pop-up panels,” according to Pepsi Director of Digital Josh Karpf,.

The panels’ popularity inspired an influencer-led “What If ?” series of public whiteboard talks this year.

That same year, Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai launched Foursquare, a location-based check-in app that became an instant hit. Attendees reveled in the ability to track friends’ whereabouts, and the app’s addictive game mechanics – battling with friends to earn points, mayorships and badges – caused a word of mouth sensation.

Like Twitter, Foursquare spread rapidly from Austin, growing to one million users by April 2010, on its way to 15 million users and 1.5 billion check-ins today. The Twitter phenomenon was happening all over again.

Suddenly, Austin seemed a godsend to marketers; even if they didn’t truly understand digital, they understood that SXSWi was the temporal epicenter of emerging digital trends.

“SXSW is really a place where culture breaks,” Karpf explains. “It makes sense for us to be here.”

And brands understood something else as well. The more startups that took off at SXSWi, the more influential the crowds would become. By finding a way to stand out at SXSWi, brands could find favor with the most innovative people on earth, the ones who literally influence the way we communicate. These people would leave Austin, go back to their tech empires, and continue to change the world. Gathering

ARt <<< 19

all these influencers in one place was almost a gift for brands.

Meanwhile, the influential SXSWi crowd continued to grow – to 14,251 attendees in 2010, 19,364 in 2011 – with an estimated 40% increase this year, a whopping 27,000.

The brands, in turn, have gradually begun to master the communications tools born at the conference. Market-

brand at the festival; second, get every AmEx cardholder at the show to sync their card to Twitter, knowing that the rest of the world would follow the SXSWers lead.

AmEx announced that those who synced a card to Twitter would receive 2 tickets to an intimate Jay-Z concert at Austin’s Moody Theatre, which only holds 2,750 people. Once synced, at-

tin: #AmexMcDonalds ($5 off ), #AmexBestBuy ($10 off ) and #AmexWholefoods ($20 off ), among others.

By Monday, “Are you going to JayZ?” seemed to replace “What do you do?” as the SXSWers’ go-to intro question; on Tuesday morning, it was “Did you see Jay-Z?” MediaBistro reported that millions synced cards throughout the world. The Twitter/Foursquare ef-

“SXSW is really a place where culture breaks. It makes sense for us to be here.”

-Josh Karpf, Pepsi Director of Digital ers who said they’d move their budget from offline to digital increased from 52% in 2010, to 67% in 2011, to 79% in 2012, with 28% now planning to market exclusively through digital channels.

This year, American Express brought in Jay-Z. The campaign, called “Tweet. Sync.

Save.” had two primary goals: first, generate more hype than any other 50 >>> features

tendees had to stand in line for tickets at 7:00 a.m. Saturday.

Word spread rapidly. Everyone with an AmEx was talking about syncing their cards; everyone without an AmEx was trying to find a friend who had one.

On Saturday morning only a fraction of SXSWi’s attendees snagged Jay-Z tickets, but all who synced benefited by tweeting the hashtag #AmExAustin10 to automatically save $10 on any charge in Austin.

Simultaneously, AmEx launched hashtags for those outside Aus-

fect had taken hold.

In the age of microblogging and geolocation and digital payments, the innovation perhaps least noticed at SXSW is that of the tech-savvy brands.

Taking a queue from the startups themselves, they’ve integrated themselves into a party that lasts long after the conference doors close.

Disclosure: American Express is a client of Contently, Inc., producer of this magazine. The author of this story, however, is not involved with AmEx or Contently’s relationship with AmEx in any way.

Get more

STRATEGIST at www.contently.com/blog

spare the me

Anyone can be a publisher now. And thanks to Wordpress and Facebook, journalists can work their craft on corporations’ dimes without fear of career-killing repercussions. Story by Luke Lee

The social web is stripping away brand journalism taboos.

52 >>> features

As social media has become more pervasive, brands have found themselves in a unique position to truly develop relationships with their customers, both present and potential. One of the best ways to cultivate that relationship is through the use of brand journalism, but the dangers and pitfalls are many.

So how does a brand navigate the minefield? I spent this past week at South by Southwest speaking to brands and journalists alike to get their input. What I’ve found is that, overwhelmingly, brand journalism fits into two categories of work, with unique challenges and rewards to each.

The Brand Journalist Eloqua is a company that focuses on marketing automation for businesses. The company leans on brand journalists to develop shareable, actionable content for interested parties, customers and non-customers alike.

One of Eloqua’s journalists is Corporate Reporter Jesse Noyes. Noyes finds that his personal brand is symbiotic with that of Eloqua; people find his work through the company almost as often as they find the company through his work.

But Noyes has a big claim, and it’s one that I think is important: “The last bastion of ad-free content

essenger is brand journalism,” Noyes says. “We are providing powerful, useful content, and in return we’re going to ask if our company can help yours. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

There’s no commitment, and you opt in to reading our work, completely free.”

Noyes tells me that social media plays dual roles in his position with Eloqua. First, it has allowed him to build his own brand, wherein he is seen as a respectable thought leader in the space in which he works. But there’s another piece that’s equally important: “Social sharing of information is changing. People aren’t looking at the source, they’re simply sharing things that they find to be good.”

So this obviously opens the doors for brands to have content that is driven around their company’s area of operation, but that content has to be policed.

Noyes tells me it’s imperative that there be a third party between the writer and the “boss” in order to make certain the messages from both sides can find a common ground. Without that third party, it’s harder for the boss and the writer to meet their objectives without one side compromising too heavily.

The Agency Journalist Simon Owens is an old-soul journalist in the body of a young man. He serves as the director of editorial & outreach at design agency JESS3, but also works as a freelance writer who focuses on the challenges of media and journalism.

According to Owens, agencies are pushing brands to become more journalistic themselves, but because of this, they have to be careful to disclose any potential conflicts of interest. As much as social media can help to spread a great message, it can work equally as

fast when there’s a conflict that isn’t stated.

“You’ll witness an increasing blurring of the lines between journalism and advertising, to the extent that you’ll see journalists toeing an ethical fine line,” Owens says. “The waters are certainly treacherous, though navigable.”

Owens specifically relates the case of brands using freelance journalists, but I think it’s equally as applicable to those journalists who are employees of the company as well. Social media is enabling journalists and brands to continue to build trust between themselves and customers, and it’s imperative that necessary disclosures be clearly stated.

But what about the personal reputation of the journalist itself ? Does working on behalf of a brand prevent one from being able to write for a “real” media company again one day? In a word, no. As more brands behave like those real publishers, the taint disappears.

They key Noyes says, is to do what forward thinking brands are already doing with their content. “Forget about staying on message,” he says, and be transparent.

It is up to the brand journalists to create the appetite for the content that is to come. They’ll do this by creating relationships via social media or otherwise, then delivering on the promise of quality and transparency.

Social media is helping to strip away brand journalism taboos on two levels: First, it’s allowing journalists to connect with readers in more than one location, and second it’s ensuring that great work gets passed along, no matter where it came from. But that’s just what it’s doing today. The challenge is to skate to where the puck will be as the continued evolution of social opens yet more opportunities for brands and journalists alike.

FIRE Drill! the unanswered question:

A

fire alarm interrupted the SXSW discussion Brand Journalism in the Real World just as an audience member asked if journalists could ever go back to “traditional” publishers after having written for a corporation.

Ann Handley, CCO of MarketingProfs and co-author of Content Rules, responded once the chaos cleared: “Do I think a traditional publisher should hire someone who has worked as a brand journalist?

“Absolutely. That journalist still has the abilities he or she had before. In my mind: Any pretense of objectivity is just that. People leave a company and go to competitors all the time – who hire them without fear of hidden loyalties.

“Journalism isn’t special, is it? You hire the person who can do the job well, who understands the intended audience, who understands the power of social, who can tell a true story well.” features <<< 53

The Buzz Of Getting Buzzed What nerd ragers at SXSW teach us about content marketing.

24 >>> EVENTS

T

he swarming SXSW crowd descended upon Buffalo Billiards on 6th street. The Mashable party was starting, and everyone wanted in.

At the entrance, Mashable geeks armed with iPads stood side-by-side with thick-muscled guards. The geeks accepted the VIPs, the guards ushered the RSVPs into a line that stretched around the block, through an alley and back around again. The line bounced and swayed; cameras flashed, capturing pics bound for Twitter. Just being in line for the party was an event.

“The Mashable party has gone viral!” a wellgroomed young British guy yelled.

The Brit’s comment may have been more apt than he realized. Because in a way, what Mashable was doing that night wasn’t that different from what it does every single day – that is,

creating content designed to spread.

When we think about content marketing, it’s usually 01.

Soluptas atquior volorarticles and videos that come to mind. Maybe an app a ecabo. game. But at its core, content marketing is the art of engaging and entertaining people while building buzz. By 02.

Harita volenime vendethis definition, the Mashable party was content marketing bisi non porem sintion et at its finest. hariatium.

“The buckets that I use in describing [content marketing] are tools and toys,” offers Pierre Lipton, San Fran- 03.

Atqui volorecabo harita cisco creative lead for AKQA, AdWeek agency of the year. volenime vendebisi.

“Toys can be everything from games to any other form of entertainment—something that people find fun.”

04.

Of course, there’s good content marketing and bad Soluptas atqui volorecab. content marketing. Throwing a party isn’t good content marketing in its own right, any more than is publishing an article. You have to know how to generate as much qui conemodis quate labori sum estrum sed moluptatur sae volorbuzz as possible. conet, adi dollant volorer ioribus, estium facersp itatent uscianto que And Mashable seems as skilled at party content as it quo que doluptas asimoluptae nim aut occum aut eaquo es dolupis at written content. As the crowd gradually poured into everci acculparume pla doluptiis mod ullaut odi simporporro the 1,000-person capacity Mashable House, downing tatem lam, optas volest, tectas es- cuptatio. Ullecerum fugianti re pa bar quamet drinks and on thevidempo dance floor, rumors sim re laborumopen doloria es ragingvolorro rporesti dolupflew that CNN was set to buy Mashable for $200 million. dolectem ventius esto magnis ullit tate con por mint.

Word fast. dolor si cum quam fuga.spread Imusciis (Mashable founder nis denitem poreium sinci alis Pete Cashmore promptly denied theaudisquis rumor in vellaut a memo to employees.) utem fugia volut Ellabore, est, od endella tiumet Throughout the conference, other brands que emquatem denis volupta necustis minisdozens adis asofipit harciatem generated via free booze.omnimporeres eicimil iquost dia ilique voluptatiae postbuzz fugitem Buyer-powered Zaarly—which quaeped quatae voloreperio tem-market platform occab illam, occatate omnisin demoed while only three weeks old— porit et moloresecta cusatutSXSWi volup-last year cusaperio.

Et qui occus is aliquam tatis et et aliciisflexed sit odis debist,with il magnam quae si is eos il its ulluptatur post-puberty muscles the must-attend sum cum remrager exceatur as con et, opening id quenight, il inient fuga. Ovid ulpa of Interactive’s garnering more ut than sitassum reheniam nulluptate pa voluptibus.

15,000ersped RSVPsevent and a lot of press as “the startup poised to evelecto. kill Craigslist.” The attendance of a few celebrities didn’t Il iuntiun temquatiunt fugitam hurt its press appeal.

Eos simperspit alibus ilissecus, exernatqui sectatur, eos GroupMe mixed raucous enis dancing with a cigar-andaut ent, seque perepel aditat doluptaeverytemporis cognac bar inlacipid an open yardaditet courtyard, reminding utet quidemolla nienda iumque onevolor.Gitasima that the startup is doing great,necus, despiteamusam selling out to gnisit rerios mil maiones as exerfero il ipiendae quatquia Skype last year. mosae aciumThe illaBarbarian simendem dolesse vero diam etur, sitaque Group and Tumblr’s Monday night fugitatur sunt omnienihil elique velent faceped quiatis molorep party at the Mohawk featured an all-star music lineup pratis dem nimil incias ne porro eruptae num la inullig? perfectly designed to excite Tumblr’s youthful demo and, et ut rerupta turest, et prerum in the process, spread across the Internet. hicabor porerios volor si te sanWhich brings us back to content marketing. dacu.

Asas weiur, leave SXSW, these parties should remind us: Um escipsus ratur, occum it’s aptatus brand-sponsored party or blog post, it’s all volor minihitWhether ute conseru about the same things – branding, trust, and keeping us ex es as alit dolorestem ut aliatis – even when we’re drunk. sed ulluptateinterested enis et moloratum

Throwing a party isn’t good content marketing in its own right, any more than is publishing an article.

You have to know how to generate as much buzz as possible.

Andipsa volent eatquaepudit volo moluptas ex elicium sinullum volessus eossum, odion re enietur, quia imusdam quae voleste nos es voluptatum quatio quos auta aut estioribus qui utae. Itas eates idem intiae res rerumquatet eatum disciatium vent, sam idebiti omnis dolores exceatq uiamendis simagnate nonsecte officat emperiti sit aut qui cum ut utem quis ea quidest illa que pa commo intur accatur?

Enime magnatiunti utemperibus et eaquia sedis alique sa duciatias eic te voluptatati con resed earitat quiatatisqui to te seri niaesequia perum delibus am sum id estemqui qui archit, odis se verciis eum quideres nem qui ut et magnatur adipsunt eatqui conectus, sit alitat.

Tectatquam qui des simust quam verehenim que eseque voluptae abora et verchic idicitasit quias ad quam lab ipsa nobitionse con rerepe.Lestiori tation rempore, to dolum volorio rehendia volupid quat dus sundias expla de porestium quo ipsamus ea et adi nate ommodis as este volorem quaere sequia nullupi tintem ea quias que cullendanis et aligendent que

56 >>> features

ulpa eum excerna con- & Joe Lazauskas by turempore, Ella Riley-Adams

“

Whether it’s a brandsponsored party or blog post, it’s all about building trust.

“ features <<< 57

The 10

MOST CLEVER Examples Of

CONTENT MARKETING At SXSWi

Content marketing – in all its forms – was undoubtedly the dominant media trend at this year’s SXSW. It was the primary focus of dozens of panels and presentations, as brand after brand vowed to finally start producing great content in the year ahead. Several brands jumped ahead of the curve and wielded great content to cut through the marketing noise at the festival. In descending order, the most intriguing content campaigns of SXSW follow: 58 >>> Features

10. Chevrolet Perhaps the best-kept content marketing secret at SXSW was the Chevy Tweet House, an invite-only daytime lounge for 450 celebrities, social influencers, and journalists.

SXSW can be a drain for industry celebs as they’re hustled from event to event, and the Tweet House was a brilliant way to give valuable privacy to influential SXSWers while encouraging them to send out brandpositive tweets to millions of followers.

9. IBM IBM created the Future of Social Lounge, a place where SXSWers could recharge and refresh while listening to industry leaders discuss where social business was headed and receive assessments of their social strategies from IBM leaders.

Gigantic touch screen monitors offered insightful articles, videos, and case studies about successful social business techniques and technology. And since SXSW is a hub for international business, IBM was especially smart to offer its content in eight languages.

8. Dell

Dell asked SXSWers to answer the question: “What would you do if you had the power to do more?” Then, the fun began.

Attendees could answer by scribbling answers on the walls of Dell’s translucent booth, or they could head inside and shoot a video answer with a professional film crew. Dell emailed the videos to their creators and embedded them in QR codes. It was a fascinating experiment in content creation – knowing that SXSWers are power sharers.

features <<< 59

#7 & 6.

A

Mashable &

t SXSW, print made a comeback. No, the reLives His ‘Teenage Dream’,” Mashable opted for lightvival of print journalism wasn’t the surprise er articles that were highly e nt e r t a i n i n g hot trend in Austin (that was friendstalking and highly shareable. apps), but it was telling that two premiere online tech “Five Startups to Watch publications, Mashable and The Daily Dot, distributed at SXSW 2012.” “Five print editions on the first day of SXSW – and generEssential Mobile Apps ated a lot of buzz in the process. Print, it seems, has for SXSW.” “Seven //// gotten downright novel.

Foursquare Deals You //// //// //// //// Mashable was founded as a one-man blog in 2005 Can Score in Austin.” / free //// //// //// //// //// //// ////

by Scotsman Pete Cashmore and has grown into the That isn’t a knock //// //// //// //// //// //// / //// world’s most-read tech site by creating content that on Mashable. It //// //// //// //// readers share incessantly; The Daily Dot was founded creates shareable //// /// in August 2011 with deep pockets and a 25-person content better editorial staff, aiming to become “the hometown than anyone on newspaper of the Internet” with an maniacal devotion the planet, and to journalism. its SXSW While it’s certainly interesting that both sites optprint edied for parallel SXSW content marketing campaigns, tion had far the way each campaign reflected the DNA of each site more peowas even more so. ple talk“I love Mashable, and I have a lot of respect for what ing. That they’ve done,” Daily Dot Founding Editor Owen latter Thomas explained. “They’ve figured out how to get an part is audience that just fanatically shares everything they espedo. It’s kind of genius. But I’ve realized what they lack cial– and what they’ve tried to correct – is a commitment l y to deep journalism.”

Thomas saw evidence of that in both the content of both papers and the way they were distributed. “I’ve seen an ad for Mashable getting circulated and it’s a great ad,” Thomas joked. “I didn’t actually see any stories in it.” “[S]it down and compare the products: sixteen pages of real stories about the real people of the web versus four pages of ads or marketing copy about Mash/\/\ /\/\ /\/\ /\/\ able,” Thomas continued. “You see the difference.” /\/\ Dot D /\/\ /\/\ o /\/\ Thomas was being hyperbolic when joked that It’s M t Dot: S /\/\ /\/\ arch o u /\/\ keep t . I’m h /\/\ b happ in A y Mashable’s paper didn’t have any stories, but if you /\/\ S u e a stin. ning /\/\ I’ve m e /\/\ How O Inte been go ? l /\/\ d v does B define stories as pieces of narrative journalism, co ractive ing to /\/\ y Ow t h is /\/\ en T Sou for p nfer /\/\ t h h e o r n a b m /\/\ c ce h y So We rem as then he’s actually right. While The Daily Dot dug /\/\ as ex tically a uthw ha emb /\/\ s i er, t own d home iden /\/\ he s sted. An long as est p tity d a o / ges, how mai the d as crisi W we h deep with stories like “How Reddit Saved the m n has e l o s. W n a d n n a ere? idn’t g as m . had I hat e f , y how I can you have ou h a fun are w Hec w to u Ben a da Dro e do World,” “Why Ben Ha is the Boss of Meme Hugh k, se F talk pbo ere Web d your ing? mental T ed a x, bu roya Why bou P. In 19 B t b and Forrest l w en H t e y t a e en in 9 . re b Culture,” and “YouTube Star Keenan Cahill cou the gang vent logging 8 and 19 all knew lolca u e I , 9

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60 >>> features

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print!” at passerbys.

“It was a really funny thing, this woman came up to our newsies and basically started scolding them,” Thomas recalled. “She said, ‘You know, you guys really don’t get it. Newspaper is not what this is about. Do you know what’s going on here? This is an Interactive show.’”

Mashable, conversely, recruited 20-somethings in Mashable t-shirts distribute its paper. But it won the buzz game because, again, it gets people to //// //// share things better than anyone else on //// //// //// //// earth, and seems to have a sixth //// //// //// Marc //// //// h 9-1 //// / //// sense for sharing oppor3, 201 //// //// 2 / SX //// //// //// //// SW I //// //// tunities. ntera //// //// ctive //// //// //// //// Speci //// //// It was no surprise that al Ed //// //// ition //// //// //// //// //// //// when the registration line //// //// //// //// //// //// //// / //// peaked at a 2.5-hour wait //// //// //// //// //// //// //// /// Friday afternoon, and regis//// Ther //// dailyd ///////

By K //// e’s a //// o evin t.com trants were left with nothing //// mas Hom M or //// //// sive ris e in //// else to do but complain about wall / K of R prot eddi enya fr e om d t. c it on Twitter, Mashable was earl ange ting the ier t Users o h r f F ous is there to distribute a copy of their the s a red intru araja Ch ocia dito year to i d l l r raise dren slash ers— new paper to every person in line. post ss 's m a e e fend d in the d a grap ore tha ite ban ll becau Tweets changed from, “I’m ded se n $1 ing t hic p face t 0 o h b h 0 g e y ot Tha et ,0 stuck in the longest f***ing line ever, com an a sym t barbed plex ttack o of a m 00 afte her bol o . r f the barrier s a But er’s #SXSW #KillMeNow” to “I’m stuck e it’s a o mac n who w lso i rphana rves as a pow ndic ge’s pow er as h a e n a s ew tiv er te w a pla in the longest f***ing line ever, but at It’s tform e of Red found s ful hile afety dit’s b eg i Oha a trait t for c d . g n hat n ia n r r n e o o i win wd least @mashable gave me a sweet print m ’s pe Inte “ W ng. rson irrors c sourced g rn now h at I r ofou al ph char to O et for p e n a p i i d ty ll r ositi l ha n edition! #SXSW.” The print edition also i a n, ve c osophy er A lexi . o u t [w o f e s s i o y w a nt the ha n it’s of u s to fo sit t he s he t he na l ly c i find e’s com someth ge—but sing th u s r e ] s t big offered easy topics of conversations for on r mun e to d i othe onl w e c a r y i n g ig o it y a ng that accordi “I've r ways ng g rew Dail someth ine com n a c t u a t o f i g u ht nd i t r o n a y i m l e n o l s l d D w less pire y g go ut o u o go strangers trapped together, increasing the o ays ,'” f d hi od.” nities l l e v e r a o t He’s t. m to ik McC g neit Ohania r ied to 'm d. read being f oma e Redd e her n t a o k ar to y [R it ld s tol e buzz. nor o hu d th from change I sta eddit co the Dai the wor e d th mbl l ly D r ted help f the e. R e wo ot, “ d suck t i Red ounder wor r n e e g pa rld atm dd Ultimately, these dual campaigns offer us bu l S dit e Inst d.” xpli teve Hu t for D ent to r y for a t in coun it’s alcitly f f ma tless h re e a i si n octo form ead, Re t n o w g r ye ] dd sW do g a mor , a reminder: Can it ood e th ar-old’s ys, orga like so m it’s pow a in com McCom hout Bo er ni u mun rder n $200 blood a s, O in la c movem ch else o as a cha ,000 s. it y fi Great journalism is important; creative ha r n te ri n e nd e hanian, e ss geek 2007, O nt amon the site table pla , gre y ret han tg its The the Inte ven mor and the w i a a user dona iler o n lau as a n marketing is important; but at the end of the Re d behi key, Mc rnet’s c e ef fici s. te dit f n e nd a h C pig’s s much books a ched Br Inspired n iss omas s ar itable nt ways nit y nd o of its eadp , mot a t ue t o as a side id, i day, knowing how to get people to share your th to? O ig the w profi hat s to ? who ha ts to er goods , a s orld Tha char t’s th le, to g peaks t “get pe suck nian’s r whic A nd p o o e a i a h t e p l t llyin the e y. Br nel o that subj content is paramount. com le g cr Mc C for R e ss.” ead ec t nT sn a interesting because The Daily Dot undoubtedly put more into its SXSW print edition than Mashable. It was 16 pages jam-packed with fantastic pieces of deepdigging journalism. Daily Dot even hired a comedy troop to dress up as early-20th century newsboys and distribute the paper, hollering, “Extra, extra, online newspaper goes

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Disclosure: Erica Swallow, Contently Director of Community and Managing Editor of this magazine, and Shane Snow, Publisher of this magazine, have worked for Mashable and contribute occasionally to its blog. features <<< 61

5. Pepsi

Pepsi has had a strong presence in the northwest corner of the Austin Convention Center since 2009, when it launched its content creators lounge. Looking to position itself “at the center of culture and innovation,” according to Director of Digital Josh Karpf, Pepsi took its SXSW content to a new level this year. “When we think about activating SXSW, we try to do things that are not overly promotional,” Karpf explained. “We do things that are adding value to the experience of the attendees.”

This year Pepsi added that value with the launch of the “What If?” conference.

Influential thought leaders like Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian were invited to brainstorm a single “What If?” question with an engaged, intimate audience, while a visualization magician brought the collective ideas to life on surrounding white boards. PepsiCo, the thought leaders, and audience members chronicled the conference and pushed it out through social media.

And PepsiCo didn’t stop there. The Pepsi Zeitgeist booth created a 4-wall digital environment that collected data from attendees by having them answer a series of questions about themselves.

The data was then reflected on the PepsiCo Central Station board, which displayed interesting content from the Zeitgeist booth and social networks.

Everyone gives away freebies at SXSW, but Pepsi’s mechanism for distributing free drinks was fascinating: a prototype for the social vending machine of the future. The machine prompted attendees to select a PepsiCo drink and send it to a friend via SMS. The friend could then retrieve the drink at the machine and watch a video the sender recorded.

Though there were no plans for widespread production of the prototype, it was the kind of quirky user-generated content play that gets people talking at SXSW.

62 >>> features

4. Google Lately, there seems to be two camps when it comes to Google: “Google is so cool!” and “Google is becoming evil!” – with many in the tech world teetering somewhere in between. The Google Village at SXSW attempted to push tech’s top influencers into the “cool” camp.

The Google Village, four venues built a few blocks from the Convention Center on Rainey Street, was a non-stop orgy of content.

For two days, the search giant offered more than 25 hackathons and workshops to teach attendees how to dominate the universe with Google tools. Once 6:00 p.m. rolled around, they opened the bar for happy hour.

To appeal to non-geeks, Google also featured rooftop concerts all day on Thursday and Friday with all-star lineups headlined by The Ting Tings, Gossip, and The Shins.

features <<< 63

3. Samsung Samsung’s dynamic booth, strategically located next to the Convention Center’s most high-traffic escalator, immediately attracted a lot of eyeballs with great content displayed on giant LCD screens.

One screen pooled social data to rank the “Party Pulse” of different events at SXSWi, providing a huge service to SXSWers looking for food, booze and fun.

The adjacent screen ranked the top #SXSW tweets in real time and displayed the “Mayor of SXSW” standings, calculated through a partnership with Foursquare.

At kiosks around the booth, attendees could access Samsung’s Olympic Genome project (soon to be launched on Facebook), which calculated the attendees’ connections to current and former members of the U.S. Olympic Team.

And that was just the beginning. Samsung also sponsored the blogger lounge, attracting an army of content creators. And in front of those bloggers on the opening day, they pulled out the big guns: an announcement that Samsung and Rovio would be launching Angry Birds into space in partnership with NASA. As they demoed Angry Bird Space’s exclusive Samsung Galaxy Note levels, the bloggers went into a frenzy.

Within minutes, the rest of the Internet did, too.

2. American Express AmEx launched its “Sync. Tweet. Save.” campaign at SXSW Interactive in style, offering one of the best pieces of content imaginable: free tickets to an intimate Jay-Z concert in Austin’s Moody Theatre. Cardholders just had to sync their AmEx card to Twitter.

Though only a couple thousand got to see Jay-Z, the buzz inspired many thousands more to sync cards, which allowed them to receive automatic savings by tweeting special offer hashtags, like #AmexMcdonalds ($5 off) or #AmexWholeFoods ($20 off).

“The AmEx Jay-Z thing was brilliant,” says Andrew Kessler, Creative Director at AdAge A-List Agency HUGE. “It’s a small space with a giant star and everyone’s desperate to get their hands on tickets.

It’s genius – they cut through the clutter at SXSW and everyone’s talking about it.”

64 >>> features

1.

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

There were no NASA signs at SXSW, but partnering with Samsung and Rovio to develop the physics for Angry Birds, a game with more than 30 million daily active users and 400 million downloads, was an absolutely genius move for an organization that is desperate for relevance and support from young, techy demos.

“They’ve taken real science and put it into the game,” says Michael Micheani, Samsung’s head of IT for Austin and San Antonio. “The actual science makes it so it’s as addictive as it can possibly get.”

NASA took things up a next level with a video of astronaut Don Pettit demoing the physics of the game from a space shuttle, using a stuffed bird, a slingshot, and an Angry Bird balloon. The video has already attracted nearly five million views.

NASA has been trying for years to rekindle Americans’ childhood love of space. Partnering for this SXSW maneuver looks like it could turn out to be its smartest move yet.

Get more

STRATEGIST at www.contently.com/blog

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