Brian Kalma, director of user experience at Henderson, Nev.-based Zappos.com Inc., an online shoe retailer, recently visited Milwaukee to discuss social media and business issues.
Kalma spoke to Greater Milwaukee Committee members on Monday at their regular meeting.
“Social Media is a very quick way to see outcomes when you need it the most,” said Julia Taylor, president of the GMC.
Throughout his presentation, Kalma talked about how Zappos is using social media within its business strategy, and why it’s important for all companies to become a part of the social media conversation.
The GMC also experimented with a live streaming video and its first “Twitter- press conference,” to coincide with the theme of the meeting.
“In terms of metrics, we had 132 people total stream the video for all or part of the meeting," said Eric Paulsen, GMC communications officer.
According to Paulsen not many people tweeted in questions to ask Kalma and the other panelists, but he did count a fair amount of traffic on Twitter related to the conference, its video stream or the discussion.
Kalma also keynoted New Berlin-based Soho Publishing LLC’s first NakedBizGrowth, a full day social media conference and event, which featured local social media presenters with real life success stories, along with Kalma.
“To tell you the truth I was very nervous putting on this event, because it was the first we’ve done of its kind.” said Cd Vann, owner of Soho Publishing. “To tell you the truth I was only expecting 25 to 30 people. You have to factor in how many people are going to take off of work for a whole day for an event they’ve never heard of before.”
According to Vann, more than 60 people pre-registered for the event, and eight people attended as walk-ins. People who found out about the event via Twitter attended from as far away as Chicago and Des Moines, Iowa, she said.
Vann has already scheduled a tentative date in August to bring the conference to Chicago, and another date in September to bring the conference to Iowa.
“The feedback we received was tremendous. We are planning to bring the same conference to other areas using a combination of presenters from Milwaukee, as well as a few local ones,” Vann said.
Kalma and the other presenters brought real life examples to the table, which is what made the event so successful, Vann said.
“Everybody out there calls themselves an expert in social media just because they are using those tools,” Vann said. “With this conference I wanted to make sure everyone presenting had real life client examples, not just personal use stories.”
BizTimes Milwaukee reporter, Alysha Schertz had a chance to chat with Kalma during a break at the event.
