INTEGRATE2014: Nice to meet you.

Raise your hand if you’ve met former professors, fellow classmates, and new friends at INTEGRATE2014. *raises hand*

Earlier today I had the opportunity to meet Jessica while I was waiting for the afternoon breakout session, “Creative Strategist| Strategic Creative- Which One Are You Becoming?”

Jessica and I were in the same Brand Equity Management class.

I’m also excited that I met Dr. Freberg, who is teaching my current PR Concepts and Strategy class. Plus, spending time with fellow IMC bloggers Kat and Julie has been so much fun! And let’s not forget our session speakers. Yesterday I had lunch with NASCAR’s David Higdon. It’s very inspiring to be surrounded by so many people who are passionate about integrated marketing communications.

What has been your favorite networking aspect of INTEGRATE? How many fellow classmates have you met?

INTEGRATE2014: Lessons learned from Bill Oechsler

The last session of the conference was a little bittersweet. The conference has been absolutely fantastic and even though it’s not quite over, the information I’ve learned has made my mind race and my reading list double. I am very excited to apply all of this phenomenal information to projects in my IMC world.

The last breakout session I attended was Bill Oechsler’s, and it was fantastic. Just like with Lee Odden’s session, a recap of the information is not possible in such a small space.

One of the most beneficial parts for me was the insight provided by Bill on the Absolut campaign. For me, I’ve enjoyed watching the campaign grow because I’m a photography fan. The way that Absolut captured viewers through strong photography and simplistic ads is a great reminder that simple isn’t a bad thing. Much like the presentation from Joe Barns told us, give customers options, but not too many. We don’t want to overwhelm our customers. Simple, well executed ideas can go far.

The beauty of the campaign is also that it has legs. The product and packaging are the hero of the story. The ads focus entirely on Absolut and it has been marketed in a simplistic, authentic way.

Bill shared great examples from Absolute, Apple, and more with the emphasis of simplicity and creating campaigns that move. Simple and authentic make a great pair.

What are your favorite simple campaigns? What sticks with you?

Joe Barnes | How To Change Consumer Behavior With A Nudge And Persuasion Science

Joe Barnes used his wit along with a dose of playful nudging to convince the audience that you can change consumer behavior. All you need to do to be successful is to nudge and persuade the consumer. Nudges being about designing choice to try to help people make better choices.

For further reading on the topic, Barnes mentioned the book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein.

Four types of nudges were presented:

1. Mindful nudges
2. Mindless nudges
3. Encouraging nudges
4. Discouraging nudges

In his parting note, Barnes stated,”Consider limiting choice. Make it easy on the consumer. Don’t make it more complicated. Nudge your way to success!”

Joe’s presentation can be found on slideshare here.

Have you ever used the nudge technique before in marketing campaigns?

INTEGRATE2014 Recap: Lee Odden

Digital Convergence: The Integrated Marketing & PR Imperative was a knock out session. Lee Odden’s dynamic presentation style captivated the audience and gave us great tips and reminders to incorporate into our IMC worlds.

After engaging in the session, I think my blog title is a bit misleading.  There is no way a blog post would even make a dent in recapping Lee’s session or capturing the amazing information and presentation style shared with us this morning.

So, if you weren’t at the session (or even if you were) I challenge you to think of the word “optimizing” very differently.  It seems as though every time I mention the word “optimize” people automatically think of it in terms of digital media or graphic design.  The biggest take away from the session today was optimizing content for your audience.  Lee encouraged us to start the marketing process with empathy.  As marketers we need to think of what are customers need and how we can help them get it.  How can we optimize our content to help our clients get where they need to go?   How can we make their jobs and their lives easier so that they will want to communicate with us?  He mentioned journalists as a prime example.  Years ago journalists were not thought of as a target market, but Lee saw them as a target market and changed the way he provided information to them.  Instead of simple press releases the information was rich and included materials journalists need, but don’t have the time to track down.  Starting with empathy lead to significant changes in the way the information was presented. You need to make sure that when a customer is looking for answers, your information is there to help them.

Lee also empowered the audience to think a bit differently (Not surprising).  He reiterated that we can change the game in regards to content marketing.  As he says, “If you want to be in the media, become the media.”

I”ll leave you with Lee’s 3 Key Takeaways and highly encourage you to speak with him at the conference, or see him present in the near future.  If talking to people isn’t your thing, you can read his blog or check out his book, Optimize.

• If you want to be in the media – become the media
• Build amplification into the content design process – be the best answer wherever customers are looking
• Keep content accountable across channels – attract, engage, convert

If you attended Lee’s session or have read his book, Optimize, what were your favorite parts? What got you the most excited?

INTEGRATE2014 Recap: Pam Didner

Day two of INTEGRATE2014, and our first session speaker energized the room with an engaging presentation filled with excellent content.

Attendees enjoyed Saturday’s first INTEGRATE session, “Global Integrated Marketing Best Practices.”

Lessons learned from Pam Didner:

1. You can do integrated marketing by thinking big or thinking small.

-The integrated marketing quadrants include this big/small scale in relation to traditional and new methods with a focus on product launches, a technology-driven customer experience, regular/routine marketing, and starting with content or one idea.

2. Understand your objectives, and start with a creative and simple idea.

-Everything you do has to come back to business and marketing objectives. While a business objective may be growth, a marketing objective involves channels for leveraging that growth.

3. Test, test, test your ideas. 

-Keep trying! It takes time to develop ideas that lead to the idea that will work.

 

Another thing to keep in mind: Think of integrated marketing from your current role in the company.

How do you approach creating integrated marketing ideas?

Reciprocity Styles

As you continue to network throughout the day, think not only about what others can do for you, but what you can do for another person. Adam Grant, Wharton Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, champions the benefits of giving in his book titled Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success.

Earlier this month, Adam presented the premise of his book at a networking event I attended. As a result of attending, my outlook on networking has forever changed.

Instinctively, we all have our own personal reciprocity styles that we practice. Through extensive research, Grant postulates that individuals fall into three categories: giver, taker, matcher.

Which style do you practice?

Most importantly who have you helped at the conference this weekend?

INTEGRATE 2014: General Session 2 – Gini Dietrich

As a presenter at day one of INTEGRATE 2014, Gini Dietrich was charismatic, insightful, and straight to the point. She won the audience over with her smile, quick quips and train wreck worthy media examples of how not to promote clients to their publics. The correct way being to avoid the “spin zone” and the use of the “sex sells strategy” at any and all costs.

During the presentation, Gini got to the heart of why “spin sucks.” Spin being defined in the following ways: whisper campaigns, astroturfing, or anything else that could be loosely viewed as spin worthy.

Gini encouraged attendees to think with integrity. She stated, “Spin sucks and you cannot afford to be unethical. You have to think about it from a long-term perspective. And if you do, you will win in the end.” Wise words coming from a veteran professional who has no problem telling her clients that her team will not be able to do X for them.

When faced with a difficult situation Gini kept mentioning the phrase, “This is a marathon and not a sprint.” How many times in the IMC field have you tried to figure everything out all at once? Sometimes it is better to enjoy the marathon instead of sprinting to the finish line.

A special thank you to Gini for mentioning my participation in her blog ambassador program for her new book Spin Sucks: Communication and Reputation Management in the Digital Age. If you did not read the article she mentioned that went viral on Twitter you can find it here.

 

 

                (Pictured: Myself, Gerry Michaels, Gini Dietrich)

 Which lesson from the presentation will you take back and apply to your industry?

INTEGRATE2014 Recap: Social Media Integration

When it comes to social media marketing, one size doesn’t fit all. What works for a big-name brand might not work for a start-up.

I had the opportunity to meet Keith after his afternoon breakout session, “There Is No Top 10 List For Social Media Marketing.”

Here are the three tips Keith Quesenberry presented during Friday’s afternoon breakout session, “There Is No Top 10 List For Social Media Marketing”:

1. Identify your marketing goals and digital KPIs (key performance indicators).

-Set business goals, marketing objectives, and media metrics. For example, if your goal is to sell more stuff, and your objective is to drive visits to an e-commerce platform, then your media metric might be to count click-throughs from social platforms.

2. Determine your target audience, where they’re talking online, and what they’re saying.

-What kind of social media users are they: Critics, collectors, creators, or spectators?

3. Engage the target on their social platforms with meaningful branded content in a way that leverages each platform’s key capabilities.

-Social networks, content posting, ratings/reviews, and social distribution are all options for engagement.

 

What was the key thing you learned in this session?

INTEGRATE2014 Recap: Capstone Prep

The Capstone Prep Session was a great way to start the conference! I left the session with so many great ideas and I’m very excited to take the capstone class. (I’m actually a little disappointed I won’t be taking it until next fall!)

“Creativity is intelligence having fun” – Einstein

In case you missed it or forgot to take notes, here are some tips shared at the session this morning!

Tips
-Budget your time
-Talk to people in your network
-Keep your focus
-Bring your insights
-Bring your ideas
-Bring your best game — it’s about you and how you present yourself to the world. It’s how you see yourself
-Preparation begins now – start research before you start class
-CREATIVE IDEAS ARE ESSENTIAL and required
-Strategy is not a tagline
-Don’t think like a student – think like a CEO. You must be a full IMC agency for nine weeks
-Clients don’t want to hear what they already know. It has to be different.

IMC Creativity
– Get to the core – ICSS
– Find the novel approach – something new
– Take risks – but stay on strategy

If you want an A you have to B(e) –
-Strategic
-Resourceful
-Surprising
-Interesting
-Efficient
-Effective
-Thorough
-Organized
-Creative

Research Tips
1 – Do basics really well
2 – Go a step beyond – trade journals
3 – Get your own insights – look for gaps in existing research

I hope you find this list helpful! For those of you who have taken the class, anything you’d like to add?

Twitter Conversation Types: New Research Findings

Back in February of 2014 the Pew Research Center released results from a study that reveals the six main types of conversations that happen on Twitter.

The six types of Twitter conversations (Rainie, L. 2014)

In brief, the six types are:

Divided: This is typically identified by two main groups who are discussing divisive topics like politics. The groups do not tend to interact with each other or share sources of information.

Unified: This is typically groups of likeminded individuals or communities that share interests in topics like hobbies or professional organizations. They tend to share ideas, advice and opinions freely.

Fragmented: These are small groups that form around a specific brand, product, or interest. These groups typically do not have much connectivity with each other.

Clustered: These groups cluster around global news and events. They typically involve multiple news sources but are commonly disconnected from each other. Some cross connections can be made between small groups.

In-Hub Spoke: Members of this group center around news or media outlets and popular pundits.  These loyal followers often re-tweet messages of the central provider. Interactions are typically between the members and the source versus between other members.

Out-Hub Spoke: This group typically centers around an organization. It consists of a single organization communicating with a disparate group of individuals. An example of this can be an organization who provide customer service interactions via social media.

So what can be done with this knowledge? Mainly it can be used to better understand how groups are forming using Twitter. It can help marketers better understand how to target the appropriate audience. It can help shape the overall conversations being published.  It can help in engagement and help to understand the types of interactions being receive. All in all, it is just a snapshot so take it with careful consideration but it is a snapshot of a neat real time moment across the Twitter (or other) social community.

For the full report and study details visit the Pew site.

Source:

Rainie, L. The Six Types of Twitter Conversations. Retrieved May 25, 2014 from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/20/the-six-types-of-twitter-conversations/

Smith, M.A., Rainie, L., Shneiderman, B. & Himelboim, I. Mapping Twitter Topic Networks: From Polarized Crowds to Community Clusters. Pew Research Internet Project.  February 20, 2014. <http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/02/20/mapping-twitter-topic-networks-from-polarized-crowds-to-community-clusters/&gt;