So, what happened at Facebook Studio Live? Hundreds of agency heads, clients and industry professionals gathered together on a rainy Wednesday afternoon at the trendy space at Carriageworks in Eveleigh. There has always been a cloud of mystery and secrecy that surrounds the Facebook brand, which was evident upon arrival. Small Facebook branded moleskins were handed out and guests not knowing what to expect were ushered into dark auditorium with microkitchens on either side of the room that included unlimited refreshments and snacks, we later learned a staple feature of every Facebook office. The crowd got to hear from superb speakers about the Facebook hacker culture, the evolution of Facebook over the past decade, creative solutions for advertising, and the deepest level of Facebook insights and metrics available to brands with additional ad spend (of course.) My top four key takeaways I took from the day are summarised below:

1) The most successful social campaigns have impact through ALL of the following: connections, engagement, influence, and integration. The best social marketers in the world don’t create campaigns that just have the BIG idea any more, they create social programs that scale in all four categories. How do you do this? It all starts with the standard creative brief and asking two key questions a) What is the key engagement insight? b) What is the social insight?

2) Don’t underestimate the power of the conversation calendar. More and more marketers are fighting for the same short-attention span on Facebook. So, what does this mean for brand pages? Facebook is about creating authentic relationships and creating a community management strategy and conversation calendar that demonstrates the following:

• Understand what motivates social behavior
• Have a clear purpose and authentic voice
• Create many meaningful and light-weight experiences
• Posting is like a dinner party, be a brilliant conversationalist
• Creative is both an art and a science

3) Facebook Studio online offers a fantastic wealth of global information and resources available to all marketers, brands, and agencies. The site aims to celebrate the great work of agencies and marketers and inspire others, while sharing resources to help strengthen existing Facebook campaigns. Take for example the Flair Fashion Tag campaign. This highly innovative and creative Facebook app developed by Belgian agency Duval Guillaume Modem allowed people to easily tag pieces of clothing in photos and share them with friends. All “fashion tags” were then displayed on the Flair Facebook Page and the top submissions were also featured in a magazine, a nice integration between Flair’s offline and online presence. This campaign was one of the first ever to be featured on the site and even earned a Media Lion at Cannes last year.

4) The possibilities for brands on Facebook are boundless. Facebook allows brands to connect with consumers in a digital world with the same authenticity as the real world. According to Mark D’Arcy, Director of Creative Solutions at Facebook, successful Facebook campaigns for brands focus on utility, relevance, caring/sharing, and light-weight design, rather than disruption. If used smartly and strategically, a Facebook brand page is one of the most amazing devices for storytelling and understanding consumer insights.

There are just a few of the takeaways I took away from Sydney’s first ever Facebook Studio Live. I will be sharing more content and key learnings over the next few weeks!

Following my session, was an international keynote from Lee Aase, a fellow Midwesterner and the head of social media at Mayo Clinic, in Minnesota. Lee delivered a great overview of the Mayo Clinic’s experience using social media, which started with experimentation with podcasts many years ago. Some of the key take-aways from his presentation:

1. Proceed Until Apprehended: if you are an in-house social media practitioner or champion, it’s sometimes best to have a “proceed until apprehended” mentality. Take a pilot approach to social media and be willing to try new platforms and ideas to see what sticks.
2. 5,000 views from the right people can equal success: Lee shared a great example of video created by Dr. Ruben Mesa of the Mayo Clinic, explaining a relatively rare disease called Essential Thrombocythemia or ET. Whilst the video had approximately 10,000 views and the content was technical, many of the views were from patients who had the disorder and, anecdotally more than 50 other doctors reported seeing patients who had viewed the video.
3. If they are doing this so can we. One of the best arguments an in-house social media practitioner can make is to share examples of competitors or industry leaders who are doing something similar in social media. In other words, our competitors are active in social so we need to be, too!
4. iPhone: a reason not to ban social media in the workplace. Nearly half of the conference attendees raised their hands when asked whether their employers banned social media in the workplace. How do you make the case internally to raise the iron IT curtain? Lee brought up a picture of the iPhone, meaning that anyone today can access the social Web from their iPhone or mobile device – they’ll access it while at work anyway – so why not give employees smart guidelines that educate and empower them on best practices of using social media while at work.

Finally, a collection of links to some of the great work and resources from Mayo Clinic:

• In-Depth Explanation of Essential Thrombocythemia (ET)
• Know Your Numbers 8675309 Spoof
• Mayo Clinic Podcasts
• Mayo Clinic Connect Patient Community
• Lee Aase on Twitter
• SMUG

RSVP via a Facebook Event

Announcements on Facebook and Twitter aside, I created a Facebook Event to invite my guests. With a simple message and a few clicks, I reached out to almost all my friends on FB. That saved me tonnes of time when it comes to finalizing the number of attendees and finding out if my guests were bringing their +1s or not. When planning a wedding, especially when the date draws closer, time is a luxury piece and you don’t get to waste much. So this alone saved me much time.

A mini teaser for the wedding via a Wedding Teaser Photo Album

We took some beautiful wedding portraits to be shown during the wedding. If you knew about it and remember, the photography session caused me to miss the Social Media Summit in HK earlier this year! Aaarrrrgggghhhhh!

Anyway, to create anticipation and excitement a few days before the wedding, we released a few of these pictures on Facebook. It was fun, friends were glued on and excited to view the next picture to be uploaded.

A video to tell our little story

They say a picture is stronger than a thousand words, while I disagree SEO wise, we took it one step further and hired a videographer to make us a video instead, and we loved it. The attendees found it entertaining and we get to keep our sweet sweet memories foerever (unless the video file somehow got lost or corrupted, I hope not!). We then uploaded the video on YouTube for all those who missed it and those who would like to see it again, my wife and I especially.

(The video is the one at the top by the way)

IT ALL REALLY STARTED WITH FACEBOOK

So there you have it, 3 ways I’ve used social media for my wedding. If I can only quote ONE SINGLE example on using social media for a wedding, how about this….. I met my wife on Facebook, how’s that for a social media case study!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this. Have you got similar stories to share? How have you used social media for your wedding? Looking forward to hearing your stories, cheers!

Lucie Snape, a digital strategist from Ogilvy 360 DI, started the program with a clear 4-point view of the road to developing an effective social strategy; Listen, Plan, Execute and Optimise. Lucie stressed the importance of mitigating risk with clear guidelines for employees and for community managers representing brands in the digital space.

It was good to be reminded that consistent content creation and playing by ‘the rules’ are necessities when executing a social strategy. Businesses still engage in social media without a predefining strategy which generally results in poor community management, incomplete social profiles and no active relationship building. That’s why a Playbook to underpin your strategy is a very important element of your social media tool kit.

Next up was Daniel Lodge, senior account executive at Radian6, who showed us ways social data is visualised using the Radian6 platform. For a first timer I imagine all the charts and graphs might be a bit overwhelming. It did however give a good overview of the product. It would have been good to see more detail around the engagement platform which is a wonderful feature of the Radian6 product which distinguishes it from its monitoring competitors.

Datacom’s Roy Tan, divisional manager at Datacom, tied in on the strategy and technology sessions to talk about the actual execution. He showed us tactical ways to use social media and Radian6 optimise the customer experience.

All in all it was a great event to learn the basics of a social media strategy and how it can add to your marketing mix. The sessions from strategy to technology, ending with the execution were fitted logical flow and came together in a comprehensive story. I loved the examples, and the way Mark McWilliams from Datacom introduced each speaker and told a little case study story complementing each session. I observed attendees scribbling wildly during the sessions so I’m sure they all have learned a thing or two!

If you want to know more about the events please visit the Datacom website. If you want to know more about the sessions discussed you can also follow the speakers on Twitter.

@LucieSnape
@DanielLodge
@RoyTwTr

I couldn’t agree more. Now there are probably a handful of people out there who should NOT be on Twitter solely because of what comes out of their mouths on any given day – getting on Twitter would equate to a career limiting move! But those people should probably not be in PR.

And “being on Twitter” doesn’t have to mean Tweeting five times a minute, either. Some of the most interesting people who I follow only Tweet a handful of times a week but they’re usually sharing a great insight or pointing out a must-read article. And that’s OK.

If you’re in public relations, here are five reasons you should be on Twitter:

1. Media Are There: As of two years ago, there were more than 500 Australian journalists on Twitter and if you follow your favourite journo closely you’ll often find them asking for sources or story ideas. If you’re proactively looking for opportunities to get media coverage for your client Twitter is a smart place to be as you’ll find those opportunities and develop better relationships with journalists. All part of the core job requirements of any PR pro.

2. Trains You to Move Faster: PR in general moves fast. The thing I love most about Twitter is that it gets you in the habit of moving and creating content even faster. What’s trending one minute is yesterday’s news the next minute. In order to give clients great counsel and be one step ahead, we need to be on top of what’s trending on Twitter whether it’s to provide them with something to retweet, to share an insight on something that’s trending in the media or to inspire them to start participating as well.

3. Better Manage a Crisis: When I spoke at a travel industry conference in Taipei last year, I woke up to a massive rumbling at 6AM and saw my hotel room literally move two feet in either direction. It turned out to be my first earth quake – a 6.5. The first thing I did was went to search.twitter.com and looked for “earthquake” and “Taipei” – nothing. Checked CNN – nothing. Because there had been nothing on Twitter I half believed that it couldn’t have been an earthquake. Today Twitter is the first place media and consumers turn when there’s an issue – whether its’ a product recall or massive natural disaster. If your client or your brand is the issue then you need to be there in the conversation and getting your side of the message out – otherwise no one will believe you!

4. Cross-Business Collaboration:  The great thing about Twitter is that it serves a number of cross-business functions and gives PR an opportunity to use social media to improve ROI across the enterprise. For example, you might engage the HR department to use Twitter to recruit the next wave of talent. It might give you an opportunity to engage customer service to better manage customer feedback and reduce the burden on more expensive call centres. Or you might have a chat to the head of product innovation and talk about how to listen to what customers “wished” they could get from your brand.

5. Find a New Gig: We are hiring for a digital strategist and last Friday I was given what was billed to be a great CV by a recruiter. Even before opening the CV, the very first thing I looked at was her Twitter account which contained zero Tweets or even a profile picture. While she had to go into the “no” basket, you’ll position yourself well by at least being present on Twitter and if you follow hash tags like #jobs you might even spot an opportunity or two for yourself. (PS – interested? DM me for details).

Lastly, being on Twitter will allow you to explain what the hell a “hashtag” is – and how to use it an event. And if you want to follow a great hashtag check out PRIA’s PR Directions conference hash tag at #PRDir!

What do you think? Are there other reasons to be… or not to be… on Twitter.

“You sure you don’t want to take the Camaro for a quick spin?”

What kind of a question is that? Of course I want to take a Camaro for a quick spin. But I’ve got my heart set on the cherry red, open-top 6.2 litre Corvette that is parked, Le Mans-style, as if about to launch into the Austin morning traffic of its own volition. And I really should, in the name of research, also get behind the wheel of the new, all-electric Volt. The nice ladies from Chevrolet really don’t mind if I drive them all. In fact, I’m certain they are KPI’d on getting as many punters behind the wheel of as many Chevrolets as is technically possible in the two weeks it takes the SXSW festival to cycle through the interactive, film and music components of what was once a fringe event for alternative bands, independent film-makers and hard-core nerds.

Considering that, just a few short years ago, General Motors was seriously toying with the idea of liquidating the Chevrolet brand, the massive investment made by the marque in terms of sponsorship, exhibition space and activation is a clear indication of the rising fortunes of both Chevy and SXSW, and their trajectory as brands. In an evenly-matched exchange of ‘brand heat’, Chevy is bathing in the ‘bleeding edge’ kudos of the world’s largest gathering of people who make their living from the internet. SXSW, meanwhile is striding boldly towards the mainstream – the American Heartland, in Chevy-speak – and taking the bleeding edge of the interwebs along with it.

All that bold striding has obviously made ‘SouthBy’ thirsty, because it gave equal top billing to Pepsi, who played host to the masses all week long in a specially-constructed open-air arena opposite the Austin Convention Centre, and presented an invitation-only concert featuring Big Boi, who is apparently famous. They also made it pretty difficult to find a can of Coke.

Motor vehicles, soft drinks, consumer electronics, energy drinks, television channels, credit-ratings agencies. These were the companies that hitched their wagon to the SXSW brand as official major sponsors, with almost all of them redoubling their efforts in terms of advertising, promotions, events, activation and, quite simply, giving away pallet-loads of free stuff, all day long.

Food truck + logo - cash register = SXSW marketing

Free stuff, and free food in particular, was a popular tactic on the streets of Austin, with many start-ups simply renting a food truck, painting their logo all over it, picking a busy corner and setting up shop for the week. Except they were the kind of shops that didn’t want your money. They just wanted you to take some more of their heavily-branded free stuff and to remember their url.

And then there were the parties. Microsoft hosted an enormous barbeque for start-ups and VCs. They also rented out a huge auditorium and threw a lavish party to celebrate, of all things, a browser upgrade. On the same night.

Mashable took over a double-fronted, three story pub on the busiest street in what appears to be a pretty busy town, threw open the doors and bought everybody a drink or three, all night long. For two consecutive nights. They are, at heart, a blog, for crying out loud. But a blog with enough clout to convince Sony, Pepsi, a domain registrar and a photo-sharing service to each take out sponsorship packages within the self-proclaimed ‘Mashable House’, presumably underwriting the whole shebang.

Nikon and Vimeo (who decides on these partnerships, by the way?) joined forces, took over a disused power station and offered the masses thumping beats and enough booze to kill all your horses. A perfectly upstanding web-hosting company threw a fairly swanky burlesque party. The official closing party of the Interactive portion of SXSW was held at a 2,100 capacity outdoor venue and featured a secret performance by the Foo Fighters. Again, a hosting company were the, well, hosts.

CNN took over a sizeable local venue as their temporary broadcasting facility, re-branding it the CNN Grilland causing ongoing confusion among hungry punters. Conan O’Brien reportedly did a couple of shows from Austin. Ashton Kutcher was also repeatedly spotted in town, presumably so he could tweet amongst people who are really, really into Twitter.

CNN rolled into town for the week, following the deals - and the money.

The Guardian sent a team from their London HQ to co-habit with the supremely laid-back journalists of the Austin Chronicle and produce a semi-regular min-newspaper (yes, the kind made from putting ink on sheets of paper) dedicated to coverage of the event.

Apple created the perfect storm of consumer-tech nirvana by combining the words ‘pop-up store’, ‘SXSW’ and ‘iPad2’ in one frenzied sentence. The store, however, looked like it was moving in for good. And it was massive.

All of this big-money, mainstream-brand, traditional marketing activity sat over a constantly bubbling layer of events and stunts and parties and drive-bys and giveaways from what I had assumed would be the usual suspects: the start-ups, the web 2.0 stars, the comeback kids. They kept giving away the eats and the booze like they had nothing but VCs on speed dial. Which, for the next little while, they obviously do.

As one wag aptly put it (in the current parlance of the web): If you’re paying for your own food and drinks at SXSW, ur doin’ it wrong!

In a sure sign that SouthBy (and, by extension, all things digital media) is now primetime, it became quickly apparent that if you spent the night networking, you’d wind up holding a stack of business cards from people in advertising.

It’s clearly gone mainstream, but it hasn’t really gone global. There were lots of Australians, pods of Scandaweigans, quite a few Japanese (Dentsu took out a large stand in the trade show area) and a smattering of Brazilians, but not many nationalities were there in sufficient numbers to be noticeable. Amongst the inevitable “It’s too big now” chatter were a few speculating that it might be time to franchise this sucker.

Asia seemed a popular pick as the region most likely to get its own SouthBy – if not as an officially-licensed product, then at least a faithful reproduction. Considering the big focus seemed to be on mobile (in terms of commerce, apps, platforms and wallets, just for starters), it seemed incongruous that a region largely acknowledged as a leader in mobile technology, uptake and innovation was essentially absent. There was a sense that some of the ‘futurecasting’ at several of the panels and sessions in Austin is already a reality on the streets of Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore.

Those of us in marketing-world and agency-land are well accustomed to reading about how, now, everything is digital. However, I finally think it may actually be coming true – evidenced by the fact that, at one of the world’s largest festivals dedicated to the congealing edge of digital media and interactive technologies,everybody came to the party.

A version of this article was originally published on the STW Group’s new trend-spotting blog Nextness.

Ogilvy Creative Director Barrie Seppings (@BarrieSeppings) covered SXSW on Ogilvy @ SXSW along with Damon Damjanovski and Brian Merrifield. Check out their podcasts from the event.

Others like Springwise call it the ’OFF=ON trend‘. Regardless of semantics, the concept has been gaining traction and recently ‘the first movie in the outernet’ has been launched.

The interactive film called ‘The Witness’ is a campaign for 13th Street Universal thriller and crime TV channel, and it combines technologies seamlessly to provide a new kind of storytelling experience.

An online promotion led to the selection of a few final participants in an extremely engaging movie/game that takes place in this space between reality and fiction, the real and the digital worlds.

The participants had to start the game at a hotel in Berlin where they could witness a crime scene through their phones, using GPS, a special app designed for the iPhone, pre-recorded footage and game mechanics. As the story unfolded, they needed to move through different locations, collect clues using QR codes, interact with the movie characters that would appear impromptu on their way and even take critical decisions that might lead them to become the heroes of the film of just dead characters.

You can watch ‘The Witness’ video here.

No doubt it makes it a highly relevant campaign for the brand  but, most importantly, it points out to the multiple possibilities for enhanced interactions with shoppers throughout the patch to purchase or building new and exciting brand experiences.

As long as your audience has a mobile phone and a good reason to interact with your brand, the ‘outernet’ provides a rich new space for all sorts of hybrid and meaningful experiences. All sorts of technologies can enable this clash of worlds but it seems that the key is still some kind of game mechanics and good old-fashioned storytelling.

How many Twitter followers do you have? Many people brag about it. In the real world of runners, however, things might look quite different, specially if you spend so much time behind the computer.

To prove the point —and engage consumers with their Buenos Aires 10K race— Nike created an innovative Twitter application that allowed users to compare their running stats with their Twitter followers and followees and determine who follows who in real life. Watch the InterTwitter Race video here video for the details and very impressive results. All the explanations, in 140 characters or less.

Another great example of digital activation is the sponsorship of Planeta Terra (one of the biggest music festivals in Sao Paulo) for Volkswagen Fox.

A clever combination of free tickets with scarcity tactics —the few hidden tickets were discoverable only by tweeting about the promo— made #foxatplanetaterra jump to the top of the charts in the Brazilian city, achieving a very cost-effective boost for their participation in the event. Watch the groovy Fox at Planeta Terra Twitter Zoom video here.

Both have a lot in common apart from using Twitter. Not only they take advantage of social media to create WoM but they move people to action. Users don’t just share links or play an online game. They do something outside their computers or mobile devices. The two campaigns blur the line between online and offline.

Note that no complicated technology or expensive hardware is required. By using a freely available tool like Twitter, they show clearly that the power still lies on the ideas. Simple, well executed ideas that appeal to our very human nature.

More examples of these kind of work to come.

The next one takes place on November 16 at 11am Hong Kong time on Social Networks For Business.

Social Networks have become mainstream consumer behavior across the Asia-Pacific region, but many executives, still struggle to understand the dynamics of online behavior and what it means for their business.

With 70 percent of web users in Asia signed up to a Social Network, ignorance about how people interact online is not a lost opportunity.

It is a business risk.

The rapid pace of change, however, has left many companies confused about the emergent opportunities as social networks gain ground against search-centric online campaigns. Join Ogilvy’s award-winning 360DI team for a 30-minute download of the latest research on social networks and what it means to business.

Sign up here (and invite friends!): http://wsj-asia.com/webinar

The wait is over! Finally, after many painful weeks of watching my US mates and colleagues use Facebook Places, it has finally arrived in Australia today.

I asked Jonathan Nguyen, one of the crack strategists on my team in Sydney, what he thought the impact of Facebook Places in Australia. Here is what he said:

So what’s going to happen to Foursquare? Who knows. The people who are using Foursquare today are roughly the same crowd that were using Facebook and Twitter about four years ago – not to mention the gaming advantage that it has with “mayorships” and badges. So there’s every chance that it will continue to grow in usage and popularity.

One big advantage that Facebook Places has, of course, is a natural audience of more than 9 million Australians who spend more than eight hours per month on Facebook. That’s quite a few checkins waiting to happen!