IAB Conference

I served on a panel at the IAB - Social Media / UGC Leadership conference in New York on June 2nd. The panel was focused on 'What's hot and what's next in Social Media'. I am lucky to sit in a digital media strategy role at Microsoft where we can innovate within technology and social platforms across the large global campaigns. We are currently working on advertising on blogs, facebook gadgets, building relationships with key influencers, and also have several leading bloggers within the company. In terms of what is next, I really focused back on the 'Why' and for your given campaign or company goals - what is your product and who are you trying to sell it to? There are several free to market tools - google blog search, Technorati, Digg, Social networks, ... that will tell you what consumers are saying, how they are engaging, and who is influencing these conversations. Building that discipline is critical prior to engaging in anything around 'what's next'...