Got back from lunch (and meeting @nateerickson, from the last panel!) at the tail end of Gary Vee’s Q&A heading into David Carr from NYT, followed by a fashion panel.
Smart to have energy and comedy right after the break for lunch. Gary transcends wine to deliver a powerful message about LIVING LIFE, which was exactly why I was so embroiled/empowered by #blamedrewscancer.
David Carr is absolutely hilarious, delivering a Carlin-esque ten minutes of why Twitter is a permanent fixture in our digital lives (with the assistance of an audience member to hold up physical slides). No use transcribing it, since most of the humor is in his absolutely deadpan delivery. The two best nuggests:
“Twitter makes Starbucks tolerable.”
“If they’re always tweeting about their cats scratching itself then I probably don’t want to split a six-pack with them.”
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The fashion panel was the first really solid business-oriented panel. Sure, it was about fashion, but here are four companies all engaging successfully with Twitter in slightly different ways. And, it was moderated well!
[In hindsight I’ve learned that the room was not feeling this talk, but I still feel like it was the only panel where everyone got through a fair amount of their own talking points.]
Interesting that the lead question was, “How does fashion engage on social media without losing the mystique?” Isn’t showing the world behind the mystique part of the point?
My favorite quote: “Twitter is not an ATM machine – just because you post about sales” … doesn’t mean the sale is going to do heavy business. The relationship has to be nurtured.
Also, a great anecdote about how Erykah Badu got a Wings sample cleared through Twitter channels when normal methods had stalled. Again, pervasive message about using Twitter to establish a 1:1 connection with the right person to get things done (a contrast to the view that it’s just speed-lane customer service – it’s more nuanced than that).
I’m glad I didn’t skip that. So far the one most oriented to what I do at work.