Social Media is Growing Up.

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Ladies and gentlemen, we are growing up. In social media, that is.  I sat through a panel yesterday at the Social Upfront in NYC, listening to some really smart skinny jeans from the Barbarian Group, Tribal DDB, Kirshenbaum, Bond, Senecal and Partners, Mekanism, and Co: and did not once hear the words “authenticity” or “transparency.”  Thank you Jeee-sus!

The event was excellent, save for the elevator (singular). And when I texted my son Nits (nickname) that Q-Tip from a Tribe called Quest was spinning at the after party he was all “that’s cool.” But not as much as I was when James “the Godfather” Brown tunes started bouncing off the West side rooftops.

Sponsored by Efficient Frontier and Kontera, the event really did show how far we’ve come.  People were comparing where they were when Facebook was 20 million users, the geezers in the audience didn’t stick out, and there were two TV news anchors on stage. Some people actually put away their iPads and started writing in paper notebooks because they preferred the user interface. Grown up.

Good Stuff.

  • Someone made the point that a viral effort without an activation budget (read promo/media budget) is a bad idea.
  • Jonah Peretti, CEO of Buzzfeed suggested viral efforts are best concocted and propagated when supporting “an idea.”  Find your idea, stay true to it and you’ll have a much better chance of social pass along.
  • Colin Nagy of the Barbarian Group made a funny: “Client come to us asking for something that has never been done before. Then they ask for case studies and metrics.” A sense of humor suggests maturation, no?

One step back though, some speakers still found it necessary to refer to the Subservient Chicken. What was that, the 80s? Peace.