A special thanks to Jason Keath and his stellar team for pulling off yet another nationally-trending and universally-important event to attend. We had the privilege of attending Social Fresh EAST 2014, the conference devoted to all things social. In no particular order, here are some of our highlights:

Understand who social platforms are beholden to.

Jay Baer pointed out that most social platforms are public companies, meaning they are legally responsible for their success, not yours! They are incentivized to limit organic reach, to encourage publishers to pay for reach. And, publishers have proven over the past year that they are willing to pay. Furthermore, there’s plenty of competition amongst publishers.

The key, as Jay says, is to re-explore your social media strategy and focus on what works now – not what worked best a year or two back.

Never get too comfortable with social media.

As Carrie Kerpen opened up Day 1, she emphasized that there are two things inevitable with respect to social media:

1. Tools will change
2. Networks will continue to grow

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Not on site? No problem.

Lauren Teague of the PGA shared her insights on how brands can empower their remote teams to best collect and collaborate on content.

Give your content the best chance to be profitable for you.

Chris Moody of Oracle gave a fantastic presentation discussing how brands can compete for mindshare in a crowded marketplace.

Yahoo! is becoming more relevant on a daily basis.

Interviewed by the always-entertaining Sarah Evans (who made a sterling presentation the day before), Beverly Jackson of Yahoo! shared her insights on not only how her company is branding itself into a number of “digital magazines” such as Yahoo! Movies, Yahoo! Beauty, and more, but also on how she’s built up such a strong social team and social strategy.

Always focus on the ROI.

Katie Roberts of Walden University gave solid insights on how to drive conversions, as opposed to going after the wrong metrics.

Music is inherently social.

Josh Karpf of Spotify showed how his brand is always look for ways to connect with younger consumers, and how music is an inherently form of social expression. Don’t believe me? Check outthis powerful Spotify commercial Josh shared during his talk.

Kelly Maxwell

Kelly Maxwell of Logitech shared a great case study about how Logitech became the best known brand at CES by involving fans. So many brands talk about crowdsourcing content using fans – but Logitech truly embraced the practice.

Brohoofs

…you just had to be there for this one. But fret not – if you missed this Social Fresh, the good news is that Social Fresh WEST is just around the corner.

Missed this conference? Be sure to check out socialfresh.com whenever you have a free moment for great articles continuing the lessons learned at Social Fresh conferences – it’s well-worth a read.