 Live from Las Vegas, Nevada, it's the Cube at IBM Interconnect 2015 brought to you by headline sponsor IBM. Ariana Grato here and I'm at IBM Interconnect in Las Vegas, Nevada and you're watching the Cube on the ground. I'm here with Tim Moran and he is one of the VIP influencers here at IBM Interconnect. So can you tell me a little bit about yourself Tim and what you're doing and how you became a VIP influencer? I guess I just stumbled into it really. I'm a software developer by trade and I did all that coding stuff for ten years before I realized I wanted to get out from behind the computer for a little while. So I'm now the director of digital sales for one of them for Tribute Media Group and it's just a completely different world. So I was invited to this basically through Twitter. I was really excited about the Watson Analytics Package that was released around October last year and I had tweeted a few articles and then IBM had taken some note and the conversations really went well because I liked how they were so progressive and I liked how they were a company that really values the voice of people that aren't, you know, they're paid customers and they're not paid sponsors or advertisers, that kind of a thing, so. Yeah, definitely. So you mentioned Tribute Media, is that correct? Can you tell me more about that, what you do with them? Sure. So Tribute Media is a company that owns 59-ish television stations and with those television stations comes a lot of digital opportunities. So across about 75% of the country we have markets that will basically take these news and information websites and, you know, give the local audiences information that affects them in their daily lives. So through those platforms they produce upwards of two to three hundred million page views on a monthly basis, produced by multiple tens of millions of unique visitors. So, you know, it's a voice and what we do with that voice is we work to help advertisers and help sponsors to, you know, talk about themselves and talk about how they can help our audiences without being intrusive to our audiences. So it needs to make sense from both angles because, you know, if the advertiser voice is too loud and too intrusive then that's going to really upset our just natural news viewers and we just don't want that to happen. So we really see social media integrating on television in general. What are some ways that you see this transition happening and where do you see social media interacting with television and entertainment world in general? It's such a big topic. Social media, it's giving the audiences a voice, you know. So anybody who might be, you know, watching Shark Tank, for example, we had the sharks here yesterday afternoon and, you know, they can comment and they can engage in social conversation along with either locally produced programming or network programming in a way that they weren't able to previously. So, you know, they can engage in this conversation and then, depending on how loud that conversation is, potentially affect the brand, really. Because if we're listening and we should be listening then we need to understand what they're liking and what they're not liking and pivot according to that. So that's an interesting topic. How do you see social media helping to create a brand and send a message out in general? I think everybody's actually a brand on social media. I mean, you're a brand, I'm a brand, and that's not, you know, something that's conceded. It's just fact. You know, we all have our own online persona. So social media, in terms of big brand, is helping to connect them directly to consumers or customers in ways that were previously not possible. And actually, I think it's good because in a modern, agile environment, consumer environment, whatever the case might be. These companies need to be listening because there are so many disruptions happening across every industry just about on a daily basis that if you're the entrenched player and you're not pivoting and adjusting and growing with what your core clientele wants, then there's somebody else probably waiting next to you that's going to do it. Yeah. What are some of the biggest distractions on social media? Dog and cat videos. Yeah, that's the worst. Yeah, I just wasted my time now. There's still a lot of spam in social media. You have to see through the noise. There are people that are self-promoting, just to be self-promotional, if you will. So I mean, there's constructive and there's good social noise. And then there's negative social noise that we're all aware of. But then again, too, that negative social noise can also figure into feedback for a product. Like for example, we were looking at the IBM Social Analytics package earlier today and what the IBM Social Analytics package does in nearly real time with maybe just about a 20-minute or so lag in data, depending on how quickly the data collection happens. These big brands, whether they be grocery store chains, which was the sample that we saw today, like for example grocery store chains, they could see what the public sentiment is across any number of social platforms, whether it be Twitter, Facebook, but then don't forget social platforms are also review websites, couponing websites, travel websites and things like that. So it aggregates all of that data. It uses some natural language processing to understand what the sentiment is that's being put forth by the public for those brands. And then it really helps you to drill down into the different areas. Like you can drill right down in the Twitter and see literally what people are saying and they color code red for not good and blue for, I'm sorry, green for good. And hopefully that can help you to adjust whatever people don't like. Sounds like a great product. It is. Yeah, it's cool. So we really see this hashtag revolution kind of creating a conversation, getting rid of a lot of the noise. And I see hashtags everywhere along with join the conversation. How do you think hashtags are benefiting or a beneficial thing for Twitter and Facebook? And can you talk a little bit about that subject? Sure. I think it's a great way to anchor this conversation. So hashtags, for example, they're tying this conference together. You're either going to tweet hashtag IBM interconnect or you're going to tweet a new way to work or any number of other hashtags. So then people that are here and they're looking for that social conversation, they can use that as the anchor through which they can listen to people that they don't know. They're not their friends, but they can see this in their social streams. But then it also helps, I think, people that aren't here. Maybe they couldn't make the trip to be able to listen in from wherever they are in the world. So I think hashtags are great. And I think that until there's a better way to come up with something that's a unique anchor and identifier for individual topics in a social setting, hashtags got to be it. Yeah, and also it's a great way to get the backend data on a topic and everything like that. Until my mom goes and wants to figure out what a hashtag is. And she's like, what's that little pound sign right there? And how do I do that? Yeah, it's a new thing. We're all getting on board as well. A new fangled thing. Yeah. So what are some trends, some other trends that you're seeing in social media in 2015? There's going to be more of it. The platforms are changing. Instagram is huge right now for interaction. Facebook is always extremely dominant. I mean, what's new in 2015 is just that there's so many new voices, whether it be the Snapchats of the world or the next thing that the kids these days are grabbing onto that we won't find out about until it's not cool anymore. There's always something new. And it's my opinion that as a business or a company or whatever the case might be, it's so easy to get lost in trying to be all things to all people that you really need to focus on doing a few things really well. Because if you dilute your attention to too many different areas, you're not going to do anything well. Awesome. Well, great advice. Any last minute tips for people that are getting that are new to social media and just trying to build their followers and build their brand? There's a lot of great social media people here this week. And I always try to listen to other people that are smarter than me, which is just about everybody. So I like to learn from people. And one of the main takeaways that I picked up on is be yourself and be authentic and use your own voice. Don't try to be something that you're not, because people can see through that really quickly. And whatever you find passionate in your daily life, put that on social media. Because chances are there are people that might think that your point of view is really cool and really interesting and might think that there's some benefit to it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. It was great talking to you, Tim. And I'm Ariana Grato, and you're watching theCUBE.