Being a newbie to SXSW I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. Don’t get me wrong, I was fully prepared for all of the crazy parties, hoards of people and all of the weirdness that Austin has to offer. It was the interactive panels, breakout groups and sessions that I was slightly concerned with. I quickly learned that while the sessions aren’t directly related to social engagement, the trick is identifying what the useful nuggets of information are, and then deciphering how to apply those technologies and disciplines to the ComBlu craft.
I have been compiling a list of interesting takeaways that I have gathered while at SXSW Interactive. Over the next few days I will be posting my takeaways and diving deeper into each topic in the coming weeks. My first three are:
- Mobile Engagement: The devil is in the details. Using surprise and delight and cliffhanger tactics when developing a mobile app or website is crucial to properly engage your audience.
- Engagement Mapping: If you are struggling to get your online community out of lurker-mode and instead more active, reverse engineer the experience that your most active members have on your site and figure out how to apply that experience more generally.
- Referring New Members: In order to be truly successful at running a referral campaign or program, you must incent both the referrer and referee. Think out of the box when deciding what to reward your members with; most often intrinsic rewards are more powerful than extrinsic rewards.
