Convergence 09: any marketers in the house?

What do these jobs have in common?

- fashion/event manager/photographer

- editor/publisher

- chief evangelist, all things mobile marketing

- host/correspondent for CBC TV

- digital marketing and technology leader

- PhD and sessional instructor, school of Communication

- managing editor

- barrista

- currency trader

- product design manager, CBC

- social, search and viral 'scientist' (former Web developer)

- senior manager, communications and marketing

- communications manager

- lawyer/video game producer

- content generator for SEO

- head of community relations department

- veteran marketing connecting consumer products with their markets

... these are the posted job titles of every speaker at Convergence 09--Cossette West's "forum for Digital Marketing thought leadership".

I find it curious that out of the 17 presenters, only 4 use the word marketer in their job descriptions. It does help me understand a key issue that kept surfacing for me during the day. A good, 'old-school', marketing conference would be using the brand word in every other sentence. And the direct marketers would be constantly poking on response/ conversion/ ROI of marketing efforts. But there was really none of that talk in the sessions. Attendees were buzzing about social media tactics: tweeting and texting, blogging and vlogging. And I kept thinking about the stresses of my every-day in trying to prove return on marketing spend.

I had lunch with an old friend of mine: someone who I'd hired into a digital company in the 90s, and who now works as the head of digital marketing for a very large provincial utility. I asked him if they were heavy into social media. His response, "we spent a lot of time in Facebook and other things, but really, I've got huge marketing programs I've got to move through and I can't afford the time and resources at this point."

I guess this means that social media might not be about digital marketing right now. I see PR people and communications managers rushing toward social media because of this really new and cool way of 'conversation.' I'd hoped to have gained from the conference the ways that this conversation was translated to wider and stronger brand engagement that knocks on to more and better business. Nothing yet.

Yelp kicks coffee guy

A couple of days ago an old student of mine, Robert, got blacklisted by Yelp, and in turn he yelped about it on his coffee blog. There's some interesting back-and-forth--another example of randomness in the ratings & reviews space of social media.

Vision 2009: Harley Davidson's Social Networking

Ken Schmidt, former communications director for Harley Davidson, gave an engaging keynote address at Vision 2009. In the Q & A he was asked what HD is doing, in social networking; "well, every month 250,000 members of the Harley Owners Group (HOG) go to their local dealers to assemble for a ride somewhere, or a charity event, or a pig roast. I guess you could say that's our Social Networking."

Yup. I guess you could! For all you corporate marketers out there with a couple hundred Twitter followers, chew on that!

Back in the Saddle

So this social media thing continues to hang on! Since I started this blog in the summer of 2006 a few hundred million people have joined Facebook, and grandmothers are tweeting. I've been busy lately and let 124people.com rest for a while, but I'm inspired to find some time in my digital day to re-engage in the debate and the discusion of social media.

Having attended Vision 2009 yesterday, I found someone who seems to think like me when it comes to the practicality of social media for marketing purposes. Maggie Fox, the founder of Social Media Group, had a well-tenured and healthy perspective on where things are at; really de-hyped it for me, and aligned with my opinion. By taking it out of the realm of the bizarre for me, she's also reminded me the reasons why marketers need to pursue the brand engagement with customers through social media.

I guess I'll start posting again...