Interactive Strategies Conference FTW!!
By April on Sep 11 Filed In Activities, Uncategorized 9 Comments
Social Media & Sweet Leaf Tea
Yesterday I attended my first marketing conference ever, and it was as a presenter on a panel. Its name, IS09, (Interactive Strategies Conference), its home base, Angelika Houston. Its purpose? To shed some light on the ever-changing world of marketing and all it encompasses.
The panel I was on? Twitter and how businesses of varying types and sizes are utilizing it. I was lucky enough to share the stage with Chad Sour from Moroch, JR Cohen from Coffee Groundz, and Kimberly Crowder of Whole Foods Market. I can’t even begin to say how cool it was talking about Twitter with these Tweeps! (Yup, that’s a “peep” to you non-twitter peeps.) We all had different perspectives based on the companies we tweet for, but the underlying message was the same: remember who you represent, spend some time helping the greater good of your community and share information with others while furthering your brand. We each had about 5 minutes to present and then we had 20 minutes or so of Q and A, which really flew by! Based on feedback shared by folks at the convention, I feel like our panel was a hit!
(Special thanks and shout-out of SLT LOVE to Chris Pitre for inviting me to be on the panel, and for wanting Sweet Leaf Tea as a sponsor!!)
There were panels set up for social media, SEO, strategy and creative design, which literally meant there was something for everyone! I had planned to see a couple of panels in areas other than social media, but that didn’t happen. As a full-time Consumer Services/Social Media Manager, I felt it was important to take this opportunity to get to know people that operate in the same realm and can shed some light on things I’ve wondered about the last year of my career. Social media is constantly evolving and moves so rapidly, that no matter how much time you spend doing it, there is always going to be something else right behind it ready to take the last platform or application’s place. It can be overwhelming, but once you reach out and meet others in your shoes, it all starts to make a little more sense and begins to feel right.
Favorite Parts Of My Day
Fave Panel: “Online Recipes for Success from Pancakes to Peanut Brittle” by Katie Laird and Maggie McDonald. These ladies took some stunning images of food and put together a powerful presentation based around online and offline marketing success. Considering the amount of blitzes, demos, and events we are involved with, along with our growing online presence, I really got a lot out of their presentation. Below is a brief break-down of what their recipes consist of. Once their slides are posted, I’ll share the link because I think it’s an (wait for it) easily digestible presentation. : )
1. Internet pancakes: How to flip negative online reactions and commentary into positives for your business and personal brands.
2. Social network stone soup: Using the power of collaboration to grow your Community without getting lost in the shuffle.
3. Community cupcakes: How focusing on others (including your competitors) can be icing on your online marketing cake.
4. Digital chili: Connecting your offline and online world – what are your objectives and how can the Internet help?
5. Strategic peanut brittle: The nuttier you are, the better your brittle will be. How do you make your passion work for you?
Did I mention that these two awesome chicks served chocolate chip cookies to everyone in the audience afterward too? Sweet!
Great slide by Maggie McDonald and Katie Laird IS09
Lunchtime Find: Readers, friends, family and co-workers might be surprised when they read this, but I have a dirty, little secret. I know what you are thinking. I don’t have any secrets; nothing is taboo. You are wrong. About as wrong as old ice tea that’s been over brewed.
Ok here it is: I’ve never tried our Peach Sweet Leaf Tea. I know. It’s nuts out of control but I feel better having cleared my conscience with you all just now. Thank you. Here we are, one of the sponsors of this event, it’s lunch time and I want something to drink other than water. I ask Alexandra if there’s any Lemon & Lime Unsweet and she tells me, “no”. What?!?!?! Oh my, I brought a bottle with me, and kept it cold in my mini-fridge, but had to take it out and had it in my suit case back in some closet at the hotel; so I was up the creek…Thanks to the Angelica, all of the attendees were given gift cards and I was able to go to the concession stand and buy a tea, or so I thought. See, another dirty secret: I love regular ice tea. Anyways, I asked the concession stand team member about their tea but it wasn’t tea, it was some grody-syrupy weirdness that came out of a soda fountain. Ugh. I went back over to the SLT-branded bins and grabbed a Pomegranate (I’m a fan of ALL of our green teas) and then saw the Peach and decided to take the plunge. You know what? It freakin’ rocked! It wasn’t too sweet like I had expected and the peach flavor was like eating a really ripe, juicy home-grown peach. You know the kind, when you bite it, it makes a huge, deliciously-sweet mess all over your face. I poured it over ice and enjoyed it for the next hour or so. Momentous occasion, lunch-time, 9/9/09, I tried Peach Sweet Leaf Tea and fell in love. Swoon.
My new favorite flavor of Sweet Leaf Tea!
Question for YOU
Did you walk away from IS09 with any interesting ideas, takes or questions? If you weren’t there, which of the topics listed would you have wanted to see?
Hey April,
Really enjoyed your panel and met your proud co-worker, Alex. I really appreciate the route you take to further humanize your brand by Tweeting as yourselves as employees of Sweet Leaf Tea, not just the brand. I’ve struggled with the tendency to govern our employees if given the opportunity to personally tweet with our brand attached to the name – there’s obviously a lot of trust built into the model. I was wondering if you could expand a bit on why you decided to tweet as individuals and not just the brand itself.
Thanks!
And a sidenote – I spoke on the strategy track and took a slightly different angle on the use of social media in strategies. Would love to hear your thoughts.
http://davidsaxe.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/social-media-my-job-just-got-a-lot-more-complicated-is-conference-09/
Great post! I heard about how much people liked the pancakes session so thanks for sharing.
Sweet Leaf’s peach is the only flavor I’ll drink! Can’t believe you’ve never tried it before.
Yeah April!! I’m really glad you liked our presentation. We had a lot of fun with it.
I love your tea btw
Your panel was terrific! The surveys are confirming it as well. Your presentation was one of the few I was able to peek in on, and I thought it was loaded with good information, tips, and stories. I’m so glad that SLT was able to participate. I think your team is the dog’s tuxedo for sure!
Again, thanks to your boss for allowing you to come down and join in the fun. Please let Clayton and the rest know how much I (and Houston) love SLT!
Hey April, I saw your panel and LOVED it. You are hilarious girl, love your enthusiasm. (and your hair) Great recap. I love your Peach tea too…it is AWESOME. Thanks for the free tea coupon too.
@MainlineMom
I thought your presentation was very imformative. Sweet Leaf Tea is so fun to talk about. Keep it up!
Howdy David!
Thank you for leaving a link to your post along w/the video. Social Media is powerful, but as you said (and I totally agree) we still have to use the other tools out there along side the new ones to try and grab as large of an audience as possible.
Social media is going to keep evolving and that part alone makes our job pretty exhausting. It’s hard to keep up with but I think it’s worth it to remain in the “here and now”. (Think of yoga and always being in the “present”.)
About your question on personalizing our brand on Twitter; it just makes sense for us. Not every brand out there resonates with wacky, fun, and irreverent the way we do. You can see by our packaging that we appreciate the “fun” out of life and we try to carry that over in the events we do and even our online initiatives. It does require a certain amount of trust to allow your employees to have their own voice, while still preaching the good word of your brand. I think we’ve seen it pay off, as due to our varied personal interests, we have all kinds of followers that differ from profile to profile.
Will our approach work for every company out there? Probably not, but I think that’s another part of social media; experimentation. See what works and share with folks, while always building upon your community.
Daniel Lynton-I know, I’m a bit behind the curve of Sweet Leaf Tea. I honestly do not drink a lot of sweet drinks, so it took me a while to come around. The Peach rocked my world!
MagsMac-You could tell that you guys were having a great time!
Chris-Thanks for all of your hard-work and dedication to the event; it paid off! Thank you again for having Sweet Leaf Tea in attendance, both to drink and to learn from! (And I learned a lot too!)
Sarah-Thank you so much for the props! It’s great to hear positive feedback about our presentation. I really enjoyed the forum and sharing my passion for SLT with all of you. If I have the ability to educate while making people laugh, I’ve done my job! Enjoy the coupon!!
Great recap! Thanks for the Schipul love!
It was fantastic to meet you at IS09 and I loved the Twitter panel!