Festivals like SXSW have the power of group confirmation of new stars. Every year at SXSW Interactive, there seems to be at least one new technology or app that reaches rockstar status. This year it appears to be Meerkat, the personal live broadcasting app. I’m more interested in the power of the event to create that shared love for something new.
Even days before the festival, the digital cognoscenti were chatting about Meerkat, sharing their live video streams to draw people to their own activities, fun and serious alike. Barely three weeks old since its release, it has grown to an estimated 150,000 users and will likely continue to grow. According to Mashable, CNN’s Brian Stelter used it to show a behind-the-scenes of his show; Luxury realtors use it to show their properties; footage of the Ferguson demonstrations were shared by citizens; even brands have jumped on the wagon. Not bad for something that is inherently transitory in nature.
The rock star apps from SXSW over the recent years tend to share the same properties:
- They are free for end-users and individuals
- They allow networks to form
- They allow anyone to create content
- They have an element of broadcasting
- They are easily mobile
- They are social
- They emphasize being in-the-moment
It’s been true for Twitter, Foursquare, Vine, and now Meerkat. Fun uses come first; business uses later. The model is ideal for interacting and broadcasting, and hence the use cases tend to best fit into Marketing & Communications. These apps aren’t necessarily launched at the event but usually just recently before, so they are fresh and with some growth before the event. Per fellow Forbes.com contributor, Ewan Spence, you shouldn’t launch at SXSW itself, and instead should be thinking of what’s coming up.
What I’d rather bring out—and what many brand leaders would love to be able to accomplish—is the effect of the shared group energy and enthusiasm on a massive scale. It is fairly difficult to orchestrate and not in the power of any one organization, or even the SXSW festival organizers.
Eyal Winter in Feeling Smart: Why Our Emotions Are More Rational Than We Think, describes a similar phenomenon:
“In many religions, the devout congregate together for prayers in churches, mosques, synagogues, and so forth, not for the sake of the gathering itself but to create an environment in which the emotional power of prayer is magnified.”
In a fashion, SXSW is that same emotional experience. The upbeat atmosphere, mixed with excitement, creates the first element of this group power.
What the organizers have been able to do is create the right initial setting:
- Focus on topics that people are passionate about
- Draw the speakers that draw a following, inspire, and add to the energy
- Mix together an eclectic bunch that create the unexpected for people from different worlds (Brooks Brothers suits next to Furry costumes)
- Draw the tastemakers and allow them to shine both in public, and in exclusive events.
- Make it a city-wide phenomenon of many choices and venues
- Spread the word globally through many channels on the Net.
What happens from there is beyond the control of the organizers:
- Tastemakers work ahead of the event on the hot new thing, which spreads through influence.
- People debate or bring out other alternatives A few tend to agree over others that kicks off convergence.
- Attendees, badged and un-badged, local and remote alike, pick up the upbeat tempo from the crowd around them and virtually
- There is something new to discover, something unexpected or new.
- Strangers on the street suddenly start speaking the same new language of previously unfamiliar words.
- The feedback of the echo chamber attempts to converge.
While there are those who specifically promote it for their own ends, what really wins people over is the convergence. This is social proof in action. You directly witness others showing, sharing or discussing the hot new item, and whether you like it or not, the repetition penetrates your mind. The memorable events of the festivities combined with the repeatedly running across the same thing make it stick.
Per Prof. Winter:
Group identification can be a temporary phenomenon. People do move from one job to another, one city to another, and sometimes they immigrate to another country altogether. But collective emotions for previous collectives can often persist even after we are no longer part of the group with which we are identifying.
In other words, two elements from this collective, SXSW, persist beyond: the feeling, and the sticky ideas. In a way, this is a multi-stakeholder network (MSN) of its own. There are organizations involved, but no one group is in charge, with only a few being influential. The main activities are in the sorting and the convergence of choices, to find the hits. At the end, the actual network dissipates but it results disseminate to the rest of the world. Regardless of official product launches and announcements, it is this sort of launch that is the real product of SXSW Interactive.
It does not guarantee long-term success. Foursquare, another superstar rose to the top of location-sharing apps, and is on the way out. Some like Path in 2013, attempt relaunches with center stage attention at the event. There is even an ensuing drama as Twitter, an earlier SXSW star, cuts off Meerkat’s channels through Twitter. The candle that burns twice as bright, after all.
The main purpose of this MSN seems to be to the slingshot a new entry up the growth curve. How high they get and stay up really is up to community behind it. Continued success seems to depend on evolving the use cases of the app. From open broadcast conversations (Twitter), to sharing posts, promoting events, and understanding customers. From sharing locations (Foursquare) to promoting restaurants, stores and brands. From capturing videos (Vine, Meerkat) to marketing promotions and exclusive events.
SXSW is a startup accelerator unlike others. While there are entrepreneur events and even official accelerator events, it is this uncoordinated MSN action that is the real star-maker, albeit in communications technologies in particular. Other such accelerator events also exist in film (e.g., Cannes Film Festival), leadership (e.g., World Economic Forum), or innovation (e.g. TED). However, SXSW is still the king for marketing technology.
Rawn Shah is Director of Rising Edge, an independent consultancy focused on work culture, collaboration and management evolution. He has survived and enjoyed a number of SXSW festivals as attendee, as presenter, as mentor, and even as a vendor. You can reach him on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, although not quite yet on Meerkat.
