During my time in New York for Social Media Week (SMW); SMW Reporter/Top 10 blogger in Singapore – Estelle Kiora and I bundled up to fight the cold in our winter streetwear. Estelle who came from Singapore, where the sun is mostly shining, was in for a surprise! I was impressed with how well she managed to wear her style in below zero weather. All thanks to strategic layering. Those timberlands, love’em!
Some of my favourite winter layering essentials that are the key building blocks of a fashionable, yet warm outfit, would be an infinity scarf, leg warmers and layering tops.
Ever since infinity scarves hit stores, I’ve been a huge fan of the warmth and protection it provides. What’s an infinity scarf? A neck warmer resembling a scarf, but forming a loop with no ends.
An infinity scarf is a perfect addition for Winter StreetWear.
If you’ve been following my Instagram posts this winter, you’ll notice I have a comforting need to always rock my leg warmers. They’re perfect if you’re wearing leggings with boots that are looser at the top. Trapping the cold so it doesn’t get to your feet. The plus, it can look fashionable if it’s your style to start with. You can also make your own leg warmers at home with some old sweaters. Just cut the sleeves at your desired length and bunch them up!
I love layering my tops! Some people like to say there’s a right and a wrong way to doing this. I’ll save that for another post, but I say have fun with it! Let your imagination go wild and style your outfits the way you want to. Wear a dress, put a cardigan on top and for extra warmth top it off with a bright hood.
Wearable technology has come a long way. There was that brief time in history when some people either didn’t understand bluetooth ear pieces or just simply hated them. I reckon mostly because they thought they were being talked too, but in reality the person was talking into their ear piece. Now technology has evolved into being a part of us.
Now we’ve been seeing technology hit the runways! DVF (Diane von Furstenberg) used the Google glasses to capture the DVF creative process from a different perspective, which was accomplished by having the people involved with the entire process of making the show happen, by wearing Google glasses.
DVF created a short film to show her Fashion Show through the model, stylist and designers eyes via Google glass:
Then there’s the new dress that changes colour depending on a woman’s mood. The Bubelle Dress is made up of two layers, the inner layer contains biometric sensors that pick up a person’s emotions and projects them in colours onto the second layer, the outer textile.
Following the trend that only continues to grow, Social Media Week in New York had Tech In Motion host a Wearable Tech Fashion Show.
To mention a few of the contributors of the show:
Atlas Wearables (Austin): Presenting fitness tracker
Augmate (NYC): Presenting Google Glass and Vuzix m100
BrickSimple (Philly): Presenting Google Glass
Continuum Fashion (NYC): Presenting 3D printed shoes
Everpurse (Chicago): Presenting chargeable clutches
Sensoree (San Fran): Presenting mood clothing
If you missed the Fashion Show you can watch it below via livestream:
The health and fitness market brought out many products that look great when worn. Bands that measure how much you’ve run, check your heart beat or measure your health in various categories.
What will be the next best thing when Fashion and Technology collide? 3D printed clothes, clothes that change based on weather automatically? With imagination and determination, anything is possible.
Check out this infographic for more info about current day wearable tech:
Have you heard? Facebook and Whatsapp are getting married
When I first heard about this I wasn’t surprised. I was attending Social Media Week in New York as the SMW Reporter and had been in a seminar with BuzzFeed’s CEO & Founder Jonah Peretti. He was being interviewed by Toby Daniels Founder & Executive Director of Social Media Week.
When Toby asked Jonah about the future of sharing, that was when my ears perked up. Jonah went on to explain that he was starting to notice that their very popular BuzzFeed articles and quizzes were being dark shared and that people were starting to share less on Facebook and more across messaging platforms. Now, when he said this I got excited. It’s so very true. I have numerous amounts of Whatsapp chat groups and know that almost each group has a few shares a day with me. As a matter of fact, I’ve received BuzzFeed quizzes from friends in groups on Whatsapp too. There’s a steady shift between people wanting to share with articles, images etc with the masses to personalized and grouped sharing. Maybe Google was onto something with their Google+ selective group sharing capabilities.
It was all coming together in my head. When Jonah mentioned dark sharing. Many people in the audience at Social Media Week were boggled by the term. Had no idea what it meant. Thank you Toby! He jumped on it and asked Jonah to explain it further.
Dark sharing is a referral source that you see but has no exact source of where that traffic came from. So people who share via Whatsapp, BBM or other messaging services – their shares are not shown to BuzzFeeds analytics team. Right now BuzzFeed see’s that 20% of traffic is dark.
Marketers, advertisers and social media people of the world are thinking the acquisition will bring ads, change the platform, increase the cost of using the service, but no one has thought about behind the scenes benefits for Facebook. It’s the information of sharing that really matters to digital companies right now. That is where the future is.
Did Jonah know something before everyone else? Does he have a crystal ball that showed him the future Facebook acquisition? Or was it possibly an intelligent guess?
Let me know what you think with your comments below.
I’ve been following social media week ever since I attended my first Social Media Week (SMW) event in Toronto at the Windsor Arms Hotel in Yorkville. If you attend the seminars that can benefit you or the company you work for, than you really leave the event with great ideas and with a fresh outlook of what social media can do for you and where it’s going right now.
If you think about it, it’s a brilliant idea! Everyday there’s something new coming out. There’s so much social noise and no one to set the rules and help you understand it all. People new to social media are either looking the other way or just stunned, like a deer caught in the headlights. SMW brings it altogether in informative seminars, interactive workshops and live feeds.
Roughly 2 weeks ago SMW posted on their site and tweeted an opportunity for Social Media fanatics of the world for a chance to win a week-long adventure. They wanted to see how much you can do with only a few seconds of video on Vine, Instagram or YouTube. Three winners would have a chance to be a #SMWReporter in New York City! Even better, since Nokia is sponsoring SMW NYC, we’ll be bringing you the news with the awesome Nokia 1020. 41MP *drool*
Competing against the whole world I didn’t think I had a chance, but I did it because I enjoyed the challenge. After all, Vine, Instagram and YouTube are supposed to be fun. And that’s it. I had a lot of fun coming up with the story and compiling it together for one submission.
My take was that Social Media is EVERYWHERE. I found it everywhere I went. In the few days that I had, I tweeted different Vines of where I was finding SMW and on the last day put them together to tell the whole story on YouTube. Here’s the story:
UPDATE: I won the competition and I can’t wait to attend SMW NYC!
Check out Nicky Yates post about the SMW Reporter winners: here.
Follow the hashtag #SMWReporter on Twitter, Vine & Instagram to keep up with our live updates from the event. Those of you who are attending, see you there!
is marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a smart phone. Mobile marketing can provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services and ideas.*
SMWTO Learnings
There was a recent study done on the psychological connections with users and their mobile screens. The study found some areas where companies could make connections with their customers overlooked.* Most companies were missing a connection with their consumers hearts. To build your brand you need to connect with your consumers, it isn’t about connecting with the mind with fancy wordplay anymore. Email blasts with Sale, Last Chance or 50% off just don’t do it anymore.
Mobile allows targeting specific consumers who want to see unique content. The average user that looks at their mobile device looks in seconds. If it’s not interesting, consumer is lost.
Brands that are leveraging content know how to use vine, instagram, twitter, facebook etc to push content and gain new audience and in some cases re-establish their brands, especially in markets that didn’t exist before. Social media is about building an asset. Create a strong foundation for the next generation of consumers who will interact with your brand via mobile.
Engaging content is getting smaller and smaller. What started off at 50 second videos, are now 6 seconds on Vine. Consumers love it! The future of mobile video content = shorter attention spans. Content delivered through applications may be considered “less intrusive” than banner ads. Yes, banner ads are impersonal. Then here we have corporations saying “I don’t know if we should invest in mobile..” Ask those who are living in this generation. Do some studies of your own and you’ll be surprised to see that investing in mobile is your best bet. Consumers are also opting in receiving real time messages on their mobile devices.
So you’ve decided to get into Mobile Marketing. You need a full strategy if you’re building your brand on a social aspect. Content is key, but brands need to remember to be responsive to tweets and posts as well. Minimal content is better than lots of crappy content.
People focused content needs to be well thought out. Every company is a media company and therefore, every company is a publishing company. Did you know there’s pieces of content created every day?! The best people to talk to for free research are customer service. Have them make notes of what customers are calling in about. Customer service understands the customer journey. Let’s face it. It’s not about helping the seller to sell, it’s about how we help the buyer buy. 75% Canadians grab their phones at 4pm. Whether it’s to check what they’ll be having or making for dinner, check their facebook, instagram or other social platforms. What is your company posting to that 75% at 4pm? Are you sending promotion texts, updating your apps and social media profiles?
To move your buyer down the path to purchasing, your content should answer a consumers question before they’ve even asked. And then don’t just answer the questions no one is asking, maybe work on finding out what people are asking.
Mobile is predicted to surpass desktop usage in 2014. Consumer phone and smartphone usage is continuing to rise, and in 2014, content marketers will need to ensure that the huge online community they’ve built, need to be getting the same brand experiences on their phones as well. Prepare a mobile marketing strategy now if you haven’t already.
*SMWTO Content & Creativity Achieving Mobile Success with Content
SMWTO People Focused Content Strategy
Wikipedia
Social Media Week Toronto took place this year from September 23-27th. The theme for 2013 was “Looking Ahead to 2015″.
All the seminars were in some way about what changes and trends would be coming up in the next 12-15 months. The Windsor Arms Hotel, a beautiful petite boutique, was the venue for Social Media Week.
Day 1 was kind of like the first day of school. Everyone following the calendar board to see what seminars they wanted to go to next and which rooms they were held in. The first day buzz of being around like minded social media people was exciting. The first tweet using the #SWTO hashtag, purchasing a snack from the cafe to donate money towards Social Media Week and sitting in that extremely hot with no air circulation, St.Thomas room. Just a few of my fond memories of that week. My first day schedule, was a half day due to some work meetings I had that morning.
Day 1:
Tracking Visual Data; Measurement Without Words
Preempt Me: The Future of Marketing and Marketing Communications
Comedy is the Currency of the Internet
Social Media Isolation
Day 2:
Peer to Peer Strategy: How Koodo Leverages its Online Community to Reduce Support Costs
Content and Creativity: Achieving Mobile Success with Content
Big Data, Small Data, Data that Totally Rocks
Small Data. Big Wins.
Day 3:
The Death of the Home Page
Social Media goes to University
People Focused Content Strategy
The Crowdfunding Success Pattern
Why Behavioral Data is Key to Social Selling Success
Day 4:
Campaign to Commitment. Social Media, Brands and Long Ideas
The Pitch Powered by Cision and Umbra
After Party with Idea Rebel
Social Media Barometer
Day 5:
The Danger of Dusty Ideas
Big Data meets Social Commerce
Creating Constructive Content Calendars
