Social Media Week LA #SMWLA
Social Media Week Los Angeles (SMWLA) is part of an international, multi-city event “connecting people, content and conversations around emerging trends in social and mobile media.” SMWLA kicked off this morning with a welcome from Michael Terpin, city host of SMWLA, and founder/CEO of SocialRadius followed by a keynote address from Robert Tercek, President, General Creativity and host, THIS WEEK IN MEDIA.
Tercek offered a great overview on social media’s impact on all of our lives, whether you have a Facebook account or not. It’s true. How we receive, process and delivered information has been completely revolutionized by social networks.
I, for one, am looking forward to hitting several events all week and getting actual FACE-TO-FACE time with like-minded people! I’m also hoping to be inspired and learn more, more, more.
Click here for the schedule of events. If you aren’t located in one of the hosts cities, no worries. You can stream the sessions from your computer.
And stay tuned for more updates from BuzzRocket!
Facebook changes … again. We can’t keep up!
It’s difficult for us to keep up with the ever-evolving Facebook functionalities … and we’re the experts! It seems every time you blink, Facebook has changed the way the behemoth social site works.
Earlier this year, Facebook announced a partnership with Skype and major changes in Chat, adding the ability to video chat (Has anyone actually done this???). We’ve seen Check-Ins enhanced with Bing maps, more accurate, branded location-based pages. We’ve seen Deals bite the dust.
And last week we saw a few major changes to the way you receive updates on your wall. Perhaps most interesting is the new Subscribe feature. People can now (if you allow them) follow your updates – a la Twitter follows. Gone are the days of waiting for Pete Cashmore to finally accept my friend request. Now I can see his updates and even post on his wall. As a subscriber, you can select which types of updates you want to follow. As a publisher, your public updates can only be subscribed to, and you must elect to have this ability – it’s not an automatic feature.
Facebook also launched Smart Lists, self created lists that make it easier to manage your friends lists. For marketers, these Smart Lists function much like the Page Lists that were recently added to the left navigation on the Newsfeed page. The Smart Lists are automatically updated, making your Newsfeed a one-stop shop for updates across your Facebook account. This feature also allows the user to organize friends as “Close Friends” or “Acquaintances,” making their newsfeed more relevant. Users can also share stories with select groups within his or her Friend Lists, which allows for a little more privacy. All of this should also allow for better friend suggestions to help Facebook users build a better network.
We’re not sure what this will mean for brands on Facebook, if any of this will effect the algorithm brands are forced to deal with to stay relevant on the social giant. But by the time we figure that out, all of the aforementioned new bells and whistles will be obsolete.
By Gretchen Schneider, Principal, Interactive Marketing at treadsocial. Gretchen lives and breathes all things social media. Based in Los Angeles, she oversees the interactive division for treadsocial, working with brands and personalities to strategically market themselves in an integrated, engaging manner online.
My latest someecard
When I’m bored, I do things like start weird blogs, or write someecards. Today I created this one for sudden vegan Kelly Ryan O’Brien of Idols and Egos fame. I’m glad she waited until she moved back to Chicago to adopt this lifestyle. Makes her departure much less painful. I encourage you fellow foodies to care enough to hit send.
Intel: The Museum of Me
We just found this amazing Facebook app by Intel that we simply adore. The application taps into your Facebook profile, pulling images and activity to create a museum of you. The music and vibe tug at the heartstrings, taking you on an emotional journey through your Facebook life and ending in an exhibition all about you.
It’s pretty cool. If you have a minute, click here to give it a whirl.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Here’s to all you hardworking mamas out there. This is a vintage shot of my mom in a Canadian Tuxedo, the subject of my latest blog, “That’s one dope ass Canadian Tuxedo.” I think I can thank her for my obsession with denim. Read about how she has influenced me here!
More iPhone 4 Love
If it wasn’t obvious from a previous BuzzRocket post, iPhone 4 Challenge at TEDx, I love the iPhone 4, which has proved itself again today at a Writers Boot Camp Business Breakfast session, featuring Shira Lazar, an EMMY nominated TV and Web Personality who continues to bridge the gap between traditional and new media and be a prominent leader and voice for the digital age.
The moderator, Jeffrey Gordon, politely reminded the crowd to turn off their phones before the session started. Lazar quickly interrupted, saying, No! Leave them on. Tweet about this. I want you to tweet.” A girl after my own heart.
I quickly pulled up my Evernote app and started voice recording the Q&A, then popped over to Hootsuite to start tweeting realtime updates about the event. I was able to multitask and jump from app to app, updating, documenting all without a hitch.
I realize that many people, like my mother, use the iPhone to check email, take pictures, text and, yes, make the occasional phone call. But when you take advantage off all its capabilities, it truly is an invaluable tool that I’m very proud to have – even in LA, the land of dropped AT&T calls.
Music-y!
This has been an incredible week! We met Dave Navarro (been obsessed since I was 13. He took my picture, not the other way around), landed some new clients, partied with Jesus, became the Foursquare mayor of Umami (thank you Hatch Burger addiction), saw old friends and made some new. So what a better way to end the work week than Pee Wee Herman posting this dreamy number on his Facebook fan page.
Now to get Pee Wee to post some episodes of El Hombre and we’re officially happy campers.
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