I learned a lot from SummitUp - both as an attendee and as a member of the SummitUp planning/marketing committee (representing Dayton Creative Syndicate).

Thoughts/Themes:

• Integration: One of my main goals as a social media marketing strategist is to create integrated campaigns at Real Art. I believe that social media works best when combined seamlessly with websites, with print campaigns, across the board. I was glad to see that the idea of integration one of the big themes of the day.

• Leadership: Speakers encouraged attendees to stand up and be leaders in social media, not just cheerleaders. Several speakers reminded us that there are no experts in social media, only people that are willing to keep pushing ahead and who aren't afraid to take guesses at the future. It's all about getting out there and experimenting in this space.
• We can't all be Coca-Cola: Most of the examples speakers used were retail companies: Zappos, Apple, Starbucks, Best Buy. I saw a couple audience members ask about examples for smaller and business to business companies. For both social media and design, speakers often leave out the less-sexy b2b and small business success stories. I know they're out there; I'm hoping to highlight a few in future blog posts. Breakout speaker Erin Fagan was a great exception, with Teradata's social media presence. She had some great concrete examples of what she did to plan their social media conversation as a whole.
• I'm really proud of the conference overall, but I also have a handful of ideas to make next year's SummitUp even more conFabulous. And I'm hoping to hear feedback from other attendees.

Speakers:
John Moore began with "Becoming a Talkable Brand". It's not a new idea, but it still gets overlooked when companies are building brands. Focusing on building a unique customer experience is one of the most important marketing fundamentals for consumer-driven brands. It makes customers want to spread the word about companies, and that's where social media really shines.

Moore also recommended: don't be afraid to be polarizing. Another bit of advice I use when working on brand positioning. It's tempting to try to target an audience of "everyone" rather than pinpointing the audience that would really love your product, who would be evangelists for it, and communicating more meaningfully to them.

The mobile apps panel - Ryan McCoy, Krista Neher, Stefan Kyntchev, and Andy Hickey moderating - made some good points:

• Mobile apps work best when they're a unique combination of software and hardware to solve problems in new ways.
• A mobile website is often a better way to be mobile friendly than developing a phone-specific app.
• When developing an app, use iterations rather than thinking you'll come up with the perfect app and be finished with it.
• It's a cluttered market: Plan for the promotion of new apps.

Kevin Dugan was one of my favorite speakers of the day. His topic was integrating social media. He talked about the ways technology is changing behavior and advertising:

• People now text and surf the web while watching tv. Brands are beginning to interact with audiences during tv shows.
• With DVR and TV on the internet, advertising as an interruption isn't as successful.
• Brands are creating their own content, which is something I've been predicting is becoming the new norm. Brands are creating articles with content people want, using games and video to attract them rather than being an interruption from what they really want to see.

Dugan walked through his process of promoting Meijer Gold with bloggers from start to finish, including some good measurements for success. He recommended making conversation maps for planning out how one social media site relates to another, a new tip I will follow.

Steve Lance had a great inspirational talk on how to create the space and time for your biggest ideas to come to life. He had a lot of handy creativity/brainstorming tips and he insists that:

• Creativity can solve ANYTHING.
• Limits create unlimited creativity: the more specific you can be when describing the problem you want to solve, the better ideas you will have.

Brian Solis finished out the day with a talk on the importance for companies to engage with their audience on more than just a campaign basis. He showed some good examples of companies beginning to create their own content. I took fast notes on that - I think it's going to be more and more important for advertisers to draw in their audience with their own entertaining, informative, and engaging content rather than being a paid interruption in someone else's entertainment.

The afterparty was a great addition; It gave everyone a chance to talk after absorbing the day's information and discuss all the new ideas brewing.

More photos of the day on the DCS Flickr page.

SummitUp attendees, what did you learn? What did you love? What do you hope we do differently next year?