Tips on making Sane Choices at SXSW.

Produce Content.

Producing content at SXSW serves many many purposes.

One, clearly it’s a way to engage with people, especially if you’re announcing special benefits or surprise events whilst on the ground. We used Tumblr to publish multiple pieces a day telling the story of what we were doing, what our clients were doing, and how you can do what we’re doing with us.

Two, at the very least it’s a fantastic archive for your executive team showing the real work being done on the ground.

Three, it’s a great way to stay focused. You can gauge in real time how many people your brand is connected with are engaging with you, allowing you to asses what’s working.

Four, it keeps you sane. Having a goal like “I need to be in hotel room by 12:30am SHARP to produce some decent content for the next day” is a good mantra to maintain.

Tame the Guerilla:

SXSW is synonymous with “Guerilla Marketing”. It’s really taken to extremes in Austin with companies spending a good portion of $1M to produce elaborate, multi-day installations complete with custom built vehicles, you name it. These can be very impactful, powerful foils for your brand if done “right”. Just make sure your “activation” actually connects you with customers and scales with your business and objective. If you’re there to close deals, do something small. If you’re there to drive volume downloads on your app, go a bit bigger. If you’re pepsi, buy a city block and hire Justin Timberlake.

Have Appropriate Goals: (it’s about connections)

Chances are you’ll be competing with other organizations and people to meet with your clients and important contacts. Make it easy and appealing to connect. Have several “meet ups” making it optional to drop in for a catch up. Eventually you’ll make that connection you were looking for, but the best part is all the people you meet along the way.

Stalk your favorite companies and E-Celebs:

SXSW is a pretty amazing opportunity to ask your technorati crush that question you’ve always wanted to ask them. Chances are, you’ll find said nerd approachable and happy to chat. Just be patient (but persistent).

SXSW is a pretty amazing opportunity to ask your technorati crush that question you’ve always wanted to ask them. Chances are, you’ll find said nerd approachable and happy to chat. Just be patient (but persistent).

Pay the Piper:

It’s hard to imagine the nice people behind SXSW, an event that actually utilizes crowdsourcing and celebrates creativity, going after free-loaders using the SXSW brand to launch the next big thing, but they do, and rightfully so. After working at SXSW for a couple years as a full-time staffer, you quickly understand this is an organization dedicated to creating a unique and highly valuable experience for attendees. The brand juice associated with that experience is immense and should be filtered through the proper SXSW channels to limit the chaos to some sort of sane threshold. Find a way to work through the event to produce your initiative and your event will absolutely be more successful. Having SXSW in your corner is a big help.

Thanks, and see you in Austin in that magical month of March, where worlds collide, weather wreaks havoc and the chaff and the wheat are crushed together in a delicious techno-social taco.