[Review] #iStrategy Conference Amsterdam Day 2

As soon as I woke up in the morning, and without checking SEOmoz, I knew what the keyword for the day would be: opportunity! Given this unique chance to rub shoulders with the buffs in the industry, I inserted my spongiest of brains and proceeded to the Park Plaza Hotel near Schiphol International Airport, where the event was held. I was meeting up with my colleague and supervisor, Spotzer Media Group’s own Social Specialist, Nicolas Griffioen (@NicoGriffioen), who kindly provided me entrance to day two of the iStrategy Digital Marketing Conference (@iStratBuzz) here in Amsterdam.

Audience Engagement, User Experience and Social Monetisation

Upon receiving my nametag, we headed into the large conference area of the hotel, where we docked and prepared for the first panel discussion on Audience Engagement, User Experience and Social Monetisation. Here we got the inside scoop from social media celebrity and VP Brand Development at Tampa’s Head of Lettuce firm, Amber Osborne (@MissDestructo) as she shared some funny anecdotes on yams and experiences on what got her where she is today. I was particularly keen on hearing what Warner Music’s Ritch Sibthorpe (@RitchSibthorpe) had to say, mostly because of my interest in music and the industry. We got kicked off with a successful campaign they collaborated on with pop sensation Katy Perry. I jokingly tweeted that I wondered if I could slip him a demo, instead I did the next best thing.

As soon as the panel was over and all the speakers and guests assembled near the entrance for coffee and cakes, I hunted down Mr. Sibthorpe and introduced myself. I asked him for some insight on how Warner targets artists and songwriters and he replied that nowadays, they look for folk that have:

• Already created some kind of following
• Have successfully shown entrepreneurial skill.
• Some talent and charisma would not hurt either.

Forget the days of getting discovered in some obscure bar, the power is now in your hands to put yourself out there and be seen online! The most important thing he had to say on the matter is that “the first 5000 fans are the hardest to get and the most important ones”, I assume because these would be the innovators who will no doubt assist you in carrying your product to the next stage of adoption. Be prepared to spend some time engaging with your audience, but careful, mindlessly pasting your YouTube video or SoundCloud link on people’s wall can be interpreted as spamming by some.

Engage Your Audience With Mobile Apps

Recording artist aspirations aside, we refilled our coffee cups and prepped for our next session on how to Engage Your Audience With Mobile Apps. In this session, I was surprised to hear how low the survival rate for apps are, where 80% of apps released are flops; all having less than a thousand downloads! Also, Shazam (@Shazam) representative Alex Musil (@amusil) highlighted the importance of having multiple revenue streams, which is something all business should definitely keep in mind. He also stated that he is not worried by the success of counterparts SoundHound, because this “stimulates” the market in a way that is beneficial. I wonder where the line is drawn between ‘stimulation’ and lost profit.

Social Media In The Offline World

Nevertheless, next on the agenda was the Social Media In The Offline World workshop, given primarily by Dorst & Lesser’s Robert Withagen (@RobertWithagen), which I just realized is a pretty creative and cool name for a company, Dutch for ‘Thirst’ and ‘Quencher’. He shared a few case studies, first of which was an online Facebook campaign for a hotel in Ibiza. Their concept:

• Make Your (Facebook) Friends ‘Jealous’
• Share Your Ibiza Experience With Your Online Friends
• Let The Guests Tell Your Story (User Generated Content)
• Give The Guests An Experience

With the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) bracelets, guests could check-in or make Facebook posts based on their location on the hotel premises by swiping these ‘social-accessories’ across sensors. Mr. Withagen made a good point by saying these campaigns should be above all, enjoyable to the user and not a hassle.

Read more about RFID technology and watch the video case studies here> Social Media In The Offline World

How Brands Can Work With Start Ups

While these guests were basking in the sun, we were discussing the trappings of a large company over lunch, where an online campaign can easily get lost in a huge organization. During the conversation, my mind was drifting towards our next split stream panel discussion on How Brands Can Work With Start Ups with Spotify’s Chris Maples (@BigChrisMaples), Voddler’s VP Communication Anders Sjoman (@AndersSjoman), and SoundCloud’s VP Marketing Thom Cummings (@ThomCummings).

As you can imagine, I was excited to see SoundCloud present, since it is a service I use as well and would love to be convinced as to why exactly I should upgrade to the premium account. He made solid points on the importance of their API and targeting their relevant audience, but I felt I could use some more info, which meant I would have to stalk him after the session. Little did I know that later that day, SoundCloud would launch their iPad application, which is what I assume Mr. Cummings was vaguely referring to when I approached him after the session and he said that “…something big is around the corner”.

Without getting ahead of myself, I enjoyed hearing how the collaboration between a giant like Facebook and a start-up like Spotify went. With tongue in cheek, Mr. Maples stated that those first 5 million users might have had something to do with the force of nature known as Justin Bieber mentioning Spotify. Also, I appreciated Voddler acknowledging the intrusiveness of banner ads when streaming videos by introducing a ‘no interruption marketing’ strategy, where ads appear only when you pause the streamed video. Nice!

BankToTheFuture.com

In between our next session, was a pitch for BankToTheFuture.com, a ‘crowdfunding’ concept presented by founder Simon Dixon (@SimonDixonTwitt). In all honesty, I see the benefits of the idea, creating the possibility of finance for one and all, but as soon as he mentioned social scoring part right at the end, is when the majority of attendees tuned out. Imagine if your Klout score determines whether you get a mortgage or not. Scary!

Social Commerce and Branded Content

No matter, we were already geared up for our next Keynote Session with Yann Gourvennec (@ygourven) from telecom operator Orange on Social Commerce and Branded Content, which was essentially about measuring ROI in social media, that just like Google+, was not mentioned very often that day. In my opinion, this was the best-delivered speech and had the most value. It was a real ‘you had to be there’ kind of deal where he gave us little nuggets of gold like “With the number of fans increasing, your engagement rate drops” and “…if it takes too much time, its not worth it”, referring to the scalability of engagement in social campaigns. He also presented their own custom made social scoring dashboard, giving hope to those that have no trust in Klout, who by chance were tweaking their algorithms that day, slicing most people’s score in half, including my own.

A “Wiki” Future

Last, but certainly not least, “the godfather of crowdsourcing” and founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) took the stage as the closing keynote speaker. Kids nowadays, who are part of the quote “Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter generation: the W-T-F generation” unquote, ask their teachers if an encyclopedia is something like Wikipedia. He also made us “imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge” and took us step by step through their fiasco with the Chinese government. Excellent!

At the end of the day, I left the conference feeling refreshed and inspired. My fingers were sore from keeping up with the iStrategy hashtag on Twitter, where valuable observations were shared, questions were directed towards the speakers, and a new way of networking was taking place. Did I seize the opportunity given? I only have two words to answer that: Carpe Diem’d!

(Read the summary of day one here.)

Written by Bertram J. Croes
@BertramCroes
Spotzer Media Intern
Budding Writer, Marketer, Musician, and Observer of the World

Special Thanks to Nicolas Griffioen