Future of Digital Media in the Spotlight at mesh

Journalism startup founders, cyborgs, wearable tech pioneers and venture capitalists mingled at the 2014 mesh digital media conference, in what could easily be called a sort-of Silicon Valley North meet-up. /newsrooms deployed a live event coverage team to report on the panels, keynotes and interactive discussions via @meshcon and @gotomeeting.

One Million Potential Impressions

On May 27 and 28, the Drake Hotel and 99 Sudbury were hosts to fascinating sessions attracting high engagement, such as Neil Harbisson’s talk on what it’s like to live as a cyborg.

During the conference his Twitter handle alone attracted one million potential impressions, driven by coverage of his extremely quotable session.

.@NeilHarbisson describes the antenna as a new sense. He even dreams the sounds of the colours he hears. #meshcon pic.twitter.com/siPLhIfs9Z

— the mesh group (@meshcon) May 27, 2014

Digital Media Hot Topics

During a panel talk on VC funding in Canada, with speakers Jevon MacDonald and Boris Wertz, the social audience clamoured to discussions about funding, particularly relating to Maritime startups. When /newsrooms shared content related to the discussion, it generated a lot of attention – making up 9% of total conference clicks.

FUN FACT: Half the investments we’ve made this year are run by female entrepreneurs says @bwertz #meshcon #startups — the mesh group (@meshcon) May 28, 2014

Wearable tech was another favourite of mesh conference’s social audience, thanks to the jaw-dropping high-tech outfit sported by Tom Emrich of We Are Wearable.

Can you imagine a future where everyone’s clothes feature scrolling text?

Nimble Coverage

Beyond deep reporting of speaker sessions, /newsrooms provided coverage of the many speakers and personalities who made up the passionate meshcon audience and Twitter-based interviews via the @meshcon handle. Our curation of the most intriguing insights brought the mesh discussion to the forefront of our audience’s attention and helped the event to trend on Twitter.

Pulling insights on the fly during live event coverage is a big part of our continuous marketing strategy.

As expected, #meshcon is trending right now in #Canada! Nicely done, mesh attendees! pic.twitter.com/TpA35Y3w8c

— the mesh group (@meshcon) May 27, 2014

Twitter chat interviewees included Jennifer Evans, founder of SqueezeCMM, an enterprise content marketing performance measurement platform, and digital marketing specialist Cammi Pham.

Creative Conversions

We know the digital media crowd likes to be playful, so /newsrooms went creative with social initiatives such as photo caption contests and quizzes to drive traffic to the meshcon General Store.

Our team also took to Instagram to publish pithy video interviews with meshcon speakers and attendees and populated several Facebook photo albums with photography of sessions and mid-day breaks, where speakers mingled with the audience.

Live Event Coverage = Fun

At /newsrooms, we couldn’t be more excited about the subjects we cover. That passion is a big reason why our content resonates so strongly with both audiences at events and those following off-site.

From May 1 to 30, #meshcon had close to 26 million potential impressions.

This post is part our 21 Days of Continuous Marketing series.