I've Scaled the Digital Summit! (Day 1)

Upon returning from the Digital Summit '11 at the Cobb Galleria, my head was still brimming with heaps of information. Presented by the folks over at Tech Media,  the day and half event in and of itself was bursting with facts & figures, leaving it for us (the attendees) to soak up like a sponge. Seeing as how this was a long event with lots of speakers and data, I will be splitting this into two parts.

Day 1

Gotta love free stuff.

Aside from getting a little lost (even though the event was 5 minutes from my house), finding the gig was fairly simple. After a quick check-in, I was given some instant schwag: name tag with lanyard, a wire-bound booklet with all the relevant info, a really nice notebook made from 100% recycled paper and cardboard, and a copy of Gary Vaynerchuk's new book "The Thank You Economy" (not pictured). One complaint I kept reading across Twitter using the designated Digital Summit hashtag of #DSum11, was that our name tags should've included our Twitter handles, which would've been nice. Or perhaps a QR code on the back that brought the scan-ee to our Twitter page even? Maybe next year...

Social Media Marketing
Anyway, the first session I attended was Social Media Marketing. This was a great general overview of social media (SM) and was a great way to start the conference. I really enjoyed taking in all the info from each presenter. The main ideas I took away from this section were lasting ones: •Fish where the fish are, •change how you market and how your brand (or company) is thought of & •'likes' are the new links. SM is an ever-changing medium, so as long as we know where our audience is, we can mold ourselves to meet their needs easier to ultimately drive more traffic to our sites and make more sales.

Analytics & Measurement
The second session I went to immediately following the first was Analytics & Measurement. This one delved a little deeper than SM Marketing, but it was still interesting to hear nonetheless. What I got from these presenters is how difficult it is to sift through all the data to get to the meat of what you want to find out if what you're doing socially is working. There are many different means of getting various analytics of your sites, but it's the filtering that's the challenge. And once you do eventually boil down the info, how can you determine the over ROI? All you can give them (corporate level) is the cold hard facts. An interesting phrase I took from the last presenter was that social marketing is a business tool, not a marketing channel.

Keynote Presentation w/ Gary Vaynerchuk

This was easily the highlight of the evening. If you or anyone near you right now has not hear of Gary Vaynerchuk, Google him this second. The proclaimed "King of Social Media" was the right person to kick off the opening night. Filled with energy, candor, and a little adult language this man captivated the audience in the first 5-10 seconds (or at the very least, me).

He started by giving his life story and how he leveraged SM to launch his wine business to cosmic proportions. This guy gets it, without a doubt. Once this presentation is available, all social marketers must watch because he will floor you with his methodology and thoughts.

Gary definitely set the night on fire and concluded a great first day of the Digital Summit 2011.

What followed that rousing speech was 2 hours filled with networking, talking business, and lots and lots of bottles and cans (which we won't discuss details here.)


Stayed tuned for the second day of Digital Summit coming soon!

Be well,