With a passion for emerging technology, mobile and social media, Social Media Week attendees always strive to understand and share what’s next. This February, we’re excited to explore “Upwardly Mobile: The Rise of The Connected Class” throughout the conference, and what this theme represents from today until 2022, when six billion individuals will be connected to each other online. The sessions you won’t want to miss feature leading companies sharing their top strategies and predictions of what’s happening, and what’s to come.
To help you discover the best of Social Media Week New York, we asked a few of our attendees to share their top picks for events, talks and masterclasses taking place throughout the week. Below, Clay Hebert, Founder of Crowdfunding Hacks, gives us a look at the events he’s most excited for:
- Vimeo Video School Live: Creative Toolsets to Engage a Global Audience
“If ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, then well-executed video is worth even more. Video is everywhere and many consumers would rather click play and watch for 2 minutes instead of reading copy for even 30 seconds. But quality matters. If the video is terrible, the viewer is gone.” - The New DIY – Drones, Makers, and Bots: A Fireside Chat with Martha Stewart and CEO of The Barbarian Group, Sophie Kelly
“Drones are already delivering pharmaceutical deliveries, being used in performance art and even being used in vineyards to make better wine. The combination of the maker movement and drones is very exciting. Plus…drone joust with Martha Stewart!” - Beyond the Moonwalking Bear: New Ideas in Understanding Human Attention
“In our busy, distracted world, time is our most valuable resource and attention is our most valuable currency. Faris Yakob recently wrote a book on this exact topic, Paid Attention: Innovative Advertising for a Digital World and I’m excited to listen to Faris, Sarah and Joe how brands and advertisers can attract consumers’ attention and translate it into not just dollars but permission.” - The 10 Rules of an Open Brand: Evolving With Your Customers and the Industry
“Companies that ignore their customers and the collective intelligence of the crowd will die more quickly than they realize. John has built Victors and Spoils on an ethos that all of us are smarter than any of us. It’s true. And it’s working.” - Cult Brands 2.0: How Today’s Top Brands Breed Loyalty and Fanaticism
“Ries and Trout wrote about it in Positioning. Seth Godin described it in Purple Cow. In a noisy, cluttered world, you can’t just be ‘a’ choice, you have to be ‘the’ choice. Turning your raving fans into your 24-7 marketing team is an investment worth making for any brand.”
You can catch Clay’s own session, “Marketing Lessons from Crowdfunding: The Psychology of Success” on Thursday, Feb. 26 at 12:00 noon. If you haven’t already, be sure to pick up your pass to #SMWNYC, and join us for what will be an extraordinary week.
About Clay Hebert
Clay Hebert is an internationally acclaimed marketing strategist and the founder of Crowdfunding Hacks, where he helps entrepreneurs and creatives fund their dreams. As one of the world’s leading crowdfunding experts, Clay has helped over 100 entrepreneurs raise over $25M on popular crowdfunding platforms Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
A popular keynote speaker, Clay engages audiences around the globe on innovation, creativity, crowdfunding, marketing, entrepreneurship and the future of work.
Clay has trained senior leaders at Fortune 500 organizations and his speaking clients have included Accenture, Pfizer, Zappos and some of the top universities and nonprofits in the world. He advises corporations and startups on strategy, marketing, innovation and culture independently and through Clarity.fm, Exobase and the First Growth Venture Network. Clay currently sits on the board of Social Media Week New York and several technology and marketing startups.
Clay has written for The Washington Post, Forbes and The Next Web and his work has been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Lifehacker and The Financial Post. He is a regular guest on FOX Business.
After a decade solving complex problems for global clients at Accenture, the world’s largest consulting firm, Clay left corporate America and attended the most selective and unique MBA program in the United States, a six month journey working with Seth Godin and eight other amazing people.
Clay teaches crowdfunding at CrowdfundingHacks.com and writes about marketing, innovation and the future of work on his own blog at ClayHebert.com. Clay is active on Twitter. Say hi @clayhebert.