Annual SXSW pilgrimage begins and why businesses should care

Editor’s note: Zack Hill, VP, Director of Digital, oversees digital marketing strategies and implementation for CJRW, including teams responsible for website design and development, social media strategy, and new media technologies.
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What event attracted more people in 2015 than Super Bowl 50, had more speakers than California has interstate miles, and hosted more sessions than Hyatt has hotels?

Those working in the digital world know that would be the South by Southwest Music, Film and Interactive Conference, or to apply its common acronym, SXSW. Tens of thousands of attendees from the world over will make the pilgrimage to Austin, Texas for the 2016 SXSW conference that kicks off on March 11. They will be joined by no less than the President of the United States.

SXSW has been described as a crossroads for all things creative. In our industry it is the breeding ground for new ideas and technologies. But why should SXSW matter beyond those of us who make our livings in the creative, digital and interactive arenas?

Simply put, SXSW has served as a coming out party of sorts for things that have fundamentally transformed the way individuals communicate with one another and how businesses operate and market themselves.

For instance, though launched nine months prior to the 2007 SXSW event, Twitter exploded onto the scene thanks to the conference. It was then and there that Twitter gained prominence and secured critical financial backing. Today, 300 million people use Twitter and it’s an important element in marketing strategies for business of all sizes, from Fortune 500’s to mom-and-pop start-ups.

In 2009, Foursquare was developed and launched at SXSW and today 50 million utilize this mobile search and discovery app, both directly through Swarm or by leaning on it’s location data used in other mobile apps.

Beyond specific applications that trace their origins to SXSW, a growing trend in communication strategies has been a common theme of the last several conferences. That is a focus on “storytelling” and how to tell the story of a brand online. It reflects a growing interest in how a brand impacts lives, as well as the effectiveness of engaging consumers with faces and experiences they can relate to. CJRW has applied a number of these strategies on behalf of our clients, including Riceland Foods’ “Meet the Farmers” series. These types of approaches positively and memorably position corporate brands by feeding consumers’ thirst for personal experiences and impacts.

While it is premature to say what transformational technologies will emerge from the 2016 SXSW Conference it can be reasonably assumed those that advance storytelling and virtual reality experiences will be among them.

CJRW’s digital team will be well represented in Austin again this year and providing daily round ups on the conference with Talk Business & Politics readers. We’ll not only be reporting on specific technologies, but providing insights on emerging trends and how they could impact the way we all live and work. Our daily round ups will begin on Friday, March 11.

(For the record, Super Bowl 50 attracted 71,100 fans, less than half of those expected at SXSW; the number of interstate miles in California is 2,455 compared to roughly 2,700 speakers at SXSW; and the approximately 1,250 SXSW sessions doubles the number of hotels in the Hyatt hotel chain.)