As a long time speaker at SES New York in combination with our other involvement, you could say I have a pretty strong opinion of this event. Here are 10 reasons why I think SES New York is a “must attend” marketing conference:

1. Keynotes!

Starting the day with big picture content is a great way to get the synapse firing in your brain. Well, that and a few cups of coffee from the Starbucks inside the Hilton.  With David Meerman Scott – Author of the New Rules of Marketing & PR, Avinash Kaushik – Analytics Guru & Author from Google and Yusuf Mehdi SVP from Bing, you are sure to get riveting insight about the future of internet marketing and where companies should be focusing their efforts in the long term.

David Meerman Scott is an excellent speaker and the release of the second edition of his groundbreaking book is very timely as the intersection of Search, Social Media and PR converge.  The best internet marketing campaigns start and scale based on good insight from analytics and what better person to share the wisdom that Avinash Kaushik.  Bing has experienced the best growth it’s ever had in the past few months and the search marketing industry is starting to take it more seriously. Yusuf Mehdi is the man to tell the story of how Microsoft plans to continue that growth.

2.  Connect with the Industry

I’ve heard that over 5,000 online marketing professionals will be attending SES New York this year. That’s 5,000 people you have the potential to network with including industry peers, rock stars, potential candidates to hire, potential employers to be hired by, possible partners, investors, news media and of course, the coopetition. Take a look at the conference agenda and you’ll see an excellent mix of smart marketers from agencies and from major brands like New York Times, Autodesk, IBM and Facebook. Plus you might get to meet people like Mike Grehan, VP and Global Content Director for for Search Engine Watch, ClickZ and Search Engine Strategies.

3.  All the Knowledge You Can Absorb

There are over 70+ sessions over 3 days covering the gamut of internet marketing topics from the expected SEO and Social Media to Analytics, Conversion Optimization, Geeky technical sessions, Advertising, Real Time search and one of my favorites, the Business Track. The conference is also sandwiched with a day of hands on training before and after the conference for those that want more than just 12 minute snippets from each speaker. Whether you’re new to the field of internet marketing or whether you’re looking for more advanced tactics, there’s a session for just about everyone. And that’s not easy to do. Just ask Stewart Quealy, Marilyn Crafts or Jackie Ortez.

4. It’s New York!

As the CEO of an agency that pays for employees to attend conferences, you might think it a bit frivolous to suggest attending an event because it’s in New York, but the attraction of one of the world’s greatest cities brings a variety of people and a unique conference experience.  Why not get smarter in a city that can offer you an experience unmatched anywhere?  Whether you’re a fan of the Falafel stand outside the Hilton (be sure to go to the one with a long line) seeing shows on Broadway (Wicked was Excellent. Equus was ah, different) or the lights of Times Square, that’s a never ending supply of new things to see and do in the big apple. That attraction brings together a group of international conference attendees that is unlike events in other cities and well worth taking advantage of.

5. Conference Box Lunches

Maybe not! Whether you decide to go with the lunch offered by the conference or you decide to arrange meetings during lunch at one of the many, many restaurants in the area around the Hilton New York, networking over food is something I’ve found to be incredibly productive. Find a table near full of people, sit down and introduce yourself. Ask lots of questions, be a great listener and people will remember you more than if you try and “sell” everyone you meet.

Sure, you may network at bars and clubs during after-conference parties, but the music is often so loud you can’t hear what people are saying and let’s face it: When SEO’s get near a bar, distractions are plentiful. The focus isn’t going to be on business. Connect with people during the day and suggest coffee, lunch or dinner before going out. Then have fun (in moderation of course) with them in the evening.  It will likely be the best networking decision you make during the conference.

6. Create Content

Attending conferences can be one of the most productive content opportunities because there are so many ways to do it.  If a session is interesting, take notes – aka live blogging. If you meet someone smart and interesting, take notes. If you see something sensational at a networking party, no need to take notes on that. Logging what you learn as you hear it can help retention but it also becomes a source of content that you can use for blog posts, sharing with the team back in the office or with your clients.

Content doesn’t need to be limited to text either. If you meet a smart industry expert, ask if they mind doing a short video interview. You’re in New York after all, take advantage of the city backdrop (sans the car horn and siren noise) to shoot a series of videos with people you respect in the industry.  Those videos can be de-constructed into a variety of content types for digital asset optimization and other SEO tactics. Photos are also useful not only for company blog posts but for use as stock photos long after SESNY has ended. In fact, the photo of Grand Central Station above was taken while I was in New York for a SES conference last year.

7. Live Consulting

On day 3 of SES NY there is a track called “Clinics”, which could also be called, “Free Consulting for My Business”.  There are clinics covering Paid Search, Ecommerce, Conversions and Big Sites/Big Brand Sites. These sessions are a great opportunity for companies to have their web sites or advertising reviewed by industry experts and get recommendations. Keep in mind, that advice is often direct and to the point – yet polite.  Panelists have been solving web site and online advertising problems for years and they’ll be able to see issues immediately and share possible solutions just as quickly. The advice a company might get in one of the clinics can be worth several times the cost of attending the conference.

8. Find New Resources to Grow Your Business

At SES New York, the exhibit hall will have over 100 companies presenting their products and services.  Cruising the booths and talking to reps (early in the conference, not late) is a great way to learn about companies that might have just the service you need to make your marketing more effective. Heck, if you’re really good, you might be able to reverse roles and pick up a few exhibitors as clients, depending on what it is that your company does.

Finding consultants and services isn’t limited to the exhibit hall. You can find great resources by attending sessions where representatives from some of the top companies in the industry will be sharing their insights and expertise. Hearing an employee speak gives you some insight into their processes and how they approach working with clients.   You can also find potential employees by networking with speakers, either directly or through referral.

9. Digital Asset Optimization

DAO is the name of the panel I’m presenting on, day 1 of the conference at 10:45 am right after the keynote from David Meerman Scott. Optimizing for the new Google takes a unique and creative approach to content strategy and SEO.  Optimizing and promoting Digital Assets present a tremendous opportunity to grow business through organic search. My presentation will focus on successful DAO implementations for a small business, a publisher/ecommerce site and a very large company.  Plus I’ll be offering a new TopRank Guide for download.  You won’t want to miss this session!

10.  I’ve saved the best for last

What are YOUR favorite reasons for attending SES New York?

Whatever it is that you’re considering getting out of SES New York, be sure to get more information on the session agenda here.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | 10 Reasons SES New York is a Must-Attend Marketing Conference | 6 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

I gave the opening presentation to the MarTech part of the conference – a track of panels/sessions designed to help real estate professionals better integrate their marketing initiates with technology. Additionally, I spoke on two panels in the general sessions of the conference: one on online reputation management and one as an open panel Q&A answering marketing strategy questions.

For Online Marketing Blog readers, following is a wrapup of each of my sessions and some key takeaways.

Architecting A Web 2.0 Marketing And PR Strategy

For this session, I took event goers through an overview of the process we at TopRank implement for companies seeking social media strategy: a social media roadmap. I took audience members through the essential elements of the roadmap:

1. Define an audience
Who is it you are trying to influence? Where are they participating, what types of content resonates with them? Understanding your audience comes first, and will drive the next pieces of the roadmap.

2. Identify objectives
What outcomes do you want from this audience? Only after you understand your digital audience should objectives be solidified, as research may uncover new opportunities not conceived initially. While many skip to objectives, audience research provides the current situation necessary to proceed to identify objectives.

3. Develop strategic approach
For a social media marketing strategy to be effective and not a cookie-cutter application, you must have a strategic approach unique and logical for your brand. Audience data + objectives + insight into your industry + strategic mindset as a marketer will enable you to formulate a strategic approach that delivers results and permeates the market.

4. Implement tools/tactics
Even more popular than skipping to step 2, most marketing and PR pros skip immediately to step 4. It’s a cliché to say “we need a Twitter account” or “we need a Facebook page.” You don’t know that yet. Nor do you have the proper roadmap elements to execute them successfully by skipping immediately to tactical elements. It’s like entering a battle by sending in the latest wave of ultra-sophisticated fighter jets but not having any sort of plan of how they work into your larger strategy. Yeah, they might be bigger/faster/stronger but it’s setting yourself up for failure without knowing how they integrate with other elements.

5. Measure results/metrics
What will your success metrics be? Formulate not just an ultimate objective measurement, but define the right KPIs that actually roll to those objectives. Understand how they all work together and stagger them in the right order in your marketing dashboard to keep your finger on the pulse of success.  It takes a comprehensive understanding of web analytics reporting before getting into this phase.

Online Reputation Management Panel

For this panel, I presented alongside Jennifer Baumann, Esq. of DLA Piper. As I am not a lawyer and cannot provide any legal counsel, it was a good idea for Eric Bryn, conference organizer for LeadingRE to pair us. I shared prevention and response strategies and Jennifer discussed legal issues.

In terms of online reputation management, the old adage of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” could not be truer. I spoke mostly on prevention, but also response. Some key takeaways from this panel:

Negative PR gets referenced – The web is referential, and we are actively tagging brands to their actions. For example, the first thing many mom bloggers now think of when they hear the name Motrin is the Motrin Moms fiasco. We are constantly archiving and building upon events, news and essentially our lives digitally. This paints a larger picture of people and companies, and the scars of negative PR are not going to go away. By having a presence yourself and already established as a brand digitally, you get to be a part of that debate as opposed to silently sitting on the sidelines and allowing others to dictate how you are seen.

Additionally, if you foster a community of supporters, that negative PR might get hedged in the first place. If I wrote a blog post titled, “Apple Sucks,” almost immediately I’m going to get comments defending Apple – not just in my own comment section but on other blogs that debate and interact with me. Instead of a one-sided story, it will turn into a lively discussion and debate, with all sides being considered. A community of brand advocates is a powerful force for defending a brand or personal reputation.  In the case of Apple, whether by design or simply due to fanatical fans, they are now a part of the brand’s organic response.

Search engine brand awareness – If your brand has a large digital footprint with multiple domains/sub-domains, an authoritative presence across social channels and a fan-base, owning page 1 of Google for your brand name is possible. By doing this, you won’t let a negative (and let’s hope isolated) event or experience show up in branded searches.

Of course, in cases where negative PR spirals out of control (aka a Groundswell) a negative situation can acquire so many links/attention it ranks on page one for your brand. In those cases, buying search ads to help counter the negativity, posting responses on the offending site, adding a response on your own site, and strategizing ways to regain control of page one via organic SEO methods are just some potential steps you can take. But of course, it all depends on the specific situation what the response strategy should be.

Speaking of response strategy – for problems you anticipate may arise, having one is critical to be prepared for the worst.

Consult PR before engaging legal – The RIAA’s reputation is irreparably damaged by their continual treatment of their biggest fans as criminals. Whether they legally can do something is not necessarily a reason they should. When technology comes along that makes a previous model obsolete, the natural reaction of the incumbent is to rally against it to defend a previous world. Unfortunately, all this succeeds in is positioning the organization or industry as draconian and opens the door to innovators who are designing models that embrace the new.

When someone says something truthful but biting against your brand, the natural reaction might be to call your laywers to suppress that information. All this does is provide ammunition for that individual or media entity to succeed in gaining greater attention.

In 2003, Barbra Streisand tried to sue photographer Kenneth Adelman for $50 million for taking a photograph of her house as he documented the California coastline as part of a project. As a result of the case, the picture substantially increased in popularity – quickly attracting 420,000+ views of a photo that otherwise would have existed in relative obscurity. Mike Masnick reported on the situation and coined the phrase “The Streisand Effect.” The name stuck, and now even has its own dedicated Wikipedia page documenting multiple examples of companies suffering from the Streisand Effect by calling legal before consulting PR.

Of course, there are situations where legal should be consulted, but they should be considered carefully, with legal being used as a last resort.

Strategy Salon Panel

L to R: Matt Dollinger, Matthew Ferrara, Adam Singer, Steve Harney - image by Barbara Springer

This was an open Q&A discussion from the audience, where, Steve Harney, Matthew Ferrara, Matt Dollinger and I all riffed on answers to audience questions (moderated by Eric Bryn).  A few of the riffs from our discussion included:

Getting your company to buy in to social media – This needs to happen from the top. If your leaders aren’t fully bought in and driving forward the items you want team members participating in, you can’t expect them to succeed. As one example, if you have a company blog, someone up top should be leading and driving it if you want the rest of the team to contribute as well. To inspire people to stay motivated and engaged, create feedback loops within the organization to highlight success and nurture participation.

The perfect company website – There is no single archetype of the perfect website. Also, yours shouldn’t necessarily model competitors or one you think is pretty, rather it should resonate with prospects. Keep SEO in mind from the start and work with developers cognizant of search engines or consult an SEO firm to guide your development process. Site search matters, and is one of the most important features of any website according to Google. Leverage site search to gain data/insight into your customers and also tweak results to highlight fresh content or current specials.

The real estate company of the future – Instead of doing everything in-house, you may begin to outsource certain elements like design, marketing or IT. Why have generalists when you can have specialists in each field and work with them across distances and time zones via agile project management systems? Also, for smaller companies, it will be about more than just those within a small radius; recruiting top talent will be vital for performance. Of your full-time team members, leadership will be an integral role and not something simply relegated to management. You need to find and empower leaders at all levels within the organization if you want to succeed against competitors.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | 2010 LeadingRE Conference: TopRank Digital Marketing Sessions | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

I have several other goals like networking (reconnecting and especially new contacts), competitive research, recruiting and potential client prospecting. But content marketing is our bread and butter. It can be an effective tactic for you too, especially if you can learn to be highly efficient at liveblogging conferences.

Here are a few tips that will not only give you a tested and proven guideline but should improve your efficiency and quality of output.

• Create a schedule. Whether you’re blogging on your own or with a team, pick which sessions and related topics you plan on covering before the event. SXSWi has almost too many concurrent sessions and with such a large event, not planning will lead to getting to sessions late. That means a crappy seat in back and likely not anywhere near an outlet.

  It’s very easy to get distracted while at the conference and with live blogging, there’s no time to waste. If you know which sessions you’ll be covering, it can help to create draft blog posts ahead of time and include as much information in the draft as you can. This will make it easier to finish off the post as close to the session time as possible.

• Plan ahead. When planning out which sessions, interviews or events you’ll cover, put together a grid showing session names, times and who should be covering (if you’re part of a blogging team). Coordinate sessions coverage avoids duplication and ensures the topical mix of content you plan on covering is properly represented. The My SXSW tool makes it pretty easy to research sessions.

• Write the posts offline in an application like notepad, then transfer the post to the blog. Many session rooms have poor if any internet connection at all. Last year, ATT pulled out a big fail for anyone using iPhones or their wireless cards. Make posts in an offline document and transfer them over to your blog software when you’re ready to publish and have a good internet connection.

• Take photos. Photos of the panel or an individual speaker are great and can add a lot to what otherwise would be a text heavy post. Photos of the PowerPoint slides can be particularly useful if the presentation goes fast or doesn’t follow a logical order. You can reference the photos of PowerPoint slides later when finishing the blog post after the session ends. We tend to publish photos on a TopRank Blog account at Flickr just for conferences as well as to Facebook. On Flickr, we typically create a “set” for each conference event and are sure to link to those collections of photos from within the blog posts.

• Promotion tips for conference photos on Flickr: Be sure to add titles and descriptions to each photo. Include an anchor text link from the description back to the blog post it’s used with. With your Flickr account, be sure to network with other Flickr members that would be interested in conference photos. When we set up an account just for one conference, we exported our hundreds of network contacts from LinkedIn and used the feature in Flickr that allows you to invite 100 people at a time to our Flickr network. The more relevant people in your Flickr network, the more people that “see” what photos you’re posting. Images taken through out the day and eve should be uploaded, titled, tagged and commented/linked before the next morning.

• Take videos. Just about every digital camera can take web quality video. We added 16gb memory cards so each camera can take several hours of video. Interviews with attendees, speakers and exhibitors are particularly popular. You must keep in mind that with large companies, employees can rarely do a video interview without approval from their Legal and/or PR departments, so you need to schedule those ahead of time. You also need to be aware of the video taping policy of the conference. Most events do not want you to take videos of the sessions themselves. If you have an iPhone, you might consider using the UStream application to capture and post live streaming video.  UStream will save the video to YouTube and also announce it to your network on Twitter and Facebook.

• Add some flavor to your videos. You don’t necessarily need a pro level of post-video production to get good promotion value out of conference videos. You should however, be sure to use software like Windows Movie Maker (free) to add text to the video indicating the topic and your blog URL. Also, set up a channel on YouTube as a way to organize and promote your posts along with accounts at other video sharing sites.

• Sit close to the panel AND the screen. Also, if there is just one large screen in the room, sit between that and the panel. That way you can get clear photos of both the panel and PPT slides. If you have one of the most common digital cameras, don’t bother with a flash if you’re not close to your subject.

• Network with other bloggers. When in the sessions or in the press room (if your blogging on a press pass) be sure to connect with other bloggers. You have something in common – the formidable task of taking a mix of presentations, some great and some psychotically unorganized, and turning them into a story that makes sense to a savvy search marketing audience – all in real time. Connecting with other bloggers both offline and online can facilitate information sharing as well as links.

• Promote your posts. Once your posts go live, then be sure to make an effort to promote the posts to your network on Twitter, Facebook and other social communities. For example, promote screen shots of your videos to Flickr with a link to the video post. Let interview subjects and other bloggers know when you’ve posted. Leverage your social community networks (StumbleUpon, delicious.com, Facebook and niche/vertical specific sites) to draw attention to particularly “promotable” content.

• Tag your posts and media. For some conferences, the organizer will advise the attendees to use a specific tag to make it easy for readers to find posts specific to that event. The easiest example would be the #sxsw and #sxswi tags being used on Twitter for this event.  Keyword specific tags are also useful. Use these tags not only with your blog posts and Twitter, but also with photos, video and social bookmark/news submissions.

• Establish a few basic blogging guidelines or simple processes. Here are a few that we start with:
  • Create drafts of posts BEFORE the conference with notes.
  • After sessions posts are saved in draft form.
  • All posts must have images, ideally of the session panel.
  • All posts are associated with relevant categories and tags.
  • Alternate title tags with keywords are written.
  • Post titles start with a consistent naming convention along with a short description.
  • Once posts are edited, editor makes them live.
  • Better quality posts are vetted for promotion within blogger networks.
  • Round up posts are published at the end of each day or at the end of the conference.

The biggest takeaway for better liveblogging is to plan ahead and follow through with promoting your content once it’s live. What liveblogging tips have you found to be effective for content marketing? Any tips or tricks on being more efficient?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | 12 Tips on Live Blogging & Content Marketing at SXSWi | 4 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

That’s a lot of people for a panel, so moderator Jason Baer decided that in the spirit of Twitter, we’d keep bios, questions and answers succinct and at 140 characters or less.

For those that can’t be here I thought I’d share the prep questions and my short answers with you. If you’re at OMS and you live blog this Social Media Leaders Forum, please leave a link in the comments.

What’s your advice for individuals just getting started using Twitter?

Have some idea of what you want out of Twitter. Connect with people of similar interests and goals and engage with them.

What’s your advice for individuals just get started using Twitter?

Have some idea of what you want out of Twitter. Connect with people of similar interests and goals and engage with them.

What’s the #1 myth preventing companies from embracing social media?

To start when you’re ready. You’ll never be ready. But you need to do it anyway because it’s the only way towards progress.

What’s the best way to integrate social media with other marketing efforts like email, direct mail, etc?

Strategically. Learn what customers want and leverage social technologies across channels to make it easier for them to get it.

What are the main differences between B2B and B2C social media programs?

More romancing in B2B & emphasis on qualitative interactions. Mass appeal of B2C provides large audience engagement opportunities.

Is social media best used for customer acquisition, or for customer retention?

Both. Social media is essentially word of mouth and once you start facilitating that and customer conversations, you create a cycle of acquisition & retention.

How do social media and SEO work together?

Yin & Yang. Social network channels of distribution promote content & attract links. Optimized social content grows networks via search discovery.

What’s the biggest mistake most companies are making in social media?

Outsourcing customer engagement. Companies know their own business and customers best and lose opportunity by not participating themselves.

What’s the most overrated social media site or tactic today?

Google. LOL. Actually, the one your customers are not using.

When is it okay for companies to not engage with their customers in social media?

That’s like saying when should you not answer the phone at your business? For severe dissenters invite offline discussion.

Does it make sense to make a Facebook fan page at the core of your social media initiative?

If the audience to reach is all about Facebook, then why not? Only caveat is that you don’t “own” 3rd party web sites.

How can agencies work best with their clients in social media?

Be a guide, partner, educator, trainer and source of ongoing support and innovation. Help them help themselves.

What’s the one social media skill set that you wish more potential employees had?

Honesty about skills. Social media user & expert are very different. Passion, curiosity and ability to really listen, learn and create value using social technology.

How important (really) are geo-location services like Foursquare and Gowalla?

If you were a brand, how interested would you be to know all the most active people visiting your stores? Many Advertising & social networking tie-in opportunities.

With so many companies now using social media, what’s the best way for a brand to stand out?

Find remarkable people to curate & tell your brand’s story. Listen to, engage with & empower customers.

How can you measure the effectiveness of social media efforts?

Start with goals, outline a strategy and how to best reach audiences. Then pick the right tools and metrics aligned with those goals.

There you go. I think this exercise proves that shorter is not always better. There’s so much more that’s meaningful to say about each of these questions. I may come back and add to this post after the session or we might just use them as inspiration for a series of blog posts.  Until then, be sure to read this roundup of 25 social media marketing tips.

What are some of your most pressing questions about social media? About integrating social media with other channels?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | 15 Social Media Answers From OMS10 | 5 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

The outcome exceeded all expectations thanks to the excellent promotions by PRWeb and SEW plus Mike Grehan’s smooth handling of moderator duties amidst technical difficulties. Over 7,000 people registered, there were over 400 questions and 650 Tweets using the #prweb hash tag during the webinar.

The way it goes with many webinars when you’re invited by an organization to participate, is that the topic and title/description are determined beforehand. The speaker adapts themselves to that.  This presentation content focused on optimizing writing for the web with a particular emphasis on optimizing content common to public relations.

As promised, I’ve sorted the bulk of the questions out and will present several here along with my responses. I hope they are useful.

If I’m not currently optimizing my site and I have a limited budget, where do I start?

The first thing any marketing activity needs to start with include setting goals, understanding your audience and the market. The lowest cost method of outsourcing that kind of activity where search engine optimization is concerned, would be to hire a consultant or agency to do an audit.

An SEO audit represents the initial evaluation and research along with recommendations to be implemented by the client. Typically this involves: competitive research, keyword research, web site code/template evaluation, content optimization recommendations, link building research and recommendations, tips on content creation/promotion/repurposing and to varying degrees, social media recommendations. Web analytics, monitoring and ranking tools are also often recommended.

An audit does not take the place of consulting since it’s an evaluation and recommendation, not implementation and guidance on an ongoing basis. It is however, a cost effective start. Here are a few resources:

• Top 3 Tactics To Improve Search Engine Rankings
• Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
• Do’s and Don’ts of On-Page SEO for Public Relations
• 5 Online Marketing Resolutions for 2010

Should your newsroom blog be placed under the site’s domain, or maintained separately under the blog software’s domain to allow for incoming links to your main site that are coming from a different site?

There are two parts to the answer for this question. First, the reference to “blog software’s domain” sounds as though the blog is hosted with a third party service such as blogger.com or typepad.com. Example:  yourblog.blogspot.com or yourblog.typepad.com

My advice is to avoid using third party hosting services for your blog. If you’re too invested in such a service or have other reasons for using them and cannot use something like WordPress installed on the server where your web site is hosted, then use domain aliasing options so that your blog URL is part of your company domain name or a domain name that you own. Example:  yourblog.com or yourblog.companydomainname.com. This puts you in a position of more control since the blog content lives under a domain name you own vs a domain like blogspot.com, which is owned by Google.

While links from your blog/newsroom hosted on a blogspot.com to your company web site do count as inbound links, there’s not as much value from many links to your site from one other site vs many links to your site from many other relevant web sites.

Which leads us to the second part answer to where the newsroom should be hosted. My preference is to host the newsroom either as a sub-domain or a sub-directory of the main company web address. Example:  newsroom.redcross.org or in the case of TopRank, it’s toprankmarketing.com/newsroom/

The links that you attract from other relevant web sites to your newsroom pages will build PageRank back to the rest of your web site. This is more true with the subdirectory than the subdomain. Also, keeping your newsroom address as part of your company web site address is useful for branding and user experience.

Some advice on subdomains and subdirectories from Matt Cutts of Google and here’s a good post discussing the SEO pros/cons.

Should you post press releases on your own website (before distribution)? How do search engines deal with the duplicate content issue in this case?

If you’re a publicly traded company, publishing financial announcements need to happen on the wires first, or at least at the same time as publishing the press release on your own web site.  For other companies not constrained by such requirements, posting a release to your own site first is fine.

As for dealing with duplicate content when your press release is published on your own site as well as on the wire service, it’s a pretty common situation. In fact, it’s often a goal for companies that distribute their releases through a newswire service to get as many other sites to copy and republish the release as possible. If the release is properly optimized, each time another web site with a unique domain name publishes a copy, it creates a link back to whatever web page on your corporate site you’re trying to draw attention to.  This sends more traffic and can affect the search ranking of the destination page.

A long standing problem with situations where the same content is hosted on different domain names has been debated and worried about by many, many webmasters. Search engines like Google don’t like to show multiple copies of the same content in the same search results. It’s not a good user experience. Therefore, when duplicate copies of the same content are detected, Google likes to pick a canonical version and only show that one.

Duplication with press releases is quite common because of distribution on wire services and to influence search engines to rank a certain version of your press release, there are a few steps you can take. One piece of advice many webmasters try to follow is to publish the release on your own site so Google crawls it there first.  However, if there are more links to another version of the same release hosted elsewhere, the other copy might be perceived as deserving to rank in search results instead.

For more tips on how to deal with duplicate content in a press release situation, watch this video interview with Adam Lasnik of Google that I took at SES London. Adam offers advice on making sure copies of your content attribute the source and all link back to the original to provide Google information about what version is canonical.

Is it useful to submit Press Releases to Social Media sites in addition to submitting to PRWeb.com?

Deciding what to share on social media sites should take into account what types of content members of the social community are best responding to.  Press Releases are often formal marketing communications, not exactly conversational. As you understand the community you’re trying to reach with the press release, you should know whether it’s appropriate to share a press release with them in a social media setting.

The big mistake many marketers and PR professionals make is to register with a variety of social network, news and bookmarking sites and then self submit, vote and rate their own press releases without having ever participated in the community.  With no network paying attention to what you’re sharing, few will ever notice the press release. If you do have a network on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg and others, then you will know first hand whether it would be acceptable to the community to share content in a press release format.

Outside of social media news release, your best bet to take advantage of social media distribution of a press release would be to make it easy for the press release to be saved, shared and submitted by interested readers. You can do this with widgets or plugins offered by ShareThis and similar services. Many wire services already support those features as well.   Additionally, you should monitor pickups of the release on the social web.

If you see someone submit or share a release you’ve sent out on a social media site, reach out and thank them, answer any questions and show interest. That can generate interest from others in the community.  One tip I recommend is to write a blog post version of the press release and share that content with social media communities. Then include a link to the full press release within the blog post for people that want more information.

What you should not do is treat social media sites as a place to dump press release content thinking it will get a lot of exposure because there are many members of the community.  Here are some additional newsroom SEO tactics.

What is a good Social Media approach for a company which generates little in the way of genuinely newsworthy material?

Companies that say they have nothing “newsworthy” to publish are more common than you might think. There may be deeper issues to deal with than a social media strategy if there’s nothing new, innovative or unique to talk about.  A good social media marketing program cannot fix a broken business.

A business exists to make money fulfilling unmet customer needs. A perspective to consider would be to take the focus off the company and put it on the customer. Use social web participation as a way to better listen with and connect with customers to find opportunities to serve them better. Develop relationships with influentials and encourage feedback. Innovation can certainly come from a customer base as can the spread of a great idea. Focus on connecting with customers and helping customers connect with each other in a social context and there may be more newsworthy material than you ever expected.

Here are a few useful resources on Social Media and PR:

• Improve Public Relations with SEO & Social Media
• Why Use Social Media For Public Relations
• 3 Steps for Effectively Using Social Media For PR

There are so many shady SEO people and firms – how do you pick a good one?

There are no more “shady” SEO people than there are “shady” clients. Professionals that provide effective SEO consulting are reputable, experienced and in my experience, probably more talented than most traditional marketers you’ve ever worked with.  People doing shady things in the name of SEO are NOT professionals and the absence of that word, professionals, in the question is the problem.

Picking a good consultant or agency means doing homework. Know your market, set goals, understand your competition in search and start asking for referrals from others who have hired SEO companies. Word of mouth is powerful both for companies that need to hire good SEOs and for good SEOs to attract business. Our agency, TopRankMarketing.com for example, has relied mostly on word of mouth to attract new business since 2001. We also get a lot of new business from search itself (practice what you preach) and from networking on and offline.

Here are a few resources on hiring a SEO and one on “shady” SEO:

• How to Hire a SEO Firm – According to Google
• 5 Tips on Hiring and Getting the Most Value from SEO Consultants
• Dear Fox News: SEO Is Not Search Engine Scamming (Unless You’re Scamming Yourself)

Part of the issue is demand.  Take the next question for example:

“Can you use article spinning software to publish Press Releases? Or is there an Press Release spinning software to create many press releases based on one press release? Other words, is there a difference between article marketing and press releases?”

Article spinning software for press releases? Demand for shortcuts, silver bullets and “we want everything now” helps create the shady side of SEO as opportunists take advantage.  Automatically generating garbage pages in press release format will help NO ONE.

That’s it for this round of questions. I’ll post another round next week. Thank you to PRWeb and Search Engine Watch for having me participate on the webinar. What are your questions about optimizing news content?

If you’d like even more in-depth information about SEO and Public Relations, AND you happen to live in the Louisville, Kentucky area, be sure to check out the event Social Media Club Louisville is having next Tuesday night, Feb 16th.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | 7 Answers to News SEO Questions You Should Know | 11 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Last year OMS came through Minneapolis and I had an opportunity to present on building a case for social media through a Social Media Roadmap. Feedback comments like “lived up to the hype”, which is a compliment not too dis-similiar from, “it didn’t suck”, renewed my appreciation for Minnesota Nice.

But I digress. Back to the upcoming OMS in California.  The annual OMS conference is, to my great pleasure and happiness, in sunny San Diego.  I’ve had a chance to connect with the event organizer, Aaron Kahlow several times and appreciate the invite to present at OMS a great deal. One of my goals for 2010 is to vary the conferences that I speak at to reach different audiences.

OMS is held in conjuction with ClickZ Feb 22-24 at the Paradise Point Resort and Spa with a day of pre-conference training and a Search Engine Strategies day on Feb 25th.  I will arrive in the morning on the 23rd and will unfortunately, miss the morning sessions. But I do plan on attending “Social Media Inside The Brand: DuPont Case Study” which promises to cover the legal aspects of Social Media, how to develop a proper Social Media Marketing policy, and how to sell a “word of mouth” project internally. Sage advice for client side marketers.

There are some big names in search that will be presenting at OMS such as John Battelle, Tim Ash and Marshall Simmonds as well as marketers from brands including: Planet Holloywood, IBM, REO, New York Times, Jack in the Box, Eastman Kodak and Ogilvy 360.

Later in the afternoon (3:40 pm) on the 23rd I will be on a Social Media Forum which is part of a new “Leaders” track with a total of 5 savvy social media marketers on the panel. (Chris Baggott, Lee Odden, Michael Senger, Caitlin McCabe, Ben Hanna)

Luckily, we have Jason Baer as moderator who has taken the “Twitter approach” to Q and A in light of the inevitable time constraint. Jason will be asking questions and we are to provide answers in 140 characters or less.  Topics to be covered include:

It should be a great panel!

Day two OMS includes a great mix of sessions. I’m looking forward to:

• Social Media in the Enterprise
• Wharton Dispels Myths of Social, Viral and Online Marketing through Cold Hard Research
• Social Media Measurement Best Practices
• Integrated Marketing Forum
• Lunch Keynote: “How We Used Data to Win the Presidential Election”
• Acquiring New Customers with Email and Social Media
• Demand Generation Secret Sauce (Jon Miller from Marketo, our client)
• Using Social Media for eCommerce

On Feb 25th, Search Engine Strategies Day, SES has programmed a series with Search Engine Strategies conference speakers covering the gamut of SEO, PPC, Local, Social, Analytics and of course, PR/Social/Search.

I will be on the “PR, Social Media and Search” panel at 3:15 to discuss the intersection and future of these complimentary channels. If you know my agency TopRank Online Marketing and the content we publish here at Online Marketing Blog, you know the subject matter of this session is a perfect fit.  Panelists include: David “dk” Klein, Dana Todd, Rand Fishkin, myself and moderator duties will be handled by Sally Falkow.

I know there are a lot of people attending OMS and there might even be some tickets left if you’re not.  I’m really looking forward to it (and not just because I get to escape the snow for four days at a resort in San Diego).  If you’re attending OMS later this month, please say hello. I’d like to get feedback from other attendees on this conference for our blog coverage.

If you’ve been to an OMS event, what was your favorite thing about it?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | Get Smarter at Online Marketing Summit | 7 comments | 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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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | Upcoming TopRank Social SEO & PR Events | 3 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

There are many ways to get value from attending a conference but one that is especially important, and often overlooked, is the ability to connect with industry thought leaders and ask important questions.

While roaming the sessions, exhibit hall and networking events at SES Chicago, I did just that and decided to use my trusty iPhone 3GS to capture some insights on what marketers should be focusing on or considering in 2010.

Clearly, iPhone videos should be taken in bright light and close quarters, but these didn’t turn out too bad and they include great tips ranging from online reputation management to measuring social media ROI to the importance of testing what’s new but mastering the basics:

First up is Muhammad Saleem, a social media maven that works with the Chicago Tribune. He’s successfully built a tremendous social media profile as a “power user” on many difference services. Muhammad and I talked about what social media marketers should focus on for 2o10:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The rate at which social media and search intersect is mind boggling with the deals struck between Google and Twitter, Bing and Twitter, Bing and Facebook, Google and MySpace, etc. I talked with digital marketing guru Aaron Goldman of Connectual about his take on the future of search and social:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Another dimension that marketers need to focus on is the rapidly changing nature of digital content distribution channels and how to optimize for them. Best selling author, keynote speaker and conversion expert Bryan Eisenberg and I talked about these challenges and how to manage chasing “shiny objects” vs testing what’s new and the importance of mastering the basics.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The social web makes a lot of information about individuals and companies transparent, whether we like it or not. Online Reputation Management is increasingly important as service providers find new ways to help consumers discover, consume and share information online. The author of “the book on ORM – Radically Transparent” and founder of the social media monitoring service Trackur, Andy Beal and I talked in his Penthouse suite at the Hilton (actually it was Matt McGowan’s) on the importance and challenges of ORM in an increasingly social web.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The sheer volume of information about how to best market online is staggering. Staying current is key and without a foundation of knowledge to build upon, new insights can be fragmented and strategies incomplete. Aaron Kahlow, fouder of Online Marketing Connect and the Online Marketing Institute talks about the importance of training and mastering the basics of internet marketing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For more internet marketing interviews from SES Chicago and many other events, be sure to check out TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog video channel on YouTube.

What tips or questions do you have about online marketing for the coming year? What digital marketing tactics and strategies will you be focusing on?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | SES Chicago: Internet Marketing Tips for 2010 | 14 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Moderated by Simon Heseltine, Senior Marketing Manager for AOL with panelists including: Eli Goodman from comScore, Justin Merickel of Efficient Frontier and Doug McMillen from Microsoft Advertising.

First up is Justin Merickel from Efficient Frontier, which runs about $180m in PPC through their platform. Justin talked about two main trends:

The changing SERP. Data comes front and center to the results page
Justin shows a SERP page for “bottled water” where the top PPC ads display images of bottled water. Not sure of it’s impact. However, if you’re not leveraging Google features (like images in PPC or local listings) you’re missing out on significant visibility.

Advertisers need to think about how to get their products and services into the new multimedia search results page.

Information is coming in the search results page in different formats. For example, “mortgage” displays comparison information between lenders right into the search results page. It’s therefore, critical for companies to gain coverage in Google on these new types if data inclusion.

How? What kinds of structured data do companies have to use for inclusion? What kinds of assets do they have? (Can I hear a DAO?)

Location, product extension, comparison
Benefits: Long tail automation, specific creative, prices and offers, automates a significant manual effort, compliments SEO
The end result is greater coverage in search results.

Great example: “Asics running shoes” for Zappos. #2 in Paid search results, top 3 image PPC ads top right and 2 of the 5 image search results.

Efficient Frontier has a platform that allows you to provide product feeds.

Creative management means developing feeds, mapping feeds to a creative template, generating ad variations from templates, push data to search engines via API and updating creative based on a feed update such as price changes & out of stock.

The second point Merickel covered:  The auction moves beyond search

Is display now search like? There are two big trends driving display towards search-like performace, each with optimization implications: Rapid expansion of auction-based access to inventory. Also access to targeting data decoupled from media.

When exposed to both paid search and display ads, consumers were found to be nearly twice as likely to make an online purchase on a retailer’s web site.

How to get to search-like intent? Retargeting and using third party data.

Next up is Eli Goodman, Search Evangelist at comScore, who tracks about a million people online worldwide. Eli’s presentation was focused on three topics for the future of search.

Branding: Online advertising leaves branding dollars on the table. Big dollars will be put into online branding vs direct response.

All three major search engines are delivering richer search results (Universal Search Results) and other enhancements. Example: Special K ad turns into a video. Richer paid search ad presentations will help advertisers capture search brand dollars. But scale is a challenge.

The solution might be to encourage advertisers to think of search as the traffic driver to the brand mechanism, not just the brand. Think not just about obvious terms but terms that represent related concepts and terms, behaviors related to the purchase.

Who could do better? GE’s ecomagination doesn’t rank organically or in PPC ads for “clean energy”. Both search terms and content need to reflect the needs and interests of the customer, not the advertiser message.

The next topic Eli covered was In-text search, which are search results that showg up as you mouse over content. Vibrant Media and Kontera are 2 of the only companies that provide this kind of service for publishers.

As you scroll over text links, informative, useful or entertaining pop ups might display that factors where you are in during the content consumption experience to deliver helpful info. Basically, it analyzes the content where you are and presents additional, useful information.

Example: Hellman’s Receipes. Delivers useful recipe ideas and ingredient lists on related food terms wihtin relevant web content. The most useful content increases user engagement.

The last point from comScore involved social search. Alternative search engines show strong year over year search growth from Sept 2008 except for MySpace. YouTube had over 11 billion searches last month.

While social search is the next frontier, the search results need to be more relevant. That means there are opportunities for marketers to optimize content with social media web sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.

[This is a key point of intersection with search optimization and social media. Optimizing content within social networks, not just public content available at Google.com]

With the high volume of search queries on YouTube, there are significant opportunities for content creation and optimization to achieve visibility on broad and specific terms.

Last up is Doug McMillen from Bing, who talked mostly about Mobile search.

Bing’s upcoming mobile search will be similar to the online search user experience. Designed from the ground up as a mobile specific product, not a web search product brought to mobile.

Industry Reseach: US mobile broadband ramp up is simplar to that of the the PC. As broadband adoption with PCs became prevelant, there was a corresponding jump in search queries. That same parallel is happening with broadband adoption in the mobile industy and mobile search.

With mobile search, think about how users search using a mobile device vs computer based search. “One hand using a thumb while driving”. [Isn't that illegal?]

It’s time to think about a mobile search strategy: Us Mobile search users: 2008 5.2 million and jumping to 56.2 million by 2013.

With mobile, now is the time to start testing and learning. The mobile marketplace is wide open right now. Bing is offering click to call services on a CPS basis. Microsoft Mobile Marketplaces is another product that helps drive mobile traffic to your web site.

There are huge growth rates with mobile search. Mobile search is seeing 2-3x higher CTR’s and CPS as low as .05.

This was a good panel offering a mix of paid search and display, mobile and richer search experiences. What do you think the next big thing in search is going to be?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | SES Chicago – Search: Where to Next? | 10 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

I know there are plenty of agencies and companies that are experiencing slimmed marketing and travel budgets, wondering if marketing conferences are worth the investment. Sponsoring and exhibiting are a big part of many companies marketing strategy and for those companies that do it right, with pre, during and post show promotion, it’s very productive. Even at small shows.

The majority of attendees at SEM conferences are buyers and sellers of search marketing and related services. They go for many reasons ranging from knowledge, to networking to business development.   Attending 10-15 conferences every year for the past 4+ years has provided me many opportunities to realize how to get the most out of marketing conferences.

Whether the investment in attending a conference is on the company’s dime or the individual, it’s important that conference attendees get the most out of their time at events by setting goals. Managers sending individuals to conferences should be clear about expectations. Company staff should be sure to talk with others within the organization or teams that have attended the same or similar events to gain their insight.

Here are 5 of the most valuable things you can get out of conferences to multiply your investment:

1. Networking – Set goals and identify how many qualified prospects, marketing partners, vendors to outsource to and job candidates you will meet. Schedule meetings, dinners and other social activities IN ADVANCE. Each day of the conference, tally them up and plan how you will follow up. Get creative with meeting new people in between sessions after the conference at social activities and my personal favorite: over food. In my experience, the single most productive situation for generating the most valuable contacts for biz dev, recruiting and many other reasons is over breakfast, lunch or dinner. Coffee works too.

Write notes on the back of business cards and either use a single social network for follow up connections like LinkedIn. Or, segment the contacts you’ve made into groups and choose the best social network to use for follow up. Some people are best to connect with via Twitter or Facebook. Others are best with LikedIn.

2. Knowledge – Know in advance which sessions will you attend and how you capture the information?  It amazes me how many people come to sessions and sit there, listening and doing nothing to document what they’re learning.  HUGE mistake!

Take notes on paper or laptop, photos, audio or video (where allowed). When meeting new people, discuss the sessions with them. Compare notes – it’s a great way to network and to get other opinions. Before the conference, make a grid or a plan for which specific sessions you’ll be attending.  Often times, there is not much time between sessions and the difference between getting a good seat and standing room only can be a matter of minutes.

If you have multiple staff attending a conference, be sure there isn’t unnecessary overlap by planning out who goes to what session. Then follow up during (if possible) or after the conference to share what was learned. At TopRank, our team will liveblog sessions and then create a PowerPoint presentation when they get back to share the most important, actionable things they learned at the conference with the rest of the team. Staying current is one of the few ways to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage in the SEM business.

3. Content – Think about how will you leverage your conference experience to create new content for your company blog, articles, or process documentation.  Set goals for what types and how many content pieces you’ll create each day. The content you capture and create can supply a company blog with numerous posts during and long after the conference. Remember that content comes in many forms: photos, video and audio. If you have an iPhone, AudioBoo is an excellent app for recording and promoting podcasts on the fly.  If a speaker has uploaded their PPT deck to Slideshare, then see if you can embed that presentation in a blog post along with your observations.

Liveblogging is not for the weak at heart, so keeping it simple to the main points of a session is just fine.

Creating content from conferences shows clients, staff and prospective clients (if you are an agency or consultant) that you are on top of what’s happening in the industry.

4. Knowledge Transfer – It’s important to decide how will you pass on the information you’ve acquired to the rest of the team. As I mentioned above, TopRank staff take the highlights from a conference and create presentations which they share during all-hands team training sessions which occur every 2 weeks.  For many people, knowing they will be expected to demonstrate new knowledge and especially, practical tips, helps create an appreciation for capturing such information during sessions rather than simply sitting there and wondering where to party that night.

5. Socialize – Speaking of parties…  After hours events are excellent opportunities for conference attendees to relax, network and share information. Make no mistake, post session networking can be an art form. While it’s important to relax and have fun, be clear about objectives and make a goal of attending a dinner each night of the event if possible. Some dinners are a tradition amongst long time friends, some are sponsored by vendors and some are spontaneous events through new connections and wanting to continue the conversation after the day’s sessions.

After hours events can be good opportunities to capture video or audio interviews, but do it early. There’s less noise, more light and less slurring of words.

As you can see, there are many more opportunities to get value from marketing conference participation than keeping up to date with an industry. Pre conference goal setting and planning, well defined processes as well as follow up and post event knowledge sharing can all multiple the value organizations realize by sending employees to educational events.

What are your best tips on getting more out of conferences, workshops and training seminars?

Incidentally, I will be presenting and moderating at SES Chicago. Here are the details:

Monday, December 7^th 2009 – 3:15pm-4:15pm
SEO Through Blogs & Feeds

Not yet running a blog? Not syndicating your content through web feeds? Then you’re missing out on an important area that can help your overall SEO efforts. Learn more about the unique advantages blogs and feeds offer to Search Engine Optimization.

Moderator: Rebecca Lieb, VP, US Operations, Econsultancy

Speakers:
Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board & CEO, TopRank® Online Marketing
Mark Jackson, SEW Expert & President/CEO, VIZION Interactive
Sally Falkow, President, PRESSfeed
Daron Babin, CEO, Webmaster Radio

Tuesday, December 8^th – 4:15pm – 5:30pm
News Search Optimization
News search engines offer a great way to receive targeted traffic related to breaking topics or to help with a public relations launch. In this session, we look at how to make use of press releases and news content to tap into the power of news search.

Moderator:
Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board & CEO, TopRank® Online Marketing

Speakers:
DanaTodd, CMO, Newsforce
Greg Jarboe, President & Co-founder, SEO-PR
Lisa Buyer, President & CEO, The Buyer Group

Conference info:
Hilton Chicago
720 S. Michigan Ave
Chicago, Ill.
December 7-11

To register, visit SES Chicago

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | SES Chicago: 5 Ways to Multiply Conference ROI | 8 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

However, the prominent brands on the strip have stepped up to the plate and are actively engaged in social web participation.  They’re leveraging digital platforms for a variety of purposes – from customer service to promotion.

This open-format panel at PubCon 2009 analyzed how Vegas marketing departments are using SM as part of their overall marketing plan and featured some of the largest names on the strip.  Brands represented were:

• Brad Goldberg, Vice President of Marketing, Luxor
• Brandie Feuer, Director of Interactive Marketing, Planet Hollywood
• Peter Arceo, Executive Director of Casino Marketing, Las Vegas Hilton
• Michael Perhaes, Assistant Vice President of Marketing, MGM Grand
• Bryan Allison, Vice President, Marketing, Vegas.com

The session moved quickly, but I was able to jot down the good bits from each of the speakers.

Brad Goldberg, Vice President of Marketing, Luxor

We saw successes from other brands using social media and decided we wanted to pattern the same results.  While not everyone may check their emails in Vegas, many of them still check their social profiles while traveling.  People are looking to what is happening right now, up-to-date.  We wanted to be a part of those real-time conversations and top-of-mind for our consumer base.

We want to keep it fun – staying away from “cold” messages that are too commercial.  We think it’s important with regards to the social web to maintain personality/voice.  That’s one of the most important things we want to hold onto and maintain.  Otherwise, it’s just another advertising vehicle.

Making it easier for those interacting with your products to communicate about those interactions is something we see as important to our future.

Peter Arceo, Executive Director of Casino Marketing, Las Vegas Hilton

At the Hilton, we don’t necessarily have the same resources of our competitors.  So what we do is staff social media with people actively interested in what we’re trying to do – spread our brand.  We try to get customers to both sample our offerings and make it social.  We have a “toys for Tweets” promotion that will bring awareness to the fact that there is a Hilton in Vegas in a positive light.  Our approach to get employees involved in social media isn’t to guide them, but take the Zappos approach and let them have their own voice.  We want to find people internally interested in doing social media organically.

We design promotions and events to get people together – not just to meet us, but to meet each other.  There is a hunger and a need for people to meet each other.  We want to be the connector.

Brandie Feuer, Director of Interactive Marketing, Planet Hollywood

We see social media as a great direct response channel.  But we’re also cognizant of providing value to users.  We do things like give out last minute concert tickets to our followers and promote little things that might not be worth a press release.  Social media rests with PR and our interactive department, however we also encourage others to be a part of the space.  All employees should be empowered, where possible. We want to move towards more of a social business model.

Michael Perhaes, Assistant Vice President of Marketing, MGM Grand

The MGM Grand was late to the social media game compared to competitors on the strip – we finally joined for a few reasons.  The effectiveness of our email marketing was beginning to degrade a bit.  The value of email has diminished in the last few years.  We’ve seen sites like Facebook have taken up that role for many.  We want to put content into social media that may have been ignored in email.  In a few years time, social media will become an even more important network than email for our brand.

We have high expectations on response for social media as a full-blown marketing channel.  The people that choose to follow us on the social web have affinity for our brand and we want to be able to market to them.

We have specific pages for some channels, for example we have a separate food and beverage Facebook page for that department since there are people passionate about those items.  We want to engage other departments too.  Most importantly, we want to find ways to make this more meaningful even beyond direct response and reach people interested in Vegas.  We’re creating personas to try to build affinity with people.

We read (and respond) to posts customers put up on their Facebook page – specifically things like customer complaints – in order to make their next experience better.  It allows that two way communication – if someone complains about their room, we have a way to respond to them immediately.

As a promotional effort we launched a “confessions campaign” on Twitter where you can Tweet your sins, and there’s a livestream of people tweeting those sins.  Users can vote on sins which are forgivable vs. unforgivable.  The best sins can win a free night.  We’ve done advertising in LA to support it and create more buzz.  The goal is to gain additional awareness on Twitter, gain more followers and experiment.

Bryan Allison, Vice President, Marketing, Vegas.com

We identified people internally who were passionate about social media and empowered them to get involved and answer consumer questions.  The entire company is leveraging the social web.  We just launched a campaign called “Vegas Experts Exposed.”  This wasn’t the idea of the marketing department; rather it was the idea of some other employees in the company.  We want everyone to contribute ideas across the company.

We’ve done things that are both commercial and fun on social channels and we’re continuously surprised with how people interact with the more fun items.  We want to have something that people will look forward to on their live feed.

We use a mix of “power users” internally for promoting the product, and also customer service representatives talking to customers and alleviate their problems.  There are people internally who are really passionate and want to share their workplace/what they do all day.  We encourage them to do so, however to use common sense and ask first on appropriateness if there is a questions.

Many of our younger employees are already involved – it’s an opportunity to use them, tap that resource.  They know how to communicate and engage in these channels.  We use them to help the people who may not be as experienced in social media get up to speed.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | PubCon 2009: How Major Vegas Hotels Are Using Social Media | 10 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Founded in 1999, Zappos has grown to 1,400 employees and is listed at #23 in Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies To Work For.”

Zappos is “Powered by Service.” Its goal is to provide the best online shopping experience possible.

Customer service in action:

#1 driver of Zappos’ growth is from repeat customers and word of mouth. Put a focus into the customer experience, create something that is worth talking about. Let customers do the marketing for you through digital (and physical) channels.

Customer service:  What customers see first on the Zappos website:

• 24/7 1-800 number on every page
• Free shipping
• Free return shipping
• 365-day return policy

Consumers are bombarded by thousands of marketing messages daily.  As low tech and unsexy as it may sound, the telephone is one of the best marketing devices out there.  Zappos encourages customers to call them – and yet, 95% of their orders are online.  What they have found though is on average, nearly all customers contact them at least once through the phone.  Zappos is actively building personal relationships with their customers, who in turn are helping them grow.

What customers experience:

• Fast, accurate fulfillment
• Most customers are “surprise”-upgraded to overnight shipping (creates a WOW experience)
• Friendly, helpful, “above and beyond” customer service – even directing customers to competitors if they are looking for something Zappos doesn’t have

What Zappos does internally:

• No call times, no sales-based performance goals for reps
• Run warehouse 24/7
• Inventory all products (no drop-shipping)
• 5 weeks of culture, core values, customer service and warehouse training for everyone in Las Vegas office
• Customer service is not just that department, it’s everyone
• Culture book – all employees contribute a few paragraphs. Except for typos, it is unedited. Everyone reads it.

Zappos wants to own the three C’s: clothing, customer service, culture.

Customers tell them Zappos is “happiness in a box”. Whether that happiness is from the product, their customer service team or the internal culture, it’s all about delivering that experience through both digital channels and a tangible product.

Zappos top 10 core values:

1. Deliver WOW through service
2. Embrace and drive change
3. Create fun and a little weirdness
4. Be adventurous, creative and open-minded
5. Pursue growth and learning
6. Build open and honest relationships with communications
7. Build a positive team and family spirit
8. Do more with less
9. Be passionate and determined
10. Be humble

Tony touched on the importance of hiring people who consider themselves lucky/optimistic. People who consider themselves lucky pay more attention to detail and are cognizant of their surroundings. Luck is about being open to opportunity. This is important in a world where we are all connected: Your employees are potentially a great marketing asset to spread your brand in the right light.

Committing to transparency – Zappos puts themselves in the public spotlight:

• Twitter.Zappos.com
• Ask anything newsletter
• Extranet for vendors
• Tours & reporter visits
• ZapposInsights.com

During Zappos tours, visitors are free to walk around the offices and talk to whoever they want. They are comfortable doing that since they invest so much in hiring/training of employees up front. Employees are trusted to represent the Zappos brand just by being themselves. People leave buzzing about the brand.

What Tony hears frequently: “That’s great for Zappos, but it would never work at my company …”

The response: It doesn’t matter what your core values are, as long as you commit to them. First, figure out what your core values are. Second, seek alignment across all staff. Values must be “real,” not overly corporate/lofty.

In terms of vision: Whatever you’re thinking, think bigger. Decide if the vision actually has real meaning. Then, chase the vision, not the money. The money will actually follow.

For entrepreneurs: “What would you be passionate about doing for 10 years even if you never made a dime?

For employees: “What’s the larger vision and greater purpose in their work beyond money or profits?”

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | PubCon 2009: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh Keynote | 28 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

He started by explaining why SEO is/should be important to PR Professionals.

In a 2008 Journalists Use of Search Survey by TopRank, we discovered that 91% of journalists use standard search to fulfill a component of their job whether researching a story or locating a subject matter expert.

With journalists writing for more channels and with less resources making your content visible within search is critical.

Here are Odden’s 10 SEO Tips:

1. Number one thing to do?
Magic answer is that it depends on the problem.
However, if you choose one item to tackle make sure your website is crawlable. If the site isn’t crawlable, then really nothing else you do in terms of SEO will matter.

2. Understand and Optimize PR Tactics
The content that is likely already being created as part of the PR campaign is low hanging fruit in terms of SEO.

Optimize the following content with keyword phrases (or those terms that journalists might be searching) to help your content become more visible:

• Press Releases
• Letters to the editor
• Online Newsroom
• Media kits
• Corporate blogs
• White papers
• Webinars/demos
• Newsletters
• Real world interviews published digitally

In addition, Odden introduces the audience to the idea of Micromedia Optimization. Now that tweets and soon status updates are being integrated into the search engines, it’s important to optimize the content regardless of the channel.

3. PPC vs SEO for PR
SEO is long term, part of a content process and contingent on content and links over time.
PPC is on-demand, pay to play and an alternative to natural listings. If you have something you need to draw attention to right now, PPC is perhaps the more viable option as you can have ads live within minutes.

4. Keyword Research
In order to optimize your existing content, a list of keyword phrases needs to be developed.
Here’s how you build the list:
1. Brainstorm phrases
2. Import to a keyword research tool
–Google Keyword Tool
–Google Insights & Trends
–WordTracker
–Keyword Discovery
–SEM Rush
3. Find popularity and variations of the original keyword list
4. Create a keyword glossary

When creating the glossary, be sure to segment by popularity and category to ensure no important phrases are missed.

5. Basics of OnPage SEO
When optimizing a website, newsroom or landing page, don’t forget to include keywords in the following places:

• Title Tags
• Keyword Placement within content
• On-page titles
• Navigation links
• Body copy
• Keyword text links
• Image alt text

6. Get more from Press Releases
Press releases can be more than a vehicle for distributing messages. If optimized, it can also serve to pull journalists (and even prospects) to the content hosted on a website or within a newsroom.

To optimize your press content for search visibility, remember to:

• Research and identify target keyword phrases
• Optimize the release for 1-2 phrases
• Include a Call to Action (link to landing page, so you can track activity)
• Develop and Optimize Landing Pages
• Post to Newsroom
• Pitch to Media
• Distribute via RSS
• Leverage Wire Service Distribution
• Measure Results

Here are 7 tips specific to Press Release Optimization:
1. Think up and to the left
2. Optimize for people first, search engines next
3. Use keywords in Title, Subhead, body
4. Don’t obsess over keyword density
5. Aim for a 500 word release to use target keyword 2-4 times
6. Use keywords in links to company sites
7. Add media: images, podcasts, video

7. Newsroom Optimization Tactics
Online newsrooms can be an added resource to draw journalists in, if it is optimized and can be found via search.

To optimize your newsroom or to get one started, follow these tips:
1. Consider using blog software to manage your newsroom, very search friendly
2. Share/Save Bookmarks
3. Leverage keyword categories
Chronological archives don’t benefit the search engines or the user. No one wants to search through years of press releases – as opposed to clicking on a category of content like ‘SEO Tips’.
4. Cross link from optimized content to relevant content on the website

8. Link Building
Links ‘electrify’ content in search and can significantly improve search rankings.

Earn links with great content and by deploying the following:

• Promote content socially
• Link up with partners
• Cross link internally
• Embed links in releases
• Social bookmark pickups of release content/coverage

When creating hyperlinks, be sure to use keywords in text:
Yes: Red Widget
No: Click Here

9. SEO & Social: Yin Yang
SEO and Social Media can be very complimentary to one another, so if deploying both (or even parts of both) be sure to integrate for highest impact.

Optimize Social Media for Search
The role of SEO in a social media effort is to directly influence discovery of social communities or content via search.

Link Building for SEO Through Social Media
Indirectly, social content can boost links to website content, improve search traffic and online sales.

10. Measuring & Selling the Value of News SEO
After deploying some or all of the above, it’s important to tie back to results.

There are are many different ways to attach measurement to the optimization of news content and here are a few to get you started:

• Newswire service metrics
• Web analytics for landing pages and websites
• Google / Yahoo alerts
• Monitor blog search engines (via RSS)
• Press release landing page conversion tracking
• Social media monitoring
• Inbound links
• Pickups on blogs
• Pickups on other websites
• Pickups on publications
• Search Rankings

Don’t think those will work? Odden recommends using the power of the competitors. Are your competitors receiving better social or standard search visibility? If so, that’s often a compelling data point for decision makers.

What tips do you have to add for optimizing news content?

TopRank is offering a Free Guide to SEO for PR here.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | PRSA09: Top 10 SEO Tips for Public Relations | 28 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

One session I’ve really been looking forward to was the one on social media measurement featuring Katie Paine of KDPaine & Partners. She started the audience off with some numbers, that we all might find useful:

• 48% of respondents to a PRWeek study said that they were moving money from advertising to social media – only 18% said they were taking money from PR
• 78% of people trust peer recommendations, 14% trust advertising
• 91% of Inc 500 companies are using social media
• 38% aren’t monitoring their brand, product or reputation in social media

Next, the audience had to grapple with the idea (read truth) that it’s the end of measurement as we know it. Here are ten supporting facts:

1. Procter & Gamble is now paying for engagement, not eyeballs
2. Sodexo cut 300K out of its recruitment budget using Twitter
3. Comcast avoided government regs and improved customer service via Twitter
4. Immunize BC used social media to boost awareness and increase percentage of population immunized
5. BMC Software measures communications effectiveness based on contribution to EPS (earnings per share)
6. HSUS (Humane Society) generated $650,000 in new donations from an on-line photo contest on Flickr
7. Red Cross judges success in terms of property saved and loss averted
8. IMB receives more leads, sales and exposure from a $500 podcast that it does from a $40,000 advertising program
9. Wal-Mart credits Q109 profits to 11 Moms
10. Stanford University calculates ROI from Facebook based on applications and retention

So, if you are measuring success with any of the following, you might be labeled Old School (and need to keep reading).

• AVE (ad value equivalency)
• Eyeballs
• Hits
• Couch Potatoes
• # of Twitter Followers
• # of Facebook Friends/Fans

Paine explains that the above measurement methods are in fact Old School and the incorrect way to measure the effectiveness of any campaign. Eyeballs aren’t a measurement of success anymore because those eyeballs likely avert your advertisement. Hits aren’t an objective of a website, inquiries and conversions are.

The measurement of success isn’t the creation of a Facebook page or even the number of friends/followers the page has. Rather, success is in the engagement with a particular audience and how that engagement has the potential to impact a preset objective.

So why don’t more professionals update the way they approach measurement? Paine says it’s fear. She adresses many fears that this (or any other) audience may have when it comes to social media and defining metrics.
1. Afraid metrics will reveal the program isn’t working.

• If it’s not working, why keep doing it?

2. Afraid of what you will hear.

• If you’re deaf to the conversation, only your enemies will hear it.

3. Afraid I won’t be able to justify my program/existence.

• It’s not about justifying; it’s about improving

4. Afraid I’ll be fired for not showing the right numbers.

• You should be fired for not showing any.

Social Media renders everything you know about measurement obsolete. The definition of timely has changed, the definition of reach has changed, the definition of success had changed.

The answer isn’t in how many you’ve reached, but how those you’ve reached have responded

Once you have reached the audience, take a look at how they engage and make decisions as it may have changed.

OLD:  Awareness > Consideration > Preference > Trial > Purchase
NEW:  Find > Observe > Participate > Engagement > Purchase/Act/Link/WOM

To get started, set goals for Social Media. Examples of goals are:

1. Marketing/leads/sales
2. Mission/safety/civic engagement
3. Relationship/reputation/positioning

To reach those goals, what do you need to measure?  Paine recommends following the 7 Steps to Social Media ROI:

1. Define the ‘R’ – what are expected results
2. Define the ‘I’ – what’s the investment
3. Understand your audiences and what motivates them
4. Define the metrics (what you want to become)
5. Define your benchmarks
6. Obey the Rules
7. Analysis

In what ways are you measuring social media? What have you found to be the most compelling metrics for getting management and/or client buy-in?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | PRSA09: Social Media Measurement – Katie Paine on Establishing ROI | 15 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Another year in the Search Marketing world, another WebmasterWorld Pubcon in Las Vegas.  Pubcon was one of the first search marketing conferences I attended and where I first met a number of highly talented SEOs in person.

TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog has been liveblogging the Pubcon conference since 2005 and includes a mix of content ranging from interviews with Pubcon owner Brett Tabke to Google’s Adam Lasnik. Also videos (Neil Patel giving interesting tips), photos (see the 2006 Yahoo Party in the Playboy Suite and many, many posts from the sessions offering strategy and tactics of the day.

What I like about Pubcon is that the conference organizers don’t try to be the same every year.  For example, they mix up the keynote speakers from a variety of backgrounds including people from outside the search marketing industry (Author Malcolm Gladwell, Craig Newmark of Craigslist and this year Tony Hsieh from Zappos).

There’s a longstanding community behind the Pubcon conference at WebmasterWorld which slants towards people that focus on search marketing as a client side marketer, SEM consultant or owner/operator of web based businesses. That said, the Pubcon conference content and delegates come from a variety of industries and backgrounds ranging from soloprenuers to big advertising/PR/interactive agencies to brand marketers to domainers to affiliate marketers.

There are many, many ways to get significantly more value from attending conferences than what is paid for, just read these tips: “Conference Liveblogging Tips” and “Increase ROI from Attending Conferences“. The single most important thing you can do to get more out of a conference is to plan which sessions you’ll attend beforehand.  With little time between sessions, you can really miss out on incredible information if you don’t know where you’re going next. Pubcon has an Itinerary Builder for just this purpose.

Recently I was asked by a Digital Strategy guy at one of the biggest PR agencies in the U.S. which conferences he should attend besides SXSW and one of the first recommendations I made was Pubcon. Why? Because the content mix at Pubcon has always involved quality information about search marketing (SEO and PPC), Affiliate Marketing, Webmastering and New Trends, whatever they may be.  It’s a great mix of the practical/tactical with what to expect from the next 6 months to a year.

I started speaking at Pubcon on a session focused on SEO for Public Relations several years ago and over time was invited to speak on up to 4 sessions at each conference including a SEO Bloggers panel that has run 4 years in a row.  This year I will be speaking on 3  panels and TopRank’s Adam Singer will be presenting on a panel about Social Media Marketing and PR.  Here’s the info on those sessions. We’d love to see you there:

Tuesday, November 10th: 2:55-4:10pm

Experts on PR & Twitter

Can Public Relations 2.0 be summarized in 140 characters or less? Don’t let the character count lull you into complacency. To break through, today’s PR efforts must be powerful, targeted and social. This panel of social media and PR professionals will take you on a journey from mid-level public relations to advanced online PR and social promotions in no time.

Moderator: Krista Neher

Panel: Adam Singer, Account Manager, TopRank® Online Marketing, Sean Jackson, CEO/Creator, Ecordia, Lisa Buyer, President/CEO, The Buyer Group, Ben Fisher, President, TechPad Agency.

Wednesday, November 11^th: 10:15-11:30am

How Do Social Media & Search Intersect?

With social media seeming to fill the promotional role previously occupied by search marketing, it only makes sense that social media prevents the need for search, right? Don’t fall into this trap. Join this panel of social media and search experts as they detail how these two tactics both intersect and complement each other in supporting your overall marketing objectives.

Moderator: Vanessa Fox

Panel: Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank® Online Marketing, Tony Adam, SEO Manager, Yahoo, David Wallace, CEO, SearchRank, Bill Hartzer, Search Engine Optimization Manager, Vizion Interactive.

Thursday, November 12^th: 1:30-2:45pm

How SMBs Can Use PR Campaigns to Grow Traffic

Online public relations makes it possible for today’s small businesses to grow into tomorrow’s major online marketing players. Learn how small businesses can master online PR to drive traffic and achieve business objectives from Odden and his panel.

Moderator: Alex Bennert

Speakers: Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank® Online Marketing, Jiyan Wei, Product Manager, Vocus, Sean Jackson, CEO/Creator, Ecordia

Thursday, November 12^th:  2:55-4:10pm

Search Bloggers:  What’s Hot & Trending?

Can bloggers maintain their influence with the emergence of newer forms of social media? With the right strategies, ‘yes.’ Discover what these blogging strategies are, and understand how to integrate them into your efforts, from Odden and his panel.

Moderator: Greg Hartnett

Speakers: Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank® Online Marketing. Michael McDonald, Managing Editor, iEntry Inc.. Barry Schwartz, President, RustyBrick, Inc.. Loren Baker, Editor, Search Engine Journal.

After all those conference sessions there are, of course, plenty of networking opportunities both during the day and afterwards. It’s Las Vegas after all.

For more conference information, be sure to visit the Pubcon web site.

PubCon 2009:  Social Media, Search, Affiliates

November 10-13, 2009

You can connect with Pubcon socially here:

• LinkedIn –  (Vegas Event)
• Facebook
• Twitter

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Pubcon Las Vegas 2009: Are You Ready? | 7 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

During the MIMA Summit last week, the importance of a content marketing strategy was the topic of a session presented by Rachel Lovinger of Razorfish.

For this week’s 5 Tips post, I’ve translated some of Rachel’s valuable points into actionable steps for creating an effective content marketing strategy.

1. Discover
In a nutshell, do your homework:

• Research competitors’ content. Whether you’re launching a blog, website or email campaign, determine what information is already out there and how it’s presented. How can you distinguish yourself?
• Concept your voice based on audience and type of content. If you’re providing quick tips and human interest pieces for consumers, your content voice will likely be more conversational. Are you offering in-depth, research-driven articles for a B2B audience? Your voice should be reflect that.
• Define the clear goals and message of your content. By failing to do so, you’ll have a difficult time building a solid readership. You also risk confusing the readers you do attract.

2. Design
Step 2 is all about planning—making sure all the “i’s” have been dotted and the “t’s” have been crossed:

• Determine responsibilities. Before deploying a content marketing plan, ensure that you’ve outlined who will be the keeper of the content. If you aren’t able to hire a dedicated resource, it’s essential to appoint someone to incorporate content maintenance into his or her current responsibilities. Content maintenance could also entail tasking each employee to contribute one piece of content per month.
• Organize content. Is your content logically located on your site in a central place? Is it easy to search for a particular topic? If your readers have a difficult time navigating through your site to find useful content, they’re not likely to stick around for very long.

3. Build
With Steps 1 and 2 complete, you’re ready to start putting the wheels in motion:

• Plan a style guide. Include as much information as possible regarding everything from tone and voice to target word count. Provide best practices for optimizing content and writing checklists.
• Create a copy deck. A copy deck is essentially a roadmap for your content pages, including text, graphics, advertising and links. It can be developed in stages, starting with writing a few paragraphs to describe the content.

4. Deploy
With the first 3 steps in place, a content marketing strategy is finally ready for deployment:

• Maintain. It’s crucial to have a plan in place to continuously update content. Outdated content will quickly turn readers away. Plus, a stagnant site won’t do you any favors when it comes to search engines.
• Monitor. Leverage analytics tools to gauge what worked best and what failed. Look for patterns in the most popular types of content—i.e., checklists, charts, case studies. You can analyze virtually any variable, from optimal article length to most popular type of headline.

5. Adjust
The final step to creating an effective content marketing strategy is ongoing:

• Respond. No content marketing strategy is perfect. Based on analytics reports, continuously tweak your content efforts to maximize results.

What steps would you add to create an effective content marketing strategy?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | 5 Tips for Creating an Effective Content Marketing Strategy | 20 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Whether you agree or disagree that email has one foot in the grave, many online marketers are finding effective ways to leverage email as part of a social media marketing mix. Integrating email and social media was the topic of discussion at a session during the MIMA Summit last week with Loren McDonald, VP of Industry Releations, SilverPop and Brian Brown, Director of Modern Marketing, ideapark.

Social sharing options embedded in online content have helped increase distribution and reach for thousands of web sites. One of the most common ways email has been used in a social context is “Forward to a Friend”.  However, the tried and true ‘Forward to a Friend’ link has less than .1% CTR, so many marketers have taken it upon themselves to find a new way to circulate content amongst networks.

Alternatively, there is  the ‘Share to Social’ (S2S) link. While  S2S is relatively new, a .5% CTR gives early reason to be optimistic according to a Silverpop study.

The Silverpop Share-to-Social study also reported that S2S is likely to result in sharing of content with 150 to 200 people on average. In contrast, a “forward to a friend” link may reach an additional 1 to 2 people. Share to social use results in a 24% increase in reach on average.

How does Share-To-Social (S2S) Work?  S2S is a call to action such as ‘Share this Newsletter’ followed by graphical links to various social network or content sharing sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, StumbleUpon and so forth. all within the email message.

If you look at most blogs and online publishers, social sharing buttons are not anything new.  In fact, TopRank created one of the first tools for blogs to embed social bookmarking buttons over 3 years ago. Posting them within email messages, however, is catching on and there are a few guidelines to follow for successful integration:

Understand what motivates subscribers to share
People share for different reasons including:

• Self Interest: People share because they think they will be rewarded. i.e. sweepstakes
• Altruism: sharing makes them feel good
• Validation: sharing feeds the ego
• Affinity: sharing makes people feel more a part of the community
• Prurience: sharing makes people feel less guilty for gawking

Target the right social networks and media
Is the use of 4 or 5 networks the right number? If not, how many is?

Be sure to do your homework and identify on which social sites your target audience is spending time. Of those, on which sites are they interacting or sharing content the most?

Once you have this identified, don’t shut down the research. Continue to follow the target audiences to make sure they aren’t migrating to a new site leaving you unaware.

Keys to targeting the right networks:

• Utilize 3^rd party research
• Survey subscribers/monitor network activity
• Test and analyze click/share activity
• Identify subtrends i.e. high value sharers
• Kill the losers

Educate subscribers on how/why to share
Despite the growth, ‘sharing’ is still early among some audiences.

Alongside the ‘share this’ buttons, consider adding a ‘what’s this’ button and give them instructions on how and why to use the feature.

Encourage people to share. Placing the links on the page/email may not be enough. Just like with anything marketing, you need to include call to actions to get people interacting.

Once you have integrated S2S, the next step is to identify high value sharers. Who are the ‘few’ people that often share your content and have a larger than average network?

Optimize email sharing design and link location
Where to put the links?

Test different placement of the ‘share this’ links. Top, Middle, Bottom, Sidebar etc.

At the very least, by moving it around you can avoid users getting used to seeing it and therefore ignoring it.

Eight ways to create shareworthy content:

1. Trustworthy - Brand and source of content or offer is widely known and trusted
2. Tap into Tribes - Message content speaks to tribal groups within subscriber base
3. Obvious - Essence of the email content to be shared is obvious, simple to grasp
4. Easy to Share - Sharing links are easy to find and use
5. Social Acumen - Targets the right social networks and social acumen of subscribers
6. Creates Value - Must provide value or recipients will not share
7. Rewards/Incentives
8. Great Content

What B2B emails are shareworthy? Articles and statistics.

What’s not shareworthy? Long newsletters, negative news and highly personalized emails.

Analyze, test and refine for increased sharing

Test – what’s working and what’s not including:

• Copy
• Link style
• Link location
• Broad vs narrow focus messages
• Viral-only messages
• High-value sharers

Key Takeaways for integrating social networks and email:

• Narrow your network focus
• Make it easy to share
• Determine what your subscribers find most ‘shareworthy’
• Identify and reward your key influencers
• Test everything and don’t be afraid to fail

At our agency TopRank, we’ve been implementing email marketing programs in conjunction with other online marketing and lead generation efforts including social media for 5 years. A good starting point to improving email effectiveness is to read some of the better email marketing tactics online and this recent post from WebProNews on why social media isn’t replacing email.

Are you implementing email marketing with social networking? (outside of the emails that occur within the social network) What have you found to be the best/worst practices?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | How Social Media & Email Marketing Boost Customer Reach | 20 comments | 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 | 9 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Through the democratization of publishing content, the vocal minority, those 1%’ers (“sneezers” as Seth Godin calls them or “connectors” as Malcolm Gladwell refers to them as) are integral for your brand.

Why are they important?

New forms of most trusted advertising:

1. Recommendations from friends
2. Other people’s opinions online
3. Company websites
4. Editorial content (news articles)
5. Brand sponsorships

“1%’ers” fall into both numbers one and two.

What we are seeing is anonymous opinions are influencing the way people buy.  Word of mouth from both people we know and don’t know is impacting opinions and purchasing decisions.

The number 1 indicator of growth for any brand:  “Would you recommend a product or service to your friends/colleagues.”  In other words:  loyalty rules.

Levels of loyalty:

1. Ownership
2. Evangelism
3. Referrals
4. Retention
5. Satisfaction

Examples provided by Jackie:

1%’ers impacting brands negatively:

Domino’s

Negative video about two rogue employees – spread throughout the social web.  Domino’s responded by video on YouTube and created a new presence on Twitter.  Many viewed the response by Domino’s are laudable, but in some ways inadequate.  We’ve all heard the story, but did you hear the impact for the brand:

• 46% would order Domino’s before the prank video.
• 15% would order Domino’s after prank video.
• 24% would order Domino’s after the apology video.

This story spiraled out of control in less than a day and resonated far beyond the local Domino’s where the crisis occurred.  The Lesson?  Crisis communications now measured in minutes.

Ramon (Domino’s Franchisee)

Another sample from Domino’s, this time a negative situation turned into positive PR.

Ramon, a Domino’s franchisee from Chicago is passionate about social media and pizza.  A customer and social media user Amy ordered a pizza from one of Ramon’s locations and they messed up the order.  The franchisee created a video response message to “interactive Amy”.  Video was authentic and was applauded by both social media devotees and regular users.  In the end, the mistake was transformed into something positive.

Motrin

We’ve mentioned this story previously at Online Marketing Blog  in a post on B2C marketing, however it remains a great example of understanding your consumers.

Motron launched a video aimed at promoting their product to new moms.  Unfortunately, many mother’s felt insulted by Motrin’s message and rallied together against the brand.  Instead of responding, Motron retreated from a vocal niche (read the full story at Mashable).

While the negativity may be forgotten by now, Google remembers everything – the story is on page one due to the amount of the attention attracted.  And, according to Jackie, you are your Google results.

1%’ers impacting brands positively:

Bacon Salt

A few people in Silicon Valley decided to combine their two favorite things – bacon and salt.  They engaged the “1%’ers” in social media channels.  Enough people started talking about bacon salt online, that it spread into the real world.  There was such demand that people were calling grocery stores asking if they carried Bacon Salt.  After enough of this, they had leverage they needed to get their product onto grocery shelves.  Their next step was “Baconnaise” – bacon-flavored mayonnaise that was inspired by the amazing response to Bacon Salt.

What can we learn from this?  People are the message.  We need to connect with real people to spread products and brands.  And from research, we know that people are the most trusted form of influence.  Additionally, this campaign highlights the fact that social proofing can provide you the reputation necessary to accomplish end business objectives.

Fiskars (best known as a scissors manufacturer)

Fiskars recognized that scrap booking was inherently a social activity.  Scissors are, of course, a vital tool for the scrap booking experience.

The brand noted there are gatherings already being held both at stores and with groups that organize online.  Fiskars capitalized on this by creating a program not about their products, but about the love of scrap booking.  They tapped into the community by finding 4 women who were passionate about scrapbooking and met frequently in a local scrapbooking group.

Fiskars recognized their group as something special and gave them blogs, profiles online and connected them with other scrapbookers around the country.  These 4 women were made the leaders of a nation-wide campaign where their local scrapbooking group was patterned at scale.  Essentially, scrapbooking lovers nationwide could connect with a digital group of other interested scrapbookers, and then meet up at physical retail locations locally (yet still remain part of a larger group).

People who joined got a “welcome pack” with a unique pair of Fiskars scissors, business cards, etc.  Fiskars worked to solidify their brand loyalty by connecting with a vocal group.

Results?

• 6,250 members in 50 states
• 1,000 certified volunteer demonstrators
• Fiskars’ growth rate – craft stores where “Fiskarteers” are involved have three times higher sales growth than non-member stores.
• 13 new product ideas/month
• 85% of “Fiskateers” likely to recommend the product to a friend

The lesson:  it’s about getting your customers involved.

Participation is the 5^th “P” of marketing.

Conclusion – 3 simple things to leave you with:

1. Listen
2. Attract, not interrupt
3. Participate

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | MIMA Summit: Jackie Huba (Church Of The Customer) Keynote | 4 comments | 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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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | 10 SEO & Social Media Posts To Read Before MIMA Summit | 41 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com