Event Profile: SXSW 2018

South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas has become a cultural mecca for music and film buffs, as well as a place for hosting interactive events that cover a range of topics from everything new in technology, to entertainment and advertising. There is always a huge amount of news coming from this week-long event, so here is a breakdown of what we’ve seen so far.

SXSW Trust Barometer

Every year, festival attendees are polled for the Trust Barometer, which measures the general feelings those attending have towards technology, business, and media. The results of this year’s poll brought up interesting discussions, as there is a very low amount of trust in emerging technology, one of SXSW’s biggest draws.

Most of the distrust comes from a shift towards a need for more human elements in technological interactions, and a distrust in blockchain technology, virtual reality, and autonomous vehicles. Discussions about smaller, more personal social media platforms were held, as well as conversations about the widespread use of bots and voice assistants and how the reactions to these technologies have become more and more personal, with users sometimes treating bots as though they were chatting with another human being. There is without a doubt a need to shift to more personal communication methods and develop an understanding of how emotional attachments can tie into interacting with these responsive communication technologies.

Experiential Exhibitions: ‘Westworld’ and ‘Ready Player One’

HBO hit-show Westworld and Steven Spielberg’s ‘Ready Player One’ both partnered with creative agency Giant Spoon to bring the worlds of the screen to life for festival attendees. These immersive exhibits allow you to step into the ‘Westworld’ town of Sweetwater and the Oasis of  ‘Ready Player One’ interacting with environments, actors in character, and becoming a character yourself. Read a review of the ‘Westworld’ exhibit on Forbes and Business Insider and see a walkthrough of Sweetwater here and the ‘Ready Player One’ exhibit here.

Speeches

SXSW is focused on cultivating the creative and entrepreneurial spirit throughout the world, and each day speakers from convergence, music, technology, and film focused paths present their take on various topics. The hope is to generate meaningful conversations about the state of the world in each of SXSW’s featured verticals. Notable speakers this year include Elon Musk, Melinda Gates, Darren Aronofsky, Sadiq Khan, and Esther Perel.

SXSW ends this Saturday, so there is bound to be more excitement in the last few days of the festival. For more SXSW news and live streams of keynotes and other events, visit sxsw.com.

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Vero: The “New Instagram”?

Social media platforms come and go as we have seen with Yik Yak, Bebo, Vine, and Ello. But there is a platform making waves right now that many are calling the “new Instagram”.  Vero was launched in 2015, and the app is quickly gaining popularity, recently seeing a flood of users starting to download and use the app, as many influencers have posted about their move to the platform.

Vero has positioned itself as the “True Social” social media platform, aimed towards those looking for “a safe, genuine reflection of their real-life relationships in an online setting”.  This is what you need to know about the “Instagram Killer”.

No paid or boosted ads

Vero has no paid advertisements, which clears up users’ feeds for posts from their connections and community. “You see what has been shared with you when it’s been shared with you. You won’t have to pay to ‘boost your post’, or ‘reach your audience’,” says Vero. That doesn’t mean that there are no ads, though. Companies can link to external sites, unlike the Instagram model, and there is an integrated “Buy now” button that can be purchased. Part of Vero’s revenue will come from a portion of every sale made on the platform.

First million users- free access for life

Currently, Vero is being offered for free to the first million members, but once that threshold has been reached, anyone that joins will have to pay an annual fee. This is pretty much common knowledge, but is perhaps the fear of missing out on this opportunity driving the platform’s spike in popularity? When the free accounts are spoken for and those late to the game must pay, there will no doubt be more news to be heard about this platform.

Connection types

Vero’s commitment to an authentic social experience is based on the argument that other social media platforms leave users with a false sense of connection with followers and friends that causes more intrinsic loneliness. The app has implemented controls that allow you to segment your connections so that users can share posts and interact with one another in a way the platform calls more natural. In the app, you can segment your connections into the following groups: “close friends”, “friends”, “acquaintances”, and “followers”. Each post you make can be shared to all or to a portion of these groups.

Chronological feed

In a world of algorithmic feeds, Vero breaks the mold by showing all posts chronologically. There is nothing that will cause one post to be promoted over another. Vero says, “We don’t curate it, manipulate it, insert advertising in it, or hold back posts. You see what has been shared with you when it’s been shared with you.”

Read more opinions about Vero here and here, and the Vero manifesto, then let me know what you think of this new platform.

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Content Marketing Tools to Boost Your Strategy

Content marketing is becoming more important to everyone’s marketing strategies than ever before, but it can be hard to keep up with for many, with both time and creative needs to manage, especially for those without dedicated content teams. Use these tools to create, curate, manage and schedule all of your content for maximum effectiveness.

Feedly

Streamline your searching and content curation by using this tool to find articles and posts that match your interests. Choose sites to follow, verticals to focus on and mark the things you’ve already read. Feedly also has the option to integrate with your workflow with IFTTT automation. See how IFTTT recipes work here.

Canva

Create everything from business cards to logos and resumes that are built to impress, even if you aren’t a professional designer. With Canva you can use one of the many provided templates, or you can create your own design from scratch.

Airtable

Create a content database that will link similar content, share with your team, filter and sort your content in multiple arrangements and at the same time make a more visually streamlined content calendar and pipeline for ease of access. Airtable also allows you to create IFTTT recipes and integrate this database with many of the apps you might already be using including MailChimp, Evernote, Facebook, LinkedIn and more.

Contently

Master your content strategy with the Contently platform. If you’re looking for a one-stop shop, then this is your best bet. From content generation and scaling to insights and strategy, Contently allows you to create a strategy that will have visible and transparent results, with built-in analytics and a holistic approach to digital content. See how it works here.

Buffer

Manage your social media quickly from one simple hub. Buffer allows you to create and schedule your social media content while measuring key metrics and performance analytics. By allowing all of your social content to flow from one dashboard, you have complete control of your posts and how they look and sound without having to move from platform to platform.

Visual.ly

If content development is not your thing and you need a team that can handle that for you, visually can help you achieve great content without needing an in-house team. Simply discuss what you need for your project with a Visually representative for a quote, talk about the goals you hope to achieve with the content and get matched with a team of creatives that will develop everything you need. Learn more about the Visually process here.

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Marketing Trend: Interactive Content

Content marketing is the bread and butter of any marketing strategy today, but with a huge influx of content, audiences are getting overwhelmed, with the average adult coming to an average of about 8 hours of screen time a day.

For successful content marketing you must break through the clutter of too much content so you can reach your target audience, but how? The answer comes in a not-so-simple answer: multiple types of content. In a recent post about User Generated Content (UGC), you learned about one form of content you can add to your arsenal, interactive content will be yet another added.

Defining Interactive Content

Interactive content is a cut and dry name for this trend, as it is defined as any type of content that the audience can interact with. This can be in any number of ways, but the key is that it forces the audience to do more than simply look at the content. These are some examples of interactive content that you can use for upcoming marketing campaigns.

Quizzes

One look at Buzzfeed and it is clear that there is a difference between the way that this “jack of all trades” site functions and similar sites like Mashable and Upworthy. Buzzfeed’s content ranges from pop culture to serious political news, but one of the top categories they have become renowned for is quizzes. A quiz can be funny, serious, or even an advertisement for a line of products. See an example of this here.

Video

Video might be already the considered the most engaging form of content, but interactive video can put your video engagement on a different level. Think of interactive video as a “choose your own adventure” type of content. Check out this post for more about interactive video and other types of video to use in social media posts, and this post to see some examples of interactive videos for marketing.

Games

Gamification in marketing has taken off in the last few years with huge companies taking note of successful campaigns and releasing their own gamified campaigns to promote their products. From offering “free” services for social shares, to actually creating a game; for example, Chipotle did this with the memory game launched with their “A Love Story” short film advertisement for real, healthy ingredients.

Content is key, so how will you break through the noise? Share your favorite content marketing techniques in a comment, on Twitter or on Facebook.

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