Sessions at SXSW Interactive 2011 about Marketing on Monday 14th March

Building a Brand by Activating Your Audience from the Inbox to the Real World: what does it take to motivate your audience to better engage with your content and your advertising partners? Learn successful ways to add real-life magic to online campaigns with unforgettable events and buzz-building promotions that will add value and new consumer touch points for your brand. From branded takeovers of $25 million mansions to weekend-long pool parties, we’ll share best practices – along with tantalizing party photos – showcasing how you can bring your sponsors and readers together to drive both results and revenue through: a) IRL (“In Real Life”) activation of digital campaigns (e.g. Hotel Thrillist’s takeover of the Fontainebleau Miami Beach). b) Holistic social media and mobile tie-ins to broaden the reach of your cross-platform campaign. c) Effective sweepstakes for building interest and additional audience for your content.

LEVEL: Intermediate

Why does understanding how to market to women with social web apps matter? Come meet a couple of lady dreamers and let's tell stories together. Grace and Nadia are a two-part set of technologists and romantics. Specifically, we dream up social web strategies for big companies, often times directing the development of online technology. As women in a male-dominated industry, we've had a unique opportunity to shape creative content and technology into a compelling experience for our sisters. We've also been attuned to who else is achieving this, and how.

This will be a fun session. We'll start by sharing a few standout campaigns that have captivated ladykind with the use of social web applications, and then we'll open the floor to a discussion of your favorites, and talk about what makes them great. Topics on the table include: How do female consumers on the social web differ from their male counterparts? What kinds of social web experiences appeal to women, both in terms of content and technology? What are the landmines to dodge (beyond the obvious one: the colour pink)? Who are some of the current experts in social marketing to women? And generally... why does understanding how to market to women with social web apps matter? (Hint: it's not just because we're a hot market with dollars to spend.)

You will leave us feeling informed, inspired, and brave. If we can get it together, we'll even serve tea.

LEVEL: Intermediate

What is influence? For a decade, Malcom Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" has served as a touchstone for those who believe that influence resides in the hands of a select few. Not so, says a new generation of marketers. They believe that thanks to the democratizing power of the Internet, anyone can be an Influential.

Both camps are wrong. True influence flows from drawing together people with shared interests. This session focuses on the process of identifying areas of relevancy among your customers and prospects, building community, and allowing others to amplify your influence as you meet their needs.

LEVEL: Advanced

Jiepang is the leading foursquare-like LBS service of China. Through many creative location-based marketing campaigns with global brands in China, we have observed that virtual badges can be a strong incentive for user check-in activities. In the case when the badge is associated with real-world benefits (e.g. discounts), such responses will be even more obvious. However, it is always controversial to measure the performance of a LBS marketing campaign. Jiepang will present an interesting model to analyze the online and offline results and also compare the difference between US and China LBS services.

Social Location Marketing is the latest in a long line of Social Media "shiny new objects" but is it really relevant to marketers? Can they convert Checkin's to cash? Which platforms work best for which markets and how does all this sharing benefit the customer?
Attendees will leave knowing why they should be including this in their marketing mix, how to construct a scalable Social Location Marketing campaign and where all this is likely to go next.

Best-selling author Gary Vaynerchuk will be appearing at the SX Bookstore to greet fans and sign copies of his latest work, The Thank You Economy.