sxsw Interactive Web - What the Experts Say

Social media, relationships, authenticity, new generation experiences, measuring knowledge, the language of "we", neighborhoods of people and ideas are all buzzwords in the communications realm and will revolutionize our practice dramatically in the next few years.

I attended the sxsw Interactive Web conference in Austin this week and learned a lot from the experts. Of course, listening to a live conversation with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, allowed a glimpse into a major social phenomenon.

A speaker I really learned from was Shiv Singh, at a sponsored session by Avenue A | Razorfish. Here are a few words, but you can read more about him and the sxsw conference at my discovery and innovation blog WendSight.

If you think social media is all about clever corporate marketing on Facebook or quirky videos on YouTube, you're missing an opportunity to change your company's entire culture and operations, says Shiv. In fact, social media can affect how companies innovate, test ideas, recruit talent, measure performance and interact with all their stakeholders.

Shiv explains how the enterprise can use social media to improve business practices. He talks about the rise of social media has created a new form of marketing altogether, referred to as social influence marketing.

Social influence marketing is about employing social media as part of the entire lifecycle of a marketing campaign, even beyond a campaign.

Key points: people join networks if they have friends there; behavior is influenced by others; growth occurs in the centrality; people will disseminate information from social networks; trust is essential for information sharing; and user based evaluations are important to collaboration.