When you think of music festivals, do you imagine crazy crowds, illegal substances, and overall chaos? The connotations may be true, but did you also know that music festivals are crusaders when it comes to creative tech and social media marketing? From SXSW to Lollapalooza, Outside Lands and Coachella, big fests taking advantage of social media may also benefit, present opportunities and/or ignite ideas for small businesses like yours. Music festivals may have notorious reputations, but their mass appeal and large audience exposure also have the ability to spark stardom for savvy startups, small businesses and non-profits!
SXSW
Location: Austin, Texas
Formed in: 1987
Excellent use of social/tech: SXSW Interactive
South by South West (SXSW) is not only one of the largest music festivals in the U.S., but it’s evolved into multiple festivals featuring some of the greatest emerging technology, small business talent and film. SXSW’s Interactive tech festival, commonly referred to as “South By,” has become a breeding ground and major networking hub for startups. According to their site, South By has become an "incubator of cutting-edge technologies and digital creativity…showcasing the brightest minds in emerging technology." The festival includes a whirlwind of presentations, conferences and parties showcasing up and coming startups, new websites, video games and fresh ideas. As a small business/startup, dipping your toe into SXSW Interactive waters could present rockin’ opportunities.
Lollapalooza
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Formed in: 1991
Excellent use of tech/social: Live YouTube Streaming
Let's face it, music festivals are expensive, hot, and the crowds are not everyone’s cup
of (sweat) tea. However, the alternative rock festival that joins 160,000 people
into Grant Park each year has everyone in mind. Lollapalooza partnered
with YouTube and Dell to provide live streaming of the festival, engaging
audiences without a ticket. According
to a YouTube blog post, the live streaming has done wonders for
increased
exposure.
“Live shows by artists like U2, Kenny
Chesney and Coldplay have drawn millions of viewers to YouTube, and last year’s
Lollapalooza webcast saw viewers spending an average of 44 minutes watching the
show.”

The collaboration
of music festivals and non-profits may seem unlikely, however, Lollapalooza also
understands the power of crowds and exposure. According to their site, “Lolla
Cares,” a section within the people-packed festival features "organizations committed to
making this world a better, greener, and healthier place.” The festival’s platform
for non-profits and political groups has been responsible each year for
registering hundreds of fans to vote, finding bone marrow matches for cancer patients
and “fostering support for clean energy, education, and park projects in the Chicago area.”
Outside Lands
Location: San Francisco, California
Formed in: 2008 
Excellent use of social/tech: Mobile App
Outside
Lands is a fresh, young thing compared to its 20-year-old counterparts. However, it’s not naive when it comes to knowing its
audience’s love and reliance on smartphones. Steadily improving its
mobile app each year, Outside Lands recently wowed festival-goers with
stellar mobile app features. The free download included: set times, a
map, the ability to scan food vendor menus, create custom schedules,
rate food items, take images with Instagram-like filters, and best yet,
send messages to friends via the built-in chat, GroupMe. The app also
sent push notifications during the festival notifying fans of set
changes and secret pop-up shows, like the one Jack White performed
making “Outside Lands history.”
Businesses, big and small (including several non-profit partners) who sprawled throughout the Golden Gate park venue also took advantage of smart phone donning attendees:
- Eco
Products, specializing in “sustainable disposables,” set up a booth
presenting attendees with silly photo booth props. Fans simply had to
snap a photo of themselves in front of the Eco Products backdrop and
share the photo online to enter a drawing for 2013 Outside
Lands tickets.
- Other
businesses including SugarSync, PayPal and PG&E attracted new fans
by providing phone charging stations (some even solar and wind
powered!) for attendees low on smartphone juice.
Coachella
Location: Indio, California
Formed in: 1999
Excellent use of social/tech: RFID Wristbands
The indie music/art festival held in the heart of the desert is notorious for oohing and ahhing fans with unpredictability. This year, a hologram performance of the late Tupac Shakur was by far their greatest feat, however their use of RFID (radio-frequency identification) wristbands also made waves (pun intended). The festival-entry wristbands included an RFID chip in which attendees could tap their bands at stations to update their Facebook status with details about who they were watching. Tapping bands around the festival also entered attendees into contests to win prizes and VIP tickets. According to the festival, the “Live Click” program earned them them an additional 30,000 online fans.
Coachella also teamed up with the non-profit, Global Inheritance to develop the “Carpoolchella” program, encouraging and rewarding festival-goers (with possible VIP tickets for life!) who carpooled to the event.
So, while music festivals may obtain wild reputations, their use of savvy social media tactics, opportunities for businesses big and small, and eager non-profit collaborations make them true rockstars.
Posted by: Colleen Corkery
Colleen Corkery is the Lifecycle Marketing Coordinator at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @youcollme.
Echos from Dreamforce: How Social, Leadership & SMBs Will Drive our Economy
A few weeks ago, a little event took place in San Francisco that you may have heard of called Dreamforce, thrown by a little boutique CRM company by the name of Salesforce. Tongue in cheek aside, VerticalResponse team members were on deck for this year's annual SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) event. In addition to the usual schmooz... er, networking, I personally got the chance to attend informative and instructive keynotes, featuring some of the brightest minds in our industry. The keynote that left the most lasting impression, however, would be the conversation between Gen. Colin Powell, former Secretary of State (2000-2004); Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO of General Electric (GE); and keynote moderator, Salesforce's CEO, Marc Benioff. Regardless of your political views or the size of your business, there were great nuggets of information distilled by these three heavyweights. Here are some of the fascinating insights:
Social: The Best Thing to Happen to the Internet since... the Internet?
For Jeff Immelt, the biggest challenges he's currently facing at GE are fighting size and bureaucracy, but social media gives him direct access to customers and employees, allowing him to conquer barriers that previously existed. For instance, using Salesforce Chatter, Immelt can now chime in on sales issues whenever he sees fit. In addition, for the past two years he has maintained his own corporate blog, in which he speaks frankly to employees, bypassing GE’s general counsel review before posting. "Today organizations move too slowly," he said. "By using technology, I think you can move faster. You get more transparency. You get more access."
Colin Powell has also wholeheartedly embraced the use of social media, posting regularly on Facebook and interacting with his 68,000+ followers (at time of writing). Based on the skill sets younger generations bring into either the military or the State Department, Powell believes social networks have allowed us to speed up the way we work.
"We're moving so fast that we have to respond to every bit of data that comes in," which has to be acted on immediately. "You better keep up with them," he advised, "they're not going to keep up with you."
But even though we want to be literate in our use of new technologies, Powell cautioned that we need to be very protective of them as well. "There are dangers with this revolution, where we are so interconnected that perhaps we are too interconnected [...] You have to have channels in place to distribute the information in a safe and secure way, but make sure it is usable without overwhelming the whole system."
Leading Through Inspiration, Not Motivation
However, even as technology takes on an ever growing presence in companies, leaders need to ensure their employees remain the heart of the organization. As the General stated, "The best leaders understand that human beings are more important than the information system or the tools and robotic systems - they are the most important part of any organization." Powell went on to elaborate on his own leadership philosophy, stating, "I no longer use the word motivate,' I say 'inspire.' [...] The most important thing is to create organizations that are high-performing that believe in themselves." Self-motivated people can always be expected to perform at an extremely high level. On the flip side, leaders who don't provide such inspiration and who fail to foster self-motivation among their employees can pay a steep price: "They'll undercut you every day, and you'll turn your head and it will fall off," he quipped.
Immelt concurred, listing three core qualities he believes every leader should possess: "Openness - There is no going back in this information age, you have to be willing to share more and you better just deal with it. Authenticity - People don’t want to work for a phony. They want to be mission-based, they want to believe in what they are doing, believe in a leader. Unity - People want to be on teams, it's always been that way."
Small-to-Mid-Sized Businesses, the Key to Revitalizing Today's Economy?
The former Secretary was optimistic as well, believing that the cynicism reigning in political circles wasn't necessarily reflected in other parts of the country. Powell reaffirmed that we should be looking forward, not backward, and that education and encouraging entrepreneurship would be playing essential roles in the years to come: "The jobs that are gone are not necessarily going to come back. We have to create new jobs and go up in the ladder of sophistication. We better start educating our kids for the jobs that are really going to be here in the United States." He also looped back to how everything is connected, that companies need to realize we are now living in "an international economy," which makes the need to fully understand the international economic system all the more vital.
So there you have it - The opinions of some of the most powerful and influential men on the planet on how to handle today's ever-evolving technology landscape, and how to give a still recovering economy a much-needed shot in the arm. What does this mean to you as a small-business owner? Well, quite a few things:
Do you agree, disagree, or are you indifferent to any of the above statements and viewpoints? Share away in the comments!
Additional quotes courtesy of the Salesforce Blog.
Posted by My Truong
My Truong is the Marketing Programs Manager at VerticalResponse. Connect with him on Twitter @PtitMy.