What is the business case for nonsense? And is social media success? Our round up of the biggest talking points of SXSW day 5 asks and answers these questions…

From Danny Devriendt, EVP, digital and social media strategist, EMEA, out of Brussels:

• In Social Media: Beyond Cool, It’s Real, Danny argues that social media is no longer hip and cool. It’s embedded in society. It’s part of how we live today.
• In Phone, The Silent Takeover of A.I., Danny notes that now that our mobile phones allow us to do essentially anything we want, they are the opportunity for marketers. He writes: Here is the opportunity to link with your target audience at the very point of decision, the very point of purchase. The ability to connect to people wherever they are, and use the phone as a two-way gateway is priceless. Contextual information, peer-driven opinion, profile and location-linked behavior.
• In Mashable and CNN: When Money Talks, Danny takes on the hottest rumor of SXSW: whether CNN will buy Mashable. He argues that this really signals the death knell of the “traditional” vs. “online” media debate. It’s all just media, on whatever screen you prefer.

From Stefan Vadocz, managing partner of Neopublic Porter Novelli (Prague, Bratislava):

• In Social Media Success? Focus, Many Channels, Hard Work, Stefan interviews Beverly W. Jackson, director of marketing, strategic alliances and social media for The Recording Academy, producer of the GRAMMY Awards, who reinforced that to manage a global social media program she focused her efforts across multiple platforms and worked toward engaging audiences on several screens – TV, tablets and mobile – to very successful results.

From Matt Ashworth, vice president, technology, from Seattle:

• In Enterprise Social: C-Levels Are Ready, We Can Help, Matt notes that organizations are realizing that their staffs can be more productive if allowed to use their own mobile devices to interact on social platforms with colleagues about the work they’re doing. To fully realize their potential, these systems need to be integrated – with each other and with traditional tools like corporate intranets.  Social programs must be engaging, transparent and nimble, and they must be woven in to everything a company does.
• In Humor in B2B: The Business Case for Nonsense, Matt reported from a session by Tim Washer, a stand-up comedian and senior marketing manager at Cisco, who noted that humor has a place even in the world of B2B. Even B2B brands, often thought of as stuffy and corporate, rely on decisions made by human beings – and those human beings like to be entertained.

From Marta Majewska, digital and social media strategist out of Brussels:

• In Pinterest: Show Me Your Board and I’ll Tell You Who You Are, Marta notes that in the Q&A the session with Ben Silbermann, co-founder of Pinterest and blogger Chris Dixon, Silbermann refreshingly exhibited true passion for his product. He noted, “…all I wanted to do was create a site that would help people discover, collect and share things they love.” And for the future of Pinterest, look for new profiles, influencer identification, better content attribution and platform expansion.

From Allison Gaffney, senior designer, in New York:

• In What Do Agencies Sell in the Digital Age, Allison reported on a session called “We Made This Ad, and It’s Not an Ad,” which discussed the need for marketing executives to stretch beyond their professional roles and nurture their minds in order to bring a wealth of ideas to their clients. That way we can create campaigns that are real, easy, social and local, we can win both culturally and politically and make a true impact.

From Mandy Griffiths, an account manager and digital and social media strategist from Melbourne:

• In How to Stop the Laptop Rock, Mandy attended a session with Brian Solis and Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, who argued that in an age where the music industry has lost tens of billions of dollars in competition with the Internet, recording artists need to create content that goes beyond the music.

Doing business for good, crowdsourcing tools, food in the digital age and social media thought leaders were all in the mix for the Porter Novelli team on the fourth day of SXSW. Check out our highlights below.

From our own Helen Nowicka, UK Head of digital and social media strategist, EMEA, in our London office:

• In Create More Value Than You Capture, Helen extends the clarion call of Tim O’Reilly to SXSW to use social media to help make the world a better place.
• In Don’t just sell things, Change the world, Helen shows how digital communications can help deal with some of the big issues facing the world today, from child health to social change.
• In Ambient Location and the Future of the Interface, Helen points out that Amber Case is interested in the future of humans and computers.

From Danny Devriendt, EVP, digital and social media strategist, EMEA, out of Brussels:

• In Location is not a product. It’s a feature, Danny talks about the expanding importance of location and contextual  information. 
• What the *uck? (truck that is): When Food Becomes Social, Danny proves how social technology has hit the man in the street.
• In Benn Parr – #SXSW: Meet the People, Not the Technology, Danny interviews Social Media thought leader Ben Parr.
• In Gowalla Dies At SXSW. 3 Years Old. RIP Danny mourns for location platform Gowalla.
• In Ray Kurzweil: the Advanced Human Social Being, Danny declares his admiration for Ray Kurzweil, thinker, and inventor, and father of the Singularity.

From Marta Majewska, VP, digital and social media strategist out of Brussels:

• In News Crowdsourcing 4.0, Marta talks about the newly launched news-crowdsourding app NewsiT.
• In Curators are the new Superheroes, Marta interviews Steve Rosenbaum, author of Curation Nation and CEO of Magnify.net.
• In Little girl in the Wild Wild West, Marta talks about SXSW from a foodie, fashionista and social media geek perspective.
• In Branded Documentaries for Cause Marketing, Marta talks about how brand can use documentaries to showcase their cause marketing efforts.

From Christopher Barger, SVP, Global Programs at Voce Communications:

• In Reports from the Periphery 2: Unicorns Are an Endangered Species,  Christopher talks about measurement tools and the importance of demonstrating ROI and the continued integration of social strategy with business strategy.

From Mandy Griffiths, an account manager and digital and social media strategist from our Melbourne, Australia office:

• In How Protecting the Past is Hurting the Future, Mandy sets out O’Reilly’s provocative stance that shareholders aren’t making your company money, customers are.
• In The New Rockstars, Mandy admits her social media crush on Gary Vaynerchuk.

To be successful in social media a brand must be true to their personality. That was just one of the hot topics under discussion at SXSW day 3 alongside the future of location-based services, and how TV is changing in an increasingly digital era – here’s our round-up of the biggest talking points.

From our own Helen Nowicka, UK Head of digital and social media strategist, EMEA, in our London office:

• In Social Globalisation and the 300 Million vs. the 7 Billion, Helen argues that SXSW Interactive would be well served to be more global.
• In The Three Screen Minimum: The Convergence of TV and Social Media, Helen covered a panel on this convergence which argued that if broadcast TV wants to be relevant, it needs to do more to integrate social into its programming (see yesterday’s post from Marta on Top Chef). Noting how much more entertaining TV becomes with a social overlay (e.g., various awards shows) they discussed how quickly social feedback could be integrated into live programming.

From Danny Devriendt, EVP, digital and social media strategist, EMEA, out of Brussels:

• In Augmented Reality: Life As It Is, Only Better, Danny covered a session with Lisa Murphy, a senior manager at Metaio, who shared new augmented reality (AR) apps. As Danny noted: New is that you can now interact with your augmented buddies using the touch screen of your phone. A great feature that turns the augmented layer into a Virtual Social Object.
• In SoLoMo – Beyond the Check In: Peer Review, Danny discusses the evolution of location-based services to focus on gathering social pointers, contextual information and honest crowed feedback. Peer review – it works.
• In Klout: I Still Do Not Care, Danny argues that analytics much more sophisticated than a Klout score are required to analyze contextual influence – like the metrics coming out of Porter Novelli’s analytics group.

From Stefan Vadocz, managing partner of Neopublic Porter Novelli (Prague, Bratislava):

• In There’s No Ending in a Pac Man Game, Stefan posts about the capacity for gamification and game mechanics to help change people’s behavior. He also interviews Peter Vesterbacka, CMO of Rovio, maker of Angry Birds.
• In Adaptive Advertising, Stefan interviews the CEO of Immersive Labs, a company on the cutting edge of digital billboards and ad screens. Their adaptive screens can scan your face and compare it to the database of typical faces and choose an ad to display according to your gender and age.

From Marta Majewska, digital and social media strategist out of Brussels:

• In The Power of Habit, Marta posted about the book The Power of Habit, and discusses how companies have studied the science behind habit formation to help spark behavior change and drive sales.
• Not Your Mommy’s Blog covers the slow but steady rise in numbers and influence of dad bloggers.

From Mandy Griffiths, an account manager and digital and social media strategist from our Melbourne, Australia office:

• In Throw Away the Approval Ratings and Become a Better Brand, Many covered a session from the author of The Power of the Unpopular arguing that to be successful, brands must focus on personality, accessibility, sharability and profitability. That is, focus on delivering value and entertainment for those audiences you actually can impact.