Top 5 Tech Trends from SXSWi 2012

There are a lot of blogs out there right now about SXSW Interactive 2012, but this is one of my favorites. It gets straight to the point and breaks down the 5 tech trends that were getting the most buzz:

  1. Path – Personal social journals. Not sure if I want to know more about people than I already do through Facebook. Do you have a personal social journal?
  2. Social Discovery Tools – GPS enabled apps
  3. Mobile Payments – I haven’t tried Mobile payments yet, but I can definitely see using them in the future.
  4. Interface is King – Connecting design themes across platforms
  5. Beautifying the Web – Photo Sharing

Top 10 Favorite Takeaways from SXSWi

This week, my twitter feed was full of quotes from SXSWi. I was not able to attend the conference myself, but agencies from all over the country have been tweeting and blogging about their experience there, so… I thought I would share some of my favorite takeaways that they have shared.

Agencies

  • Moosylvania – an independent full-service agency in St. Louis.
  • 4orce – a digital agency in St. Louis
  • Big Fuel – a social media and branded content company in New York

Top 10 SXSWi Takeaways

  1. Look forward to scary awesome targeting of ads – Moosylvania
  2. It’s becoming even more vital that brands focus on additional value and continued relationships with their customers. It’s all about the experience, and the ways a brand engages on an emotional level. – Moosylvania
  3. Social media ROI discussion haven’t evolved. Ever. Your social ROI comes down to determining which KPIs are important to your brand and what you need to measure to determine success, there isn’t a magic bullet ROI formula that works for all brands. – Moosylvania
  4. Agencies must migrate away from vertical hierarchy to horizontal hierarchy… Resist large teams at all cost. – 4orce
  5. ROI metrics are to validate not to justify social media spend. 4orce
  6. Lots of debate and confusion regarding social media ROI. Bottom line: we should measure results against upfront benchmarks. 4orce
  7. So your brand is sharing content, but is it also capturing content? Makes it less promotional & more authentic – Big Fuel
  8. Think of your brand as a host to a conversation. Morph and change with it. – Moosylvania
  9. Providing value on an ongoing basis creates relationships. Be authentic, be relevant, but don’t be creepy. – Big Fuel
  10. Products are the new marketing. We’re seeing a shift in leading-edge agencies understanding that to succeed they need to be creating digital products that benefit consumers, clients, and the agency, not selling services. Brands are starting realize this too. – Moosylvania

What have been some of your favorite blogs or quotes from SXSWi?