Disqus - Latest Comments for Katie Bessiere

Re: CrowdFire, Social Ad Summit, MIXX, Laws of Social Distribution

Katie Bessiere — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:08:18 -0000

"One takeway from the event is that application providers and analytics companies are still really focused on Direct Response and Facebook. Social has a huge brand play and a Brand’s Platform is still the key for most marketers, not Facebook’s platform."

Agreed. I wanted to get up and shake all the panelists on your panel that kept bringing it back to facebook and better behavioral targeting of ads. Neither of those are alternative OR social, in my opinion. Well, I guess facebook is, but ad placement on facebook isn't.

I would have liked to have heard more from you and Matt Sanchez, personally, and I was very surprised that KickApps was so focused on the ad sales still. We're about to roll out a new social marketing tool for brands in October, and it would have been interesting to see what other real alternative strategies were being used out there besides better ad placement. :/

Oh, and I read your post about Obama, and according to the Metro paper this morning NY state isn't a sure thing after all. I can't get the comment box to pop up on that post so I'll just put it here...

Re: World of Warcraft+Social Media=Win

Katie Bessiere — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:15:31 -0000

I have to agree with Eugenio about doing some research before writing: first, it can be argued that an MMORPG is a form of social media. The game is inherently social. So, of course there are parallels.

Second, there's a mountain of work being done on the relationships between skills learned in games such as WoW and their application to the working world. http://www.seriosity.com/leadership.html is an example. There's a whole industry built around the concept of serious games - using games (new or existing) to build various real-life skills.

Re: The Me Game

Katie Bessiere — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:16:01 -0000

I find that I have my best luck at conferences by finding a point of common interest and initiating a conversation about that, rather than just the usual meet and greet. The only problem with this is that sometimes people don't have time for a long intellectual discussion of the merits of some obscure point, so that is when broaching the topic and then following up with them elsewhere is useful. I avoid all mention of what I do or what my company does, unless asked, and just try to focus on the meat of the matter at hand and leave the social kowtowing for later. People seem to appreciate a real discussion in the midst of all the handshaking, I find.

One thing I think is crucial as well: you have to know how to read the person you're approaching, as well. This is a skill that takes time and practice. Approaching someone when they are quite obviously trying to get out of the room, or they've just been inundated with 36 other people, is just pointless in my opinion. Wait til a more appropriate time, take their cues as to what they are and are not interested in doing/talking about, and go from there.