WOMMA Summit 2010 recap

Apologies if this is more than a little late. Pesky clients who pay the bills are to fault. And Thanksgiving malaise. And being a busy NYC social media guy.

My workmate Laura (@lalalula) and I attended the WOMMA Summit in Las Vegas a couple weeks ago. I am happy to say we only missed one of the early morning keynotes (not due to late night gambling… it was client calls… honest!) and divided the program as best we could to take in the optimal # of speakers and insights.

First off, it was billed as being at the PARIS Hotel and Casino. Well, it sort of was. It was actually at the Bally’s Casino Conference Center a ten minute walk away. Minor detail… and it did allow for some window shopping in the connecting mall.

Not being a member of WOMMA, I was not exactly sure what sort of vibe the conference would have. It ended up being very professional but relaxed, thorough but not too long and high level (lots of C-level people) but not snobby… it was in Vegas afterall. I was impressed by the roster of speakers and the lack of the “pay to speak” vibe many marketing conferences have. There were no high-pressure pitches… and, frankly, not a lot of hands-on organization that many destination conferences have (which may not be a good thing if you are traveling solo… I liked that aspect personally).

After a quick welcome address by Kristen Smith and Walter J. Carl…The conference started out with the SVP of Idea Development from Forrester, Josh Bernoff. Great start. One of the actual talking heads from Forrester in the flesh! He was peddling a book (which we all got a free copy of thanks to Visible Technologies) and gave us some great stats on WHO actually influences online in the sea of chatter and opinion… and how to start determining which customers you are overvaluing. Nothing shocking… but great info. You can download the presentation and chapter one of his book at http://www.forrester.com/womma

Next up, I went to the session called Getting Social with B2B Marketing with Ben Edwards, VP of Digital Strategy at IBM. I had to admit, I was a little envious of the ease at which Edwards described his quest for social media mastery at IBM: So many sharing geeks in one place! It was more of a matter of channeling the energy than energizing squeamish staffers.

He pointed out the IBM Expert Channel (first of its kind on Slideshare) where forward thinkers at IBM showcase their work. Talk about transparency and thought leadership! Also, check out their Cannes workshop site for some B2B social smarts.

The next session called Measuring Consumer Advocacy featured SONY’s Christine Stahler. She, along with a sidekick from the newish Nielsen McKinsey Incite Innovation Center, shared a study that showed us how consumer sentiment impacts purchase decisions. It was a little stats-y (I loved it). A couple  little bits:

• They called Social Media “Unprompted Research”
• Product Reviews are a totally different animal than social media in general, as are blog comments

Final assessment: Good sentiment and a lot of it = better sales results

The final session of the day was called The State of Social Media Sponsorships by Ted Murphy… the founder and CEO of IZEA (Sponsored Tweets and formerly-known-as Pay-Per-Post). This guy used to be the whipping boy of the industry… being labeled and a party pooper. Fast forward 5 years and suddenly sponsored social media posts are OK and even government regulated. Nice recovery. (I used to use Pay-Per-Post to promote video content in my former life at Heavy.com).

Some interesting stats from his recent survey of social media folks:

• 88.3% of social media publishers monetize social media in some way.
• 87.4% of social media publishers have or would create sponsored content.
• The average social media publisher spends $711 per year on hosting, education, conferences and related social media costs.
• Twitter users earn 298% more in SMS for their blog than non-twitter users.
• 35% of pr, social media and marketing professionals are not aware of the FTC guidelines on endorsements in social media.

Download the rest here.

After the last session we had some cocktails and networked… where we bumped into the team from Rapleaf among others. Had an intersting conversation with them about their recent PR nightmare and what they have done to really streamline their offerings (and avoid any more perceived gray hat practices!). Good stuff… check their INFLUENCER RATING tools.

Days two and three coming soon. This blogging stuff is hard work. (Viva Twitter!)