software - Social Media Week New York (SMWNYC) - MAY 4

Social media can make or break your event with fans, attendees, and audience members sharing their thoughts and experiences online and amongst friends.

Splash, the experience marketing software that maximizes event impact – before, during, and after, joins Social Media Week New York to explore how event organizers and experiential professionals can turn their next event into social media gold.

Click here to register for SMW New York, and hear from Splash’s Co-Founder and “Party Scientist” Ben Hindman, who will cover everything from how to create “Instagrammable moments,” to how to design an irresistible invitation.

Ben is an events planner-turned-tech entrepreneur who prizes people skills above all else, and has conceptualized and developed several successful companies—all of which revolve around the collective power of shared experiences.

As CEO and Founder of Splash, Ben works alongside technologists, designers, marketers, and party planners to make sense of the events industry by anticipating trends, identifying unspoken user needs, and finding the next great laser light. In 2015 alone, his venture-backed software has powered 500,000+ events for brands ranging from Red Bull to the Pope.

This session, “How To Make Your Event Seem As Awesome Online As It Does IRL” takes place Friday, February 26 at 3:00PM at The SVA Theatre (EDU Stage).

Image Credit: Mashable Studios

The year social matured.

The entire industry continues to recalibrate their mindset on social. Is it tactical, is is about community management and customer service or is it really about real time insights? All of the above (plus, 100 other things). But, social has matured and is now a core function or marketing — not a “really fun, cool add on.” We live in a social world, and here’s the reality of how social has matured.

Existing social platform use has steadied amongst consumers — leaving room for emerging platforms of course, but I’m not certain we’ll see the hockey stick growth patterns of years past. Because of that, brands will be able to take a time out, recount the successes/failures of their pilots from 2013, get their footing, and most importantly the appropriate BUDGET according to a survey from CMO.org.

I think we’ll see:

Investment in customer insights and analytic software
Social diversification: matching content and cost to the right platforms/consumers
Marketing leaders will gain additional headcount, and hire talented individuals (vs. interns) and integrate social into their discipline
Measuring (and making sense of) quality engagement metrics vs. only quantitative ones

The winners will be the ones who invest in quality talent, to collect the right insights to keep their audiences engaged across multiple platforms (desktop mobile, tablet). Want more stats? There’s expanded reading on it from the Altimeter Group here and the Harvard Business Review: What’s the End Game for Social?

The trend: Building marketing efforts around shifting and sometimes transient customer behaviors — “Marketing For a Social World”.

Interested in learning more about trends in social media? Join us at at Social Media Week New York February 17-21 at the Highline Stages.

Jess Seilheimer runs a consultancy called Cretegic– your insight-driven partner for a digital world. We accelerate strategic planning into actionable ideas & marketing for brands and startups. She is also the Strategy & Marketing lead for a startup Birdi. Prior, she was the SVP of Digital Innovation and Strategic Planning at Havas.

Image courtesy Engagor.