AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, 700 attendees across 20 industries met in Austin, TX for the most exciting gathering of social innovators in the world - The Spredfast Summit. This year’s “Smart Social”-themed event will include three days of keynotes from tech and social innovators Andy Cohen and Todd Henry, as well as presentations from key Spredfast customers The Coca-Cola Company, ESPN, Eli Lilly and Company, and Pizza Hut.
“For us, this is what we work for all year: the ability to host so many incredibly smart, innovative customers and partners who rely on our technology and team every day,” said Rod Favaron, CEO of Spredfast. “So many of them give us a seat at their strategy table all year, but at Summit we’re able to take that to the next level.”
The fourth annual Spredfast Summit brings together the smartest minds in social for a three-day, one-of-a-kind conference experience. From across the globe, Spredfast draws the world’s largest enterprise brands to Austin, TX to reveal the most transformative software technology to date.
Outside of product innovation, Summit is the epicenter of social sharing and enlightenment. “We look around and see customers from completely different industries sharing stories and inspiring each other,” Favaron said. “The very people who are driving the evolution of social are together for these three days and the energy is palpable.” Every customer-led session, every keynote speaker, every roundtable—it’s all meticulously designed for Spredfast’s customers to increase value and drive strong consumer relationships.
This year’s Summit brings more new product innovation announcements than ever before. Highlights include:
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Instagram, Decoded: Instagram’s community has grown to over 400
million users, with over a third of the world’s Internet population
expected to be on the photo-sharing platform by 2018. It’s not enough
to just be part of the experience. Understanding where the
conversation is happening, keeping a constant pulse on your brand and
benchmarking yourself against competitors are keys to staying ahead of
the curve. Spredfast’s “search for social” product, Intelligence,
now includes Instagram, as well as Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.
“Consumers are on Facebook or Instagram an average of one out of every five minutes they’re on mobile, so obviously Instagram is a huge priority for us,” said Mary Kearl, Senior Manager of Social Media and Digital Content at New York Road Runners. “As we monitor hashtag usage for our brand, #nyrr, and our flagship event, the TCS New York City Marathon, #TCSNYCMarathon, as well as the hashtags for the other 50-plus events we produce each year, it's critical to track growth, potential reach, and who is participating in the conversations. We want to be able to better understand trends as they happen and adapt accordingly. Determining our share of voice, competitive benchmarking and a geographic view for content are all hugely helpful insights.”
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Spredfast Conversations adds game-changing planning component: While
different marketers plan for different types of content -
campaign-specific content, evergreen content, or breaking news - many
of the needs remain the same. The Spredfast Conversations Planning
Module allows customers to collect and organize content, collaborate
internally, and adapt based on performance - all while offering timely
insights and a holistic marketing view. This gives customers one place
to plan, execute and monitor - all on the most powerful and open
social relationship platform on the market today.
“As social continues to evolve and paid media and social converge, so have complications when it comes to effective content planning. To have a centralized hub where we can collaborate with our clients to plan and execute their campaigns is a real game changer,” said Suzanne Marlatt, Sr. Account Supervisor at Edelman. “Freeing-up more time to create beautiful content, identify what’s resonating and deliver better experiences for our clients is invaluable.”
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Spredfast simplifies social care to help you build relationships:
Social posts directed at brands are growing by 50% each year, but only
9% of people say they’ve heard back from a brand after posting. That’s
a problem. But it also creates tremendous opportunity for brands to
provide great social care and lasting relationships with customers. At
Summit, Spredfast unveils a new suite of Social Care features that
include smarter moderation, engagement, performance monitoring and
trend-spotting capabilities. Not only can Spredfast customers now
easily find and respond to the engagements that matter, but they are
also armed with the tools to identify trends and proactively adapt.
These new features take the frustration out of social care so
businesses can focus on customer relationships, not on software.
“This new functionality Spredfast is announcing will add tremendous value to our social customer care strategy. With the new Rules feature, we can easily identify which customer Tweets to respond to first. I can measure the result of how we engage with customers, helping limit negativity or amplifying positive conversations,” said Nikki Newman, Social Media Program Manager at Whole Foods Market. “This new understanding of inbound social engagement helps us to see our social care efforts as a marketing opportunity, continuing to enhance our brand awareness and perception online.”
Event highlights include:
- Keynote speeches that enlighten: Andy Cohen and Todd Henry will share their unique experience and insights into how smart social strategies can power incredible change within your organization. Attendees will walk away with new perspectives on how to leverage social to accomplish their larger business objectives.
- Breakout sessions that inspire: 26 experts, speaking on topics including social sponsorships, the value of social and social video, will not only offer participants actionable tips that can make an immediate impact on their social marketing programs, but will also inspire big ideas for the future.
- Birds of a Feather roundtables that connect: These sessions tackle niche topics around social. Participants have the opportunity to learn from experts, provide their own insight, and get tough questions answered on specific areas of interest such as how to create efficiencies in small teams, how to build engagement at live events, how to plan for retail launches and empower global teams.
- Product Showcases that engage: Continued innovation is at the core of the Spredfast promise. The product showcase will offer an opportunity to explore what’s currently possible in the Spredfast Platform, as well as what’s to come. This exclusive look will illustrate new ways to connect with consumers and affect change within your business.
Following a tremendous year of growth, including the acquisition of social CRM powerhouse, Shoutlet, being named a Leader in the Forrester SRP Wave, inaugural partnership announcements with Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr, and winning an Emmy for Innovation in Social Television, the Spredfast Summit is poised to be a celebration like none other.
“Each year we look forward to the Spredfast Summit, getting to connect with our trusted partners on the Spredfast team and be inspired by the new innovations they bring to the table - through product announcements, keynote speakers and breakout sessions,” said Craig Ricks, VP of Marketing at Spectra Ticketing & Fan Engagement. “They’ve had another big year, so I’m really looking forward to getting to celebrate that as well.”
About Spredfast
Spredfast is transforming the way companies connect with consumers. Spredfast’s smart social software enables companies to build lasting relationships with today’s digitally connected consumer. Brand and media companies use the Spredfast Social Software Platform to manage, integrate and amplify social content across any digital touch point in real time. With global reach, Spredfast customers manage over one billion social connections across 84 countries. Over 1400 customers, including all five major broadcast networks and fifty percent of Interbrand’s 2014 World’s Best Brands have partnered with Spredfast to create first-class social experiences. For more information, visit www.spredfast.com.
