Tech Tips for Creating Content at SXSW

sxsw kitty

Tech Tips for Creating Content at SXSW

Content Creation

Action is all around you at SXSW Interactive. You’re crazy not to capture the moments, try to make sense of it all and make a ton of new connections. Content creation and curation are some of the best ways to get the most out of SXSWi. This is a short guide on some systems that can help you capture and publish your content. This is my plan.  Let me know if you have some content tips to pass on.

Planning

Attending SXSW takes a ton of planning and your content strategy is no different. While your session, meeting and party plans may shift during the conference, you want to have a tried and tested way of capturing and publishing your content. It comes down to planning. Figure out your systems and test them BEFORE getting on the nerd bird.

Have a Homebase

You’ll be active on a ton of social networks, but how will you bring it all back together? For me, I’m using a dedicated page on my blog –> SXSW as homebase. Think about where and how your going to organize your content.

On my page you’ll find all my schedule, pins, photos, and eventually links to the content I create during SXSWi.

Blog It Up

If you’re going to be blogging while at the conference (my 2011 posts), plan ahead. Create your post template so all you need to do is drop your notes, video, pictures or whatever into the template and publish. Do the prep work up front.

Photo Op

I plan on taking even more pictures this year than last year so this is key for me. Here’s my process for posting pictures.

[important]DSLR –> Phone –> Posterous –> Autopost (Flickr, Facebook, Twitter)[/important]

Eye Fi Connect

Eye Fi Connect

DSLR –> Phone

Getting pictures off your fancy camera on to the web. It has always seemed you have two options. 1) Share so-so pictures from your smartphone (forget about night-time photography) or 2) Shoot with a good camera and download them later.

This year I’m trying to have the best of both worlds.  I’m using a Eye-Fi card to load pictures from my DSLR to my Droid over wifi automagically.

Phone –> Posterous

Once on the Phone I can do some basic editing and email them to a Posterous blog.  Here’s an article on how to post to Posterous via email.  It’s incredibly easy once you get the hang of it. I’m going to tag all my photos “sxsw”.

Autopost (Flickr, Facebook, Twitter)

You can configure Posterous to Autopost to about 25 different places. I’m posting my SXSW pictures to Facebook, Twitter and Flickr and I’ll have a link on my SXSW  page, again, I like to have one spot, my homebase, for all my content.

Posterous AutoPost Options

Posterous AutoPost Options

Contacts

You’re going to meet a ton of people.  So far I haven’t found a technology I like for capturing contacts. No one seems to use “Bump”. Card Muncher is iOS only.  Last year I tried Hashable but it felt too forced. My plan this year is to use a mashup of If This Then That (ifttt) and Storify.  Here’s a link to the IFTTT recipe I’m using. It works like this, ifttt catches any mention of me and puts it to my Storify storyboard. Later, after the conference, I can go in and find who I was chatting with during the conference.  Perhaps I’ll make that into a blog post afterwards. The only caveat is I have to ask people I meet to mention me in a tweet.

 

ifttt --> Storify

ifttt --> Storify

 

Video

I don’t have big plans for video but I will be carrying a flip camera.  If I shoot video I’ll rely on YouTube and embeds into a blog post.

[important]What are your tips and tricks?[/important]

Photo Credit [sxsw]

5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 2-25-12

Marketing Technology 5

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

MT5 Edition:  #27

Stories This Week: How to get an App Store refund, Brands shuttering Facebook stores, iPad3 rumors, Flickr being made over to look more “pinterest-y.”

1. How to Get a Refund from the App Store

[Gizmodo] How to get a refund from the App Store in 5 simple steps

My Take: Like the author suggests, “only refund apps that don’t work. Developers need to eat too.“

2. Why are Brands Shutting Their Facebook Stores?

[Bloomberg] The Gap, J.C. Penney, Nordstrom and Gamestop have all opened and closed shops on Facebook in the last year.

My Take: Facebook, and social media in general, works great for customer engagement. When brands push product it stops being social. You already have a ecommerce website, people know how to find it – you don’t need to push product on social channels. FOCUS ON THE CUSTOMER NEEDS – NOT YOUR OWN!

iPad 3 case

iPad 3 case

3. iPad 3 Rumors

[Fast Company] Fatter. Better screen. Larger camera aperture? Early Fall release.

My Take: Part of the fun is trying to figure out what Apple has up its sleeve. So far the rumors aren’t that enticing

4. The iPad 3 is Coming: Where to Sell Your iPad 2 & Why You Should Do It Sooner Than Later

[BostInno] If you’re going to upgrade to the iPad3 and you want to sell you current iPad, you have about 2 weeks. Rumor has it the iPad3 will be announced on March 7th. After the announcement, your current iPad will lose 20-25% of its value. But can you live without an iPad3 ~6 months?

My Take: My iPad2 is fine. It has no hardware or software problems.  I can’t see me upgrading. I may skip a generation and pick up an iPad4 in *gulp* 2013!?!

5. Flickr Gets a Makeover, Looks Like Pinterest

[Mashable] Flickr gets a new user interface in late March. It will have a new design and new features and will borrow heavily from Pinterest.

My Take: Flickr hasn’t had a major facelift in…ummm…ever? But it’s being besieged on all fronts by cloud photo storage vendors and social network services. Yet it has a devoted, paying community.  Will this update be enough to “fix” this Yahoo property?

5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 2-18-12

Marketing Technology 5

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

MT5 Edition:  #26

Stories This Week: Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, Chrome on the rise, Google+ SEO tips, text marketing and tablet UX falls short.

BONUS: $100 in free twitter advertising!

1. Regulators to Google: You can buy Motorola, but we still don’t trust you

[arstechnica] US and European regulators wanted to deny the acquisition but didn’t have enough reason to stop it from going forward.  This gives Google 17,000 patents that are licensed by Apple, Microsoft and others.

My Take: Google has been connected to Motorola’s Mobility unit for years, it was one of the first enterprises to abandon Microsoft Office in favor of Google’s cloud offerings.  Google is positioning this as a way to “supercharge Android”.  We’ll see.  What Google really needs to do is eliminate “Android lag” – those precious seconds that the phone takes to respond to a touch command.

Chrome Browser Share

Chrome Browser Share

2. Chrome Browser Market Share Has Taken Off

[wikipedia] Chrome browser usage has taken off dramatically. The chart provided shows the change in alternative browsers (not Microsoft Internet Explorer).

My Take: I find Chrome (actually I use Rockmelt which is built off of the open source version of chrome) to be fast and reliable. I like that it has separate threads so I can go into Task Manager and kill independent processes that are hogging memory.

3. Two Google+ SEO Guides You Should Read

[SearchEngineLand] Here are some of the takeaways:

  • Fresh content matters: Google+ profiles with no posts within the last 72 hours don’t show up in the “Related People/Pages” section of Google’s search results
  • Pages can matter more than profiles: Brand pages with a few thousand followers/circlers can appear in “Related People/Pages” ahead of individual profiles with a million or more followers/circlers
  • +1s matter: Lurie says that profiles/pages that get a lot of +1s on their posts tend to show up more often in the “Related People/Pages” results
  • Comments and reshares don’t matter as much as +1s in helping to influence who/what shows up in “Related People/Pages”
  • Reach/follower count matter a lot

4. Tap Into the Power of Text Messaging

[MarketignProfs] Text messaging has been around for 10 years but it’s relatively untapped technique. Especially given it’s capability to deliver a timely message to customers.

My Take: I like text messaging as a marketing tool because the response rate is so high.  Most phone users have notifications (vibrate, chirp. light) turned on and they are going to see who is texting them. The problem with texting – it is classic “interruption” marketing. If you’re going to interrupt your customer, you better be offering them something of high value – something worth the interruption.

Attitudes Towards Digital Magazines

Attitudes Towards Digital Magazines

5. Tablet Magazine Experience Falls Short

[eMarket] The use of digital magazines continues to rise at the expense of paper ‘zines but the increase is due to convenience not aesthetics.

My Take: The responses are pretty good. Digital magazines would benefit from a standard format and advertisers would love “click to purchase” functionality.

BONUS: Twitter Begins Self-Serve Ad Sign-Ups, Offers $100 In Free Advertising

[TechCrunch] Twitter is now accepting sign-ups from small businesses that want to participate in its self-serve ad program.

My Take: Free! What are you waiting for? Sign up now!

5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 2-11-12

Marketing Technology 5

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

MT5 Edition:  #25

Stories This Week: Consumers don’t want personalized search, failure of two screen TV viewing, social media advice you NEED, Google will fail at consumer hardware.

 

1. Consumers Concerned About Personalized Search Results

[eMarketer] Only 15% of those surveyed preferred personalized search results. In contrast, 45% felt everyone should see the same results.

My Take: I’m a bit puzzled by the results. Why wouldn’t one want information aligned with their interests?  The one thing that stood out in the comments was a concern that this is an opportunity for Google to insert promoted results under the guise of personalized results.  But wait! I thought Google was the “Don’t be Evil” company!

2. Opportunity and Failure of Technology to Bridge Two Screens

  • [SearchEngineLand] Google: 41 Percent Of Super Bowl Ad Searches Were Mobile
  • [A&G] Shazam: Is it QR All Over Again?

My Take: I put these two stories side by side to show the opportunity and complete failure of anyone to deliver on an elegant two-screen strategy.  The first story shows that a lot of people had their laptop, tablet or smartphone in hand during the Superbowl. The second post shows how awful Shazam is at connecting consumers to the ads.  My take is integration will come when the TVs are smarter. I want to speak  commands such as “play the Doritos ad on my tablet” and have my TV issue commands to my second screen. Why put TVs in charge? They don’t have to power, bandwidth and battery challenges that second screen devices do.

3. 10 Things You Still Need To Know About Social Media / Social Business

[The Brand Builder] Check out these great quotes from Oliver Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder).

My Take: You see so much trite advice on social media, but his recent post provided some real gems such as:

  • “Social” is something you are, not something you do
  • Marketing on social media channels isn’t “social.” It is just marketing on social media channels
  • Change management, not social media tools and platforms, is at the crux of social media program development
  • Shut up and listen!

4. Dual monitors saves 15 minutes a day

[NY Times] A study, not surprisingly sponsored by a display company, showed that an extra display (or two) can tangibly boost productivity.

My Take:  I need to monitors, I’d like to have a third (browser, email, twitter). But there can be no doubt that adding a second monitor to an employee’s desktop is THE BEST way to boost employee productivity.

5. Google’s Foray Into Hardware Will Be A Total Disaster — Here’s Why

[Business Insider] Google is positioning itself to take on Apple in the set top box and music streaming device business. The article convincingly lays out why it will fail.

My Take: I’ve been pro-Google for a long time. Their free services have always helped me organize my life and communicate better. However, their recent design improvements, bone-headed business strategies with Google+ and so-so TV offerings have given me less faith in their ability to compete with Apple or Facebook.  They just don’t have the necessary design ethos and they’ve even take steps back in software development.

5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 2-4-12

Marketing Technology 5

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

MT5 Edition:  #24

Stories This Week: Pinterst blows up, desk.com, Twitter engagement increase, email effectiveness, and social picks a president?

1. Salesforce launches Desk.com

[VentureBeat] Enterprise cloud powerhouse Salesforce has launched Desk.com, a savvy customer support application that connects agents with e-mail, phone calls, and social channels.

My Take: I spoke with Social Support Superstar – yes a triple SSS threat – Mike Pace and he liked the original acquisition. He also likes the small business price point, what remains to be seen is if Salesforce can integrate Desk.com with it’s other online properties like CRM and Radian6.

2. Study confirms Twitter engagement is on the increase

[link] The article pulls out some interesting data from a recent study showing that active use of twitter has grown and that the global use of twitter is increasing.

My Take: Only 27% of tweeted during a 3 month period. Now that doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you figure that some people use twitter in a “read only” mode you actually get a higher # of users.

Email Impact on CMO Goals

Email Impact on CMO Goals

3. Does Email Deliver on CMO Objectives?

[Marketing Sherpa] Their chart of the week shows that email drives website traffic, lead generation, nurturing prospects and building brand awareness. What does it not do well? Increase sales conversion/revenue.

My Take: You have to look at the entire sales process, especially for B2B sales. Just because email doesn’t make the sales doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. Email is good for filling the top of the funnel. Prospective buyers are going to look to other marketing channels, like the information on a website and a direct sales  force, to commit to a sale.

4. Consumers Turn to Social Media for Presidential Campaign Info

[eMarketer] Candidates’ ad agencies invest more heavily in Facebook than Twitter, while Twitter wins out over blogs for more posts about the race.

My Take: I really like the comment from Jordan Bittman of Digitas:

“JFK is considered the first television president. Next year’s victor may well be determined by the impact of Facebook and Twitter”

Pinterest On The Rise

Pinterest On The Rise

5. Pinterest Drives More Referral Traffic Than Google Plus, YouTube and LinkedIn Combined

[Shareaholic] Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Google Plus, YouTube and LinkedIn combined.

My Take: The headline astonishes me but Pinterest is pretty crazy.  Want an example, look at what it did to Christina Refford’s traffic. After her post got pinned (and repinned) her traffic exploded.

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