Social Media Marketing Event Packs the House (again) in Boston

No matter how many times a social media event is planned in Boston these days there never seems to be enough meeting space to hold everyone who has jumped on the bandwagon. It was a standing room only crowd of well over 100 people at this week’s MITX panel discussion on the opportunities and implications for social media marketers. Ironically, the new media event was staged at very old and historic Faneuil Hall and featured a panel of experts from Facebook, MySpace, Eons, IBM and StudioCom. Larry Weber of the W2 Group served as moderator.

Jeff Taylor, founder of the baby boomer social network Eons, offered his usual variety of interesting insights. Taylor is more qualified than most when it comes to the Web having successfully launched both a Web 1.0 company - Monster - and now is trying to catch lighting in a bottle twice with Eons. Taylor noted that social media’s ability to be “an inch wide and a mile deep” presents real challenges for traditional news organizations that operate just the opposite and must appeal to a broader audience to be successful.

Facebook VP Tom Arrix called social media the biggest communications trend of the last 10 years and encouraged brands to pay closer attention to what’s being said about them in online communities or risk losing a major competitive advantage. “They are a gold mine of information.” Arrix also had an interesting observation that social media has actually helped people return to a time when previous generations used to really keep in touch with friends and family on a more personal level. That’s very true.

Suzanne Skop of MySpace said her company is extremely focused on providing original programming these days and now has 72 million active MySpace users. Not bad for a social network barely talked about any more. There was also a lively exchange between panelists and audience members on if and how content creators should be recognized and rewarded for providing valuable information that is being capitalized on by platform providers and others.

Mike Spataro