In advance of Social Media Weekend (starting this Friday!), we asked its founder, Sree Sreenivasan, and the journalist Patricia Kitchen what events and speakers are especially worth looking forward to. If you haven’t bought your tickets yet, day passes for Saturday and Sunday are still available.
The Hired Guns: It seems as if you could throw a rock in any direction and hit a social media conference. Why come to yours? In other words, who’s it for? Am I here to manage my personal brand or the brand of my company? Or both?
Sree and Patricia: This is a place where social media power-users meet, mingle, and often lend a hand to those who are newbies — or who know a little something but find themselves stalled.
There’ll be high-profile speakers from the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Edelman Digital, as well as major news organizations. But there are also more than 20 social media doctors who’ll sit with people one-on-one and help them learn.
Plenty of last year’s attendees came on behalf of their employers, but just about everyone also had an interest in trends, tools, and services to help them manage their own personal brands. Running through it all is a great atmosphere that’s encouraging, inclusive, and certainly a little on the playful side.
THG: Do you find yourself still having to explain/defend Twitter to colleagues and acquaintances?
S&P: We love coming across people who still think that Twitter is all about celebrity gossip and people’s lunch menus. If they have open minds, their professional and personal digital lives will most likely get changed for the better. If they have closed minds, they are just simply missing out. [Patricia adds] A great moment for me last year was telling a group of job hunters at a career fair — they were rolling their eyes at the mention of Twitter — that they can often find, follow, and converse with employees and managers at organizations where they want to work, with no permission needed. You could just see the “ah-ha” wheels starting to spin.
THG: Which speakers are you especially looking forward to hearing from this year? Why?
S&P: Not sure you want to devote the room needed for us to go into all the sessions and speakers we’re genuinely looking forward to. We think there’ll be a great vibe between @EricCarvin, the AP’s new social media editor, and Erica Anderson (aka @EricaAmerica), Twitter’s manager for news and journalism. Then there’s the Global Google Hangout with Googler Daniel Sieberg and social-media types around the world. Also the “New Social Media Tools” panel. See, we haven’t even gotten past midday Saturday. <grin>
THG: In the last year, what’s been the biggest change in social media?
S&P: Several trends are worth noting: the rise of specialized social networks, including photography (Instagram), music (Spotify), and hobbies (Pinterest); the rise of Google+ and its impact on how information is shared and found online; and how more businesses — including journalism orgs — are taking social media seriously.
THG: Did the major online response to SOPA/PIPA surprise you? Specifically, the way that so many right-, left-, and no-wing sites all worked against it in their own way, which seems unprecedented. Is it a sign of things to come? And what does it mean for social media in general?
S&P: The response to SOPA proves that one thing will have to change: Politicians can’t pay attention only to lobbyists and big corporations anymore. They must also pay attention to users and consumers. Of course, that means citizens and voters. What a novel concept, those who govern listening to the governed. Here’s a webcast Sree hosted five hours before [Wikipedia went dark]: Understanding SOPA, PIPA & the Wikipedia Blackout.
THG: Prediction: Pinterest? Here to stay or passing fad?
S&P: We don’t predict, because if we could, we’d have a lot more money than we do. Technologies, companies and even industries come and go. But we can say this much: Pinterest is for real — for now. Whether it has legs depends entirely on how it treats its customers, how it innovates, and how it deals with its competition.
