Social Fresh West – Going from Good to Great Content

Editor's note: This post was originally published on Expion's blog.

Social Fresh West was in San Diego the last week of September. Jason Keath and the Social Fresh crew did not disappoint. The speakers came with piping fresh content (a requirement from Jason); the event leads gave us plenty of opportunities to network in fun formats; the volunteers took care of all the crazy requests;  and the attendees did not disappoint with thoughtful questions. See all the buzz around the event via #socialfresh and this great recap podcast from Sebastian Rusk.

San Diego is definitely a fantastic city to have a destination conference. And I was one of the lucky speakers for this social media event.

Jason and I discussed any presentation topic gaps the agenda had. He asked me to present on content marketing and cutting through the clutter. It’s been a few years since I’ve presented anything other than operationalizing social media in large enterprises so I was thrilled to take on this new topic since it’s one that I live and breathe every day but hadn’t put a narrative behind. And with our clients, I had a lot of great content fodder to work with.

Here’s my Content Marketing: From Good to Great presentation summary:
There’s a lot of buzz about content marketing. But what makes your content marketing plan go from good enough to great? Great content marketing combines community insights, an optimized distribution process and most importantly, content, that not only resonates with your customers and prospects, but also leads to preferred action.

In this fast-paced session, Zena will lead you through helpful large brand content marketing case studies. She’ll share tips on streamlining process and trends to help you walk away with a “good to great” content marketing game plan.

Please take a look, download if you want, and if you have any questions just comment below or ping me on twitter.

Social Fresh West Content Marketing: Good To Great from Zena Weist

Photo credit: Swig Social

For Immediate Release (FIR Live) Panel on Influencer Marketing

Editor's note: This post was originally published on Expion's blog.

The first Google+ Hangout on Air (HOA) for Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson's For Immediate Release was Saturday, June 11, 2012. The topic was Influencer Marketing and the "feisty and fun" panel from left to right below were:

• Andrew Grill CEO at influencer platform Kred 
• David Armano EVP, Global Innovation & Integration at Edelman Digital
• Shel Holtz - For Immediate Release Host 
• Gini Dietrich CEO at PR firm Arment Dietrich 
• Neville Hobson - For Immediate Release Host 
• and me - Zena Weist VP, Strategy at social software company Expion

For those of you unfamiliar with Shel and Neville's FIR Live weekly discussions, it's 60 minutes of unscripted, robust Q&A on a trending industry topic with audience participation via Twitter (hashtag #FIRLive) and group chat. Influencer Marketing Review highlights a few quotes from the FIR panel to whet your appetite:
  The panel all agreed that when creating advocate lists, the influencer scoring systems can be "one of many" identifiers. The key being not to use an influencer candidate's score such as Klout, Peer Index and Kred as the only qualifier. Another point that resonated throughout the discussion was the industry's responsibility to educate organizations on the pros and cons of utilizing influencer scoring systems. Really enjoyed the G+ HOA format.

I'm looking forward to taking in more FIR Live webcasts on the HOA platform. Thanks again for asking me to participate Shel and Neville! In my next influencer marketing post, I'll share a few resources that I've found extremely helpful, so stay tuned.

Ready to Explore?

The next Explore summit powered by Jason Falls' Social Media Explorer is in Nashville on April 13.

Jason has lined up an incredible group of industry leaders from all walks of business life to help you with your digital marketing and social media efforts. I am definitely excited about talking with Nashville about Optimizing Social Media within large companies, however I'm thrilled to be able to get my "learn on" with the robust topics covered by my fellow presenters.

You have your tickets, yet? If not, please leave a comment below with your contact info or reach out to me on Twitter and I'll shoot you a discount code.

After the event, I'll update this post to include my presentation and all the resources we discuss.

See you in Nashville!

UPDATE 4/12:

Deep Dive Into Operationalizing Social Media

View more presentations from Zena Weist.

Operationalizing Social Media To Become A Social Business

Last month, I zipped through the following deck at Jason Fall's Social Media Explore Summit in Dallas. It includes two Fortune 500 case studies discussing how firms incorporate social media into enterprise-wide programs. I was lucky enough to have led both initiatives - one with a C-suite champion and one without.

Operationalizing Social Media

Though I cut the presentation down by half, there's just too much content to cover during a 30 minute talk. I felt like I was running a marathon and though the Dallas crowd was very responsive, I know I should have kept to key points thahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift help tackle cross-functional social media programs. In fact, Jason reminded me last week to "whittle the sucker down to core points, dammit." ;)

So for Nashville's Explore, I will be slashing the copy, cutting out slides and focusing on sharing the social business headlines. I will be explaining the watch-outs and providing you with core takeaways while weaving in Edelman's social business methodology along the way to help reinforce the key guiding principles that will help you make your enterprise-wide social media initiatives successful. I hope to see you in Nashville on April 13!

In the meantime, check back here for deeper dive points of consideration from the above deck. I promise these posts will be in bit-size, right-size digestible chunks for you to have for reference while you are developing your enterprise-wide social business plan.

KC Cache Dash: A high-tech scavenger hunt where charities are biggest winners

KC Cache Dash: A high-tech scavenger hunt where charities are biggest winners

Kansas City - City of Entrepreneurs and Google Fiber

This is about a three minute Kauffman Sketchbook video providing us with a background on Kansas City's rich entrepreneurial roots and how Google is partnering with local businesses to keep the entrepreneurial spirit thriving.

I am so proud to have taken part in Kauffman's entrepreneurial program at UMKC, work for two of the five highlighted Kansas City brands listed and most importantly call Kansas City home.

Big thank you to Stephanie Sharp for reminding me about this video.

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The SoDA Digital Marketing Outlook Survey

It's that time of year. 2011 recap surveys are hitting our inboxes. Here's one for you to not overlook...

Share your opinions on digital marketing with the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA). They have released their 2011 Digital Marketing Outlook survey and are looking for industry insiders to provide their input. These insights will be printed in the 2012 edition of The SoDA Report.

The survey will take approximately 10 minutes to complete and will focus on your experiences with, and plans for digital marketing. To participate, click http://bit.ly/w4mi8W to start.  In return for your time and sharing your insights, you will receive a copy of The SoDA Report as well as additional content updates throughout the year as The SoDA Report moves to a quarterly editorial calendar for 2012.

Take the 10 minutes to fill the survey out, The SoDA Report is worth it!

Still doubtful? Check out the 2011 report and then decide.

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