Social Media in Business Forum - huge success!

The Social Media in Business Forum (Twitter hashtag #SMBizForumNZ) organised by CAANZ's Digital Leadership Group was a whopping success.

Date: Thursday, 11 March, 2010

Venue: The Rendezvous Hotel Auckland
Time: 1.30 - 5.30 pm

On the day, 6 keynote speakers (local & international) shared their insights on the commercial power of social media:

Tony Gardner, CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi DGS and Chair, DLG

David Whittle, CEO of digital agency, MARK Sydney

Iaan Buchanan, Marketing Manager – Energy Frucor Beverages

Duncan Blair, Head of Brand & Communications, Orcon

Jayson Bryant, Founder & Owner, The Wine Vault

Chris Chambers, Director of Digital Marketing, Tourism Queensland (‘Best Job in the World’ campaign.)

Here's a photo gallery of guests, speakers and CAANZ DLG members at the Social Media in Business Forum:

L-R: Darryn Melrose, Tony Gardner, Dean Howie

L-R: Matt Scott, Mike Wilson, Rick Osborne

L-R: Vaughn Davis, Adam Good, Chris Chambers

L-R: Dave King, Jayson Bryant

L-R: Mike Wilson, Dave Whittle

 

Dean Howie, Kathryn Michie (AmCham), Violet Ellis, Ceri John, Anupriya Verma

Not only was SMBiz sold-out and packed to capacity, it was a great forum for key learnings - the latest SM tools, their application in business, along with some very useful case studies and real-world success stories.

  

 

For the detailed low-down on what each speaker spoke about in their presentation, click here.

And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to...

Guess who (rather what's) among the contenders for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010? The Internet = a weapon of mass construction. I heart that.

The most powerful social interface known to man being put to the good of mankind. To my mind, that's the smartest use of technology to date.


Power to the people. Love & Peace.

Social Media Club - If you get it, share it

The Social Media juggernaut rolls on... Round 2 of Social Media Club - Auckland (#SMCakl) went off with a bang at Nineteen42 (aka 42 Below Bar) today.

The focus for the evening was Social Media in Retail. The keynote speakers at the event were Justin Flitter of Flittermedia and Gianpaolo Grazioli of Giapo - Auckland's most social gelato store!

@JustinFlitter gave real-world examples of how retailers can best use SM and emphasised the need for engaging content v/s selling by yelling.

@Giapo spoke fervently (in a perfect Italian accent) about his SM strategy and shared his secret recipe on using sociability in business.

Give this video a listen to pick up some useful tips on SM in retail.



Both speakers agreed SM in Retail was all about companies listening & learning more closely to what customers have to say about their brand, competitors etc. and use the info to develop a service culture via openness. The talks were followed by a Q&A session with the audience.

Social Media Club began in San Francisco in 2006 with the inherently social tagline “If you get it, share it.” It has since evolved rapidly into a global network. Here is the official website.

The Auckland chapter kicked off on Tue, Feb 9, 2010. The focus at Round 1 was on popular Social Media tools, where wine connoisseur Jayson Bryant of The Wine Vault gave a presentation on videoblogging.

Jayson explained how he experimented and self-taught himself to successfully build a videoblog called Wine Vault TV - a popular online channel today with a loyal viewership of wine lovers worldwide.

Social Media Club - Auckland is the brainchild of Alex Erasmus & Paul Matthews of Bullet PR - it's these guys (and of course, Nicholas O'Flaherty) who put in the hard yards to make SMCakl happen!

For more info, here's the posterous blog. To register for future events, get on to the Facebook page.

News Dots - Interactive News Mapping

Came across a cool social networking tool the other day.

News Dots - an interactive news map based on the premise that all news stories around the globe are linked, if not directly then through another.

Can't help wondering, could this be the new model of how we consume our news? In these times of live video streaming and breaking news as they happen, I tend to agree. It sure seems a viable alternative to me.

Click here to check out the interactive tool and learn about the back-end tech that makes News Dots work.

______________________AND NOW_______________________

Here's a smart application of the social networking concept i.e. localisation on a commercial basis: Worth Talking Over from Monteith's beer of NZ.

They constructed an interactive map of all the red-hot-newsy topics of conversation (or Trending Topics, as Twitter calls it) and linked them together to give an indication of what's getting New Zealanders buzzing.

The brewers figured once they got them Kiwis chatting about the talk of the town, they'd talk it over a chilled beer (Monteith's, of course) for company. Definitely an idea worth talking over. I'll say cheers to that!