As I mentioned in a previous post, I attended the Blog World and New Media Expo this year in Las Vegas. Since they added a social media track, I thought it might also be interesting to see how exhibitors were using new media, not only to attract attendees, but to get their message out there as well. Of all the conferences I have attended, this is the first time where checking out the exhibitor booths was so much fun that it kept people coming back. Here are my top five favorites, each doing it a little different: story tellers, old schoolers, do-gooders, the internet celebrity, and the celebrity gone internet.

Say what you want about Ford. No really, say what you want about them. They want you to. Ford has created The Ford Story, home of their social media, where you will not only find links to their various twitter, facebook, flickr and other profiles, but you will find real stories (even some negative ones) about Ford. It appears Ford’s take on social media is to be as transparent as possible. They even share their plan and progress.

I spent quite a lot of time hanging around Ford to find out just how they were using social media and what they were doing at the Blog World Expo. Ford’s social media strategy is headed by the very talented and generally nice guy Scott Monty, who along with the intelligent and lovely Gwen Peake graciously offered their time and demos. Unfortunately I didn’t take them up on the demos, even though they had a Mustang there. By the way, one of my favorite social media uses by Ford is the Mustang Customizer, which I suggested they add a short race track to. Anyway, at one point, I grabbed one of my favorite guys in the industry, Frank Eliason (aka comcastcares), and talked social media practices with Gwen. A few of the things that came out of that discussion were:
1. Allow the negative feedback. Don’t cover it up. Deal with it. Sometimes the community will deal with it faster than you will.
2. User feedback can be the crowdsourced info that actually causes change. So pay attention and respond. Let users know when their feedback caused the change.
3. It’s not just about us. It’s about you. Sure we offer you products or services, but we want to know how you use it, what you think, etc. We want to engage with you. This way we both benefit from it. Or as Ford says: “Ford is different – Join the Conversation”

Putting Fatburger in the far back corner of the hall was seriously like the getting milk in the grocery store strategy. You had to make your way through other booths before you got to what you were looking for. This worked out great for everyone, I’m sure. It certainly didn’t stop the crowds from making it over to Fatburger, who relied on some old school marketing to make social media work for them. What did they do? They offered coupons for free fries at their stores, gave out samples of food, and held four Fatburger eating contests. And it worked! Just check out these burgers.

These are 24oz of beef. Known as the XXXL on the menu, these burgers were put to the test on some of Blog World Expo goers. This, along with their Fatmobile (hey, I was mayor of it on foursquare for awhile there) and free samples, got Fatburger all the social media coverage they could have asked for. They let their product speak for itself, and let the consumers speak even louder for them. Of course this doesn’t mean they don’t use social media themselves. Check out their fans page for more info and be sure to follow them on twitter. Here’s my video of the first Blog World Expo Fatburger Eating Contest won by geekgiant.

One of the best uses of social media is definitely for raising money for non-profit organizations. Ebay and PayPal brought their Charity Smackdown Arcade to the Blog World Expo to raise money to beat cancer everywhere.

Their arcade games had people coming back for fun, but it all coincided with The Guinness World Record #BeatCancer event. Sponsored by MillerCoors, eBay/PayPal and Genesis Today, the event raised over $70,000 through people simply adding the hashtag #beatcancer to their tweets.

Back in the pre-social media days, these guys might never have made it past their local open access channel. In fact, they were even cancelled on Channel 101 after just two episodes. But YouTube can make stars! Chad Vader is a web show from Blame Society about Darth Vader’s less famous brother, who works at a grocery store. Created by Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda, who also play Chad. Matt does the voice and Aaron wears the suit. Their videos have reached millions of viewers on YouTube. And it’s even won them the “George Lucas Selects” award at the 2007 “Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge.”

Chad Vader could be found at the Blog World Expo at his booth, playing at Ebay/PayPals Charity Smackdown Arcade, engaging with passersby, and even the final keynote as guest on Guy Kawasaki’s show along with The Blogess and Kevin Pollack, which leads me to my fifth and final example of social media use highlighted at Blog World Expo: The New Celebrity.

We’ve all seen tons of people use the internet to become famous, but now we see even more celebrities using the internet to mold their celebrity, engage with fans, and share more about who they really are. There was a wonderful keynote moderated by Brian Solis on the New Celebrity. His guests were Jermaine Dupri, Matt Goss, Robin Antin, and Anthony Edwards. I caught it all on qik, but hopefully a better quality video will be available soon. Their talk about how they use social media was interesting. But they all fall under categories mentioned above. Jermaine is a storyteller. He shares his life and wants you to do the same. Robin and Matt are old schoolers. They put their stuff out there and it gets to where it needs to go. Anthony is a do-gooder. He’s involved with the project Shoe4Africa.org. The one celebrity that stands out in my mind from the entire event is Kevin Pollak, who was not on that panel, but on the final keynote of the Blog World Expo.

The verdict is that Kevin Pollak’s website sucks. If you go there, you might notice his chat show, you may even find his twitter address, but you may just click away. He appears to be sort of a newbie in the social media scene, but somehow it’s endearing and meaningful. His tweets are often amusing, as you’d expect, but the killer in his use of the internet is definitely his chat show, which you can also find on YouTube. Celebrities don’t always have the chance or outlet to change their image, but Kevin Pollak is showing that it’s possible through social media. His chat shows are long, but worth the time. Who knows, maybe one day he will be the new Larry King.

Thank you to all of these wonderful people for sharing their use of social media, to Blog World Expo for making it happen, and a big thanks once again to Mister Wong and Webgrrls International for getting me there.

This entry was posted on Monday, the 26. October 2009 at 02:40 under the category General. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.