From Microsoft to Southwest… capturing Social Media

Kelly Styring presented on viral marketing for indie rock groups using brilliantly nurtured and tended fan communities – applying same principles to marketing her husband’s winery (reputedly pretty fine merlot). By getting into the heads of her communities she is able to create “propagators” who take her messaging viral with geometrically expanding distribution…

Mark Edujee from Microsoft presented a comprehensive guide to assessing ROI from creative social media listening. Along the way he made a strong case that “social media changes everything,” and it’s certainly feeling that way.

Fascinating presentation of BBC’s use of their global panel to track real time responses to streaming video … much like audience meters but enabled through key word clicking …. Yields deep diagnostics and granular analytics.

Jason was asked to stress that their community analytics are more an art than a science because the findings are not projectible… We take their word for it.

Questions about the methodology were not appropriate since Jason could not speak to every aspect of someone else’s study. The most tantalizing case study was tracking of reactions to Obama’s victory speech – showing reactions to the stirring rhetoric were only a bit more positive than neutral… Reasons for that included strong negatives from some listeners mirroring strong positives from others…

Watching the speech in the wake of the last election was a bit surreal, while the polarized findings seemed immensely prescient.

Brandon Brown from Southwest Airlines presented an anatomy of an app introduction. Soutwest used traditional focus groups to research something that had never existed before. Their research resulted in one of the most successful apps ever, and the first airline app to be introduced. It is available only for the iPhone, and questions about why it was not introduced for Android inevitable surfaced. There was no decision not to introduce Android. Their app was rolled out when the iPhone was the only viable an interesting platform apps.

Wrapping up for dinner and the reception. Great first day. It’s been an event.