content is king

This week is “Internet Week NY.” Monday through thursday there was a daily schedule of interviews, panel discussions and keynote speakers. (There are other events currently through the weekend and then Monday is the Webby Awards.) In addition it was all available via LiveStream, or you could attend with passes at the main headquarters, 82 Mercer Street in NYC. I spent most of the day there on Tuesday and watched some fantastic presentations, such as an interview with David Karr, columnist for the New York Times. On the LiveStream I watched Pete Cashmore, founder of Mashable and Shane Smith, founder and CEO of Vice. There are so many videos and interviews it’s going to keep me watching and learning for the next few weeks!

I had entered the “Make The Stage” panel discussion competition and out of 244 entries, 7 were selected and one was my panel discussion idea, “Brand Recognition vs Killer Content.” The five of us took the stage at 4pm on Thursday, May 17. It was such a great experience and the audience was engaged with this team of experts, Miriam Cohen, Ted Rubin, Kathryn Rose and Bryn Johnson.

Some of my questions to the panel were:
When is brand recognition not enough?
Which should come first; building the brand recognition or focusing on the killer content for reputation?
Does the brand draw great writers and content, or does killer content make a brand great?

We also talked about this and how it pertains to social media:
In building a strong community social network, do people join because of the other members, or because of what it will do for them? Having someone with a strong following and brand following you and sharing your content and does joining give your brand instant clout?
Social media including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest have made our lives very visual. We respond to imagery and video more than written content in most cases. How important is branding on social media platforms?

And we also talked blogging:
Search engines give us the ability to find links to our queries. For bloggers, does your brand matter more, or is it that killer title and content going to make someone remember where they read the answer?

It was such a fabulous experience and below are some photos from the event Brand Recognition vs Killer Content Panel discussion, on the stage.

 

 
Here is the video from our panel discussion. (You can also watch the presentation “Brand Recognition vs Killer Content“) at Internet Week NY.) Enjoy and please post feedback, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

So what do you think?

Is brand recognition most important? or is Content King?