The Mashup Social Media Firehose

Went to the Mashup Social Media event this afternoon, what followed was a "Sorta Pecha Kucha" Session for 4 hours as the rapid-firehose presentations came thick and fast - there was a LOT of Media, the Twitterwall made it Social (after a fashion) and boy were we mashed up - it was full! I made some notes on my trusty iPhone as things kept coming, so here are the things that resonated from each talk. Apologies in advance for missing some names, things came so fast.

Robin Wright

- Brand is a decision simplification, as people are basically lazy
- Brands initially started using social media defensively when they realised people were dissing them and it hit top spot on Google
- TV Ad + Website = more engagement - mouse clicking is a small behaviour change that beds in larger new behavioural style (Shades of NLP methinks?)

Robin also won the Doc Marten Shoeshine Superman Sartorial Award

Katy Lindemann

- No such thing as social media per se, all media is social to some extent
- Being social isn't just about marketing
- You can't be social outside if you are not social inside

Katy won the George Orwell Social Media Buzzword Bingo! Award hands down

Sarah Beeny - Tepilo

- Sarah has used her real life fame to drive social presence on her new online product
- Set timing to go with her TV stuff
- Helped to make real life friends in the social network
- It took 5 minutes before a photo of Sarah's "media assets" were profiled. Remarkable restraint.

Sarah wins the Edwina Fabulous Stoically Coping Under Pressure Award as she scooped up her whimpering newborn child (Beeny Baby?) mid talk and soldiered on.

Marshall Manson

- Showed how you can rejuvenate Wonderbra by getting Dita Von Teese, a woman who is famous for taking off her clothes and showing off her great - ahem "media assets" - to front it.

Wins the Whoddathunkit Award for wondering why there was huge traffic for pictures and videos of Dita in a Wonderbra

Toby Gunton

- Cute bear in viral furry animal video got 2nd most hits after Obama.

Won the Compere the Meerkat award for first Cute Furry Animals in Social Media talk of the day

Emma Cowan, recruiting for RAF

- Wanted to change the image of the RAF of "a boys club that flies planes" to tell the real story via narrative and new media.

Wins the Brave New World Order. Next project, the British Army is just an Extreme Ironing Fan Club

Round about this time, one wag tweeted:

"Old media: Stick a celeb in an ad. New media: Stick a celeb on the web. Social media: Stick a celeb on Twitter."

He won a real award, a book

Then came some demonstrations from companies

Quiet Riot

- Trying to aggregate user complaints and leverage them to complain against Evil Faceless Companies

Tempero

- Seems to be a moderation system operating across multiple media sites

Mat Morrison

- questioning whether brands can actually use social media given the aim is to sell things
- conflict between value and values,
- Entertaining example of price vs knicker elasticity (what is the price of getting lucky with your date)
- More Serious Example - Compare The Meerkat is cute but false, the reality is a Large Company wants your money.

Wins the George Bernard Shaw award for Experimental Economics(see here)

Deborah Copeland, First Direct

- Used Wordle to show comparative differences in sentiment about FD verses other banks
- Online monitoring of sentiment, displayed on website

Wins the "No Sex No Slebs No Silly Virals are needed for Social Media Success" Award.

Paul Borge - Selling Safe Sex

- People are having Unsafe Sex
- Snigger, Titter, Condoms, Willies, Piers' Morgan willy etc but For A Good Cause.

Wins the "Nudge Nudge Wink Wink" Tankard for using Viral Sex For A Good Cause.

Mark Pack - LibDems Website for MP

- lesson was to build big site from first rather than add features later
- 3/4 of people go to blog tab, not news
- 33% of videos on Google maps get a boost
- ROI not just about numbers can use qualitative data

Wins the Very Worthy, But Why Are They Only Still At 20% Support" Plaque

Nic Ray

- Idea Bounty used Crowdsourcing (we covered this over here)
- most interesting thing is that they are in the middle of a blogspat with Amelia Torode about the cynical ethics of crowdsourcing (I believe she originated Compare the Meerkat, which is of course not at all cynical )

Wins the Ek is Gatvol van Fokkin Meerkats Trophy (South African Chapter) and a complete set of Meerkat Manor DVDs.

Dan Klein, Detica

- Network analysis - Ebay data looking for sodium and potassiumnitrate found 50 people
- take every call on a mobile, crunch the maths
- look at influential people from call records
- iTunes is an 80/20 and don't buy hip hop

Wins the Tom Lehrer Award for bringing Heavy Maths to the Party.

Andrew Gerrard

- Companies are already social today
- people will use Socmed anyway
- US Air Force chart on Social media usage (see chart on top). Some companies are working out how to use it, are you?

Wins the Sensible Party Award For A Very Sensible Talk. Also wins the Zombie Twitter for his tweets carrying on whilst talking.

Giles Rhys Jones, Ogilvy

- Discipline head
- Digital heart
- Muscles are multiple channels

Wins the Feat of Clay Award for using complex diagrams to describe quite simple things. 4 o'Clock Stubble was Mentioned in Despatches

Giles Palmer

- Buzz monitoring non trivial
- Sentiment Analysis on multiple axes can cause conflicting data readouts
- Crowdsourcing - machines not too clever esp with complex pages eg forums so needs mech Turk to handle hardest N% - works best for small volumes

Wins the Coals to Newcastle Award for talking Buzz Monitoring. Brave Man!

Heather Hampton Swine Flu DOH/COI

- Panic! headlines in the media
- 24 April launch media
- Monitored YouTube Twitter Blogs and other Social media
- use free tools
- social media picks up Memes early, one can prepare to counteract before it hits MSM
- Social media reflects a picture closer to real public mood

Wins the Rudyard Kipling Keeping Your Head On Award . Also broke the hearts of every Buzz Monitoring company in the room with the word "Free"

Jonathan Akwue

Some bits of Govmmt quite advanced eg:
- No 10 downing St really advanced usage on Twitter for example
- NHS direct use pinging with relevant data at specific time

Wins the Alastair Campbell Put Your Best Foot Forward Award. We are all waiting for teh Govmnts other shoe to drop

Andrew Grill

- If you complain on a Call Centre ACD no one hears, but on Twitter it's a different story - leverage
- Its marketeers that tweet while ops staff are the ones being tweeted to. Can the talkers learn to listen?

Wins the Oasis Award for most Tweets on the Twitterwall on the day. Also wins a kiss from Dame Edna for Best Australian Presentation

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Chris Thorpe

- Real time world driven by smartphone
- Every citizen becomes a data monitoring device
- The world could be a better place through social media.
- Zombieconomy and Ads will kill it as a beneficial service
- Calling for a happy smiley Real Time Web where everybody loves each other, with no horrible commercial people spoiling it

Wins the Thomas More Award for Most Uplifting Speech. Also Wins the Pangloss Award for Unceasing Optimism in the Face of Harsh Experience.

And as for the Organisers, we award them the Ethelred the Unready Award for not checking out the video display in the room first

As for this blog post - well, you decide on what Award you'd give it in the Comments - and vote for us at the BIMAS too