Favorites From the Fourth Day in Austin (Sunday)

Nom nom: The Fish Tacos at The Peached Tortilla food truck provided a quick, yet delicious diversion from the convention center crowds.

Libations: You can't come to Texas without enjoying a crisp, cold Shiner Bock when the weather jumps well into the 70's. Especially when it was paid for by Google at their Google Places Happy Hour.

Celebrity-ish Sighting: FourSquare CEO Dennis Crowley and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh (see photo below). We were tech-star struck.

Through the lens: Crowley and Hsieh discussing business in the Samsung Blogger Lounge

Grab Bag: Its obviously fun to meet new an interesting people every day, but its also great to run into Colorado friends and colleagues while at SXSW. Big thanks to Ginger Pelz (@gpelz) for setting up an impromptu Colorado meetup via Twitter with @benjaminbacon, @biavio, @kristaflock, and the elusive @pug, to name a few.

Free Stuff Rules: Cool Haus Austin (@CoolhausATX) was not only giving out free Nutella and red velvet ice cream sandwiches for tweeting about them, but Alexis scored a free @charm_charlie bracelet for what was surely the best 2-for-1 tweet of the conference so far.

Number of steps taken: 13,081

Hours of sleep: Jim: 5.75. Alexis: 6.5. (curse you, Daylight Savings Time!)

Caffeinated beverages consumed: Jim: 4. Alexis: 0.5.

Number of connections made: 53 people and counting – and all of them have been interesting.

~Jim Licko and Alexis Anderson

South by Southwest: Day Three Key Learnings

Alexis’ Take, Day 3…

Today I’ve started to notice a pattern. I either love a session or leave feeling disappointed because it either had nothing to do with the description or the rhetoric got in the way of meaningful content. You here the words “influencer,” “transparency,” “authentic” and “engaged” a LOT by the third day. I am not alone in this, which helps me feel like it isn’t just me picked bad panels. Overall Sunday was a major success.

• How important it is to cultivate your customer/supporter base early on in social media so that when you need them (read: it’s crisis mode time) they are already there, dedicated and ready to jump into the trenches in your defense. This was the key overarching theme in the “Stand with Planned Parenthood: A Crisis Response” panel that kicked off my day. I also identified with how hard it can be to get a response – any response – out into the public while you are working to craft the “perfect” message. Getting out first, with something, is critical to controlling the situation.

• Visual storytelling is exceptionally powerful. I already knew that. But what really knocked my socks off at “Mother Goose Got Punked: Next Gen Visual Stories” was how much we forget about a cohesive and comprehensive distribution strategy for the video content we create. One of the best tips was to pick an official launch day for your video, push the heck out of it on owned media, earned media, email, etc., and then also hold a lunchtime viewing for your employees to build additional groundswell from the inside. So basic, but I know first hand how easily overlooked this is.

• Also, pulled from the aforementioned Mother Goose session, Photo Philanthropy looks like an amazing organization. The mission is to “promote and connect photographers with non-profit organizations around the world to tell the stories that drive action for social change.” The visuals shown as the Power Point presentation were powerful and it made me think about all of the visual stories we are not currently telling for our clients—I hope to be able to do more in the year ahead.

Jim’s Take, Day 3…

There is just so much going on at SXSW that you’ll never be able to see it all. That said, you also never know what you’re going to stumble upon if you decide to change up your schedule a bit…like taking a breather in the Samsung Blogger Lounge and finding yourself watching a live intimate conversation with the CEOs of FourSquare and Zappos. Here are my learnings and takeaways from Day #3.

• The 11:00 session I planned on attending was full, so I ventured into How Brain Science Turns Browsers Into Buyers, which was infinitely more interesting than it sounds. The general population reads wider-format text more efficiently, but they prefer narrow-columned text. Similarly, we prefer easy-to-read text, but we’re 14% more likely to remember content in a non-fluent font. Derek Halpern outlined how he utilizes narrow columns with short sentences to draw readers in to his content, and then non-fluent fonts for pullout quotes and sound bites – encouraging both increased readership and social sharing of key sound bites. I feel like I earned an honorary degree in content neurology.

• I have a new favorite ROI guru is Jen Van Der Veen based on her session, Brands: The Cost of Being Human. She discussed how companies and brands get so caught up in statistics and ROI numbers that they lose sight of the effectiveness of being human, and connecting with customers on a more personal level. The top 50 brands in the world all have fundamental human traits that connect with their audiences. There are many ways to measure the effectiveness of those connections, but being “human” is an organizational decision, not a means to an end. In other words, be authentic, measure accordingly.

• Its not every day you get to hear FourSquare’s CEO Dennis Crowley and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh in a fireside chat format, but that’s what Alexis and I found ourselves doing in the blogger lounge late Sunday afternoon. From hearing their biggest mistakes (FourSquare: biting off more than they can chew, Zappos: bad employee hires) to hearing about Hsieh’s Downtown Project, which is focusing on connecting Zappos with the existing hometown Las Vegas community rather than building a brand new corporate campus…it was a unique and fruitful interview to sit in on, to say the least.

~ Alexis Anderson and Jim Licko

Favorites From the Third Day in Austin (Saturday)

Saturday started the usual way for us, you know, up at 4:30am to make sure we get a spot in line for tickets to the free Jay-Z concert Monday night…and I’m happy to report, we’ll be attending the AmEx Sync Show with Jay-Z on Monday night (you can follow along by checking out the American Express YouTube channel). No doubt, our list of favorites from Saturday are dominated by Jay-Z related info…

Our favorites from the first full day in Austin (Friday):

Nom nom: The bread pudding desert at Peche. They’re mainly known for their prohibition-style cocktails (see below), but the bread pudding with vanilla bean ice cream was reminiscent of mom’s monkey bread – amazing…

Libations: After another day of rain, the temperatures warmed up a little, which was perfect for a Corpse Reviver #2 at Peche. Gin, lemon, Cointreau, Lillet Blac and absenthe – so light and refreshing that you’ve got to be really careful.

Celebrity-ish Sighting: Liz Gumbinner, publisher and editor-in-chief of coolmompicks.com, sporting a fedora and knee high boots at Pesche.

Through the lens: Jim and Alexis fairly excited about their free Jay-Z tickets at the ACL Live Moody Theater.

Grab Bag – Its amazing who you might meet while waiting in line in the rain at 5:20am. Behind us were two Starwood Hotel representatives and in front of us was Movember’s Director of Development. The result: pre-concert drinks with our "line buddies" on Monday. There's always a way to network...

Free Stuff Rules - The other result of waiting in line was Jim scoring a travel mustache trimmer from our friends at Movember. You really can't top that...

Number of steps taken: 16,432

Hours of sleep – Jim: 5.5. Alexis: 6.5.

Caffeinated beverages consumed: Jim: 6. Alexis: 4.

Number of connections made: We’re up to an even 40 people.

South by Southwest: Day two Key Learnings

Jim's take, Day 2:

I’m amazed at the variety of SXSW sessions, and had several conversations with people about this today: a few are amazingly basic, others push the limits of what we already know, some are targeted toward tech professionals rife with acronyms, and still others have nothing to do with what we do for a living and yet they’re some of the most memorable. Today was no exception:

• You can’t swing an iPad-filled backpack without bumping into Pinterest. In Texas State University professor Dara Quackenbush’s talk about the legal issues surrounding social media, she touched on the talk surrounding copyright issues related to Pinterest. Long story short, Pinterest tells its users to be sure to link back to the original source of the content to avoid any copyright infringement issues. Make sure you’re not claiming someone else’s content as your own, even if you didn't mean to.

• Jacob Young from Wired Magazine and Chris Reynolds from Conde Nast presented on the topic of analytics’ role in driving editorial content for publications – in other words, how often clicks, views, and time spent on stories of a certain topic drive the coverage of that same topic. Ultimately, this is a huge grey area. Media outlets today keep a close eye on the content their consumers want…which means what we like to read or watch can often dictate what journalists are covering to offer better results to their advertisers. What is better, what we “like” to read about, or what we need to know about?

• If you’re a client or a GFM team member, you’ll probably hear me talk a lot about this a little too much in the coming weeks/months: being authentic, understanding your audience and providing them with useful content (rather than pushing a corporate message or finding a way to manipulate the Internet to get in front of customers) is the all the rage. Nearly every aspect of digital marketing is moving more and more toward what public relations professionals have always known: building relationships with customers, and ensuring that you’re authentic and transparent is paramount. Consumers are increasingly skeptical of being marketed to – talk to them, not at them.

• Finally, keeping with one of my themes yesterday regarding attending at a digital conference but being reminded of best “offline” practices - there’s a game called Phone Tree that some people play over lunch outings, and is quite simple. Everyone piles his or her cell phones in the middle of table to form something similar to a tree. The first one who answers/grabs/picks up their phone also has to pick up the bill for the entire table. There’s something really genuine and great about being present during a meeting or lunch outing…

Alexis' take, Day 2:

Brain overload (in a good way) is an understandable symptom of SXSW attendance. I can’t even imagine how I am going to feel by Wednesday morning when we fly back to Denver. Today’s sessions were pretty varied for me, partially because I chose a few that were out of my comfort zone and also because one session I was looking forward to was 100% full so I had to go elsewhere.

Here’s what stood out…

• In the “Brands as Patterns” session that kicked off my second day, I was struck by a panelist comment that went something like this: “Consumers shouldn’t have to recall the entre brand story upon consumption of your product or service. They should already be living it.” As communicators we get so caught up in crafting every single word of a brand story before we get in front of our publics that we can forget or severely delay bringing the story to life for our customers.

• According to thoughtful academic data presented in the “Big Social Media Results for Small Brands” session, very small and nonprofit businesses can read and talk about best practices for social media until they are blue in the face, but many times, based on extremely limited bandwidth and staffing resources, the organization may need to buck the trend of being 100% buttoned up strategically and do the best they can with what resources they have. Small brands also may have a greater opportunity to share moments over messages—don’t miss it.

• “Wow” sessions probably have nothing to do with your professional reason for being at SXSW. When a brand advocate/influencer panel I wanted to attend was at full capacity, I was forced to scramble and find another nearby option. I stumbled upon “Is Social Media a Human Right?” and was captivated by the intense and emotional debate—which ranged from Facebook content policing in unstable situations like recent Middle Eastern protests to the rights of U.S. prisoners to utilize social channels and communicate outside of the prison walls. It was the most provocative panel I’ve attended thus far and I truly enjoyed being pushed to think beyond my clients who use social media, and reflect upon the communications opportunities social mediums can provide for people with a repressed voice.

~ Jim Licko and Alexis Anderson

Favorites from the second day in Austin (Friday):

Friday officially kicked off our SXSWi experience in Austin. I’ve never been more thankful to have a “sophomore” SXSWi guide with me than I was yesterday—as we navigated through downpours and stared sympathetically at the people in the 2-3 hour lime to pick up badges (which Jim, thankfully, insisted we do Thursday night). SXSW keeps the “weird” in “keep Austin weird” so there are no shortages of updates to share with you today!

Nom nom: Gotta go with Stubb's BBQ, an Austin classic. Family style meal with ribs, brisket, and smoked turkey, with fried okra were enjoyed by all. Underneath the restaurant are two live concert venues - one indoors, one out.. So cool.

Libations: "The First Growth" at the Driskill Hotel. Gin, pineapple juice and sage... Questionable name but very refreshing.

Celebrity-ish Sighting: Smokey Bear at the Smokey Bear tweet up. Note: this isn’t like it sounds—the tweet up was about creating a unique and memorable brand voice online.

Through the lens: Our Council of PR Firms colleage WCG created this very cool "SXSW Tracker" to keep tabs on trending conversations, hot spots and influencers. This photo was taken at 9:00 a.m., hence "breakfast tacos" being a popular topic of social conversation.

Grab Bag: Google+ representative subtly using "that other social network" in reference to Facebook. You stay classy, Google.

Number of steps taken: Jim & Alexis: 12,576 each.

Hours of sleep: Jim: 4.75. Alexis: 5.5.

Caffeinated beverages consumed: Jim: 4. Alexis: 3.

Number of connections made: 23 (and counting...)

~ Alexis Anderson

Details on Facebook Timeline for Brand Pages (Part 1 of 2)

It’s no secret that last week’s changes to Facebook brand pages are significant. From layout and design, to app development and the various options your brand has for interacting with its community – Timeline has a lot of people frustrated, to say the least. We’ve spent some time exploring the GroundFloor Media Timeline page, and wanted share some of the details, functionalities, new features and even potential opportunities that will come from Timeline for brand pages.

Cover Photos & Company History

The first thing you’ll notice when you visit a Timeline brand page is the giant Cover Photo that spans the entire top of the page. You might also note that a company’s “history” is not just limited to when it joined Facebook. You have the option to add details as far back as the company’s founding. Here are a couple of notes on both of those items:

· The Cover Photo does not allow for user interaction, other than commenting and “liking” the photo. Similarly, Facebook no longer allows brands to automatically redirect users to an app or interactive page as the first landing page. Both of these changes lead us to believe Facebook wants a little more control over its own platform, and puts priority on authentic and organic wall conversations.

· So which photo do you use for your Cover? Are there better ways to depict your brand through Timeline in these ways? Mashable recently listed 20 Facebook Page Cover Photos to Inspire Your Brand. It’s a solid list of big brands that are experimenting in this area.

· We really like the Timeline history functionality and the opportunities it offers to provide historical photos and tidbits of information that can really help your audiences connect with your brand on an even deeper level. Harley-Davidson, Nike and even the band Coldplay are utilizing the timeline in interesting and creative ways.

I’d be personally remiss if I didn’t mention Keystone Mountain & Resort in this post. From cover photos that update the amount of new snowfall in the past 24 hours to trail maps from opening day in 1970, Keystone is exploring some really cool ways to engage through Timeline.

Check back tomorrow for Part Two of this post which outlines updates to your brand's wall, how you post and some handy new administrative offerings.

~ Jim Licko