David Berkowitz (@dberkowitz) is Vice President of Emerging Media for 360i, the digital marketing agency labeled one of the Best Places to Work by Advertising Age (2011) and Fast Company’s Top 10 Most Innovative Advertising Companies. David is partially responsible for these accolades. His weekly breakfast brainstorms, fondly referred to as “Bagels with Berky,” provide common ground for employees to collaborate and discuss the latest trends. David, like 360i, is committed to staying a step ahead of the digital era and helping leading brands gain competitive edge through social media and mobile marketing programs.

Not only does he inspire colleagues to search for the latest and greatest, he openly shares his knowledge through regular contributions to 360i’s own blog Digital Connections and Advertising Age’s DigitalNext. His personal marketing blog, Marketers Studio, is filled with witty observations and cutting opinions, serving up a refreshingly honest take on all things digital, trending, and social. David’s writings are respected, mentioned frequently in places like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, and Mashable. With numerous published columns in MediaPost’s Social Media Insider and speaking engagements at places like SXSW, Web 2.0 Expo, Blog World Expo, ThinkMobile, MIT Sloan School of Business, and the Yale School of Management, we had to ask David how it’s done.

You are so busy! What is your secret to keeping it together?

I read a ton, travel when I can, and work out with the Kinect.

What do you love most about your work?

It may sound hokey, but I learn so much from the clients I get to work with. I love being able to converse with them to make sense of all the changes unleashed by digital media.

What do you read for inspiration?

I like reading books relating to places I’m about to travel. For instance, when I went to Africa this year, I read about thirty books relating to the continent, including a number focused on South Africa and Zanzibar, both areas I visited. [You can find his complete reading list here.] Topics ranged from Nelson Mandela’s autobiography to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o's dark modern fiction “Petals of Blood.” I read relatively few business books, but I have recently discovered some classics like “Good to Great” and “Influence.”

You can invite one person to coffee. Who is it?

Salman Rushdie

Assemble a Dream Panel. Any topic. Go.

Topic: “What excites you today?”

Panelists: NYT’s David Pogue, Kraft SVP Marketing Dana Anderson, Ashton Kutcher, Tom Colicchio

Moderator: James Earl Jones

Suddenly you find yourself with an extra $1 million in the bank. How do you spend it?

Donate part of it. Save a chunk. Travel the world. And finally buy davidberkowitz.com from that squatter.

Amanda Rykoff is a NYC-based sports fan, TiVo junkie and social media enthusiast. She shares her observations, commentary and diatribes on these and many other topics at The OCD Chick. You can follow her on Twitter @amandarykoff.

This popular event, hosted at the spectacular midtown offices of JWT and sponsored by Meebo, attempted to answer this potentially multi-billion dollar question: with so much choice in how consumers tap into their social graph, how do media and brands reach, connect and influence these networks at scale?

An outstanding panel took on that question and many more, and engaged in an entertaining, intelligent and extremely informative dialogue about this new and evolving topic.  Here’s who shared their insights and opinions with an engaged, constantly tweeting crowd:

• Moderator: David Berkowitz (@dberkowitz) Senior Director of Emerging Media & Innovation, 360i
• Seth Sternberg (@sethjs), CEO, Meebo
• Mark Ghuneim (@MarkGhuneim), CEO, Founder of Wiredset and Trendrr
• Hashem Bajwa (@HashemBajwa), Head of Digital at Droga 5
• Anna O’Brien (@annaobrien), social media enthusiast and data analyst (“Anna the Analyst”)

Berkowitz led the panel through a practical (and slightly aggressive) agenda, including: What techniques will work? How can marketers maximize the audience? And what’s next in this new and constantly evolving world of social graph optimization?

Social Graph Optimization Panel at JWT

What’s a Social Graph?

But before we even get to those questions, there may be a few of you out there who want to know what a social graph is. And just in case you need to know, you’re in luck. When people use the term “social graph”, they’re referring to an online representation of our relationships (personal, family, business) on social networking sites.

Social Graph Optimization

Social graph optimization is just the term for how to maximize a presence in a user’s social graph (Twitter, Facebook, etc.).  Or to put it another way, for people that run websites and brands, how to get SEO optimization and lots of visibility in all the feeds in the social graph?

Simple, right? Not so fast.

We’re in a new, constantly evolving social media world, both as consumers and marketers. The social graph and the ways to reach consumers constantly changes and grows. As consumers are provided with seemingly infinite networks, marketers need to be creative, sensible and practical about ways to connect with consumers. Social media and social graph optimization represent important new tools to be explored, but aren’t the so-called magic marketing bullets.

Tale of the Tweets

What follows is my recap of the panel, which I call the Tale of the Tweets. It’s a collection of live tweets from the event which provides an entertaining, unfiltered and real-time look at what the panelists discussed.  For more insights from the Twitterati (and there were a lot of people live-tweeting the event), Twitter Search #smwgraph.

Just Getting Started

Aaand like every #smwny event, we’re starting a half hour late.

Panelists: @dberkowitz of @360i, @annaobrien, @sethjs of Meebo, @MarkGhuneim, @HashemBajwa. #smw #smwnyc #smwgraph

Search v. Social Graph

Search has been great traffic driver. Now social media drives and needs to be optimized (@sethjs). #smw #smwgraph

Social graph optimization = increasing your visibility in social graph, like SEO optimization does for search. #smwgraph #smwnyc

This is the wild wild west. #smwgraph

What is a Social Graph?

Ok, let’s take a step back: what the hell is a social graph? #smwnyc #smwgraph

P.S. I wasn’t asking what a social graph is. That was asked at the panel! #smwgraph

How to Optimize the Social Graph?

Social graph optimization: study users that are already fans. Do things that make them want to tell their friends. @sethjs #smwgraph

Most important part of any business is to listen and understand what your customers, competition is saying. What you should be saying. (@annaobrien)

Listening to consumers isn’t new to marketers. It’s just way more complicated today. @HashemBajwa #smwgraph

How to Encourage Sharing?

Bottom line: if you do something well, it will be shared. Quality gets shared. @MarkGhuneim #smwny #smwgraph

RT @db: Someone relatively small that’s connected to a lot of other big influencers is just as influential. -@annaobrien #smwgraph

ET @CatherinVentura: If you get 1% of daily use visitors to share, you are doing well (@sethjs of @meebo ) #smw #smwgraph

Sometimes it’s not that complicated: make it easy to share. @sethjs #smwnyc #smwgraph

People love to share videos and photos. @sethjs of @meebo. #smwnyc #smwgraph

I may have a blackberry, but thank god I have a black MacBook to help save my credibility at #smwny.

RT @CatherinVentura: Words that work in promoting buy in to shared content are “play with me” and “help me” @sethjs #smw #smwgraph

RT @dwag29: Create natural messaging for your users to make their friends want to click. @sethjs #smwgraph

What Does SGO Mean to Your Business?

Did I make you more $, did I save you more $, and did your brand grow? Nothing else really matters. @MarkGhuneim #smwgraph

BTW, @MarkGhuneim is founder of Wiredset and Trendrr. He’s built products to listen to the conversation real time. #smwgraph

Meebo bar: 3 goals: more users, more engagement w/content and revenue. Work to move all 3 metrics via social graph @sethjs #smwgraph

Location-Based Applications in the Social Graph:

Aha! Hot question: where do mobile location-based applications factor in to the social graph? #smwgraph

Your Twitter stream and your Foursquare streams are very different and achieve different goals. @HashemBajwa #smwgraph

RT @dwag29: @Foursquare adds value to the environment we’re in. – @HashemBajwa #smwgraph

Sharing: How much? How little?

To share or not to share: that is the question. @annaobrien #smwgraph #smw #smwnyc

Social media has created a new term: “oversharer” (used by @dberkowitz)  #smwgraph #smwnyc

RT @db: “How do we stop amusing ourselves to death? The conversation needs to evolve” -Mark Ghuneim, Wiredset / Trendrr #smwgraph

RT @db: “Where’s the line w/ sharing? There’s going to be people that cross the line but that needs to happen” -@annaobrien #smwgraph

Digital and Social Media Education

Education is key. We’re failing to teach the tools that are necessary to succeed in this new media environment. @sethjs #smwgraph

There are people who know how to consume information and those that don’t. @sethjs #smwgraph

RT @dwag29: Massive audience doesn’t know diff btwn web page & application. Need digital education. -@sethjs #smwgraph

What’s Next in Analytics?

Who are my real friends? Various levels of relationships. It’s no longer “everybody is friends.” @annaobrien #smwgraph

RT @dwag29: Moving from “everybody is friends” in SM to diff types of friends and groups that need to be targeted. -@annaobrien #smwgraph

Data. There is so much data out there. Need to figure out what to do with it. That’s the key. #smwgraph #smwnyc

Facebook Connect

Ah, we have a Facebook Connect sighting. @MarkGhuneim: it removes a giant barrier of entry and is effective that way. #smwgraph

RT @CatherinVentura: “I just commented” and “I just rated” work well with Facebook Connect (@sethjs) #smwgraph

You can’t just add the Meebo Bar or Facebook Connect onto your site. It won’t work. There needs to be strategy. @sethjs #smwgraph

Companies are trying to become “identity management systems” rather than social sites. @annaobrien #smwgraph #smwny

You want to publish where your users are, but don’t give up your own home. @sethjs #smwgraph

RT @CatherinVentura: Balance publishing on other publishing platforms (eg Facebook) & publishing on their own (@sethjs) #smw #smwgraph

On Customer Service

The 759th time I’ve heard it, but it bears repeating: social media can be a huge key for customer service. @MarkGhuneim #smwgraph

Quote of the Day

“When I lose a follower, I consider that optimization. They weren’t listening and weren’t relevant.” @MarkGhuneim #smwgraph

Want to read more about Social Graph Optimization? Check out this article.

This was a great panel. And stay tuned. We’ll soon be talking about “SGO” in the same way we’ve been talking about “SEO” for years.

About this Social Media Week Guest Blogger: Though Rebecca recently graduated from The University of Texas at Austin’s Advertising program, she has been a social media enthusiast for years, and is honored to guest blog at #smwnyc. To learn more, visit her blog and follow her on Twitter @rebeccaweiser.

What’s Next: Social Media in 2010
Panel at the Roger Smith Hotel, NYC

Panelists: BL Ochman, Howard Greenstein, David Berkowitz, Brian Simpson.

What expectations, measurements and results do we plan on seeing in 2010?

There is a lot of buzz surrounding the way Social Media will shape the business and communication landscape. Addressing these speculations, the panel outlined expectations, measurements and results we can hope to see in 2010.

Expectations: “Big companies need to take it seriously.”

As explained above, one reason why big companies don’t engage in Social Media is because they are scared.

In 2010, the panel unanimously agreed that many more big businesses will realize how valuable of a communication tool Social Media can be. Not only is it challenging, interesting and fun, “but it has the potential to be very lucrative.

Every client wants long-term strategies, and the panel predicts that in order to achieve this, clients will begin investing 5-7 figures into social media campaigns.

Less about what we do, and more about the reason they talk. A good business practice uses social media as means for proliferation, not an improvement to the service/product. It’s easy to get carried away, but a successful business model has a truly quality offering, while providing the means with which to share the experience it provides. Social media allows others to talk about how great business-x is.

Measurement: “Social Media should come at the beginning.”

• Traditional measurement will have to change, as Social Media carries different weight. For instance in the old model, 20 impressions were no big deal. However, now whenever 20 impressions are served through Social Media, they are each an invitation to interact and communicate with one another.
• Each social media channel holds different weight. A YouTube video response has different implications than a retweet.
• For more information, visit David Berkowitz’s blog post – http://bit.ly/100ways

Results: “Social Media should come at the beginning.”

• Ideally, an increased focus on social media will result in an increase of sales. Howard Greenstein brought up an example of a local barber shop that, through social media, was able to successfully increase its customer base for next to nothing cost.
• David Berkowitz explains the 4 major social media necessities for producing results: Goals, Assets, Rules and Volume.