Montreal Social Media

Are Paid Social Media Events Still Profitable? That’s exactly what I’m wondering when I realize that the two last paid social media conferences booked in Montreal were cancelled because they’ve failed to sell enough tickets. I cannot say that I’m not concerned because each social media event, paid or not, helps the local social media marketing industry which I’m part of. So is there a market for these conferences in Montreal?

Conférence sur les médias sociaux de l’Institut Canadien (cancelled)
In past September, there were two social media events scheduled in the same week. The first one was free and very successful while the other one, the Canadian Institute’s Social Media Conference was charging few hundred dollards to attend a 2-days conference and got cancelled at the last minute. Is there any explanation why orgnanizers have been doing such conference for the past three years in Toronto but have failed when trying to do the same in Montreal? What’s wrong with Montrealers and paid social media events?

Journée Infopresse sur les médias sociaux (cancelled)
Another big player in the organization of conferences in Montreal is Infopresse Editions. They plan dozens of one day event through the year. Past winter that had a first conference on social networks and more recently they had scheduled another event on social media (page still exists but content has been removed) that was cancelled too. Last time I’ve spoken to Infopresse organization, they told me that they’ll probalbly reschedule that social media day but yesterday, via Infopresse’s Twitter account, I’ve noticed that their 2009 calendar of events contains no sign of any social media day. Since they neither plan any SEO, SEM or SMO related event, I see that as a great opportunity for any group or company to take the lead and organize such an event in Montreal.

BTW, I’ve been interviewed in the latest edition of Infopresse magazine, go grab your copy it’s December issue and it’s a digital communication special edition. They have interesting articles about the future of Web agencies, online reputation management, corporate blogging, online PR with bloggers and more. You will also be able to find all the information related to the latest Boomerang Awards and a full directory of all digital companies in the city.

The 18-to-24-year-old set is famously media-drenched, with high Internet and mobile phone usage. However, these young adults are not solidly opposed to brands themselves, and are willing to spread the word about the ones they like. That is one of the findings Synovate made in June and July of 2008 in its “Young Adults Revealed” study, released this month.

Nearly one-half said they had clicked on online ads, and 18% had accessed brand and product information through a portal. Nearly one-quarter had uploaded ads to social networks and online video sites in the past month. - emarketer

Online branding
As Harvard Business School’s John Quelch mentions in How Better Marketing Elected Barack Obama, Obama picked up where Howard Dean left off. He leveraged his website, the blogosphere, and even user-generated content. But what if someone else was offering the same? In other words, did America elected Obama for what he was offering or because people was already looking for something particular that was matching their dreams?

It quickly becomes very interesting to consider that according to some, search drives the sale while branding only validates it. That we’ve been conditioned by search not to be brand loyal. We may check out Amazon.com for the MP3 Player, but we have no qualms about buying it elsewhere. So as far as branding indicates trust, we might sometimes overrate companies, products or services that show up first in popular search engines rankings. In fact, because of Google’s reliability history, we probably now value more a company regarding their rankings positions rather than their offline reputation. And while it might seem obvious to some… we now mainly rely on search engines to get the right information on brands.

So with all this information, am I the only one wondering why marketers are still waiting to bring their brands into the social media space? How long before the industry even consider SEO, SEM and SMO as effective marketing strategies?

Taking advantage of the pre-electoral climate, Quebec business bloggers write an open letter to Prime Minister Jean Charest to request an action plan in favor of supporting the digital economy.

The initiative started when internet marketing strategist Patricia Tessier wrote the open letter and published the piece on her professional blog on October 28th. In less then 24 hours, the letter was found in more then 30 other blogs from Quebec and a Facebook group was created for the cause. The letter already signed by many leaders of the Quebec e-business industry such as Adviso’s Jean-François Renaud, former Montreal Marketing Association’s president Louis Delage, well known e marketing consultant Michelle Blanc and many more, states interesting statistics showing that if Quebecers buy for 3.5 billions online, the third of these sales are made out of the province. Some others statistics reveal that only 52% of small to medium enterprises do have their own website.

There are the four main requested actions identified in the letter:

1- Give full access to all Quebecers to networks and digital services while eliminating barriers related to online transactions.
2- Increase and diversify the use of Internet into enterprises, particularly into small to medium businesses.
3- Make sure to provide training in the use of information technologies for younger.
4-Create a digital governance.

I think that it will be very interesting to see if any of the provincial partys will react to this letter because not only they send this letter to the Prime Minister Charest but they’ve put a special attention to deliver this to all members of our Parliament.

[for the full letter written in French]

I’ll be one of the next Webcom speaker on November 12th. Here is the description of my session:

How to measure the impacts of SMO with 10 business cases made in Quebec
Because marketers sometimes find it difficult to have a fair measure of their ROI when it comes to the social media space, the conference aim to share results from a study on more than 10 SMO business case made in Quebec.

Over the last 12 months, NVI has collected data of more than 125 stories that were brainstormed, written, submitted and pushed to the top 6 news social site (digg/reddit/mixx/propeller/stumbleupon/yahoo buzz!) for medium to large Canadian brands. Let’s take a look at what SMO brought to these companies.

Even if the topic is already chosen, I’m still in the process of building the presentation. So, if there is anything that you would like me to cover during that 55 minutes speach, please let me know. For your information, I mainly plan to focus on social media optimization through social news sites but also want to bring as much as possible concrete examples made in Quebec. I’ll add more information on my conference in the following days/weeks within this post.

update 10.14.2008
Webcom was yesterday and everything went well. It’s always a pleasure to meet everyone from the industry. And as for my conference, i received good feedback, some told me that I was a bit nervous but that the content was really good. I mainly gave examples of concrete applications of the use of social medias to support your SEO efforts and to help creating a buzz by doing online PR. There are the business cases that I’ve mention during my talk:
-Canpages.ca [business case, results, a blog post]
-Tourimsme Alma [blog]
-Bounty Fishing [business case, a blog post]
-Pros du Party (Molson Dry) [le concours]
-Légendes urbaines (Canal D) [the viral clip, the release]
-débatpourtous.net
-Usernamecheck: interesting tool to check where your username is still available

Good question seen on twitter few minutes ago: Where do you get upcoming information about event such as Yulbiz, Webcom, Podcamp and other meet-ups? Of course, there are personnal blogs, Upcoming, Twitter updates, Facebook Groups and Events and other social sites but in order to get a maximal exposure should we have one place to look for all events? Or let me put it this way: should we take for granted that people interested in web related events are already social media users?

A good example of promoting events and keeping the community informed of what’s happening is what Heri at montrealtechwatch does with the right column of his blog: quite simple but a good way to showcase the different venues. As for internet marketing events or other social media meet ups, Nicolas Roberge’s tweet gave me the idea of builing a work in progress list or these types of events, I’ll defenitely take much time later to complete the list but please also feel free to contribute in the comments.

Social Media Events in Montreal

1. Yulblog

Once a month Montréal bloggers get together in a very friendly and relaxed atmosphere. Usually 1st Wednesday of every month at La Quincaillerie. According to Patrick Tanguay who’s been taking care of the event for the last 3-5 years, ”it’s just an occasion to meet people and grab a beer. There’s talk about pretty much any and all subjects, not that much talk about blogs actually, aside from what’s your URL and what do you write about. There is no agenda and no organized setup, we just go there and meet people.”
[Yulblog site | reportage de yulblog sur Montreal.tv | Pourquoi venir au yulblog en vidéo]

2. Yulbiz

More business oriented than Yulblog, Yulbiz gives a monthly opportunity to network with bloggers on every last Tuesday. Event takes places at Café Méliès. The concept was exported to many international cities such as Bordeaux, Barcelona and Strasbourg. Michelle Blanc explains that she and Philippe Martin have started the meet-up when they both wrote an open invitation on their blog to reunite Montreal business bloggers.
[Yulbiz site | reportage de yulbiz sur Montreal.tv]

3. Yultour

Yultour réunit les gens de l’industrie touristique qui s’intéressent aux technologies et au e-tourisme en général ainsi que les blogueurs d’affaires qui s’intéressent au tourisme. Yultour is directly inspired by Yulbiz and targets the tourism and cultural industry. Yultour started in 2007 and doesn’t take place on a monthly basis. So far, there has been three meetings covering topics such as the use of Facebook in tourism industry and the culture 2.0. The main differnce between Yultour and Yulbiz is that the event always features a 10 to 20 minutes conference while the rest of the evening is mainly about networking.
[YulTour site | reportage sur Yultour par Intruders.tv]

4. 3e mardi | 3rd Tuesday

3e mardi |Third Tuesday Montréal is a monthly meetup to learn about and discuss the practical applications of social media within their industry. PR and marketing professionals interested in the social media phenomenon meet on (or around) the third Tuesday of each month to hear from and speak with guest speakers who are experts in the field of social media. The informal conferences are also a great opportunity to network with peers who are active in the field. The meet up features a presentation from an social media expert covering topics such as social media PR, online video or business cases involving social media marketing. 3rd Tuesday also takes place in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver and other Canadian cities.

[3e mardi | 3rd Tuesday blog | sponsors: CNW Telbec, Massy-Forget relations publiques, K3 Media, 76designs]

5. Podmtl

PodMtl (Pod Montreal) is a gathering of podcasters, listeners and anyone that is interested in this new phenomenon that is podcasting. The event is open to everyone and is occuring every months. Event takes usually place at Sergent Recruteur.
[podmtl site]

Between a kick-off event presented last Monday in Toronto and a Cross-Canada road show scheduled to visit Halifax, Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB Canada) new Mixx Canada event has stopped today for a full day conference in Montreal. Even if the conference name has changed (it used to be branded as Interactive to the Max, the concept stays the same: conferences and panels sessions about interactive media advertising.

After a very welcomed but quick networking breakfast, well-known blogger and internet marketing consultant Michelle Blanc first took the stage to present a conference called: Building Your Business By Blogging. Blanc introduces blogs as an editing technology combined with a communicational philosophy. She notes that every company in every industry can blog and surely can gain something out of it. She gives the examples of few companies from Quebec that have experienced important success with blogging such as Ice.com, Dessins Drummond, Provocat and Marché du Vieux Longueil. Michelle Blanc suggests that any given company should start with an internal blog in order to get use to the practice and once comfortable, they could use the tool to share their knowledge and their expertise beyond the borders of their enterprise. According to Blanc, blogs offer an incredible opportunity to show the world how you master some specific topics related to your industry. If you read French than you can take a look at her slides here: PDF link.

Following Michelle Blanc on the stage was a pannel of experts on the video’s next generation of advertising products. Speakers were Neil Sweeney (StreamTheWorld), Jeff Sundheim (Yahoo! Canada), Mark Coleman (DoubleClick/Google), Chris Johnston (Brightcove) and artist Pierre Côté (Gramsclo). If it wasn’t clear for some before, we’ve understand during the session that there is no single right format for the advertsing video industry. It seems that expectations for video revenu are high and that viewers tolerate ads as they don’t have any other choice to live with them. It also seems obvious that people prefers 7 seconds pre-rolls spots rather than 15s or 30s ones, in fact users tend to remove all video ads when possible. Besides that, video ads are facing other challenges as they will need to improve their solutions for local adverstising as well as they will need to incorporate better SEO in the near future.

+++

Kudos to the organization of Mixx Canada for making the conference a completely carbon neutral event and also for inviting bloggers (including myself) to cover the day. It’s always great to hear about what people is doing into our industry and I’m always pleased to meet and exchange with such great folks.

Interlocking Stones : Decisions, Techniques and Styles to turn daily downloads from 20 to 2000 - Mark Blevis
Podcaster are passionates, not experts
If you are memorable, people will take about you
Interlocking stones, tight together with passion
If you have a partner/spouse in your life who is also passionated about, that really helps

Please Don’t Suck! -Sylvain Grand’Maison
Is Bigger really better or do they just suck on a larger scale ?
How deep is your love, the only way the receive lovee is to give, so please comment first

The New New Music – Fans, Community And What Business Can Learn From An Industry In Peril - M.Joel and D.Usher
We are taking away the core product of the whole music industry: the cd - M.J.
Back in the days, we used to look at the charts and the numbers - D.U.
All I can judge my success now is about how the relationship with my community gos (selling shows) - D.U.
Music is a way to connect with people - D.U.
It’s not about ‘how many’ but about ‘who’ – M.J.
If you don’t get a reaction, you suck - M.J.

David Usher on the New Music

Audience listening at Mitch Joel and David Usher

Sylvain Grand’maison and a photographer

So far, I’ve found these reactions on the blogs, How was your week-end???
- My Saturday at PodCamp Montreal - At home with Kim
- De l’utilisation des bons outils en baladodiffusion par Michel Dumais - biotope.tv
- Podcamp Montreal Day 1: Considering Ourselves - SuzeMuse
- Podcamp Montreal 2008 - Debrief - Mike Kujawski
- PodCamp Montréal : non, je n’ai pas profité du soleil… - Claude Malaison
- PodCamp Montreal : Blogues et relations publiques - Muriel Ide, blogue de l’AMM
- Retour sur PodCampMontreal - inevernu

Did he say fuck and tits?
Le clip est déjà présent sur de nombreux blogs depuis ce matin. Vraiment un bon clip: le message est évident et facile à comprendre: les coupures dans la culture nous affectent tous. Notez également que le Web permet de ne pas se restreindre dans un format publicitaire conventionel de 15/30 secondes. Pour l’instant la plupart des politiciens ont utilisé YouTube afin d’y domper leurs publicité format TV, les artistes montrent ici une réelle compréhension du pouvoir du viral sur le Web. Bien entendu le clip sera repris par les médias tradionnels. De fait, la télévision de Radio-Canada réagit déjà au vidéo sur l’heure du dîner [lien audio] . Autre preuve que lorsque bien utilisés, les médias sociaux offrent d’incroyables opportunités. Chapeau aux artisites pour frapper l’imaginaire collectif!

Un site UGC pour le NPD
Dans un même ordre d’idées, le NPD lance un site à saveur collaborative (UGC) où tous et chacun peut désormais collaborer à la campagne. Le site est offert en version anglophone et francophone sur deux noms de dommaine différents. On apprend sur le site que l’Espace orange est un endroit où les usagers créent et partagent du contenu pour le web. C’est la première fois qu’un parti politique au Canada met en œuvre un tel site, mais nous ne pourrons pas y arriver sans votre aide. Je suis particulièrement curieux de l’impact que ce site aura sur leur campagne: le taux de participation externe au site devrait offrir un bon indicateur pour mesurer la performance de cet outil.

I’ll be at PodCamp Montreal this week-end, so if you’re going and that we haven’t met in the past, feel free to say hello (just to let you know, I’ll try to wear my new NVI shirt).

Since the event is organized by few of my friends (Laurent, Michelle, Laurent,…) and that some of my friends (including Jerôme, Kim, Michelle, Mitch and more) will also be speaking, the whole week-end quickly became a must. Even if the happening hasn’t started yet, I surely can say that I’m very impressed by what people behind this week-end had already set: great conference line up, nice updated blog + an upcoming live feed through Ustream, what else could we expect… they even have a social media breakfast + an opening ceremony on Friday night. Hopefully I’ll meet a lot of other social media geeks there. See you soon!

Pictures of Podcamp

There are some pictures from PodCamp Montreal on my Flickr

One of the best internet marketing analysis that I’ve read in 2008 is certainly the Digital Outlook Report published by Avenue A | Razorfish (probably the world’s well known interactive agency). Into the 164 pages guide, the authors identify Internet’s impact on the 2008 presidential election as one of the top 10 Digital Media Issue to Watch in 2008′. Here is what it says:

The Web will be the most impactful and influential medium in the 2008 presidential race, not only for presidential hopefuls but for voter self-education and self-expression. Much like radio for Roosevelt and TV for JFK, the 2008 race for the White House will be determined by candidates’ abilities to connect with and galvanize supporters online. The Internet has changed the political environment.

How Internet will impact the upcoming canadian election?
Even if internet marketing strategies coming from Canada are way behind what is currently happening in the States, I cannot wait to see how the Web will change this current federal election. For sure I don’t expect anyone using social networking technology to leverage its campaing the way Obama did but I know that every candidate/party will probably consider investing time and money in order to understand how they could benefit form social media marketing.

So who will win the battle on the Web?
I know it’s too soon to tell… on one hand Liberals have [sarcasm] this beautiful podcasting section [/sarcasm] , on the other hand Conservatives have these nice social buttons on their site (FB, Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed, Youtube and even MySpace!). I guess it’s time to see what they’ll do with all these channels. In fact I don’t know if the worst would be if they don’t do nothing or if they’re not doing the right thing with all these opportunities. It will be interesting to keep an eye on their interactive strategy, in the meantime I’ll be waiting for a first ‘Good night Tweeple!’ from Stephen Harper.

Related to this topic
Political partys on the net: NDP | Liberal party| Conservative party | Bloc Québécois
Analyse du référencement des sites des partis politiques fédéraux par Francis sur Go-Référencement.org
Few days ago, Toronto Star columnist, Chantal Hebert has launched her political blog
Michelle Blanc thinks that the conservative site is crap
The Digital Divide Between McCain And Obama