South By Southwest is a series of festivals and conferences related to music, film, and web/technology. Overall, the website is well organized and informative. It manages to have a lot of information without being overwhelming. It seems to be quite an expensive website.
Images/Representation
Cool, hip graphics & logo.
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| The colorful design implies that it is fun, appealing to a younger, hip audience. |
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| The number & size of sponsors indicates that SXSW is a well-established conference with a lot of reach |
Calls to Action
They do a good job of having a lot of call-to-actions without being overwhelming or cluttered. On the front page they have options to see News, Updates, and many drop down menu options at the top.
Or you can register for the event, organize your stay, buy merch, listen to music, and find out about updates.
This call to action is effective because it encourages viewers to get involved with various aspects of the event. Rather than being purely informative, it's interactive.
They also have various guides to the festival and towards the bottom they have options to connect on various other social media sites, like facebook and twitter. This implies that their website is probably their main hub, as it is so well organized, and they aren't pushing viewers to connect to their other social media sites.
Audience/Demographic
Their audience seems to be an 18-35 demographic of both consumers and industry professionals. Some aspects that give away this demographic include:
The design of their t-shirts & the fact that they're manufactured by American Apparel, which targets a similar demographic.
The fact that they have their own online radio station playlist.
And also, many of the bands are younger, indie-rock or electronica artists.
What Sold & Where
As mentioned above they have merch (t-shirts) for sale with a link to the store clearly visible on the front page.
They also sell tickets in the registration section, which is at the top right of the front page.
Relative Value/Image
It appears to be quite a high-status event, especially since they have such big companies as sponsors. Also, the price of the registration indicates that it appeals to more of a middle class audience, since it's quite expensive for the average consumer:
Ability to Recommend or Forward Songs/content
They have a "ShareThis" option at the bottom of the registration page. This option is present on several other pages on the site as well. They also have a Youtube channel, which people can share.
Average Monthly Uniques to Website
They get around 70,000 unique views per month with a peak in March, which is the month in which the festival takes place.
Inbound Links
Some of the top inbound links on google include:
- awfj.org - Alliance of Women Female Journalists
- www.mezzoblue.com - Blog about Web Design
- nme.com - a news story about the band Muse possibly playing SXSW festival
- analog.coop - a collective of web designers
- www.internetgeekgirl.com - website for an internet marketer
- www.toursmart.tstouring.com - a website for musician advice
Social Media Spaces
The most interesting aspect about their Social marketing is that they have the "SWSocial." I couldn't access it because I'm not registered for the conference, but it seems to be a social networking aspect to the site. This is probably driving a lot of traffic to the site as well. Because it's a conference, people are eager to network and meet other individuals in similar fields.
106,379 Likes
Their page features a short history of the event. Lots of interaction from viewers with daily postings.
YOUTUBE
They have a Youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/sxsw) that features film trailers, music videos, various videos about SXSW as a whole. It appears that they upload videos frequently--sometimes almost everyday. They do this year round, which surely gets people returning to their channel, and possibly visiting their website for more information.
MYSPACE
www.myspace.com/sxsw
31048 Friends
Similar information as their main website, just not as nicely organized. It updates with a stream of blog entries that are posted to the main website.
84,926 Followers
They update frequently with news about the conference, or interactions with followers and sometimes they have contests.
They use createsend.com, an email marketing service. The spot to sign up for the mailing list is on the bottom left of the front page, so it's not very noticeable.
Commerce
Music: no music for sale
Concerts: Registration for the event is available on the website
Donations: none
Merch: For sale through www.theconnextion.com
items include t-shirts, posters, and vintage t-shirts (from past years)
Events on Calendaring Services
They have events like Battle of the Bands: Road to SXSW on upcoming.yahoo.com, taking place in various cities around the country
The actual conference itself is also listed
Eventful.com has a SXSW kick-off party listed in the LA area
Overall
The website is well organized and maintains a steady stream of traffic throughout the year. They do this through social media, videos, and articles. It's worth noting again that most of the traffic to the website is drawn through other internet marketers, as they are more interested in the "Interactive" portion of the website.
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