Picturesque view of Lake Minnetonka from the TopRank Online Marketing office

Today marks my 4 month anniversary at TopRank Online Marketing and almost 5 years in the online marketing industry.  It has been a goal of mine to learn as much as I possibly can from those who know the industry best.  In this seemingly short amount of time I have received, and continue to receive a top notch education at an unbeatable price.

I would like to share some of my experience to give other marketers interested in breaking into Internet marketing or continuing their online marketing education an idea of what it looks like from one person’s perspective.

The Interview Process

Do Your Homework
Walking into an interview with no base knowledge of who the company is, what they stand for, and how they operate is a huge mistake.  Especially if you are an Internet marketer.  I would recommend reviewing the following information pre-interview:

• Company Website: This should give you a sense of the services they offer and who some of their clients are.
• Management: If you can find information about the management team be sure to do some additional research on them as well to get a sense of their background and accomplishments.
• Content & Social Profiles: At the bare minimum I would recommend looking at the company blog (if they have one), Twitter profile, Facebook page, and Google+ page.
• News & Press Releases: Do a Google search to see if the company has released any exciting news over the past few months.

If you are working with a recruiter be sure to ask as many questions about the companies services, their culture, and preferences as possible.  The recruiter will typically have spoken with contacts at the company and with other interviewees post interview.  This is a great opportunity to gain some inside knowledge before you step in the door.  These are all great ways to educated yourself before walking in the door and will allow you to have an intelligent conversation about the company during your interview.

Demonstrate Value
Depending on what position you are applying for take some time to identify what you believe to be areas of need or improvement for the company.  You should walk in knowing you may not be 100% correct but it will be appreciated that you made the effort.  If applying for a social media position I would take some time to analyze what they are doing currently, what the results appear to be, as well as some recommendations for increased customer engagement.

Spending some additional time to identify what you believe to be their competitors will also be a great source for gather information.  Perhaps you notice a competitors blog or social profile that has a lot of readers or followers.  Try to identify what they are doing and how the company you are interviewing with could do that better.

Asking questions is also a great way to demonstrate value.  If you can think quickly on your feet then this will allow you demonstrate immediate value.  Some questions you might consider asking are:

• What do you believe is your biggest area of need?
• What would you like/need to focus on but don’t have enough time to do?
• What personality traits are you looking for in a candidate?
• What does the typical day look like for this position?
• Are there any other areas of your business that you would like to grow?

Consider Each Interview a Learning Experience
Whether it is your dream job or not I believe that you should walk into each interview hoping to learn as much as you possibly can.  In addition to being a great networking opportunity it can give you a sense of what companies in the industry are looking for in a candidate, industry buzz words, and a chance to learn more from someone else in the industry.

Even If You Didn’t Get the Job, Ask For Feedback
As disappointing as it may be you will not get every job you interview for.  If you receive word that they have decided not to hire you don’t be afraid to ask why.  I recommend sending out a brief and polite email asking for feedback.  Thank the interviewer for the opportunity and ask if they have any recommendations on skills that would make you more attractive to a company like theirs because you are interested in constantly evolving your skill set.

Working for an Internet Marketing Company

There Will Always Be Other People Who Know More Than You
No matter how long you have been in the industry there will be other online marketers who know things that you don’t.  Instead of foolishly refusing to learn from these other influentials I would recommend keeping tabs on what they’re teaching and apply information that you find useful to your own strategy.  There may be tactics that you do not agree with but if anything it will give you a sense of what other respected members of the community are recommending to your potential clients.

Welcome Constructive Criticism
I for one thrive on feedback.  If I don’t know what I am doing wrong or how to fix it how will I get better?  I have a tendency to take some feedback personally because I put so much of myself into my work.  However, I’ve learned that you can’t consider it a personal attack but instead an opportunity to learn more.  Take the feedback that you’ve been given, add it into your process, and work to avoid the same mistakes next time.  Say perhaps that you don’t agree with the feedback provided?  I’ve learned that there is nothing wrong with having an opinion as long as you have data to back it up.  So, until you have that information do not present an argument.  An educated opinion is worth so much more than an emotional response.

The Best Internet Marketers are Passionate About What They Do
In a field like Internet Marketing I think it is essential that you care about your work.  Care not in the sense that you like the paycheck, but that you actually have a interest in what you are doing.  Companies and clients can tell if you are not invested in marketing their product and getting results.  Social media engagement is a full time job.  You must be willing to connect even when it may not be convenient to answer the questions and address concerns of your customers and potential customers.

Adaptability & Process Are Extremely Valuable
In an industry that changes from one day to the next those that are not adaptable will be left behind.  Once you find tactics that work be sure to document them and make them part of your process.  This process will clearly evolve over time but it will help maintain order for yourself and the rest of your team.  If each team member is taking a wildly different approach to online marketing you will not be able to truly measure the success of your efforts or provide a best practice approach.

What Next?
I don’t consider what I do a job.  It is a journey and an education that I am extremely thankful for.  Through my experience I have learned what should be done, as well as what not to do.  I know that I have shared some of my personal experience but I am curious to know what helpful tips other readers in the industry might have.  If you could tell everyone one thing that you’ve learned while working in this industry, what would it be?

Are you interested in working for a company like TopRank Online Marketing?  If you would like the opportunity to work with us we would love to hear from you.  We are currently looking for Account Managers, as well as Search and Social Strategists to join our team.  Our Careers page on our website provides some more detailed information on our current openings.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Getting Your Internet Marketing Dream Job: How to Interview & Succeed at a Top Agency | http://www.toprankblog.com

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | A-to-Z Internet Marketing News: Google Redesign, Cyber Monday, Speed Linking, Self Serve Twitter Ads, Damn Humans | http://www.toprankblog.com

Is your internet marketing strategy putting customers to sleep?

Compared to B2B companies, businesses that serve consumer audiences are typically focused on a much shorter sales cycle due to the cost and nature of the purchase.  They are searching for a one stop sale.  B2C companies typically target a single decision maker or customer segment instead of multiple decision makers and influencers.  As a result, the approach and internet marketing tactics mix needs to be more relevant to the consumer vs. the business buying experience.

The Holiday season gives B2C marketers plenty of reasons to improve their focus on best practices in internet marketing. Competition is tough for online buyers, so what should B2C marketers keep in mind with their Internet marketing strategy? Here are 5 essential tips for B2C marketers to get more sales online:

Understand Your Audience

Social media serves as a great focus group because you can see in real time how they interact and share.  By engaging with your target market via social media you will continue to learn things about them that you may have not been privy to before.  This will continue to allow you to target consumers in a personalized way to increase brand awareness and encourage engagement.

Own Your Brand

When a Minnesota based international restaurant chain had an interest in creating a Facebook and social media presence they discovered that there were already hundreds of pages created by fans on behalf of their brand.  The organization was able to analyze what their fans were already doing and strategically establish their corporate Facebook presence alongside the fan pages.  The page currently has 3.7 million fans and quickly became a major hub for the brand.  They continue to have a very high user interaction rate and have created customized landing pages to drawn additional fans into their page.

Capitalize on User Generated Content

According to SEO specialist Michael Dehaven 80-90% of total content on many major e-commerce sites is user generated.  This statistic alone should encourage B2C marketers to research what consumers are currently saying about their brand as well as their competitors.  This research will lay the foundation for strong keyword and social media strategies.  Often times as marketers we can get caught up in creating a catchy or attractive way to describe our offering instead of finding out how our consumers would describe the product or services.

React Appropriately To Negative Feedback

ChapStick has been in the media over the past few months due to their strange advertisements that generated a lot of negative feedback.  More important and detrimental to the brand was the way that ChapStick poorly handled the feedback.   Instead of listening and responding to feedback from consumers ChapStick decided to simply delete negative comments and refused to respond to the feedback. This only added fuel to the fire.  On top of this ChapStick began defending their choice for the advertising campaign instead of listening to what consumers were saying.  While I believe ChapStick did eventually release an apology it was too little too late.  If you would like to read more about the campaign and ChapStick’s response be sure to check out this article released by AdWeek.

How do you think ChapStick could have handled this situation better?  Perhaps some real time research and crowdsourcing could have helped create a more consumer friendly campaign in the first place.  If ChapStick had run a promotion or campaign for consumers to help put together the campaign they would have not only had a better product but consumers would have been more excited to share the information with their networks therefore increasing ChapSticks visibility even more.  However, a realistic solution would have been very simple.  Listening and responding to negative press will help manage the relationship with the consumers that are unhappy as well as anyone else they share information with.

Build Brand Loyalty

If you have effectively researched and interacted with your audience then you will have a better understanding of what sort of information they like to consume and share.  Providing top notch customer service  via social media and other web properties can also be a great means of building brand awareness and encouraging loyalty.  Some other tactics might include creating number of promotions or discounts to encourage repeat businesses, or providing your consumers with “insider information” that has not been made available to the general public.

Effective online marketing often requires massive amounts of research, creation, measurement, and adaptability.  However, the benefits can far outweigh the costs.   If you are a B2C marketer I am curious to know what mishaps you have faced and how you have (or haven’t) overcome them?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | 5 Tips For More Effective B2C Internet Marketing | http://www.toprankblog.com

What Was the Response?
The chocolate was called everything from waxy, to too sweet, messy, and melt in your mouth goodness. In contrast the packaging created by the Ghirardelli marketers was quite different, “take time to slow down and feel yourself melt with each bite.” As you can see the professional marketers took a much different approach than the consumers.

The Marketer vs. the Consumer
According to DeHaven 80-90% of total content on many major ecommerce sites is written by end users who come to the site and give their opinions or post reviews. He then proceeded to provide a few examples of what companies believed the best keywords for their product or services were and the actual keywords consumers used to describe the business. In both of the examples listed below the keyword lists were not at all aligned.

Restaurants
Marketing Keywords: romance, fine dining, gourmet food
User Generated Keywords: great drinks, partying, view

Cosmetics
Marketing Keywords: cleanser, gentle, healthy looking
User Generated Keywords: soap, younger, looking great

7 Principles of User Generated SEO

#1: Don’t Forget SEO Fundamentals
While user generated content can be extremely powerful it is important not to forget the basics such as link building, optimization, and proper tagging.

#2: Search Engines Get Bored
When Google bots are crawling your website they are looking for fresh and relevant content. If the bots return week after week and the content has not changed they become “bored” and will be less likely to return. In order to remain competitive in the online marketplace frequent updates are a must.

#3: The Primanti Principle
A Primanti sandwich is unique because of the French fries inside the sandwich. If you add too many fries to the Primanti it can become overwhelming for the user. Similarly as a marketer you want to make sure that you aren’t overwhelming Google with too many “French fries” but a reasonable combination of foundational information and user generated content.

#4: Beware of Dilution
Typical product descriptions are optimized and written by professional marketers, user reviews are not. While user generated content is important it has it’s place. Beware of what too much user generated content can do for your SEO.

#5: Unlock the Long-Tail Vault
Marketers are constantly working to determine what keywords users are typing and which ones will drive the highest ROI. An additional challenge is determining which content should be housed on the top-level domain and which ones are better suited for microsites.

#6: Ask For Content at Relevant Times
Spending time to determine when your audience will be most willing to write a review and determining their level of qualification for submitting a review is key. If you’re promoting a concert emailing attendees the morning before the concert and asking them to share their photos on the site is a great way to entice user generated content.

#7: Convert Reviewers into Advocates
It is important that marketers set next steps for reviewers. An example provided was that of a user that wrote a laptop review and then spent the next hour (in the middle of the work day) answering over 130 laptop questions asked by other users. If that user had a great experience using the laptop think of the number of people they are reaching and advocating to on behalf of the company selling the laptop.

I really enjoyed that DeHaven’s presentation covered the ways that content can be generated by users but also what we must do as marketers to facilitate, moderate, and encourage user generated content.

I’m curious to know how much of your content you believe is generated by users? If the number is low, do you have a plan for increasing interaction? If the number is high, what have you done well that encourages users to generate content on your behalf?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | 7 Principles for User Generated Content: Michael DeHaven SES Chicago 2011 | http://www.toprankblog.com

Earlier this year the amazing Melanie Mitchell, SVP of Search at Digitas, was serving as a conference Marketing Master for the Search Engine Marketing track and she asked me to speak at my first ad:tech in San Francisco.  When I was asked to perform those same SEM track programming duties for the ad:tech New York show, I had to say yes!

ad:tech New York features some very impressive keynote presentations including: Christian Oestlien, Head of Social Advertising Products at Google; David Fischer,VP Advertising & Global Operations at Facebook; Wendy Clark, Sr. VP of Integrated MarketingCommunications & Capabilities at The Coca-Cola Company and many others.  Our roundup of pay per click and search engine optimization expertise is also impressive. You can check out two of the planned sessions below that I’ll be introducing and moderating:

Search Marketing: Integrating Search with the Rest of Your Marketing
Thursday, Nov 10 at 10:15 AM

Lauren Vaccarello – Director of Search, Display and Social Advertising, Salesforce.com
Title: Better Event Marketing With Integrated Search & Social Media
Presentation: Online marketing can be used for more than driving online demand. See how you can use search and social media marketing in every phase of offline event marketing from pre event registration to post event follow up.

Sara Devine – Manager Digital Media Integration, VW Marketing, Volkswagen of America, Inc
Title: Utilizing Search in Integrated Product Launch Campaigns
Presentation: As the announcement to launch journey unfolds, search is instrumental in capturing hand raisers and prospects leading up to the actual product launch where search maximizes the reach of what is often a large advertiser presence.  At this point, search is not only utilized as the “catcher’s mitt” for the other advertising efforts, but also becomes a barometer of those efforts – measuring in real time consumer awareness and interest in the product.

Matt Lawson - VP Marketing, Marin Software
Title: Taking Paid Search to the Next Level, Tips for Advanced Marketers
Presentation: As paid search advertising becomes increasingly competitive and complex, search marketers are constantly looking for the next trick to squeeze additional volume and ROI out of their campaigns.  In this informative session, Marin Software will reveal new professional tips to help sophisticated marketers improve the financial performance of their paid search programs.

After our first session that focuses on paid search, we’ll transition to a session that’s more focused on Search Engine Optimization:

Search Marketing: Cases and Best Practices for Maximizing SEO 
Thursday, NOV 10 at 11:30 AM

Corey Carrillo - Global Media Worldwide Search & Online Programs, Intel Corporation
Title: One is the Loneliest Number: SEM, SEO, Social Integration and Insights
Presentation: The role of Search Engine Marketing at Intel with specific examples, consumer and business about applied best practices/insights and programs for SEM campaigns/data to help bolster results in SEO, Social and PPC Social.

Jonathon Colman – Internet Marketing Program Manager, REI
Title: A Case Study on How to Increase Search Engine Crawling and Online Conversion
Presentation:  A discussion of the “silver bullet” when it comes to SEO and user experience (UX): Site speed and performance. A faster site reduces the costs of both infrastructure and releases by 50% or more.  Efficient sites simply cost less to run and provide for a better user experience. This presentation provides 4 site speed optimization steps and a case study on how REI saw a significant increase in site speed and overall conversions after optimization was implemented.

Michael DeHaven - Bazaarvoice
Title:  Social SEO: Strategic Optimization of User Reviews
Presentation: For many top online retailers, user-generated review content comprises 80 to 90% their site’s total rich content.  Michael DeHaven of Bazaarvoice will outline a proven strategy to organize and leverage review content to drive substantial increases in traffic from search.  This talk will open your eyes to a valuable, new segment of search traffic that often goes unnoticed when developing a search optimization strategy.

As you can see, this is going to be a fantastic set of sessions and a great group of speakers.  I’ll also be moderating an Exhibit Hall session of several speakers from Local.com, ideaLaunch, Brafton and  a few other companies serving the search marketing industry. If you’re attending ad:tech New York, I hope you’ll stop by Room 13, Hall 1E, Level 1 at the Javits Center.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | ad:tech New York Search Marketing Masters | http://www.toprankblog.com

Esteemed panelists included several familiar faces and brands including MIMA Board members: Brent Shiely (@brentshiely), Technology Director at General Mills; Ryan Arnholt (@arbenangstrom), Director of Interactive Marketing at OptumHealth; Jill Gutterman (@gigutterman), Director of Interactive Marketing at Rasmussen College; Tim Brunelle (@tbrunelle), CEO of Hello Viking. Bryan C. Del Monte of the Del Monte Agency (a sponsor) was also on the panel.

An informal poll of the audience revealed that just about everyone in the audience of 250 or so was on Facebook and LinkedIn had even better participation. There were far fewer people on Twitter and only a handful had “checked in” on Foursquare.

Tim Brunelle opened things up saying MIMA got tired of programming Social Media in their events 2 years ago (ouch to the audience Tim!) as a measure of how long it can take for new trends to emerge within the general population. The MIMA Summit is coming up soon and Tim highlighted two impressive keynote speakers, Avinash Kaushik of Google and Chris Anderson of Wired. Those are indeed, two very impressive speakers right here in our back yard.

What’s a good definition of social media?

Tim: On the MIMA.org site, the jobs page is the most popular area of the site. “Social Media” has begun to appear frequently in many job titles for Fortune 500 companies. That’s a reflection of companies viewing social media more seriously.

Why should I care about social media?

Jill: Social media is everywhere, prevalent in our user groups. You think a welder can’t do it? Welders are on Facebook. It’s about engagement and conversations and that’s what social media is about.

Bryan: Why do you do any kind of marketing? Much of the technology called social media helps lower costs of doing things you’re already doing. Why wouldn’t you do it?

How does a large company justify expenditures in social media?

Brent: Here’s how General Mills has brought value through social. Salesfoce.com bought Radian 6. Radian 6 measures sentiment. Radian 6 measures Tweets and comments. BTW a free tool is socialmention.com We’re in the food business. Sometimes there are events outside of our control. Example: Food borne illness. A situation might be confined to a competitor or extended to an entire category. While some of the food borne illnesses are confined to a competitor, social media helps General Mills understand whether the marketplace sees it that way or not.

Ryan: Within a large organization you can see in marketing and research that it’s a fantastic opportunity. On the listening side it gives companies an opportunity to understand what a market place is talking about. On the engagement side, it provides opportunities to directly connect with customers on their terms.
In the last 5 years it’s gone from a way for people to share to a way for an entire company to share.

When a client comes to you with interns running a Facebook Page and Twitter, where do you start? What are the building blocks?

Bryan: I ask about previous successes. What is their affinity for communications and customers. Companies are usually not interested in change. I look for ways to associate what a company is already doing with social media opportunities. Social media is not broadcast. Look at Starbucks. They make one or two posts a day and get thousands of comments from fans talking to the brand. Another example: Carnival Cruises, the “fun cruise”. Their content is about “fun”. Carnival has polled their Facebook fans and acted by changing what they offer as a result. Social media building blocks: great content, engage and action based on customers feedback.

What are the building blocks of listening for social media?

Jill: For monitoring, what are you going to monitor? Our focus is on standard operation procedures for monitoring. We deal with students and we have a process for dispositioning how to engage what we find when monitoring. It’s important to establish guidelines and a strategy. How are you going to monitor and what are you going to do about what you find? Pay attention to the experience that you’re after when your brand engages with customers and prospects. Define a process and your approach and then identify the technology.

How would you define the basics of the telling side vs. the listening side?

Ryan: There are different ways to respond according to a situation. Some things like what consultants and analysts say might be logged as insight. What your audience is looking for is another situation.

What are the core technology tools for social media?

Brent: Keep it simple. If you don’t have a website, use Google to find low cost templates. If you do have a website add Google Analytics. To find keywords, use Google Analytics. Twitter is free. Take those keywords from Google Analytics and leverage that for Twitter content. Facebook is the same story – although Facebook is more about friends. Use Google Analytics information to inform editorial on Facebook as well. When you put up a website, Google may or may not find it. Use Google Webmaster tools to help make that happen.

(Note to readers: To find new keywords people are actually searching for on Google that are relevant to your website, use the free Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion tool.)

Aside from actions and policies, how should businesses address human resources for social media?

Jill: I’m lucky because my VP and Chairman “get” social media. We have a dedicated Social Media Manager, but with 22 campuses, we’re all partially involved with social. I also have a full time blogger and a SEO Specialist. That team is the hub of a hub and spoke model that functions as a center of expertise and excellence for the organization and our community.

How do you coach and advise the balance of an organization on social media as a vendor?

Bryan: I believe that everyone needs to live the brand. You might have a social media department and an agency, but you should also be living your brand. As a vendor, I can “help you”, I can’t “be you”. There are ways to make the process more efficient. There should be controls in place but the brand needs to be engaged.

How does General Mills think about staffing? There are so many communities and how do you staff?

Brent: Every brand is it’s own business. Every brand manager has the autonomy to grow their brand as they see fit. Brand Managers work with their agencies and there’s also internal social media expertise.

How do you establish success metrics, budgets and success metrics for social media versus other forms of marketing?

Ryan: You can’t always tie social activity to increased revenue, but you can associate it with increased productivity, increased performance and also lower costs. Social media can affect brand opportunities that can lead to revenue opportunities.

Jill: Activity and results. We stated 2 years ago and started measuring. Establish benchmarks, then look at that data to see what’s interesting. Don’t try to measure everything, but focus on activity and results. Spends some time understanding what you’re going to do with that data and focus on what’s happening and outcomes.

Social operates 24/7, should businesses staff accordingly?

Ryan: No. Whatever happens overnight we can deal with in the morning. There are situations that call for off hours engagement, just don’t set that expectation.

Jill: It depends on your business. If you run a global organization, you need to staff accordingly.

Bryan: It depends. If you’re regional, probably no. If you’re a global brand yes.

Brent: Our business is global and there’s someone on our staff on 24/7.

Should every firm articulate a social media policy outside work?

Brent: It’s part of the on boarding process, one of the documents reviewed with new employees. Let employees know that if they have a bad day, tell their supervisor. Help them understand that posting publicly can have an impact on the brand.

Jill: Rasmussen has a code of conduct for employees and students. Imagine what your posting is being said on national TV.

Ryan: Social media policy is covered in our employee guidelines. We’re looking at policies that will help us provide employees with guidelines on how they can be proactive socially.

Is the future of marketing actually customer service through social media?

Bryan: Who has heard of Twelpforce? (few audience members raise their hands) There was a thing called Twelpforce from Best Buy and it didn’t work out so well.

(Twelpforce not successful? Not sure about that. Check out Fast Company’s coverage of Twelpforce: Marketing that Isn’t Marketing: “Twelpforce has responded to near 28,000 customer inquiries via Twitter, enlisted 2600 employees to share their knowledge, and paid for itself many times over via extensive PR coverage, enhanced brand perceptions, and potential savings to the call center.”)

My question for the panel:

Where are you getting the rationale and budget for dedicated social media resources?

Ryan: From an interest in better engaging with customers, listening to our market and for marketing. We’re also looking at how social helps our SEO and search visibility as a reason to further invest in social media resources.

Jill: Our competition has made mistakes, led leadership to support the argument to apply resources to not make those mistakes. Also the drive to scale, SEO impact and culture of the organization.

A comment from the audience pretty much sums up Google Plus for people outside of the early adopters:

“I keep getting invites from this new Google thing and I don’t have time to figure it out.”

The Q&A was pretty good covering everything from mobile to blogging. Overall I thought this was an excellent way for people to get insights into a broad range of topics about social media from practitioners and agencies. Tim Brunelle did a great job of keeping things moving and relevant and the speakers were pretty good about giving practical advice without pontificating.

The entire session was recorded and will be available soon at: http://www.wcco.com/breakfast

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Social Media 101 For Business – WCCO & MIMA | http://www.toprankblog.com

Susan is a real pioneer when it comes to Online Marketing and media. She’s the CEO at Personal Life Media and hosted the famous DishyMix podcast since 2005 interviewing numerous digital marketing industry leaders. Besides serving on the board of several technology companies, Susan is the founder of two industry associations, the IAB and the ADM. At SES San Francisco, Susan will be talking about Conversion Triggers and Persuasion Strategies for Digital Marketers.

The power of persuasion and the role it takes within online content marketing is really a key aspect of online marketing and something that has had a lot more play in the advertising world than SEO or PPC. In this excerpt of our recent interview, Susan gives a preview of her SES keynote and talks about how she’s learned from experience the value and best practices of “getting into the psyche of your customer” to improve online marketing results.

Lee: Coming up very quickly is SES San Francisco. It’s probably one of the largest Search Marketing conferences in the world. You’ll be doing the opening keynote Tuesday, Aug 16th at 9am. The topic, Conversion Triggers: Persuasion Strategies for Digital Marketers is a really engaging, intersting and compelling topic to me because a lot of what we talk about on our blog and in our consultancy is about empathizing with customers and understanding what their pain points are, what is it that they need and what will inspire them to do what you want them to do.

I’d like to talk about the role of Persuasion Marketing. What is it? What might it mean to an audience of a couple of thousand people who are accustomed to a world of keywords, SEO and link building.

Susan: I can’t think of a better audience to present the concept of Persuasion Marketing to than a group of SESers because everybody in that audience lives and dies by choosing the right keyword phrases and reaching an audience that way. They already have a solid foundation of understanding of how important it is to “get the words right”. So, I feel really lucky to be able to do a keynote for them.

I’ll tell you what I’m really doing: Lee, you know you’re like me. Before we got on the interview today, you said “I’m a constant, a lifelong learner” and I’m with you., We’re both like that and so many of the people who follow us are. They want to know what we’re doing, because they’re lifelong learners too. Since I started the Personal Life Media business and started creating information products, all of my products are sold direct to consumers online.

In my keynote I’m actually going to be presenting a case study. I’m going to tell you what Persuasion Marketing is and then I’m going to show you how I used it. I’m literally today, right in the middle of a 4 day product launch for a brand new product. You’re going to laugh when you hear the name of it: It’s called “Revive Her Drive”. Pretty much every man who’s been in a relationship for more than a couple years is interested in taking the intimate life of his woman to the next level. And a lot of times it goes down instead of getting better. You’d think the more we do stuff the better we get, but a lot of times, life gets in the way.

So, I’ve written over 30 websites in the last 2 1/2 years of my business, selling these online information products. And they weren’t converting. I didn’t know what I was doing. But I really studied the information product marketers. Those guys know how to get someone to land on their page and make a purchase, better than anyone else that I’m aware of. Rememer how we used to say the Adult world were the leaders of information technology and if anyone could figure it out, they could? I don’t think that’s true anymore. It think it’s the information product marketers.

So, I’ve been studying how they do landing page conversion and with Google constantly changing what they want, tier one traffic sources are difficult to get, you can’t do squeeze pages and long form sales letters anymore, it’s a constantly changing landscape. These guys know how to speak to their customers. No matter what the landing page looks like, or no matter what Google’s making you do today to buy traffic from them, they know how to speak to their customer in a way that’s riveting. That connects, that grabs them by the guts and says, “I need this thing.” And that’s what I wanted to learn. That’s what I wasn’t getting right.

For the last 2 1/2 years I’ve been going to school. I’ve found my mentors and I’ve said, “Please gurus, tell me what I need to know. What should I be reading? What should I be learning?” And over the last 2 1/2 years I’ve read a ton of material, I’ve taken a ton of online training. What I did for SES, I pulled it all together and now that I look back and see all that I’ve learned, here are the 10-12 big things that I’d recommend you put your attention on, in order.

What I realized in looking back at all the things that I learned is that Persuasion Marketing is really 4 key elements. I’ve been a tech marketing chick for 30 years now, and I never knew this, I never figured this out until now. And that is, if you understand these 4 basic areas, I think this can have more impact on your conversion rate than anything else you can do. Because everything else is a short term tactic. Whether you’re learning to make Facebook pages convert, or learning the latest in search marketing strategies or whatever it is. Those are tactics that come and go. I’ve learned that from programming so many sessions at so many conferences for so many years. This year it’s search, next year it’s email, next year it’s video. It’s always something new. It’s an arms race for marketers in the technology arena.

But the fundamentals of understanding how to viscerally, emotionally connect with your customers so that they think to themselves, “This brand gets me.” That is a fundamental skill. I looked back at everything I did and it seemed that there are four key areas of knowledge that you need to know, that all fit together, that are “synergistic”, yes I’m using that word again. I’ve decided it’s a good word. I’m not back on “paradigm” yet, but I’m starting to use synergistic.

The four realms of Persuasion Marketing:

The first is Neuro-Marketing – The psychological triggers of influence, persuasion and action that we can get people to take, in a good way, to serve them, help them and not waste their time. We want them to find us and if they’re our person, we want them to know they’re our person and we want to create a relationship with them and support them with whatever it is that we do.

The second piece is Copywriting – This is where search marketers have a massive competitive advantage over any other kinds of marketers because they understand how important words are. They understand semantics, the value of all of that.

The third is Storytelling – This is where you go from, “These are features and benefits” to “Here’s a person who used my product or service and how it changed their life.” We tell a good story in dialog because you know, we all love a good story. When someone tells you, “Let me tell you a story”, your ears perk up.

Last is the notion of Structured Communication – You can think of this as a sales funnel, but it goes a lot beyond that to a series of emotions a customer goes through before they make a commitment to you. What do you need to tell them, in general order, before they’re going to be a “yes” to what you have to offer.

These four areas work together beautifully and each has their own disciplines and logic. When a customer experiences it, it’s compelling.

Lee: And it’s compelling what you just said in terms of what you just said. In terms of the model to go by, my interest is really piqued here. When you talk about storytelling, that’s something that’s been a meme, increasingly and reminds me of something I learned a long time ago: Facts Tell, Stories Sell. I really appreciate you talking about that.

And also the notion of having empathy and understanding of customers and the emotions they need to go through before they can make a commitment. That’s powerful stuff.

Susan: You have to feel your person.

Lee: In the world of SEO or search marketing at large, the ways in which those online marketers are trying to understand consumers, besides collecting data from web analytics or other data sources as part of the buying cycle, is the notion of keyword research. What words are in the mind of the searcher. What does your customer care about? Then that manifests as an action, such as a search. It’s an interesting thing to think of how powerful it would be for a search marketer to tap into the neural marketing aspect of what your talking about, copywriting and storytelling while still being keyword relevant, I think is very compelling.

Susan: What Garth (One of Susan’s Guru’s) taught me was, is that you should enter into the conversation that your prospect is having in their own mind. So when you’re writing to them, the words you should be using, would be the same words they have in their head. Using keywords is a really great start, but there are a lot of other strategies, that I’ll outline at SES. I’m going to show how I used those strategies to create Revive Her Drive.

Lee: SES San Francisco is coming up pretty quickly, August 15th-19th and actually, SES is part of Connected Marketing Week, a Mecca of learning for online marketers. I’m really looking forward to your keynote in the morning on the 16th. Any party advice or tips that you’d like to share?

Susan: The way to think about neuro marketing is to think about a human body and brain being an operating system and that it responds in certain ways to certain influences and triggers. Robert Cialdini teaches you standard sequences of human behavior. He teaches principles, like the principle of contrast: “Normally this sells for $17.95, but today and today only we’re offering it for only $7.95 and here’s why.” So it sounds like an expensive thing for cheap. Or the rule of reciprocity, or the rule of obligation, or the power of consistency which goes to trustworthiness. These are principles that you can learn that are ways humans typically behave when given these conditions. Those principles are really important to understand.

Also, Joel Sugarman’s psychological triggers like, humans’ desire to belong or to collect things. Also, objection raising or objection handling. You can’t start by overcoming people’s objections when you first connect with them, that comes later in the structured communication. You start to understand what we respond to as humans, but where it goes in the funnel of their emotional evolvement. As the relationship is evolving, you’re going to need to deal with as a marketer, these different components. Those are a few things that are important to learn. It makes sense that you start at the core understanding with neuro pshychology, then think about the pictures and the words, then tell stories instead of just bullets, and put it in a proper order. I hope that clarifies, that there’s a way to learn this and way to lay it into your work.

Lee: Yes it does. Thank you Susan!

Be sure to check out Susan Bratton’s keynote at SES San Francisco on Tuesday, August 16th ant 9am. You can also visit her deep library of podcasts on DishyMix.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | SES San Francisco Keynote Interview: Susan Bratton on Persuasion Marketing | http://www.toprankblog.com

QR Code on Moscone Center San Francisco during SES 2010

QR codes are getting quite a bit of buzz lately and as a self-professed marketing nerd, I find them to be a clever way to connect mobile consumers with online digital content. There have been some pretty creative implementations of QR codes for promotions and mobile marketing too. You can put them anywhere printing is possible and even places it’s not.

A few interesting places I’ve seen them besides normal print advertising include: side of a building, t-shirts, tattoos and turning Central Park in NYC into a huge board game.

But as creative and interesting QR codes are, I’m a bit skeptical in terms of mass adoption. For some reason, I can’t imagine consumer behavior changing to start scanning codes for things when they could just search or enter a URL. There’s also the technology that needs to be adopted by more devices.

Granted, I was a bit skeptical of Foursquare and Twitter too, but also Google Wave and Second Life.

What do you think?

Feel free to elaborate why you think QR codes will be a hit or flop with the mass market in the comments below. Let’s see who can change my mind.

Thanks to Matt Dickman for the tweet that inspired this post

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Will QR Codes Gain Mass Adoption? | http://www.toprankblog.com

How hot, and how much of an opportunity? Recent reports from comScore, consistently say more than 80% of the total U.S. Internet audience views online video in a given month. YouTube’s fact sheet states every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to the network and 2 billion videos are being watched per day.

All this popularity has of course been driving a trend with marketers: the desire to create video as part of their digital marketing mix. Except sadly, it’s almost never approached strategically.

Agency-side marketing/PR/digital pros: how many times have you had a client approach you after creating a web video and said “hey, we made this video, now make it go viral!”

Client-side marketing professionals: how many of you have had a CMO suddenly discover web video, only to enthusiastically push the team to concept something “because our competitors are doing it.”

Due to these mistakes (and many others) most companies get web video dead wrong. Their content is too advertorial, there is a lack of genuine reason anyone would want to watch it, let alone pass it on. It doesn’t pass the all important “so what” test of web content and feels contrived or lacks creativity. And these are actually just surface level problems, it goes deeper than that.

The real question you need to ask yourself is why am I making web video? What marketing problem does it answer, and how does it answer it? How does it feed digital marketing KPI/objective metrics? Am I doing it because I read an article about it in AdAge or because it’s an elegant way to express my brand’s story to the world?

“Let’s make something viral” vs. let’s create an ongoing dialogue

By now, most companies understand blogging. And everyone knows you’d never create just one (even great) blog post and be done with it. No matter how popular that post was, just one blog post is not likely to provide long term value for your brand. You need to continue creating posts over time until you have a large opt-in audience that’s consistently spreading your content organically. Consider the fact that a web video is not too different than a blog post. Successful text and video are both content formats that can be passed on socially, and successful archetypes of each share similar qualities.

Yet, the business world seems to place web video up on a pedestal as if it’s some magic animal that plays by different rules merely because it’s video. The rules are not all that different, and apply for both formats of content for it to spread socially. Creating one video that catches on may be nice, but this does not take advantage of the larger opportunity the web affords: to build up an audience of true fans who genuinely want to follow your every word carefully.

Poorly conceptualized content has no chance

Short of advertising and interrupting users, there’s not much you can do to create awareness for a poorly conceptualized video lacking the proper hooks. On the web, advertising is content – there is no captive audience and viewers can and will ignore your promotions if your videos aren’t worthwhile. It has to be interesting, relevant and sticky if it has any chance of getting passed on. And with a firehose of content being uploaded to to the web, most web video is likely to be lost in perpetual obscurity, perhaps given some life from search engines.

Unless you’re a massive brand with deep pockets that can work with a high-paid creative team to concept some remarkable content, you’re likely better off using video as you would any other social content. In other words: use it to connect with your audiences in a genuine, meaningful way that follows your larger content strategy.

The best part about treating video as you would any other digital content, is just like text: if you produce lots of it and experiment, you can begin to discover video content archetypes that work for you. Then, and only then, can you start to get agile with your video content production and iteratively get better until you can consistently create stuff that catches on.

With that said…you still need a community

Web video by itself is tactical. If you’re serious about influencing the social web you still need a community that’s interested in receiving all types of your content being published in a channel agnostic fashion. Simply put, you need to build up a group who has affinity for your brand, its team members and ideas. Without this you’re not feeding something larger. Even if you have a popular video with hundreds of thousands or millions of views, what’s the point if you’re not continuing the dialogue over time and nurturing those relationships?

Conclusion

Ignoring the “viral video” bug many have been bitten by, web video is an opportunity for your brand and should likely be a part of your content marketing mix. But think critically about how it plays into your larger content strategy, and understand your reason for being with creating digital content in the first place.

Placing web video on a pedestal, as if it’s so different from any other digital content, is the wrong approach. It has to be just as sharp, creative and relevant as your text-based content. Perhaps more so since we can’t just scan a video and get the gist of it. And just like your written content you will need to build an audience before you can have consistent success.

For long term results, experiment and play around with presentation, formatting and ideas. Work to discover what it is your audiences react to and ensure that video is created in a way that benefits your larger social and SEO programs.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | Thinking Critically About Web Video | http://www.toprankblog.com

In fact, three of the top 10 brands in 2009, as ranked by Interbrand, generate a sizable amount of revenue from their B2B customers: IBM, Microsoft and GE.

As a B2B marketer your brand is your most valuable asset.

B2B branding is less about cool, hip monikers (the Apples and Starbucks of the world) – and more about thought leadership.

Particularly in down economies, B2B prospects and customers conduct significant research leading up to purchases. That means you as a marketer have to educate them early on, and establish your brand as a trusted resource that gets their problems and has the solution.

To help your organization be seen as the thought leader it is, we’ve identified five B2B branding tips:

1. Consistently produce useful, innovative content

These days, every company is essentially a media company. So it’s easier than ever to provide relevant, informative content for customers and prospects.

From a company blog to Twitter to YouTube, there is no end to the content channels available. Provide the latest industry news and insight on trends through:

• Offering a white paper through an email marketing campaign
• Creating videos and promoting through YouTube and on your web site
• Conducting interviews with industry influentials and turning into blog posts

Whatever channels you choose to promote, and whatever types of content you create, these consistent signals prove to customers and prospects that you are a thought leader.

2. Network digitally and in person

Nothing communicates a brand more than direct involvement with customers and prospect. In that regard, online social networking has opened a new door. According to a recent eMarketer study, six in 10 B2B marketers planned to up spending on social in 2010.

Whether your organization integrates Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or another social network into its B2B branding efforts, the same rules apply:

• Social media is about engaging in conversations, not just pushing products
• It’s not about the masses; it’s about your target audience
• It’s listening and hearing before selling and talking

That’s not to say that in-person networking is irrelevant. On the contrary, perfect B2B branding combination. Take advantage of opportunities to give keynote speeches, participate in panel discussions or lead breakout sessions at industry events.

3. Get personal and be real

B2C marketers seem to have this concept nailed. But humanizing your company for customers and prospects is just as important in B2B branding.

For one TopRank® Online Marketing client, an industrial part distributor for the bulk powder processing industry, humanizing its image was a top concern.

The TopRank team created the Powder Doctor, a unique character, to relate to customers and prospects through email marketing campaigns. This humorous cartoon character offers advice – Dear Abby style – for common industry problems. Powder Doctor campaigns have increased sales for Powder-Solutions by 83%.

4. Position yourself differently than others in the space

No doubt about it, it’s tough to build personal B2B brand if you’re just like everyone else. You simply can’t be known for what everyone else is.

Standing out from the crowd is easy when your products or services are truly one-of-a-kind. When products or services are similar to those offered by the competition, it’s more of a challenge to uniquely position yourself.

For one TopRank client – a staffing software company – that challenge was known all too well. To help the client stand from a large pool of competitors, TopRank developed a copywriting strategy where website copy was written in first person, from the viewpoint of the staffing software (i.e., “why you should hire me to fill your staffing software needs”).

This strategy has not only helped the company develop a truly distinct B2B brand; the strategy has also achieved increased search traffic, high rankings for terms such as “staffing software” and a trend up in inquiries.

5. Leverage proof points

It’s perfectly appropriate – and necessary – to toot your own horn from time to time as part of your B2B branding efforts. Whether it’s an impressive media placement or a web traffic milestone, implement proof points illustrating why your organization is a thought leader into marketing communications.

Keep in mind that proof points are both analytical and subjective. For example:

Analytical: website traffic increases, number of retweets of blog posts, number of blog subscribers

Subjective: media placements, media interviews, mentions on blogs

Are Your Ready to Take B2B Branding to the Next Level?

B2B branding through thought leadership is not as easily quantifiable as other marketing efforts. And investments in reputation building might not pay off as immediately as pay-per-click or email marketing.

But building a recognizable B2B brand pays off in the form of long-term increased referrals, positive brand conversations on both digital and in-person channels, web traffic and sales.

What methods have you used to build a B2B brand?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | 5 Tips for Better B2B Branding | http://www.toprankblog.com

Feb 9, 2010
Webinar: Secrets to B2B Marketing Success
TopRank, along with our client Marketo and Ion Interactive will be collaborating to educate B2B marketers on best practices before and after lead generation with an upcoming webinar focused on pre-click, post-click, and post-conversion optimization.

The free webinar takes place Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010 at 11:00am Pacific / 2:00pm Eastern and features Anna Talerico of Ion Interactive, Maria Pergolino of Marketo and moi. Register here.

Feb 11, 2010
Webinar: The Inside Scoop for a PR & Marketing Strategy
TopRank’s Jolina Pettice along with Marc Harty, Editor, 30MinutePR.com will provide the lowdown on Integrated marketing and public relations communications offering case studies and practical tips. Our client PRWeb/Vocus is sponsoring this free webinar.

This free webinar occurs February 11, 2010 2:00 PM EST and you can get more information here and register here.

Feb 16, 2010
Social Media Club Louisville:  10 SEO Tips Communications Professionals Must Know
The excellent Jason Falls reached out and invited me to present best practices search engine optimization strategy, process and tactics for corporate communicators to Social Media Club in Louisville and of course I said yes.  Now more than ever, Communications and Public Relations professionals are in need to best understand digital communications and the intersection of Search and Social Media.  The presentation will identify essential SEO tactics for communicators to implement for optimum search visibility on search engines and within social media content sites.

Event info: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. ET at the Louisville Visual Art Association at The Water Tower. More info and register here.

Feb 23, 2010
Online Marketing Summit San Diego: Social Media Leaders Forum
The big OMS show in San Diego presented an opportunity to talk about what’s driving the Social Media space forward and since we’re in the thick of developing those types of programs for companies, it seemed a great fit. The panel will talk about cutting edge Social Media tactics and strategies that can give marketers the competitive advantage they’re not finding on their own.

Panelists include: Chris Baggott, CEO, Compendium Blogware; Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing; Michael Senger, CEO & Founder, StoneMass; Caitlin McCabe, Founder, WhiteLabel Marketing; Ben Hanna, VP Marketing, Business.com and Moderator duties will be handled by Jay Baer, CEO, Convince and Convert.

Event info: Tuesday Feb 23rd at 3:45pm PST at the Paradise Point Resort and Spa. Register here.

Feb 25, 2010
OMS San Diego – Search Engine Strategies Forum: PR, Social Media and Search
OMS and SES have partnered to add a day of SES programmed content including this promising session on the intersection of Public Relations, Social Media and Search Marketing. Hmm, Social SEO and PR? Damn that sounds right!

Check out the panelists which include:  Dana Todd, CMO, Newsforce; Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing; David Klein, CEO, Purpose Inc; Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz and Moderator duties handled by Sally Falkow, President, PRESSfeed.

Event info: Tuesday Feb 25th at 3:15pm PST at the Paradise Point Resort and Spa. Register here.

March 4th, 2010
Webinar:  Social SEO
Alterian, a provider of an integrated marketing platform and suite of services, is having me do a presentation on how to amplify reach and efficiency of digital marketing efforts by incorporating social media and SEO strategies holistically. This webinar is a focus for companies that want to better reach (via search) AND engage (via social) customers online.

We’re certainly not the first to use “Social SEO” to describe the intersection of optimization and social media, but it’s probably the most succinct and meaningful way to explain what should be a key marketing focus for companies in 2010 and beyond.

Event info: Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 10:00am CST. I’ll update the link for registration information once it goes live.

March 8, 2010
LeadingRE Conference: MarTech in Las Vegas
TopRank’s Adam Singer will provide the opening presentation for the MarTech event, “Architecting a Web 2.0 Marketing & P.R. Strategy”. He’ll explain the core elements and strategies of architecting an effective Web 2.0 marketing and public relations program to drive meaningful brand positioning and messaging in the eyes of both clients and consumers.

Event info: Monday, March 8, 2010 at 2:30 PST. More information here.

March 12-16, 2010
SXSW Interactive, Austin Texas
TopRank is not presenting at SXSWi but I will be attending. You’ll no doubt find me in the blogger lounge or one of the many digital media/marketing sessions.  There will be a sizeable Minnesota delegation at SXSWi as in year’s past, so watch the SMBMSP.org site for updates.

March 22-26, 2010
Search Engine Strategies New York: Digital Asset Optimization
We started publishing thoughts on Digital Asset Optimization in 2007 in publications like DMNews and Target Marketing Magazine. Much has changed since then. To us, the notion of optimizing digital media or assets, or “DAO”, concerns the changing digital media presented in search results and what companies can do to optimize the various types and formats of digital content they publish.  You know the drill: “If it can be searched, it can be optimized.”

Panelists for this session include:  Mark Knowles, President & CEO, Pixelsilk, Inc.; Chris Boggs, Director, SEO, Rosetta; Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board & CEO, TopRank Online Marketing.

Online Marketing Blog is a media sponsor for SES New York, so you can count on a mix of blog posts, video interviews and plenty of tweets and photos.

Event info: Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 10:45am at the Hilton New York. Full agenda and registration information here.

And that’s it for the first quarter of 2010 for TopRank speaking events. If you’re attending any of these, especially offline, please be sure to say hello. Nothing is better than meeting readers of Online Marketing Blog in person!

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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | Upcoming TopRank Social SEO & PR Events | http://www.toprankblog.com

Hybrid Plans that Combine Subscription Fees with Advertising
More marketers will increasingly embrace online video advertising, supported by the twin boom of video streams and video ad networks.

Further support for video ad growth will come from sites that offer a deeper catalog of professional video content—such as whole seasons of TV shows (both present and past), exclusives of entire sports events and other premium content. Such offerings will attract larger audiences. But in order to maintain the costs of deep-catalog video, the sites and their studio and TV network partners will need to introduce hybrid plans that combine subscription fees with advertising.

More Transparency on Websites Could Undermine Online Ad Efforts
Effective ad targeting depends on fresh and abundant data about Website visitors—what they’re doing, where they’ve been, where they go. However, both consumers and politicians are increasingly concerned about privacy issues.

From consumers, that will mean greater use of ad-blocking software or browser add-ons and more deletion of cookies. Consumers will be most sensitive to data gathered on social network sites, because of their personal nature.

From the government, that potentially means federal legislation limiting Website tracking.

For publishers and search engines to get in front of these changes will require greater transparency than ever before, such as Google’s new Privacy Dashboard. In 2010, we will see more Websites let users know what data is being kept about them and give them options to remove data or prevent it from being accumulated. However, such transparency alone will undermine online advertising efforts. That means publishers will also increasingly need to make clear what the trade-offs are for accepting online advertising—the free content, the quality of the content, the basic value exchange.

Social Plus Search Will Equal Better Results, More Ad Opportunities
Search will get more social in several ways: by including real-time content in results (e.g., Twitter posts), adding information from social network friends to results, and using collective information from other Web users to hone search relevance. By using social data to filter search queries, search engines will hope to deliver even more relevant results and more effective advertising. These trends will yield new ad formats that may incorporate friends’ viewpoints or interactions directly into the ad—and will raise new red flags among privacy advocates. Those search and social sites that get ahead of the transparency curve will tend to gain more consumer mindshare than those who operate under a heavier cloak.

Another key change to speed up in 2010 will be more video results as part of general search queries. That will help drive the greater traffic marketers will increasingly expect as a trade-off for the continued high CPM costs of video ad placements.

Mobile Commerce’s Time Has Arrived
It is eye-catching when a consultancy revises a market forecast upward in the midst of an economic downturn. That is exactly what ABI Research did with its forecast of mobile sales of physical goods in North America. In January 2009 it projected m-commerce sales would reach $544 million this year, up 57% over 2008—impressive in its own right. But in late October, ABI upped its forecast, saying sales would top $750 million in 2009, a whopping 117% annual growth rate. M-commerce’s time has arrived, and it is an easy bet that sales in 2010 will pass the $1 billion mark.

Whereas consumers once limited their mobile phone purchases to downloadable ringtones and games, today they are using their devices to buy books, apparel and other items associated with online shopping on a PC.

Retailers Grapple with Measuring Social Commerce
A number of major retailers have established a presence on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. For now, retailers are intent to learn from these experiments and are not too concerned with driving e-commerce sales. Building brand awareness and a solid fan base and generating leads have been deemed sufficient. But in 2010, retailers will become more serious about trying to measure social media’s impact on sales. One question retailers will grapple with is how much a large fan base translates into sales or brand loyalty.

Mobile Is Moving Into the Mainstream
Although mobile usage is firmly entrenched among consumers, marketers still view mobile as an emerging channel, hence the long-running (and always unfulfilled) expectations about the “year of mobile.” 2010 promises to be a little different. Aided by a flurry of acquisition activity, an influx of venture capital funding and growing brand adoption in the latter half of 2009, the year ahead will see mobile continue its shift toward the marketing mainstream.

Mobile ad spending will rise from $416 million in 2009 to $593 million in 2010 as more brands and agencies integrate mobile into their marketing mix. And if not an outright arms race, Google’s $750 million purchase of AdMob is certain to prompt greater interest in the mobile space from agencies, brands and media companies alike.

The fusion of mobile and social and the appetite for apps (among both consumers and brands) will continue unabated. In fact, location- and social-aware apps and utilities will be a key avenue for brands looking to engage consumers on the go. Cheaper smartphones and smarter feature phones will help marketers bridge the gap with consumers, but the onus is still on marketers to provide consumers with a measure (and measurable degree) of utility, relevance and entertainment.

Earned Media Takes Center Stage
Marketers will demand better ways to manage and measure the impact of earned media—the additional unpaid exposure a brand gets when consumers share about the brand online. Agencies will need to establish earned-media goals for every paid-media online ad campaign.

Social Ad Networks Will Expand
Expect more momentum—and regulatory scrutiny—behind advertising that is targeted based on information from social network user profiles. News Corp.’s Fox Audience Network (FAN) and services from startups 33Across, Media6° and others are already up and running. Meanwhile, some advertisers, such as Discovery Channel, have tested ad formats that are personalized on the fly by using Facebook profile data.

Twitter
It doesn’t take a crystal ball to guess that 2010 will be the year in which Twitter turns its focus toward building its business. So far, it has concentrated on audience growth, and by any measure it had a spectacular year. (eMarketer estimates that Twitter’s US user base tripled to 18 million in 2009.)

The questions now are: What kind of business will Twitter build, and will it succeed?

The revenue streams that have been discussed include paid corporate accounts, celebrity authentication and temporal search. Of these, search seems the most realistic as a revenue generator. There will be formidable challenges, however: After all, how does a marketer insert itself into a short, time-sensitive conversation without disrupting the flow of that conversation and alienating the user?

It’s not clear how, or if, Twitter will overcome these obstacles, but co-founder Biz Stone offered a tantalizing hint when he told Reuters that the company has a novel form of advertising up its sleeve. Expect Twitter to roll this out in 2010 as the cornerstone of its temporal search business.

Another thing to look out for is a possible Twitter IPO. This appears a more likely avenue than an acquisition, which loomed as a possibility at this time last year.

Online News Content
Media companies are at the center of a fierce debate over how to best monetize digital content. In recent years, they swung from one extreme to another—first charging the consumer for access to content, then opening the floodgates to free, ad-supported content (with a few notable exceptions).

Now, some media entities with premium offerings are again contemplating paid-content experiments. As these play out in 2010, we’ll see what works and what doesn’t. Our prediction? Consumers will resist paid systems, and competitors will capitalize on the negative sentiment with ad-supported content. In the end, there will be islands of paid content (The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times) and hybrids of paid and ad-supported models, but on the whole, the digital media landscape will be predominantly ad-based.

Digital Video Convergence
One of the keys to transitioning the US home video audience from DVDs to digital streams and downloads will be the emergence of technology that bridges the gap between the computer and the TV. The Consumer Electronics Show in early 2010 will usher in TVs with direct Internet connectivity, or with on-screen access to content portals such as YouTube, Blockbuster and Netflix. As online video becomes intertwined with the living-room TV experience, download and streaming services will take on a prominent role in the home entertainment ecosystem.

Look to the 55+ Age Demographic for Internet Usage Increases
Internet usage will continue to rise, as consumers find more ways to access the Internet. The continuing proliferation of laptops, smartphones and Internet-enabled TVs, MP3 players and gaming consoles will be the main force behind this trend. Teens and young adults are already active Internet users with many devices. The change will be seen among adults ages 55 and older, many of whom have always had an interest in consumer electronics and now are discovering social networks and other media.

However, the number of Internet users will begin to stabilize, as penetration reaches 66% of the US population, or 205.3 million people. Year-over-year growth will slow from 3.3% in 2009 to 2.36% in 2013, reaching 70% penetration in four years.

Broadband standards in the US will be redefined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in February 2010. The FCC’s current benchmark—which eMarketer uses—is an Internet connection of 200 Kbps in at least one direction. That falls an order of magnitude below global averages. The US does not even make the top 10 list of global “broadband leaders,” which measures household penetration and quality of connection. eMarketer will update its definition of broadband following the FCC’s decision in February 2010. The change may substantially affect estimates of US household broadband penetration, if cable and satellite connections—the dominant forms of digital broadband—prove slower than advertised.

Now that you’ve had a chance to read eMarketer’s predictions for 2010, what are some of yours?  TopRank will be posting 2010 Social SEO & PR predictions next week.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | eMarketer: 12 Digital Marketing Predictions for 2010 | http://www.toprankblog.com

The MIMA Summit breakout session “Storytelling: Actionable Insight from Analytics” was jam packed with collective analytics wisdom shared by panelists Jason Rapps, Joel Wright, Marshall Sponder, and moderator Jennifer Veesenmeyer to help organizations overcome 3 key web analytics obstacles:

1. Getting traction – getting from stage 1 to stage 2
2. Nurturing a data-driven culture – pushing analytics to the rest of the organization
3. Extending analytics to Web 2.0 and other new technologies

To answer the burning question of how to overcome the obstacles listed above, each panelists elaborated on a specific obstacle.

Obstacle #1: Getting Traction
Jason Rapps, Senior Web Analyst at Motorola, explained to the audience that the real question when working with analytics is “What do I do with this data?” Further, Jason advised that the first step in gaining traction is actually to take a step back and determine what success means for you/your company.

To succeed with analytics, actionable metrics must be delivered and confidence in the data must be instilled throughout the organization.

Recommendations to get traction and succeed include:

• Being consistent in the information you provide, and target to the audience
• Knowing the weaknesses of your system and communicate to team/management
• Communicating your needs
• Not overpromising – be realistic and prove the value
• Understanding the difference between “Metrics” (numbers) and “Analytics” (the story that explains what is happening, why it is happening and helps identify what to do next)

Obstacle #2: Nurturing a Data-Driven Culture
Joel Wright, Senior Web Analytics Consultant, Dell outlined success factors as well as the obstacles encountered when working within a data-driven culture.

Success with Analytics:

Obstacles/Challenges to Overcome:

Recommendations to Nurture a Data-Driven Culture include:

1. Focus on goals/Impact ($) – understand what you are going to do/accomplish and tie to the bottom line and create a model that everyone can understand.
2. Review Scorecards Weekly – critical to nurturing a data-driven culture and creates a common vocabulary between team members. (Make sure to include commentary on why the numbers are fluctuating.)
3. Invest in Analytics Talent – challenges can be overcome by a person the “gets it”, turn the data into information that can work for you.
4. Bonuses for Achieving Goals – tie an incremental bonus to meeting the goals set forth.
5. Training and informal workshops – need a way to engage and needs to be consistent.
6. Include Analysts from the start – information /advice/requirements can be communicated from the beginning versus after a new creative, flash, etc. is launched.
7. Constantly test – everybody is testing, now the question is what to test.
8. Market Successes – use the numbers to communicate the successes. (Share with the team that the numbers are being used to achieve goals.)

Obstacle #3: Extending Analytics to Web 2.0 and Other New Technologies
Marshall Sponder, Founder of Webmetricsguru.com, explained that social media, search & web analytics are converging, and ultimately changing the future of analytics.

Examples of recent mergers/acquisitions/partnerships that will change the future of analytics include:

• Adobe recently acquired Omniture (merging creativity with measurement)
• What people want to see is an analytics paired with design/creative so they can be measured rather the ongoing “silo” effect.
• WebTrends partners with Radian6 (Omniture & Coremetircs soon to follow) and SalesForce.com (Social CRM).
• Tealium tracks brand exposure and pipes data to Google Analytics, Omniture and Coremetrics.
• Comscore and Omniture partner to provide categorization and AD Tracking.
• Nielson and Facebook partner to do online research.

So what does this mean to Web Analysts?

Marshal wrapped up his segment of the presentation with the following thoughts:

• The future the social media data will be merged with analytics
• Data collection is a commodity right now, intelligence is not

In closing, Jennifer Meister, VP of Analytics at Stratigent and moderator of the Storytelling: Actionable Insight from Analytics session, summarized the recurring themes reiterated throughout the session as:

• So much data – so much to do, focus on the information/analytics that adds value
• Tie goals – awareness, advocacy and then get numbers around them
• Silos are coming down –  teams are becoming integrated

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Storytelling: Actionable Insight from Analytics | http://www.toprankblog.com

2008 MIMA Summit at The Depot

UPDATE: We have a winner! Liz Giel was selected by a mysterious voting process contrived within the ranks of the TopRank staff and involving various secretive and hurried Account Managers. Suffice it to say, we appreciate all who ReTweeted, linked and commented.  Don’t worry, there will be liveblogging of the event here on Online Marketing Blog and live streaming of several sessions at MIMASummit.org. Congratulations Liz!

In just under a week the annual Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association Summit will be held downtown Minneapolis at the Hilton. With keynotes from Seth Godin and Jackie Huba as well as a collection of local and national subject matter experts ranging from Greg Swan of Weber Shandwick to Scott Monty of Ford, it should be a veritable vortex of interactive velocity.  I apologize, that alliteration was so bad.

Anyway, TopRank has been asked to participate in the “Migrate” themed event on the topic of search engine optimization and social media convergence.

After writing, presenting and most importantly: being a paid consultant and self-practitioner of SEO (12 years) and Social Media Marketing (5 years) respectively, I thought it would be a good appetizer for next week’s presentation to highlight some of the most popular blog posts covering SEO and social media marketing from  Online Marketing Blog.

Top SEO and Social Media Marketing Posts from Online Marketing Blog:
(by traffic in the past 12 months)

1. 25 Must Read Social Media Marketing Tips (Apr 27th, 2009) – This popular post offers specific advice on justifying investment in social media strategy, how to decide on tactics and measuring success from in-house social media marketers including: Dell, Comcast, HP, Wells Fargo, Intel, Best Buy, General Mills, Ford, UPS, Home Depot, Cirque du Soleil and a mix of SMM consultants/agencies: Altimeter Group, Crayon, Ogilvy 360, Future Works, Doe Anderson, New Marketing Labs and others.

2. Guide to Twitter as a Tool for Marketing and PR (Nov 15th, 2007) – Excerpt: “The key with Twitter is not to look at microblogging as individual posts, but think of the overall impressions and value that can be created over time. Each 140 character or less entry serves as a seed of an idea for an overall objective. Over time, you’ll build a footprint and brand of influence within the Twitter community”. This post also includes tips from other early adopter Tweeple including:Andy Beal, Todd Defren and Michael Gray.

3. Best and Worst Practices Social Media Marketing (Feb 12th, 2009) – Many marketers are unsure about the difference between best and worst practices when it comes to commercial participation on the social web. Identifying best and worst practics is a work in progress of course, as communities develop, grow and change.  This post outlines the basic best/worst practices that will hold true for years to come. Internet years that is.

4. 25 Tips for Marketing Your Blog (Jun 15th, 2006) – An oldie but goodie, this post contains many of the fundamentals for creating search engine friendly blogs and has been cited by over 14,000 web sites including Search Engine Land, Copyblogger, Mashable, Stuntdubl, SEOBook, Duct Tape Marketing a and HubSpot.

5. What is Your Social Media Marketing Strategy? (Mar 25th, 2008) – Social media is hot, every body’s doing it. But the question needs to be asked: why? This post offers several good business reasons why companies should invest time, money and resources into social media.

6. Top Ten SEO Tips for PR Professionals (Apr 29th, 2009) – After presenting these ten tips at a public relations conference, I blogged the presentation and wrote another blog post detailing each of the ten tips. It should have been an ebook, but I decided it would reach more people as a series of 11 blog posts.

7. 16 Rules For Social Media Optimization Revisited (Aug 4th, 2009) – A follow up to a post originally published in 2006 that defined a new marketing category, this 3,117 word article by TopRank’s Adam Singer offers an update that resonated well with Online Marketing Blog readers. Is social media optimization still relevant and why?

8. 5 Link Building Tips for New Websites (Mar 20th, 2009) –  KISS, as in Keep It Simple Stupid. It’s sage advice for many things, including blog posts. This link building basics post from TopRank’s Dana Larson hit the nail on the head for many new web site owners in search of those ever elusive first links to boost search engine rankings.

9. Lowdown on Press Release Optimization (Oct 24th, 2005) – One of the first really popular blog posts we ever published, still gets new links every week from sites like WebProNews, Bruce Clay, Techipedia, LED Digest and Yahoo.

10. SEO Basics: 6 Tips for Google Webmaster Tools (Apr 7th, 2009) – Google set the stage for formal search engine support of the webmaster community by developing Webmaster Tools (thanks Vanessa Fox) and TopRank’s Thomas McMahon wrote up this popular tips post highlighting some very useful features.

BONUS!  While not one of the most popular posts overall in the past year, a few recent entries made on Online Marketing Blog speak specifically to the presentation I’ll be giving at the MIMA Summit next week:

SEO & Social Media Roadmap – How do you plan for a social media strategy? How do you leverage the Yin/Yang benefits of both SEO and Social Media for objectives, tactics, specific tools and measuring goals? This post attempts to answer those questions specifically.

Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success – This post was published over at Mashable and focuses on making the most out of combining SEO insights with social media marketing tactics through development of a roadmap.  Like any digital marketing effort, a combined SEO and social media program is most effective that identifies a target audience, specifies measurable goals and a strategy to guide implementation of tactics.

Hopefully your appetite has been stimulated enough to come to our  MIMA Summit SEO/Social session right after Seth Godin’s keynote. If not, you’ll definitely have actionable tips you can use in your SEO and Social Media Marketing efforts today.

Session Details:
The Intersection of SEO and Social Media

Oct 5, 2009 – 9:45 am
Tactics Track, Salon C
Hilton, Minneapolis

Session Overview:
Successful social media efforts build community, better connect brands with customers and can influence both media coverage and increased sales. Yet implementing a social media marketing program without optimizing content for search is literally “leaving money on the table.” Useful social content (blog, video, images, audio and applications) that cannot be discovered via search is a lost opportunity to reach audiences that are looking.

Why do so many companies fail to leverage their participation on the social web for SEO? This session will provide specific “Do’s and Don’ts” of social media optimization and provide attendees practical examples of how companies can leverage SEO and social media content to improve their search marketing performance.

If you like video, here’s an interview with Phil Wilson of Minnov8 & myself talking about SEO/Social and what I’ll be presenting at MIMA Summit.

Win a Free Pass to the MIMA Summit!

Want to attend the sold-out MIMA Summit in Minneapolis next week but didn’t get your ticket in time?  Or maybe you’re a Seth Godin fan and just can’t stand the fact that you’ll miss hearing him speak in person.  Well dear readers, we just might have the solution to that problem.  TopRank Online Marketing has one extra ticket from the corporate table we purchased for the MIMA Summit and we’re going to give it away.

All you have to do is leave a single comment below with a creative and/or compelling reason why we should give YOU a free ticket to next week’s MIMA Summit ($595 value) OR if you Tweet a similarly creative link to this post, that will show up in our comments too. We’ll pick one lucky winner on Thursday Oct 1st.

Sound easy? Sound doable? Then get to it.  If you comment, be sure to enter your email address so we can contact you. If you Tweet, be sure to follow @toprank so we can DM you. We will ONLY contact you if you win and will not rent, sell, post, hack or do anything unsavory or sinister with the information you provide.

Obligatory Q and A:

Q: Does it include gratuitous coffee in the morning before Seth speaks?

A: If MIMA provides it with the corporate table tickets, then you get it. Pretty sure they’ll be offering coffee. Maybe even some bacon.

Q: Does it include lunch?

A: Pretty sure lunch is included. If not, I’ll buy you lunch.

Q: Does it include door to door pickup service from my home in Ham Lake to downtown Minneapolis with sidetrips to Starbucks on the way there and Lucia’s Wine Bar on the way home?

A: I don’t think so.

Q: OK, what about cab fare?

A: Nope.

Q: Transit pass?

A: Not going to happen.

Q: Bus fare?

A: That would be, ah, no.

Q: Schwag?

A: MIMA Summit events and sponsors have been amazing with their schwag generosity. Can’t imagine this year will be any different.

However, we might bring a TopRank mugs. We’d bring the TopRank Old English Sheep dog, but he has a sinus infection and believe me, you don’t want to be around when a 90lb sheep dog sneezes.

Any other questions? Please Tweet them to @toprank or email seo at toprank dot org

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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | 10 SEO & Social Media Posts To Read Before MIMA Summit | http://www.toprankblog.com

Here are a few resources on the topic:

• Mashable: Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success
• IAB: Social Advertising Best Practices
• Forrester: Interactive Marketing to Hit $55B by 2014
• VentureBeat: Five rules of thumb for social media advertising
• eMarketer: SocNet Ad Spend to Hit Stride in 2010
• Wired: Is Social Advertising an Oxymoron?
• Knowledge Networks: Social Media Generates Hype; Fails to Deliver Marketing Punch
• Rohit Bhargava: 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO)

At the upcoming Search Engine Strategies conference, there are two events related to this topic worth noting:  ClickZ Video Social SES and a workshop specifically about integrating Social Media & SEO

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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Intersection of Search and Social Media AdWeekMedia Connect | http://www.toprankblog.com

We’ve listed regional Interactive Marketing Associations in the past and thought it would be time for an update. This post will be a work in progress, so please share in the comments the name and working URL of other interactive marketing associations that we’ve missed.  We decided not to include groups and meetups that are primarily dedicated to SEO/SEM or social media.  You can find a list of local Social Media Club chapters here and a list of Social Media Breakfast cities here.  You can find abundant internet professional meetups here.

• Association of Internet Marketing and Sales Canada
• Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association – (AIMA)
• Arizona Interactive Marketing Association – AZIMA)
• Refresh Bmore (Baltimore)
• Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization Arizona – (SEMPO AZ)
• Austin Interactive Marketing Association – (Austin IMA)
• Baltimore Chapter of the American Marketing Association – (AMA Baltimore)
• Boston Interactive Media Association – (BIMA)
• Charlotte Interactive Marketing Association – (Charlotte IMA)
• Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA)
• American Advertising Federation Cleveland (AAF Cleveland)
• Dallas Fort Worth Interactive Marketing Association
• Dayton Marketing Community
• Internet Marketers of the Delaware Valley
• Direct Marketing Association (DMA) National
• Internet Marketers of New York – IMNY
• Houston Interactive Marketing Association – (HiMA)
• Las Vegas Interactive Marketing Association – (LVIMA)
• Milwaukee Interactive Marketing Association – (MIMA)
• Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association – (MIMA)
• 212 New York’s Interactive Advertising Club – (212)
• Internet Marketers of New York - (IMNY)
• Triangle Interactive Marketing Association – (TIMA) central North Carolina
• The Web Association – (NE Ohio)
• Philadelphia Interactive Marketing Association (PhIMA)
• Gateway Interactive Marketing Association – St. Louis, MO
• San Diego Ad Club
• San Diego iMarketers
• Bay Area Interactive Group
• Northwest Internet Advertising Group – Seattle
• South Florida Interactive Marketing Association
• WebGuild Silicon Valley

What interactive marketing associations and organizations did we miss? Please share in the comments.

Thank you to the following Tweeple for making suggestions:

@DJLitten
@tornow
@davidebowman
@DavidWallace
@Juliesquires
@AussieWebmaster
@cathymccaughan
@kroonoverdrive
@melgallant
@Jlee350
@AaronGoldman
@hifisamurai
@chriswinfield

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | TopRank BIGLIST: Interactive Marketing Associations | http://www.toprankblog.com

Poll respondents cast 1559 votes for their 3 top digital marketing tactics (out of 45) for 2009 with Blogging, Twitter and Search Engine Optimization topping the list. Out of the top 10 tactics, 6 fell into the category of Social Media Marketing.

Companies that don’t have a Social Media Strategy or Roadmap in place now, will most likely fall behind by Q3 or Q4 of this year. I can think of few things more expensive than than having to play catchup, especially in the social media category. You can’t “buy” relationships on the social web.

Of all the digital marketing tactics voted on, here are the top ten:

• Blogging (34%)
• Microblogging (Twitter) (29%)
• Search engine optimization (28%)
• Social network participation (Facebook, LinkedIn) (26%)
• Email marketing (17%)
• Social media monitoring & outreach (17%)
• Pay per click (14%)
• Blogger relations (12%)
• Video marketing (10%)
• Social media advertising (7%)

These results are consistent (blogging at the top) with what many companies already involved with social media are engaging in according to this analysis of Peter Kim’s 1,000+ social media marketing examples. From that analysis, the top industry categories currently engaging in social media include: retail, consumer goods & services, high tech, media & entertainment, automotive, financial services, Government and Travel.

This kind of insight in combination with market intelligence that is vertical or industry specific for a particular company should be instrumental for companies dealing with shrinking marketing budgets and a need to improve long term performance of their online marketing efforts.

eMarketer posted a new report yesterday about the growth of blogging and opportunity for businesses. Currently, 27.9 million US Internet users have a blog they update at least once per month, and they represent 14% of the Internet population. By 2013, 37.6 million users will update their blogs at least monthly.

“Blogging activity presents new opportunities for marketers to monitor and influence conversations relevant to their businesses,” says Mr. Verna. “Opportunities no marketer should ignore.”

Instead of blogs replacing traditional media, although those lines are blurring a bit, traditional online media are starting to adopt and/or add the blogging platform.  Consumers are increasingly familair with and expect the blog format for their news and information.

By now, most companies have their 2009 online marketing plans in place. Does this ranked order of tactics mean you should change up your online marketing mix? The answer is that digital marketing tactics should match the needs of the situation, company resources, the target market and end consumer preferences. The proper tactical mix for a digital marketing program could be anything from the 45 tactics listed in the poll and still be successful as long as they support a valid strategy.

Some companies are prepared for digital and social media marketing programs and many are not. To get “ready”, companies need to develop strategic plans and get up to speed on both best and worst practices. Whether those methods of reaching and communicating with customers reconciles with existing marketing plans or not, companies would do well to allocate resources to some level of ongoing education, testing and development of expertise in the social media space.

What is your company doing to adjust to budgetary challenges, improve marketing performance and long range digital marketing strategy? Are you making changes on the fly? Are you sticking to your guns? We’d love to hear how readers are adjusting to the current marketing environment in the comments.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Digital Marketing on the Social Web: Blog Now or Pay Later | http://www.toprankblog.com

Out of all that buzz came new connections, insights and renewed connections such as the one I had with Ogilvy 360′s Senior Vice President of Digital Strategy & Marketing, Rohit Bhargava. I’ve known Rohit online and off for a few years and finally had a chance to capture a conversation on video.  Watch the interview below regarding the opportunities of attending SXSW including knowledge and networking as well as a few thoughts on his popular book, Personality Not Included, which TopRank has reviewed in the past.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | SXSWi Interview with Rohit Bhargava | http://www.toprankblog.com

If there were baseball cards for internet marketing and social media superstars then these three would be Upper Deck Premium: David Berkowitz of 360i, Frank Gruber from AOL and Brian Solis, owner of FutureWorks PR

Charlene Li, previously with Forrester and now founder of the Altimeter Group, presenting on the future of social networks. Summed up in 9 words: “Socnets are like air and in Google we trust”

If you want the Godmother of PR & social media measurement, here she is: The one and only Katie Paine

Dave McClure aka 500hats & Foodzie People strike a pose at the Driskill

Let’s Get Social! Peter Kim, previously with Forrester and now with a well funded startup in stealth mode, Liz Strauss and Aaron Strout from Powered, connecting in the Techset Blogger Lounge

Search Marketers Todd Friesen of Position Technologies & Scott Polk of Bruce Clay with plenty of reasons to be happy

Amber Naslund of Radian6 & Jason Falls of Doe Anderson keeping lively at the Mohawk

Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy 360 PR & Rich Brooks are all smiles because the coffee is fresh. Kinda. In the blogger lounge.

Jeeze, this Jason Falls guy is everywhere! Hanging out with Krista Neher aka Marketess & Jason Baer in the Blogger lounge

A press room will never look like this at a conference.  I wonder if some people ever left the blogger lounge. I think they reported on the entire SXSWi event without having to go anywhere because everyone came to the Techset lounge eventually. Even Willie Nelson’s daughter came and sang for a bit.

Hey search marketing people, remember our favorite Yahoo PR person, Heather Meeker? Here she is in a BlogWorldExpo sandwich with founders Rick Calvert & Dave Cynkin. Heather now works for Whrrl

Ah ha, more search marketing people (Tony Adam of Yahoo and Kate Morris of New Edge Media) and there’s that Polk fellow again. This time at Stubb’s BBQ for the Diggnation broadcast. Or maybe it was just for the beer.

Chris Brogan of Chris Broganland and Scott Monty of Ford chatting it up in the Pepsi BlogTalkRadio Pavillon.

Social meets Search. Chris Heuer of AdHocnium and Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing

Pedicabs on 6th Street are a welcome sight at 2am

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | SXSW Interactive: Search Meets Social Media in Pictures | http://www.toprankblog.com

The main speaker at this morning’s event was David Meerman Scott, popular author of several books including, “New Rules of Marketing and PR” which I recently recommended to a crowd of about 400 at the PRSA International conference earlier this week.  Graeme Thickins was able to convince Scott to stay an extra day for the smbmsp event from another speaking engagement, much to the benefit of the MSP social media crowd.

In the presentation, Scott offered a mix of insights, guidelines and social media examples, including some very entertaining videos, that represent the new rules of marketing online. The opportunity presented itself to take a moment and shoot a quick Q/A video on the topic of the need for marketers to become publishers:

Click here to view the embedded video.

After Scott spoke, Steve Nielsen from the event host, PartnerUp/Deluxe presented followed by Aki Spicer and Marty Wetherall from Fallon who presented a Twitter and SciFi’s Eureka case study. If you’re in the Midwest and interested in participating with the Social Media Breakfast and Social Media Club of Minneapolis, check out the network site.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2008. | David Meerman Scott Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis | http://www.toprankblog.com