On September 16, 2009, we took our seminar series to the sunny shores of Los Angeles. Over 100 people from some of the best known names in Hollywood and the LA region showed up ready to absorb some very interesting stories and engage in discussions about how to be successful using social media. Alex kicked off the day with a high level overview of how web publishers and brands are using social media to create websites that engage customers and audiences.
Joining us and making some terrific presentations were:
Alan Wolk, creative strategist at Toad Stool Consultants. Alan is a good friend of KickApps and also has very interesting insight and ideas about how brands can use social media in their marketing mix. His presentation presented some very creative ways brands could utilize Facebook, Twitter and online communities, to engage customers and drive sales.
Jeramie McPeek, VP, interactive services at the Phoenix Suns, is a true pioneer of social media in the professional sports industry. Under his leadership, PlanetOrange.net, the fan community for the Phoenix Suns has become extremely successful and has even won an EMMY Award. One of my favorite stories was how fans from Australia and New Zealand that met on Planet Orange traveled to the U.S. on a trip to see Suns games (spending over $15k each!).
Allison Kingsley, director of digital media, and Megan Smith, community manager, at Ovation TV, talked about best practices for growing and managing a vibrant community of people that are passionate about art & creativity. It was very interesting to learn how after launching their KickApps powered online community, Ovation TV’s pageviews grew by over 300 percent and time spent on the website quadrupled! Oh…and, Ovation TV/KickApps won the SAMMY Award for Best Social Community!
Finally, Dylan Boyd, VP at eROI, a very creative agency based in Portland, OR, talked about some best practices and lessons learned from creating and launching social media websites for clients like Wacom. He talked about a phased approach for creating an online community and strategies they undertook to grow and engage artists and creative professionals.
We’ll be posting the slides from the day and also video shortly.
