Caplin said repeatedly that he was really impressed with the turnout at this event and is working hard to leverage Ford Motor Company’s tremendous success with Social Media.
 
He also really appreciated Plenary Speaker Aaron Booker of Varvid.com’s presentation on “Online Video as Part of Your Social Media Strategy” and completely agrees with Booker’s concept of ‘record once, play many times’.
 
Gary shared that one of the testimonial videos he produced for Diehl Ford has been adopted by Ford Motor Company of America and was viewed over 5000 times over the past several months.
 
Diehl Ford: www.diehlford.com
Varvid.com: www.varvid.com 

After a satisfying lunch of chicken salad with some delicious local greens,we are buckling down for the remainder of the afternoon sessions. The morning was filled with great information, regardless of the level of expertise (or interest!) in social technology. Derek Johnson gave a great presentation on the basics of social media for those who were here exploring these channels and wondering how they might fit with their business and/or personal goals. Warren Sukernek discussed the importance of listening to your customers via social channels and shared some case studies on the progress some companies have made in engaging their customers. Aaron Booker shared his expertise in creating videos and how they will help you connect closely with your audience and create a two-way communication channel. Pivot Labs’ Shari Burk and Matt Barnhart gave some tremendous information on how to align social media approaches to fit with your business’s goals and objectives by using your existing core messaging to fuel your approach to social media. You couldn’t come away from these breakout sessions not feeling full…

The second keynote session was presented by James Burnes of Mobiltopia, who also spoke with the Bellingham Social Media group last night as a sort of ‘pre-party’ discussion for today. James talked about developing business strategy based on making connections and building relationships via social channels. He discussed the real importance of brand perception and how this will affect potential customers’ decision to interact, and do business, with a company. James is a great presenter and a firm believer in the importance of relationships when it comes to business strategy, and this was certainly reflected in the message he shared.

Our post-lunch keynote came from Clay McDaniel of Spring Creek Group. He shared some monitoring tools and ways to keep track of what your customers and competitors are saying about you. He reviewed some great tools for conducting “free” research on brands, trends & keywords and stated the importance on having your finger on the pulse of your image by doing so. He reminded us that with the existence of a company website, regardless of location, we conduct business globally. (You can download Clay’s presentation here on SlideShare.)

Stay tuned later in the day for the wrap-up, and make sure to catch instant conference play-by-plays by following the #SMConfNW hashtag!

So here we are… Social Media Conference NW has started and there are nearly 300 in attendance from all corners of North America. A quick straw poll this morning showed attendees from places as far as Vancouver BC, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and St. Louis. The common method of discovery? Google search. The word was spread, and the people showed up… if you put the conference on, they will come.

Our first experiences this morning were in the “Birds Of A Feather” table discussions over breakfast, with topics including Blogging, Google Fiber, Social Media Channels, Podcasting, Vlogging, and Twitter. Those taking a seat at these tables engaged in discussions around the topic and quite often crossed over into related areas, proving how interconnected all of our social computing tools truly are. Attendees range from expert level to brand-new to the world of social media. All are eager to take home some nuggets of wisdom from the sessions and from where I sit, there will be plenty of those.

Sessions kicked off this morning with Dr. Matthew Dunn of SayItVisually.com. Dr. Dunn took us on a walk down memory lane as to how messages have reached us over the last 80 or so years – from radio to movies to TV to PCs and right on into cloud computing. The catch phrase of the morning seemed to be “We are all in the publishing business now…” To wrap up his discussion, Dr. Dunn tasked the audience with sharing a video through our chosen social channels (mostly Twitter and Facebook) and used a bit.ly shortened URL (shown below) to show how far-reaching our networks truly are:

Results show over 200 clicks worldwide in the first 30 minutes, from the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, Serbia, Korea, and South Africa. Who would have thought a tiny place like Mt. Vernon, WA would reach around the globe like this?

Stay tuned for more conference updates after each session!

Enjoy previewing the Social Media Conference Northwest Program:

Evolving Marketing Conversations