Gravity Summit

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Feb

26

Gravity Summit 2010 at UCLA Social Media Marketing Event Kicks off with Keynote from Kodak

Photo Gallery By Mark Harmel Here

Beverly Hills, CA Gravity Summit 2010, a social media marketing event for business, opened the doors to attendees at its 2nd annual event on Monday, February 22, 2010. The event was held at the Covel Commons on the UCLA campus is Los Angeles, CA. Over 25 senior marketing executive speakers and innovators from a wide range of companies and organizations convened to share their best practices and lessons learned in social media and real-time marketing.

Speakers from top brands such as Eastman Koda k, MazdaUSA, USAToday.com, PayPal, Mashable, Domino’s Pizza and others presented to the audience at the conference as well as to the audience online who were able to view the event on UStream and join the discussion live via #Gravsum on Twitter.

Gravity Summit especially thanks it’s Sponsors and Partners: UCLA Extension Business, Management, and Legal Programs; TurboTax; MazdaUSA; SpiritJump; PayPal; Visible Technologies; LA Clippers; FLIP; PeopleBrowsr; GoDaddy.com; Mashable; PitchEngine; Social Media Club of Los Angeles; You2Gov.org; TweetPhoto, Fusiciology, iHollywoodForum, and The Roxy on Sunset for helping to bring this important and timely information to the business community.

A highlight of the program was the “Excellence in Social Media Marketing” Awards hosted by Rodney Rumford and Beverly Macy, Co-Founders of Gravity Summit, and Van Anderson, Program Director, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, International Trade & Commerce, UCLA Extension. These awards were created to recognize the superior understanding and use of social media marketing tools by well known brands, businesses and individuals. Recipients of the event’s first Excellence in Social Media Marketing awards were:
– Excellence in Social Media Marketing in Business to Eastman Kodak
– Excellence in Social Media Marketing in Entertainment to Felicia Day
– Excellence in Social Media Marketing in Social Good to Domino Foods

Another new feature was the Breakout Workshops in the afternoon:
Music, Entertainment, Sports - How to Use Social Media to Engage Passionate Fans Moderated by Nic Adler, Owner of the famous Roxy Theater on Sunset Strip

Social Media Meets Social Good: Cause Marketing Case Studies and Strategies Moderated by Emmy nominated TV and Web Personality, Shira Lazar

Getting Started, moderated by Alon Waisman of GoDaddy.com

Comments came pouring in after the conference and included: “I was riveted by every speaker and really enjoyed the day. I’m so excited to put social media marketing to work”;” …it was also by far the best social media event I have ever been to. The presenters were excellent, and it was also a great environment for networking”;and “ I have literally spoken at 4 conferences / colleges in the past month…and yours was the first where I walked away smarter and inspired”.

The AfterParty was sponsored by MazdaUSA and held at On The Rox at the Roxy Theater on Sunset. Gravity Summit also announced the 3rd Annual Event to take place at UCLA in February 2011 and will produce other events on an invitation-basis throughout 2010.

About Gravity Summit

Gravity Summit events help bridge the gap between the new Social Media Marketing tools and the business community. We seek to help educate and inform marketing professionals, small business owners, advertisers, and c-Level executives, and others, about the exciting new marketing and communications landscape that is evolving daily.

Feb

25

Gravity Summit in USA Today

Tips for Engaging Audience and Staff in Social Media

February 24, 2010 at 2:32 pm | In Events, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter | Leave a Comment

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Gravity Summit Conference in Los Angeles on the topic, “Tips for Engaging Audience and Staff in Social Media”. Not surprisingly, most of the tips that I shared were based on our experiences here at USA TODAY.

For those of you who were unable to attend, the brief 13-slide deck touches on the following areas:

The value of social media for your organization.
Examples of Facebook Fan Page features.
Types of tweets that we publish across our 100+ Twitter feeds.
Steps we took to sell internal staff on Twitter.
Ways in which to engage with your audience.
Social media enhancements to on-site content.
Key questions to address as you flesh out your social media plan.

Attached is a copy of the presentation, Gravity Summit Conference – USATODAY – 22-Feb-10. Admittedly, some of these slides work better with a verbal description, but most are pretty self-explanatory.

Ultimately, success in social media boils down to maximizing your ROIII — interaction, influence, and investment. Engagement with the first two will lead to increases in traditional ROI. Jeffrey Hayzlett, CMO of Kodak, offered up a fourth ‘I’ to this equation – the return on ignoring. Engage, listen, participate, learn, and share, but don’t ignore when it comes to social media!

This post was published by Brian Dresher, @bdresher.

Feb

24

Gravity Summit 2010 was a HIT!

Quotes from attendees and presenters who attended

Gravity Summit 2010 at UCLA on February 22, 2010

Wow…what an awesome event!

Thank you! This was my first Summit and it was very impressive. I will plan to go again next year and spread the “good” word.

Many thanks. It was amazing, especially the Kodak and Dominos Pizza presentations.

I was so excited I could barely sleep last night. The summit really opened my eyes to the power of social media and I’m so glad I decided to sign up. We’re launching a new brand right now and I can’t wait to get started with social media marketing. I’ve already connected with a couple people I met yesterday, and I’ve been planning to contact you for some consulting and/or advice regarding our brand launch. I’m very happy to read that you offer consulting services, because I know I’ll need help. I need some time to disseminate all the information I received yesterday and start building my marketing plan, but I will be in touch soon.

Thanks again for a great presentation. I was riveted by every speaker and really enjoyed the day. I’m so excited to put social media marketing to work.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to present at Gravity Summit! It was an honor, and it was also by far the best social media event I have ever been to. The presenters were excellent, and it was also a great environment for networking.

I just wanted to shoot you a quick note to say Thank You for including me in your Gravity Summit yesterday. I had a blast and would say it is easily one of the best conferences I’ve been to in a long time. I have literally spoken at 4 conferences / colleges in the past month…and yours was the first where I walked away smarter and inspired.

Ramon was outstanding and Jeff (Hayzlett) was great too. My panel was full of wonderful people so nice job on pulling such great people with good chemistry together. Congratulations on selling out and great job. Thanks again for including me and I hope to be a part of many more Gravity Summits to come.

Feb

23

Gravity Summit 2010 Photo Gallery

1 comment

Many thanks to Mark Harmel, Mark Harmel Photo, for this photo gallery of yesterday’s Gravity Summit 2010 Event at UCLA.

Mark is currently taking Karl Kasca’s New Media Extension class is also helping Taking Control of Your Diabetes move into the social media space. He’d love to hear from those who are interested in this Cause as well as other social media users in the Los Angeles area.

Mark’s contact info:

Mark Harmel
310-406-0743
http://www.harmelphoto.com
http://www.harmelphoto.com/blog
@MarkHarmel