Nearly 500 marketing, media and technology professionals gathered in Tysons Corner on June 25 for the 7th Annual Digital Media Conference East co-produced by Digital Media Wire and DC’s Potomac Tech Wire. Social, mobile, video, metrics, convergence and the cloud where the themes of the day-long event.
The keynote address was given by Kelly Day, EVP & GM, Digital Media and Commerce with Discovery Communications. Discovery believes that with the launch of the iPad it has become clearer than ever that how consumers interact online is not going to be about text – it’s going to be about a rich integration of video, imagery and information packaged in a way that is far more engaging than the web has been to date. The future for publishers is all about brand plus science plus scale.
Paul Sherman, editor of Tech Wire Media, moderated a panel on the state of social media. The general consensus of the panelists comprised of Aaron Batalio, CTO and co-founder, Living Social; Anna Robertson, director, multimedia/social media, Yahoo News; Micah Nyatsambo, director of social media, Havas Digital; Phil Bronner, general partner, Novak Biddle Venture Partners; Justin Thorp, community manager, Clearspring ;is that Facebook is by far the dominate social media platform. Sherman asked the panel if they agreed with the statement that two-and-a-half platforms have won the social media war: Facebook, Twitter and, maybe, LinkedIn. The panel generally agreed that Facebook by far is currently winning the social media platform war. Batalio said “Facebook has been extremely smart in broadening their roots across the social web especially how they have gotten massive media sites to integrate with Facebook. However if you look at history there will probably be another platform in five to 10 years.” Thorp noted that the world is bigger than Facebook and Twitter. Of all the online sharing they see at Clearspring about 60 percent of content sharing happens outside Facebook and Twitter. When Sherman asked the panel if anyone used Google Buzz, all said no.
Elizabeth Shea, president & CEO of SpeakerBox Communications, moderated a panel that discussed social media marketing comprised of Mitch Arnowitz, managing director, Tuvel Communications LLC; Hooman Radfar, CEO and co-founder, Clearspring; Matt Goodard, CEO, R2integrated; Neal Sinno, VP/business development, Arkadium. One of the more interesting questions asked by Shea was about pitfalls that should be avoided in putting together a social media marketing program. Directed to Arnowitz and Sinno, the should not list included
· Astroturf
· Focus on tactics
· Think social media is just Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter
· Assign social media efforts to interns
· Rush things, traction takes time
· Be afraid to try new things
· Don’t over promise
· Keep the metrics clean
Shea asked the panel how to go about recommending a social media marketing program. Goddard noted that it comes down to decision-making behavior. Everyone is used to asking a peer for recommendations. The social tools have just given us a new way to do it. As new as social media/marketing feels it is actually the same behavior. The value that is provided is in helping one make a decision.
The evolution of online advertising was discussed by a panel moderated by Colin Gillis, director, research and senior tech analyst, BGC Financial. Panelists included: Tom McMahon, president, Tidal TV; Joe Zawadzki, CEO, MediaMath; Carly Miller, associate media director/interactive, Media Storm; Anurag Harsh, VP/business development, Adify; Tim Leedom, national account director of Pandora; and Adam Gitlan, U.S. director, digital insights and Logistics, OMD New York. The consensus is that there is no one standard metric that is one size fits all. Metrics vary wildly from publisher to publisher. Tidal TV for examples stated that 95 percent of the video content they serve is brand based versus performance based. Pandora noted that if an advertiser adapts their message to the functionality of Pandora the consumer engages. If the advertiser just puts up an ad, the consumer is less likely to engage.
Online advertising is only about 10 percent of overall advertising spending. With the vast improvement of online video, Tidal noted that they are now seeing broadcast TV media planners working with digital planners. Broadcast TV media buys for the most part have stayed stable over the years but it is expected that TV planners will start moving dollars to online as part of their TV plans.
There were 16 sessions at this one-day conference so this barely touches the surface of the engaging discussions. For more information about the conference go to www.digitalmediaconference.com.