Things are about to get a little mesh-y this week, and over at SMG we’re really excited about it!

SMG is proud to sponsor and be a part of meshmarketing, intermingling with some of the brightest minds in the industry and sharing some of our know-how along the way. What have we learned this year? First, that listening really pays off, especially online.

As a member of the meshmarketing panel: social media beyond monitoring , SMG’s Patrick Gladney, Director and Group Head – Research and Insights, will guide you through social media monitoring and what to do once you know what’s being said about you online.

What else have we learned?

That partnering with a top traditional media monitoring service not only adds value but allows for us to offer clients a complete multi-channel monitoring service.

That’s why we are so excited to announce our new partnership with Canada’s leading media monitoring service FPInfomart, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.

What can our clients expect from this new venture? A complete holistic view of the communications landscape that is unmatched in the marketplace, enabling them to understand and act upon what’s being said in any channel.

Want to learn more? Visit www.socialmediagroup.com or call us at 416.703.3764

We look forward to seeing you at the conference, catching up and hearing all about what you’ve been learning too.

Months in the planning, meshmarketing is happening tomorrow at the Allstream Centre.

This is the third meshmarketing, which was started after people who attended the marketing stream at mesh asked for more in-depth and tactical sessions. They wanted to hear from speakers who could provide them with tangible and action-able insight and information to do their jobs better or differently.

With speakers coming from across North America, we have put together a line-up with expertise in digital marketing, content marketing, social media, mobile, data and influence discovery.

meshmarketing kicks off with a morning of thought-provoking discussions that features Stuart MacDonald in conversation with WestJet’s Greg Hounslow about the importance of community, while Mark Evans will sit down with IdeaPaint’s Marcus Wilson and Marcus Sheridan (aka The Sales Lion) about the growing focus and value of content marketing.

After lunch, Klout.com’s Joe Fernandez will provide some insight into why influence and influencers have become such an intriguing, interesting and controversial part of the digital and social media marketing landscapes. Anyone who has a Klout score, particularly those who their scores drop recently after Klout adjusted its methodologies, will no doubt be interested in learning more about the influence world by Fernandez, whose company finds itself within the eye of the hurricane.

Then, meshmarketing gets down and dirty with eight interactive and hands-on sessions and workshops that will provide people with what they need and want to change how they do business. It’s a chance to hear from not only experts but people in the trenches about what’s happening, what’s over the horizon and what businesses need to do and think to stay competition amid an ever-changing landscape.

Unlike other digital marketing conferences that focus on big picture/big thought issues, meshmarketing has been created for people who do digital marketing but looking for new approaches, tools, techniques and ideas on how to do it better, smarter, faster or more successfully. As well, a key part of coming to meshmarketing is being able to network and connect with not only people within your industry but people who work in other sectors who can offer a new or different perspective.

Tickets for meshmarketing are still on sale. Here’s where you can check out the schedule and the speaker line-up.

Speakers: Gail Gabrielle Ordogh (Real Sports), Sheldon Levine (Sysomos) and Dorothy Steel (Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation). Moderated by Michael O’Connor Clarke

Why this panel? For all the talk about best practices and tools, the best advice about using social media comes from companies and people on the front lines who can provide real-world insight into how to leverage social media to drive awareness, engagement, customer service and sales. Learn from people who work in the social media trenches every day how they do their jobs, approach different situations and achieve corporate objectives while using the right tools to be as efficient and productive as possible.

Some of the questions to be addressed include:

-          Why is it important to your organization to incorporate social media in your communications plans?

-          What has been your biggest challenge to date with social media use?

-          What advice do you have for organizations nervous about making the leap into social media?

-          Talking about social media measurement, what’s most important to you?

-          Of the other organizations, brands and companies you’ve seen working in this space, are there any whose social media efforts you particularly admire? Why?

-          Of the social media platforms in use at your organization, which is most important to you strategically? Personally?

-          Where does GooglePlus fit within your plans for 2012? Watch and learn, evaluate, test, actively implement, or ignore?

-          Speed seems to be a constant topic within social media. How fast do you think an organization needs to respond to audience comments, questions or complaints?

This can be a nice problem to have if you’re particularly successful in establishing and nurturing a large community. The downside is the resources required to manage and moderate these communities can be taxing on your resources and finances.

This has led to the emergence of third-party specialists that can help companies manage, support and grow their online communities. This lets companies focus on the creation of strategy and/or the creation of content to fuel their digital communities.

One of the leading social management and moderation companies is Winnipeg-based ICUC Moderation Services, one of the world’s leading social media moderation companies.

Keith Bilous, ICUC’s founder, concedes the company’s creation was a bit of a fluke but its continued growth and success has been very deliberate.

In a conversation with Mathew Ingram, Keith will provide insight into the challenges facing many companies in managing and moderating their communities, the opportunities that third-party services provide, and how ICUC has established itself as a leading player in the market.

Without creating a well-defined plan for social media, it can be challenging to develop a foundation for success – however you want to define success.

At meshwest, our “Building Social Meaning to Support Success” panel addresses the important questions of what needs to be done other than establishing a social media presence. This panel gets beyond the early lessons of social media and into how to develop social meaning from the inside out.

“This isn’t about keeping up with the Joneses but realistically challenging ourselves and our marketing teams on how to create sustainable competitive advantage through building connected brands and organizations” is how marketing and innovation strategist Leigh Himel describes the panel’s focus.

The panel also includes:

- Greg Hounslow, the Emerging Media Advisor for WestJet, who manages the company’s Facebook, Twitter and YouTube communities, as well as being involved in the airlines’ short- and long-term strategies for social media.

- Sarah Dickinson, SVP, Strategy with Blast Radius, a strategic digital agency based in Vancouver, who has played a key role in helping Starbucks establish its strong and vibrant social media presence.

This year, however, we’ve addressed the Twitter “gap” by inviting Laura Fitton to do a super-panel about how brands can effectively leverage Twitter.

We’re excited Laura is coming to mesh because she not only talks the talk but walked the walk by launching oneforty, a social business site that helps large and small companies find the tools needed to coordinate and optimize their social media activities.

Laura’s appearance at mesh is particularly timely because an increasing number of companies are starting to move from the “enthusiast” stage about social to scrutinizing what they’re getting from social media services such as Twitter and Facebook. We’re looking forward to Laura providing her insight into how business can leverage social media in a better, smarter and more effective way.

For more on Laura, check out this interview she did with Dan Martell on the Flowtown blog last year.

Here’s a recent video interview in which Laura provides four points about using Twitter for business.

The opportunities and challenges were one of the reasons we wanted to bring together a panel featuring companies attempting to leverage social media to build and grow their brands. We wanted to learn about what has worked for these companies, what they have done to capture the attention of consumers, and the techniques and tools that have been effective. As important, we wanted to get their perspective on the lessons learned along the way.

The panel includes:

- Elizabeth Margles, vice-president of marketing with Porter Airlines. Armed with a strong brand and customer loyalty, Porter launched itself into social media earlier this year with a Facebook Page and Twitter. The company was looking to achieve three objectives: drive sales and promotion, customer service and handle crisis situations.
- Ramon De Leon (aka @Ramon_DeLeon), who owns several Domino’s Pizza stores in Chicago. De Leon’s creative and active use of social media has made him one of the leading voices within the social media marketing landscape. This include a popular video in which De Leon publicly reached out to a customer who had an unhappy experience.
- Graeme Menzies (aka @graememenzies), ex-Social Media Director, Vancouver Olympic Committee and President, MenziesOnline Communications. During the Vancouver Olympics, social media was effectively used to provide insight into the competition, as well as provide insight behind the scenes.

So, we’re really excited to pull the covers of meshmarketing ’10. meshmarketing is happening on November 17, 2010 in downtown Toronto. (We’ll announce the location soon.) Tickets are $489 (plus HST) before Sept. 17, and $539 afterwards. There are also 50 student tickets for $99 each (plus HST). And, of course, we’ll have a social afterwards. Tickets can be purchased here.

While we’re keeping the same focus and approach, there are some wrinkles that we think are going to make meshmarketing even better.

First, we’ve partnered with Trina Boos, who has been running the successful Ad Lounge events. Trina delivers terrific insight into the advertising and marketing worlds, as well as a huge community that she has nurtured and built over the past nine years. As meshmarketing’s programming director, Trina is the driving force behind the event’s sessions and and speakers, and we’re overjoyed about her key role within meshmarketing.

Second, we’ve tweaked the programming format. Rather than have a single keynote, we will kick off meshmarketing with two keynotes – Michael Slaby and Marian Salzman – along with a super-presentation by Lee LeFever. Part of the change in format was our excitement about several speakers. Rather than pick only one, we decided to go with a three-pack.

Michael Slaby is executive vice-president and global practice chair of Edelman’s digital practice. Before joining Edelman, he was a technology and new media advisor to the Obama administration where he led operational and long-term planning for technology including web strategy and utilization, and data integration opportunities.

Marian Salzman, one of the world’s top five trend spotters, will offer insights into the future of digital marketing and communications. As a leading communications professional, digital marketer and author, Marian will provide her insight on what’s on the horizon and what we need to know now to prepare.

And for those not familar with Lee LeFever, he (along with his partner and wife, Sachi) are the brains behind the popular Common Craft video series that provides user-friendly insight into technology and technology trends that everyone can understand.

As for the rest of the programming, we’ve got a great line-up of speakers, panels and workshops – everything from the ROI of social media customer and trans-media storytelling to how retailers are using location-based services, and future of social TV. For more details, visit the speaker and schedule page.

meshmarketing tickets can be purchased here. Don’t forget to take advantage of the early-bird special until Sept. 17.

What you might not realize is there is a method to the madness of the colours – in addition to the fact we think it makes the Web site look purdy. Here’s a break-down on the mesh rainbow.

Red – Red is media, which covers our keynote (Chris Thorpe), panels and workshop about things such as real-time content, user-generated media, the battle between machine-generated and human-generated media, and a case study on the Vancouver Olympics.

Orange – Orange is our society stream in which you will learn more about hackers from keynote speaker Joesph Menn, how Médecins Sans Frontières is using social media, and panels about the growing issue of online privacy and what’s going on with open government.

Blue – For the marketers in the crowd, blue is your colour. Blue covers our keynote speaker, Arvind Rajan, from LinkedIn, as well as panels on real-time and how it forces marketers to be real, what businesses should really do with Facebook, and workshops on how to scale social media, and 10 no-nonsense ways social media can be applied to your business.

Green – Like the colour of money, green is our business stream, led by keynote speaker Scott Thompson, who is president with Paypal. Green also accounts for panels on the state of Canada’s seed and start-up landscape, mobile as a way to drive business, and why real-time matters.

So, there you have it – the mesh rainbow explained.

To purchase tickets to mesh, head on over this way.

Tickets for meshU, our hands-on workshop event for people who design and development online services, and people who manage designers and developers, can be purchased here.

The emergence of social media as a new, different and effective marketing medium, however, has changed the competitive landscape. Today, public relations, advertising and digital agencies are all providing or moving to provide clients with social media services – everything from strategic plans and tactical implementation to creative and applications.

It means that the days of working in isolation are over. Instead, the different agencies are competing for business and increasingly working together to meet the needs of clients.

The challenge for clients is determining who provides what services, and who should be the lead agency when doing social media marketing campaigns. Do companies lead with their advertising agency, and get them to coordinate with the public relations and digital agencies on record? Or do all three agencies need to be at the table at the same time so they’re reading off the same script?

At meshmarketing, one of our two panels is focused on marketing within the social media landscape, how marketing fits into the scheme of things, and how public relations, digital and advertising agencies are competing and co-existing. Our panelists – Fleischman-Hillard Canada president Mia Wedgbury, iStudio co-founder Katherine Fletcher and Juniper Park president Jill Nykoliation – will be offer their perspectives on what’s happening and what it means to their businesses and their clients.

You can register for meshmarketing here.