Webinar: Using Social Media in the Real World with Results

Yesterday afternoon we hosted a webinar with Akamai that featured John De Marchi, director of digital distribution at Saavn, the world’s largest rights owner of Bollywood music and films, and former GM of VIBE Digital Media. John is the mastermind behind the legendary VIBE Verses community. During his time at VIBE, John oversaw the creation and launch of the community and also the subsequent partnership with MySpace.

The webinar showcased the success of VIBE Verses (powered by KickApps), a contest based community (think it as an online Hip Hop/Rap American Idol) where members select the winner. Winners of the contest received a cash prize of $10k, a spread in the print magazine and FAME! During the 3rd run of the contest, the winner, Ms Nana (her video and website), opened for Wyclef Jean during his MySpace album release party in LA! Talk about launching her career.

Here are some of the things we covered in the webinar:
- Learn about how VIBE created a full feature social network and user-generated content site in 3 weeks that grew to 90k members in a matter of months.
- Generating revenue from sponsors and advertisers, and earning ROI on your social media in a matters of weeks.
- Understanding how to harness the power and virality of social media and partnering with large social networks like MySpace to drive engagement on your own social media site.

The webinar runs about 45 minutes and features John’s presentation, followed by audience Q&A with Jeff Zaretsky, VP of Business Development, KickApps, and Tim Napoleon, Chief Strategist, Media and Entertainment, Akamai Technologies.

To view the webinar, click here, enter your registration information and you’ll be taken to the player. You’ll need either Windows Media Player or Real Player.