I started using Twitter at IABC International Conference in 2008. It was held in New York City and I soon became a big fan of Twitter and saw that it was a great tool to recap conferences. Back in 2008 there were a handful of us using Twitter and commenting on keynote addresses, what we thought of the breakout session speakers and what we were doing in New York. Checkout out my tweets about the IABC world conference 2009.
This year’s conference was in San Francisco and before the conference event began there was buzz about the conference on Twitter. Then as the conference started, I witnessed an entire sub-conference going on. I’m recapping it here and linking to other recaps from fellow members of IABC.
Prior to the conference and recapping the conference as it happened was OutoftheGate and Linda Johannesson. Byran Person and the Daily Boo also did a nice job recapping the conference.
It’s interesting to see each individuals takeaways from the conference and even the difference in opinions as the session were taking place. Typing in ‘#IABC09′ into Twitter search you will find a plethora of opinions, tips, and recaps. I also made lot of new friends on Twitter through recapping the conference, including: @valpakcoupons @dave1meyer @glendarholmes @distruptivethink @Punkpoet_jb @jenbenz @tomroux @zingzone @kathryncobb @shaileymotial @llibitz @willy26 @paulbartonABC @paulacassin and many more… If you review any of their tweets you’ll see a different perspective on the conference.
Twitter the Conference’s Hot Topic:
As for the conference Twitter was a part of the majority of the sessions I attended. I think it was mentioned in every session where social media was the topic or not. It’s the hot topic in communication. It was used live to demonstrate how social media is changing the communicator’s role and job in today’s business world. Neville Hobson (@jangles) in his podcasting session did a live Audio Boo recording and instantly had a photo and audio up on the site. That’s me in the green shirt in the blurry photo. He did it all from his iPhone, so lots of other equipment isn’t necessary. Shel Holtz (@shel) showed off the future of the Social Media News Release, I like that he called it a Social Media Kit as it has multimedia information for the press and everyone else out on the net to use as they like. Stacy DeBroff, aka @momcentral discussed Twitter at length and so did Barbara Gibson @Barb_G and @BryanPerson who did an entire session on Twitter for the Communicator.
Opening Session Sunday:
The overall feeling about Blair Christie and Cisco’s opening session was that is was a bit heavy handed on what Cisco could do for its clients and not the expected 30-thousand foot look at the communication industry. The tweets flew fast and furious throughout the speech and demonstration of Cisco’s intranet software packages.
General Session Monday:
Brian Dunn COO and soon-to-be CEO of Best Buy was awarded the IABC Excel Award for his leadership in communication. His thoughts on there no longer being internal and external communication (is all shows up on the Internet) was spot on. And the work his communication staff of 70 is doing with videos for employees and the new ads featuring real employee stories was a great way to highlight the youth of his company’s employee (avg. age 24) and the creativity of the company.
Monday Afternoon:
Branding session: David Grossman, ABC, APR, Fellow PRSA and Marty Campanello, APR, Fellow PRSA Did a great job recapping the Carolinas Healthcare System and it’s rebranding effort: Highlights: Branding and brands the currency of business today marketing from the inside out; Branding session – 26% of employees engaged according to Gallup leaves lots of disengaged and not engaged; in the age of mergers employees need to know what brand promise is and act on it; Carolinas Medical Center transformed their brand – the challenge was encouraging caring staff over other measures; Internal branding isn’t a logo, tagline, giveaway, website. It’s the promise of the brand that make people act; Grossman -branding brings up ops issues that get in way for employees must be addressed.
ROi to SOI: Stacy Debroff: Return on Investment to Sphere of Influence: Stacy who is the CEO of Mom Central Consulting demonstrated how she’s captured the niche market of moms on the social media networks and turned it into a successful consulting business. She’s been a part of campaigns for Frigidaire, Motrin (post-Motrin Moms incident, which she recapped for her point of view). Like any great blogger, she dropped a lot of names, but also backed it up with great content. Highlights: ROI to SOI: social media is changing the way we do everything. Power to the Moms!; ROI to SOI google is new corporate homepage. What people say about you is more important than you say about yourself; SOI increase enthusiasts, negate detractors, drive to action, change perception; transparency and authenticity again appears. The truth will set you free; Now following @momcentral from roi to soi at #IABC09 huge crowd majority of audience is in SM her followers growing by the minute; SM has given rise to crisis management via SM by 45%. Can companies manage a crisis on Twitter?; Stacy DeBroff getting clients off Twitter. MomCentral connects with Pepperidge Farms via a tweet exchange.; Great examples about the power of social media Frigidaire, Ringling Bros., Disney on Ice.; “motrin put out a stupid, bad ad about baby-wearing.” deep analysis YouTube twitter bloggers jumped on it.; how to crisis respond via SM for your company? Need to be able to respond where the conversation is taking place.; Debroff “never argue with an idiot because from the outside you can’t tell who is who!”; SOI is all about relationships. ROI to SOI #iabc09 create brand enthusiasts, stream of conversation – thread a story together. Impressions.; What is the story you want to tell via social media? ROI to SOI Can you change the perception of your brand with those on SM?
My question for @momcentral was how do you stay transparent that you are tweeting/blogging for a paying client? Still waiting for an answer.
Until next time, Tim
