This is my fourth year at SXSW Interactive, and I’ve never been more excited to attend the premier conference dedicated to new tech, emerging media and social marketing. With microblogging reaching mainstream, geo-location aware social networks reaching broader awareness and companies — both large, small, B2C and B2B — increasing adopting social marketing strategies, there has never been a more thrilling time to be involved in this space.

It’s my belief by this time next year the term “social media” will seem as ironic and repetitive as “online Internet.” All media is social, in some shape or form, already today. So what’s the next big trend? I’m hoping to discern some of that while I’m here.

It’s my belief that mobile will prove to be the most impact channel for marketers in the coming years. From both a tech and lifestyle perspective, mobile is becoming more intuitive, more valuable and frankly, cheaper.

Sure, not everyone owns a smart phone, but with data plans and handheld prices falling steadily each year, there is little question that mobile will continue to permeate the masses. As that happens, brands and their marketers must continue to explore the possibilities of the channel to ADD VALUE to a user’s experience. That doesn’t mean spamming consumers with SMS coupons. And for those marketers who are already experimenting in the space, we must get smart on how users use these tools, what problems they have that we can help solve, and how to execute traditional and emerging marketing strategy in the palm of our hands.

And that may not necessarily be an “application,” frequently shortened to “app.” At a recent Minnesota Interactive Marketing Event, Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens challenged the audience to “think and develop on mobile first.” While that may be a broad statement and not strategic choice for target audiences who are Baby Boomers or Traditionalists, it is certainly a forward-thinking way of approaching the space, especially if we think “mobile Web” rather than handheld-specific apps.

So in the spirit of mobile, the first panel I hit today was The UX (User Experience) of Mobile, featuring Barbara Ballard from Little Springs Design, Tom Limongello from Crisp Wireless, Scott Jenson from Google and Kyle Outlaw from Razorfish.

The panel started off asking participants who owned what kind of smartphone device. IPhone was majority of the crowd, followed by about 20 percent with Android. About 30 percent carry more than one device.

Following are my panel notes with some key takeaways:

  • Outlaw says UX is helping customers of a product reach their goals.

  • Ballard says UX is the entire process from discovery to sharing – the whole system, which helps them remember that SMS exists and works “even on your mom’s phone.

  • Limongello says UX is everything that screws up everything and makes people not want to use it again.

  • Mobile UX is very challenging because of the unique mobile experience.
  • Right now if you want to be quick and fast, you go to the mobile web.
  • If you want to be exciting, then you go phone-specific and build apps.
  • Ballard mentioned that even people with a Motorola Razr deserve just as good a mobile experience as smart phone owners.
  • Biggest issues for mobile web are offline storage and hard part of pushing large images.
    Gmail does a good job with local caching where you can access your email even if you have no connectivity.
  • Ballard says there are starting to be more CSS and javascript games that are using the technology well. The panel says “starting,” yes.
  • If you’re a garage developer, you can’t afford 15 phones for testing. Use DeviceAnywhere and Keynote systems to do mass testing. They are moderately expensive — $400/month.
    After you’ve built your mobile experience, hand it to someone who doesn’t like you very much and doesn’t “get mobile tech,” and ask them what you should improve or fix. If you’re doing it on multiple platforms, give it to them on their phone — not your geeky phone.
  • If clients pay for usability testing, we always find something to improve. Always. Even four people helps.
  • Outlaw says introducing UX testing in the middle of the process is always a battle. In the agency environment, it’s always easy to cut or compress it as something that’s not valuable. We’re doing a better job of explaining why it’s important, particularly with all the different devices. Usability for mobile is important to test in context – seeing users test the device in a real-world scenario is particularly valuable.
  • If you use Twitter or Facebook Connect, it’s tough to test those without being live.
    Jensen says they’ve done a lot of work in watching users interact with full size computer monitor experiences versus mobile, where you have a fraction of the pixels to use.
  • There are some fun things coming in the future with Bluetooth awareness. Also your phone’s screen working in conjunction with a television. Imagine if you’re watching a football game on TV and your phone is keeping track of data or playing replays while you watch (SO COOL).
  • Your phone has an address book – which is a compelling source of information, and what about the calendar?
  • Jensen says the mobile web is not a tiny computer screen. Phones are going to be cheaper, bigger and better. The idea of just wanting to look at Amazon like on the desktop is lazy.
  • There’s a paradigm shift coming.
  • Companies should launch on iPhone app for the sake of being on the cool iPhone.
  • Outlaw says it used to be hard to sell clients on mobile until the iPhone app store opened to third party developers launched and then they skipped over mobile channel and went straight to Apple iPhone. Then they want to put the entire Web site on the app. Even if 80 percent of users are on Blackberry, then they still want to do iPhone app for the buzz but don’t want to exclude Blackberry users so the scope explodes. Then the UX guys need to constrain scope and usually end up just doing the iPhone app anyway.
  • Ballard says to look at what’s happening outside of North America, Nokia in Europe, what’s happening with open source in Brazil and think about the Sony Playstation Phone.
  • Jensen isn’t interested in phones of today – stone knives and bear skins. The question of where this is going is better integration of the browser into the operating system, as well as capabilities. People build mobile apps because the browser sucks. But when we start having clouds of devices – Bluetooth watches is something to watch.

The next panel I hit was How Your Brand Can Succeed in the New Web with Brian Solis.

Brian has a new book out, Engage!, that I highly recommend.

Here are my notes from the panel with key takeaways:

  • We are defining a new era of society and how we ultimately connect with one another.

  • With that, we are also changing how we form relationships.
  • Social media gives you the opportunity to define who you are and who you want to be.
  • Those are separated by actions that you take in the real world but also online.
  • Your reputations precedes you by what individuals find when they search your name.
    Social media is one of the first technologies that’s invading the corporate culture, from within, from the bottom up.
  • Our ignorance is bliss, until it’s not.
  • The illusion of control that the C-suite maintains a crazy fascination with is nothing more than a myth.
  • We have control in press release up until we release it; then we lose control.
  • Social media gives us the opportunity to shape and steer perception.
  • We report to people who don’t really care about transparency and don’t know how to definite authenticity.
  • ROI: Return on Ignorance vs. Return on Investment
  • The ability to ask for ROI is difference from the ability to measure it.
  • Knowing what it is you want to measure is everything. Getting on Twitter isn’t something to measure. Sharing content, is.
  • Internal champions must transform into politicians. Make your case and lobby like a diplomat.
  • An entire company must have a social media presence – not just the community manager.
  • Who owns e-mail? Everyone uses e-mail. It’s the same for social media. It’s tools, services that address different audiences.
  • Everything starts with listening and research. I can nod my head when my wife talks, but the value comes when I can repeat back something she wants to hear as a result of the conversation.
  • Check out the Conversation Prism: http://theconversationprism.com/ to see where besides Facebook and Twitter that conversations about your brand are happening
    If you can’t collaborate internally, you can’t hope to scale externally.
  • Social media is more about sociology and psychology than technology.
  • Brands must have empathy. Consumers don’t fan a company because they want to be spammed. They want to align with your brand. It requires substance, thought and empathy to have people believe in what you’re saying.
  • It’s not enough to be transparent – that’s your job.
  • But if you are believable, you don’t need to tell me what’s written. I want you to breathe it in, and I want to believe what you’re bringing into the table is something worth paying attention to.
  • Attention has become the major currency in content commerce.
  • We have to find comfort outside our comfort zone in order to earn attention, earn their support.
  • Consider creating multiple personality order.
  • If people are talking about your brand online, that is your chance to engender measurable action
  • Marketers must start thinking like they are CNN and become media.
  • The true value of what’s going on right now is that there’s a magic backchannel.
  • Majority of social users are women, which is a huge opportunity.
  • There is a “me” in social media, but there’s also a “we” in the social web.
  • There are all sorts of social media case studies out there, but who decides whether or not they are successful.
  • Case studies are success stories of examples, but the ones you need to pay attention to are the ones that you’re writing right now. You have unique variables including relationships, trust and reputation your program deserves.
  • Frank Eliason from Comcast joined the stage: just listening and engaging with your customer makes all the difference. When you engage with a team member, now you’ve engaged with a personal connection to the company. A lot of companies try to do social media from the brand perspective. Those companies don’t understand social media and the connections that happen around people and relationships.
  • Jeremiah Owyang from Altimeter group: social media doesn’t scale. You can never hire enough community managers. Companies are teaching consumers to go online and yell at their friends to get your attention. Social CRM: essentially connecting the social web into your traditional customer record set.
  • Dennis Crowley: We’re celebrating the one year anniversary of FourSquare and are finding people want to share their real-world experiences with friends using social tools. FourSquare users may be real friends I really want to connect with rather than a mass of friends on Twitter.
  • ComcastCares has 11 people who staff the community management team.
    Brian says what companies aren’t doing is fixing the infrastructure more than addressing the negative buzz.
  • Frank says PR isn’t going to fix your service department.
  • Brians says drop the C from CRM. It’s about Relationship Management. When we focus on the C, we put blinders on. When we focus on the opportunity for influence, that’s where the success is.
  • Jeremiah says get your company organized internally first before going external.
  • Frank says social media changes the employer/employee relationship. All employees are brand ambassadors now.
  • Jeremiah says go to glassdoor.com and see how they rate their own management.
  • Dennis says now if you want a restaurant recommendation, you can use social tools to filter out only the restaurants your friends like.
  • Jeremiah says B2B versus B2C arguments don’t matter because social media is all about relationships. In fact, there’s more opportunity with sales staff to use these technologies.
  • Brian uses the Conversation Prism to dig up buzz on B2B companies throughout the social web. One company had maybe 15 tweets about the B2B company on Twitter, but he found thousands of threads in Google Groups. So Twitter didn’t make sense, but Google Groups did.
  • Jeremiah says B2B customers actually rely more on social, asking friends for recommendations.
  • Frank says they may find problems in discussion forums, but they more often find the solutions.

The next panel I attended was Time + Social + Location. What’s Next In Mobile Experiences? featuring Naveen Selvadurai from foursquare, Josh Babetski from MapQuest Inc and Greg Cypes from AIM.

Here are my notes from the session with key takeaways:

  • If you’ve ever passed a note or phoned someone, you understand the desire and value in technology closing the loop on communication channels.
  • Selvadurai says you no longer have to get the permission of a carrier to get your location.
  • You don’t need a super fancy phone to get your location. You don’t need to pay for it or have a special application.
  • He also says we’re in a culture that’s more about sharing than ever before. Twitter has made it even easier than before.
  • Foursquare and Gowalla make use of gameplay, which compels users to check back.
  • Babetski says eBay’s feedback system as a great metric of giving props to a reputable merchant.
  • As far as privacy, Cypes says robberies are rarely premeditated and you can get enough contextual information from normal status updates.
  • Selvadurai says http://www.blogger.com/www.pleaserobme.com calls attention to the sheer amount of personal sharing we’ve always done. Foursquare is launching private venues that have more privacy settings.
  • Babetski says there’s a generation gap here where teenagers don’t care what they post or who sees it.
  • Many location-based network users are more selective on who they accept as friends versus other social networks.
  • Cypes says the historical view of real-time data has a lot of potential. Also, augmented reality, with all due respect to the near-identical socnets like Foursquare and Gowalla, has greater potential.

Overall, a great first day. My concern, however, is I sat in some of these same rooms last year hearing all about Loopt. This year, Loopt is essentially dead and all the buzz is about Foursquare. Instead, I’m hoping speakers (and the industry) will start to focus more on the technology, users and marketing opportunities rather than the social network itself. We’ll see…