First off, let me say some nice things about the people that put on the Social Media Club in Sydney. They volunteer their time. They put on very professional events that attract a lot of people. They are kind to animals and help old ladies across the road. The first session was especially good because they had a bloke from a marketing agency and they also had Leslie Nasser - who is not a marketing guy but did something cool online.
Now I am not a marketing guy. But I am interested in social software (blogs, wikis, Twitter, etc) and I am interested in people who are doing cool stuff online (regardless of who they work for). And I don't feel there's anything at the Social Media Club for people who aren't in PR or marketing agencies. Now that may be who its intended audience, in which case they ought to change the name to make that clear - the "Social Media for Marketers Club" is nicely unambiguous.
However if it does go down that path then it risks being less interesting as a result. It's like a "Television Club" that only discusses ads or a "Telephone Club" that focuses on call centres. There is a whole world out there and there are plenty of people in it who aren't after a "social media expert" title.
So I'd encourage the organisers to broaden the kind of presentations they have and possibly experiment with the format as well. One or two people on stage separated from everyone else feels very traditional, very old media (as another Gavin mentioned). How could it be done differently?
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11 comments:
marketing eats EVERYTHING.
Yikes!!!
MAN WHAT DID I SAY
you've got to leave that spam there, it's the perfect support to my argument.
Tempting but it will only encourage them...
Hi Matt,
I totally agree. There's still a lot of interesting, non-marketing social media areas to be discusssed at SMCSYD.
Although I'm not on the committee (declaration of interest: I have moderated some of the discussions) so can't speak for them, I udnerstand that at least one of the guests they're working on for the next event is from a non-marketing background.
Cheers,
Tim - Mumbrella
yeah, let's have some truth in advertising (lmao) and make them call it what it is.
For me this is mostly a social thing - omg, it's like "SOCIAL MEDIA" means something to do with other people, instead of just consumers and clicks and stupid *resists urge to use another C word* people. *wanders off muttering*
Have to point out, as a 'non-marketing' type, I really appreciate the content of these events, even if I don't always agree (unusual!) with it. It helps that the organisers are so open and effusive and care as much about the audience as the speakers.
So yes I did make the point on Monday that 'social media' is as much about a conversation than a presentation followed by a Q&A session - and boy do I get enough of them at work. I got heckled (probably well deserved) for making an overly lengthy 'observation' when I tried to break free of the shackles of 'Q&A'. Though I think there were probably cleverer people than me in the room, so it probably would have been preferable to see an engaging conversation between them and the speakers. Then they could make their observations as lengthy as they liked without fear of abuse!
That said I thought @dmscott was highly engaging on Monday, as were some of the previous speakers. And I'm of the same understanding as Tim on future events.
BTW, thanks for the link Matt ;)
Maybe you should just run a Social Media Software Interest Club and be done with it.
I do love that a post about accountability and engagement warrants an anonymous well-why-don't-you-do-better comment.
Yes, the people organising SMC Sydney are tops and I was in no way disappointed that I'd flown down to attend the event and especially to hear David Meerman Scott.
I'm sure you know, Matt, but some of your readers might not, that there is a lot more to the Social Media Club concept than being a gathering of people to talk about marketing. The motto of SMC is "if you get it, share it" - in other words, far from wanting SMC to be the narrow preserve of any one group or sector, the concept and vision is very much about sharing with the community generally and doing that in a systematic way. For detail, see the main website and the stuff about the 4 point mission: http://www.socialmediaclub.org/projects/
Tim - cool - I will look forward to the next session with baited breath.
Anonymous - I don't really have any desire to do that at the moment but thanks for the suggestion. I suspect the SMC committee are better at organising events than me anyhow.
franksting - @dmscott is damn good presenter but it felt he was pitching social media to us (& a little bit of preaching to the choir). I'd have loved him to have taken a little deeper (and yes I'm aware that's not what other people might want & he only had limited time but there you go).
Des - Ta for the link - there's some interesting potential overlaps with other groups - e.g. the Gov 2.0 group, the Creative Commons mob (strongly represented near your part of the world), etc.
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