Yesterday Buzzmedia was asked to give the keynote presentation at Octagon Entertainment’s annual conference which focused on The Power of Social Entertainment.  The conference explored how social media has changed the entertainment industry and what brands need to do to adapt and succeed in this ever-changing market.

The conference featured impressive and insightful speakers — from Evan Greene, the CMO of The GRAMMYs, to Tom Windish, President of The Windish Agency, to Holly Robinson Peete, the famous singer and actress.  Buzzmedia was honored to tie a bow around the two day event with its keynote presentation.

Fortunately for us, this topic is central to Buzzmedia’s business and our daily experiences gave us a unique perspective to share.  We are not only leading major brands into the daunting world of social media, but we are also partnering with top tier talent to ensure they connect with fans in an authentic and organic way through branded experiences.

Highlights from the presentation can be broken down into two areas — 1) Understanding the Audience and 2) How to Engage the Audience.  Here goes…

 Understanding the Audience

• Millennials live at the intersection of Technology and Pop Culture!
  • When asked “What makes your generation unique?”, the #1 answer was Technology.  #2?  Pop culture.
  • 99% of millennials visit entertainment sites monthly
  • They spend 31.4 billion minutes with social media monthly — safe to say that social media is a part of their DNA
• Millennials have an insatiable appetite for their pop culture passion topics
  • No such thing as “too much”…they want more, more, more
  • Times have changed – celebs have gone from unobtainable to aspirational
    • Ten years ago we were limited to pre-approved information about celebrities from their publicists
    • Five years ago TMZ started publishing videos of celebrities like Julia Roberts taking out the garbage
    • Now consumers follow their favorite celebrities in real-time thanks to social media
  • Social media has driven the evolution from Content is King to Context is King
    • Fans don’t just want to know a celebrity is getting married, they want to know everything about the event
      • What does the ring look like?
      • How much did it cost?
      • Who is styling the bride?
      • What is their engagement story?
      • Do they plan to have kids?
      • And dozens of other questions that provide Context
  • Celebrities who embrace this paradigm will benefit
    • A growing social media fan base allows talent to have staying power in between projects
    • Coincidence that the celebrities who have embraced are also Millennials?
• Millennials have intimate relationships with talent
  • Twitter has replaced the “fan club”
  • Celebrities and brands who listen and respond have the most to gain

How to Engage

1. Re-imagine Branded Entertainment as Branded Experiences
2. Provide highly programmed experiences
3. Energize the experience
4. Bring people together
5. Enable discovery
6. Integrate the 3rd screen (errr…the 1st screen?)
7. Add or create relevant value
8. Yield a passionate or emotional response
9. Encourage advocacy

This was a fun presentation to give and the insights from pros like Gillian Sheldon (Hollywood Queen) and Rob McLoughlin (The Professor) made us all smarter about what we do.

Enjoy the slides,

Chris