Virtual Conference

Recently I listened to an online conference where speakers Todd Waserman, Alan Schanzer, and Barton Goldberg spoke about online social networks and they can help you by spreading brand awareness. Throughout the presentation I felt like a lot of the material was pretty much the majority of the stuff I have been learning in my internet marketing class. The three men talked about things ranging from Google, to Myspace, to Web 2.0 characteristics and how to use them to your advantage.

Todd started off the presentation with his presentation mostly highlighting numeral data that the companies are bringing in. The most interesting thing that Todd said for me was when he explained that despite all the hype about Facebook, Myspace is still the number one social networking site. For me, this seems unreal because I know a few people with Myspace, but literally everyone has Facebook. I think the important factor to keep in mind however is something Barton Goldenberg said in his presentation, just how many people are visiting the site though?

Mr. Schanzer's presentation was personally, for me, the most interesting. What I liked most about him was that he lead by example. He gave us some underlying features of social networks, and then explained how these helped certain companies with extending their brand awareness. He talked about the company E&J Brandy, who used social networking to set up a "Spoken Words" contest. The most interesting thing that Mr. Schanzer pointed out was the fact that everyone is so fascinated by these social networks, but a lot of people still don't even have internet. E&J Brandy fixed that problem by taking around a mobile van to African American communities and allowing them to record their 30-second spoken words spot and then upload it to the internet. This was a great idea because of the simple fact that now they had both the online and offline community involved with the brand.

Barton Goldenberg was the last speaker for the conference. I found his material to be pretty much the regurgiated matter of my great professor Kurt Komaromi. His entire presentation focused the Digital Client, who according to Goldenberg, is the Generation Y people who are "always on, always connected". He also talked about how great social networks are for businesses because not only are digital clients connected to your network and stores but they are also connected directly to you, the company.