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Last week Converseon announced the “Where in the Summit is Converseon” social media scavenger hunt at the Affiliate Summit West 2008 in Las Vegas Nevada taking place February 24-26. The Affiliate Summit is the most premier conference for the affiliate industry and Converseon will be sending the entire affiliate team to the event. It is an incredible opportunity to meet with new partners across industries, and this year is no different.
We wanted to have a bit more fun this time around and add a unique twist to the standard networking events, making the experience more memorable and interactive for all our affiliates and partners, offering prizes for using Flickr and Twitter in a social media scavenger hunt. The attendees are given clues to solve and must find Converseon team members (Jamie, Stephen, Robin, Harmony and Stephanie) at various locations during the Affiliate Summit to win points towards our prize packages. To gain points participants take a photo with us and upload it to our Affiliate Summit Flickr account, It’s pretty simple but should be lots of fun.
Here are some sample clues:
• How can you go to Las Vegas without seeing ”The King”? 10 points if you get a picture with any Converseon team member with The King, and another 20 points if you are able to get the entire Converseon team and you posing with his eminence. And 25 points more if you’re wearing Blue Suede Shoes in the picture.
• There’s only one way to get around the strip, but don’t get derailed. Catch a picture of any Converseon team member and you on Vegas’ mass transit system and get 15 points.
• Going once, going twice – SOLD! 10 points for a picture with any Converseon team member at this Summit event on Monday at 3 pm.
We’ll also be offering additional prizes through our Twitter account such as coffee mugs or a free lunch with the team. The points will be calculated and totaled at the end of the game. We will post the final winner on the “Where in the Summit is Converseon?” website by March 3, 2008. Prizes from Converseon clients Edmund Scientifics, Relax the Back, MyWinesDirect, Get Organized and Mikasa will be shipped the following week.
This morning Converseon sponsored New York’s first Social Media Breakfast alongside Text 100. Reuters Second Life reporter Eric Krangel (aka Eric Reuters) spoke about virtual worlds, the changing media landscape and his role as a Second Life journalist. You can see all our photos in the Converseon Flickr account.
We’d really like to see the New York social media scene come together and we think events like this are important for the community – not that virtual relationships moving into the real world is anything new, as this 1997 Wired quote about The Well shows:
In addition to electronic dialog, there should be a strong face-to-face element to The Well. (It was while on EIES that Brand had learned the value of online confrères having physical contact – a group of EIES regulars made a point of meeting offline as well.) He sensed that the most interesting possibility to arise from knitting electronic dialog into the fabric of everyday life would lie not in championing either the virtual or the human-contact model but rather in finding the place where they overlapped. “Brand had an awareness that you had to have that sense of the physical environment and the local culture and flavor for the community to work,” says John Perry Barlow, who joined The Well in 1986.
Thank you to all the friends of Converseon (new and old) who joined us for breakfast this morning; it was great to be able to sponsor a meeting of New York’s finest social media minds.
On a day to day basis our work at Converseon touches on a number of marketing disciplines and draws from widely different areas of expertise. This diversity is on show this week as our team speaks at three events with varying backgrounds and audiences
Search Engine Strategies – Chicago
Constantin Basturea will appear on a panel ‘Meet the Bloggers Who Can Make Your Cash Register Ring!’
There is a significant difference between popularity and influence. And it is important to find out which bloggers generate editorial coverage, influence your existing and potential customers, and drive traffic to your ecommerce or merchant site. While building relationships with these influential bloggers can be very time-consuming and resource-intensive, this session will help you to get started.
PRSA event: Social Media 101: What Every PR Practitioner Should Know – Pittsburgh
Social networks and online communities are transforming traditional PR strategies. The old broadcast system is on its way out. In this interactive session with nationally renowned digital marketing expert, Rob Key, learn how the social media phenomenon is rapidly changing the practice of public relations. In this session you’ll learn about the latest digital tools available to today’s PR practitioner as well as strategies for incorporating social media tactics into your organization’s marketing mix
Constantin Basturea will appear on a panel on online communities and virtual worlds discussing our multiple award winning Second Chance Trees project.
The SNCR Symposium & Awards Gala will feature the latest research and winning case studies from around the globe. Learn, discuss and have fun with your peers, industry experts and the most notable thinkers and practitioners in the world of new media and communications.
As per the headline, we’re extremely proud to have been selected by the Word Of Mouth Marketing Association as one of their four WOMMIE Award winners for 2007.
The art of Word of Mouth Marketing online is continually evolving and we’re having a great time working at the coalface. Rob Key will be presenting our case study at the WOMMA Summit on November 14-15 in Las Vegas – but in the mean time you can learn from the great case studies hosted at the WOMMA site. In the meantime, we’re happy to be recognized like this:
“I was thrilled to see the caliber of work considered this year for the Wommie Awards, particularly when comparing them against last year’s submissions,” said Amanda Van Nuys, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Organic, Inc. and Wommie Awards judge. “Collectively, the case studies clearly demonstrate how word of mouth marketing has grown up over the last few years as it transitions from its adolescence and into a more evolved and disciplined marketing practice.”
On To The Friday Links!
This week the Converseon team have had a mix of social networking and smart technology catch our eye. The content below has already sparked some deep thinking and conversation amongst our team, please share your thoughts in the comments below.
Photosynth Demonstration (RSS Readers, click through for video)
This technology is mind blowing. As they say: “Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images”Consumer 3.0: New Trends in CGM
Pete Blackshaw gives a general overview of the current state of CGM marketing, including some links to good examples.
Facebook Facts that will blow your marketing mind
Mitch Joel shares some stats on Facebook from the Canadian Marketing Association conference:
1. The average Facebook user spends about twenty-one minutes plus per day at the online social network.
2. The average Facebook user visits four times per day.
3. Facebook is adding about three hundred and fifty thousand new users every day.
4. Just this morning Facebook surpassed fifty million worldwide community members.
5. Facebook’s size doubles every six months.
Can Facebook feed its ad brains?
Facebook is expected to tap artificial intelligence to deliver ads to its 49 million members. This is a good real world example of the challenges that companies face in serving the right ads to the right people in real time.
A Series of Podcasts with Lee Odden and Mike Moran
Some great discussion here about Mike Moran’s new book “Do It Wrong Quickly: How The Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules”
Explaining OpenSocial to your Executives
A good analysis of what Google’s new OpenSocial can allow you to do to help share great content with your key audiences.
This post highlights some work Converseon has undertaken for American Ventures.
It can be difficult to involve C Level executives in social media, they’re time poor, they are still learning about the changes that are occurring and often they are uneasy about the uncontrolled nature of the blogosphere. At the same time the valuable knowledge and insight these individuals can share can really benefit their relevant niche community. While we look forward to the day when it is the norm for organizations to climb aboard the Cluetrain, at this early stage it is often best to help CEO’s dip their toes in the water as they become educated in the unique nature of social media.
CEOs blogging and podcasting are not new but it is more difficult to involve a CEO in social media in industries that might seem a bit atypical, like commercial real estate. In this case, we worked with Philip Blumberg, the CEO of Blumberg Capital Partners and American Ventures to help him launch the Philip Blumberg Five podcast expounding on the impact of current real estate challenges on commercial real estate development and other topics. The recording of the podcast was also filmed to share the information via YouTube to make the most of his contribution and help spread the information to interested parties.
This early effort with socially media provide an extension of his blog and hopefully the beginning of a deeper involvement with social media in future.
Good news today as we learned that our Second Chance Trees project has been selected as one of three finalists in the ‘Virtual Worlds’ category of the 2007 OMMA Awards.
OMMA describe their Awards thus:
The OMMA Awards honor the brand marketers, agencies and content providers who continue to push the potential of online advertising creative. The OMMA Awards celebrate the year’s most innovative and brilliant creative work in 20 categories.
The online medium is the most fertile canvas for innovation and creativity, and the OMMA Awards will salute the stars that shine brilliantly among us.
The goal of the OMMA Awards is to offer insight and vision on what is truly possible using the online arena and to illuminate those who continue to stretch the boundaries of online advertising creative. The OMMA Awards will set the gold standard for creative excellence in the interactive industry.
It’s great to see further recognition for the project on top of its selection as the only social media project among the American Express Members Project finalists and other success to date. We’re in good company alongside Pontiac’s Motorati Island and Coke’s Virtual Thirst; we’ll find out if we are adjudged the best entry at the OMMA Awards Reception on September 25.
Converseon will be exhibiting at the eTail 2007 multi-channel retail event in Washington DC from August 6-9.
The eTail event brings together over 1,000 executives to discuss best practices for online retailers. The Converseon team will be at booth number three throughout the event, if you will be attending please visit the booth at any time for us to take you through a brief ‘Social Media for Retailers’ presentation or to talk about how engaging with social media can expand your brand.
If you’d like to learn more about the ‘How To’ of social media, be sure to swing by the booth at the times below for some interactive social media 101 presentations.
Tuesday 6 August 2007
11.15 a.m. to 11.45 a.m. – Guided Tour of Second Life
4.20 p.m. to 4.45 p.m. – ‘How To Podcast’ Demonstration
Wednesday 7 August 2007
10.45 a.m. to 11.15 a.m. – Guided Tour of Second Life
3.45 p.m. to 4.25 p.m. – ‘How To Podcast’ Demonstration
Converseon CEO Rob Key will be presenting his ‘Cultural Anthropology in Online Communities’ case study focusing on Second Chance Trees and the principle of ‘karmic-communications’ at WOMMA’s Learn It! Do It! event in DC tomorrow.
Rob presented the same topic at the corresponding event in New York last week and now is the best time to learn from this case study because of all the recent activity around Second Chance Trees. The event looks to be an excellent educational opportunity and there are still some seats available (register here).
What
WOMMA Learn It, Do It Series
Who
Rob Key, CEO, Converseon
Peter Waldheim, Interim CEO, WOMMA
John Bell, Managing Director – 360° Digital Influence, Ogilvy PR
Malcolm Faulds, Vice President of Media Services, Bzzagent
Leslie Forde, Vice President of Strategic Alliances, Communispace Corporation
Ted Wright, Managing Partner, Fizz
When
Tuesday July 24 2007
7:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Where
Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
1111 19th Street NW, 10th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20036
Please leave a comment below if you will be attending, or with any thoughts after the event.
