Weber Shandwick Social Studies Blog

I found two subjects that are near and dear to my heart joined for a Monday session at SXSWi: social content-creation and snacks. The session, “Snackable Content: Working in a Bite-Sized Future,” attempted to answer the question of how a brand can create engaging content…

He’s a rapper known for outfitting major hip-hop artists with platinum, gold and diamond “grillz” (not the kind you cook on, the kind you wear on your teeth). And with his own hit songs like “Chick Magnet” and “Showin’ Skillz,” Paul Wall is known for…

We see them everywhere. On buildings, in magazines, on business cards and more. QR codes are more and more emerging as an element of the marketer’s toolkit. So it stands to reason that on the ground at SXSW Interactive, the QR code should reign supreme…shouldn’t…

The soaring costs of health care make it increasingly clear there must be a reinvention in the way health care is delivered. Currently health care is 18 percent of the U.S. GDP and by 2050, it is predicted it will reach nearly 40% if the…

“A question for all of you: In one sentence, how will your technology make a meaningful impression on someone’s life?” Good idea, seed funding, venture capital…profit. In a brutally simplified form, that’s the technology startup process. When it comes to health tech startups, there may be…

I’ll let you in to my mind for a second. It goes like this: I’ve crafted a pithy tweet about something I’ve found online, or the photo of my infant son sits nicely queued with a long-agonized-over caption. There’s this long, drawn-out moment when I…

At SXSW’s Screenburn Arcade, center for all things gaming, I saw something this year I’d never seen before at the event: gamers. In addition to game developers, publishers, journalists, marketers and gamifiers, actual players. Some of them even came in costume, just as they would…

“Every business wants to be more innovative, more effective, more profitable. Very few have the will to do what it takes to get there. When I go into a company to consult them and help them change, I tell them very clearly: ‘I respect your…

Hallmarks of good social media are telling a compelling story and building relaationships. And that is just what is required of companies that need to forge a better working relationship between their social media team and their lawyers, so say two of today’s speakers at…

Robbie Whiting, director of creative tech and production at Duncan/Channon, believes we’re in an era where the line between inventors and marketers has blurred. In his South by Southwest presentation Friday afternoon, “We Made This and It’s Not an Ad,” Whiting said agencies are changing…