Social Media, Community Engagement, Emerging Trends
Technology and Consciousness, Compassionate Marketing<

Brand Exposure was the first in a series of events hosted by Social Media Week and Notes on a Party.  The all-day event for senior brand managers interwove presentations from leading thought leaders and case studies of brands and agency partners including Veuve Clicquot, General Electric and charity: water and agencies such as Wolff Olins, McCann Erickson, Deep Focus, The Barbarian Group and WFG Media.  Brand Exposure also marked the launch of a new social network on the Ning platform for brands and social media aficionados to exchange ideas and continue the dialogue.

Kudos to hosts Toby Daniels of Social Media Week and Celia Chen of Notes on a Party for their wonderful hospitality in the sold-out event, and thanks also to sponsor SocialMedia.com, as well as partners Wolff Olins, Ning, AdWeek, Sawhorse Media, Publicity Club of NY, Domaine Chandon, Twelve|21 and Kage Konsulting.

Particular standouts for me were talks by Faris Yakob, Chief Technology Strategist at McCann Erickson, and Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, because they provided contrasting narratives for understanding the “big picture” significance of social media to marketing and global brands.

Yakob’s opening presentation appropriately titled “Be Nice or Leave” gave brands the simple advice to add value to communities and to be respectful of the “gift economy” that tends to define communications between members.  Just as one would not leave a tip after dinner hosted by friends or family, brands need to be mindful of how they enter conversations and the behavioral norms that key influencers follow.

The rules, quite simply, have changed, and for Yakob a better definition of social media would be to call it “the radical decentralization of the economics of production.”  Referencing MIT Professor of Comparative Media Henry Jenkins, Yakob emphasized social media does not consist just of emerging technologies, but emerging cultural practices that disrupt planning and publishing of controlled marketing messages.

Whereas Yakob situated social media in the broader context of postmodern fragmentation of brand identity and content production Ian Schafer created a historical narrative for social media by placing it in the context of the evolving practice of story telling.  The ancient art of story telling evolved across different forms of media in scalable ways leading to the addition of advertising as an incremental way to monetize the artform.  Rates in turn became based on impressions served.

For Schafer, social media constitutes the evolution of what he terms “fan fiction,” wherein fans come to tell stories using the characters of brands.  A playful dialogue emerges in which fans become participants in creating the evolving story of the brand.  Paul Worthington, Head of Strategy at Wolff Olins, echoed this sentiment later on by emphasizing that social media not only humanizes brands in the eyes of consumers, but also humanizes consumers in the eyes of the brands.

Brand Exposure was probably the highlight for me during a busy internet week and I look forward to more.  Photo above courtesy of Ben Gabbe of Ben Gabbe Photography.