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Ok, it’s the middle of the night and I’m sitting in a rock hard airport chair, but my mind is on the takeaways that I have from the SMX Social Media conference. Much of this I knew, but it was heavily re-enforced.

The bigest benefit, as with most of these small shows, is the contacts and friendships I have started or continued. I think the best in the world were at the show, and for clients who seek out these people, huge success awaits.

While I think the overall presentation quality was high, my favorites were Randy Woods‘ well-grounded discussion and Rob Key’s insightful discussion about tribal culture and Second Life. I was also impressed by Brent Csutoras’ discussion about link building.

But the client-marketer relationship was the one thing that bugged me most. Nobody seemed keen on sharing information about this essential element of the SMM profession, yet I could definitely sense lots of folks were seeking it. I often wonder if conference organizers should think more about the harsh, real-world realities of getting programs like these in place. Or perhaps there’s just no way to wrap that up into a single presentation.

20 Take-Aways:

1. Social Media Marketing (SMM) is terrific for link building, not for conversions. This is a major change for many marketers to internalize and incorporate into their offering.
2. It takes a special kind of client/consultant relationship to make SMM work. It’s closer to organic SEO work than any other web marketing in the “grind-it-out” nature.
3. SMM cannot be sold as a one-off service or “by the campaign.” Too many external variables mean you have to execute many campaigns over time to hedge your bets. To sell as a one-off service is to invite failure and client ill-will.
4. SMM requires incredible organization on the part of the marketer. Both to keep track of a campaign and to make sure not to break out of acceptable tribal ‘participation.’
5. SMM link building requires a keen eye for linkbait that relates to your marketing goals and finesse to make sure it’s not overtly sales-like in presentation.
6. Vertical social networks should be an important part of any campaign. Smaller numbers of highly enthusiastic players are using these sites.
7. Explaining SMM to clients is going to be very, very difficult. But those who have an inherent curiosity and willingness to participate will earn a strong competitive advantage.
8. Having a strong network of friends is essential to SMM, and that network requires daily nurturing.
9. Wikipedia makes Digg look like a baby traffic wise, and there are opportunities…but…
10. Wikipedia sessions feel a lot like COBOL classes. Even if the people are smart, that whole thing requires a really strong level of patience and persistence. But 5m+ page views daily makes marketers salivate.
11. People need to create policies to outline who owns SMM profiles, what happens when there is a change of hands.
12. To succeed in social network marketing, plugged-in individuals who know the “tribe’s habits” will win. 20-year PR veterans need not apply if they are still in the mindset of the press release or are unwilling to spend time participating before promoting. Plenty of people have got in trouble.
13. There are a lot of really smart people in SMM. Compared to other forms of marketing, the growth and opportunity aligns with trends towards authenticity, word-of-mouth, and making up for short consumer attention spans.
14. One of my greatest worries is that clients will write off SMM while their competition runs with it. I worry because catch-up is a tough game to play in SMM and you can’t rush it.
15. Even one SPAM slip-up in a social network can ruin an entire branding or SMM effort. Social networks have zero tolerance for screw-ups. Re-building a profile can take 6 months or more of hard work.
16. SMM is risky if your brand is fragile or an easy target - putting your brand out in the public eye requires awareness of the cost-benefits. Almost always it’s worth it - that is if you sell a decent product, but you will need to weather the storm of negatives that will come your way with skill.
17. Advertising agencies don’t get it, for the most part.
18. SEO/SMM are joined at the hip for many things and a link building effort can stack up dozens if not hundreds of authority links…but direct-click traffic itself, independent of the SEO/link advantages, can be significant.
19. Participation in social networks - real participation - is a requirement, and is very time consuming. I left wondering who will pay for this time.
20. Red-eyes suck.

A few other places to get SMX social-media related information. Add more to comments and I’ll add to this list with ‘follow’

Coverage of the Jason Calacanis and Jimmy Wales panel
More coverage of the Social Search: The Human Challengers
Social Media Marketing Essentials
Linkbait - Chumming for Traffic on Social Media Sites
Extra! Extra! The Social News Sites
A Marketer’s Guide to Social Bookmarking

Are posted on flickr.  Enjoy

Where’s the Twitter-based event meetup application? I’ve not seen one, but until then here is a work-around that does some of the goodness. If you’re using Twitter on a mobile device and have a mobile feedreader, this is for you.

Even though many people I follow on twitter will be at the same events as me, there are always lots of folks who will be at conferences and meet ups I don’t know. I have found that Summize’s new Twitter search is a great way to get those folks into my Twitter stream - or at least follow them during the event using my mobile - provided they’ve tweeted at least once about the show or plans to attend.

The process couldn’t be easier.

1. Hit Summize.com and click on the “Twitter Search” link.

2. Add keywords related to your event. For SMX Social Media I added “SMX” because it was a nice short acronym I felt would capture most action related to this event. If anyone were tweeting about it, they’d include this. If you didn’t have such a convenient one, you may need to include the venue name, etc. (curious that there is no SMX Social twitter user we could all follow and send @’s to “where’s the party at?”. this would at least make backchatter more fun.)

3. After you search Summize, click on the upper-right side link for “Feed for this Query” link. For SMX Social Media I used this.

4. Drop that into your favorite mobile feedreader, such as google reader or newsgator go.

5. When you see people tweeting about the event, but haven’t yet met them, you can head over to twitter and follow them. This serves to get you into their Twitter stream and to let them know that you’re interested in meeting them.

Now, as event-related stuff happens, you’ll be in the loop and it’ll make socializing that much easier.

I will be heading out to SMX Social Media and SMX Advanced this year, and would love to catch up. I will not be liveblogging, rather will be hoping to gather ideas from those of you in the business.

I will not be waring my hat. But come shake my hand - meeting folks is the best part of the event.

If you’re going, fire over a Tweet [scottclark] or comment and be sure to say hi at the show.

Photo (me, Bruce and Cristine) from last year’s shows.

I had the pleasure of attending the dinner for Dr. Abdul Kalam, 11th President of India last night, organized by the Bluegrass Indo-American Civic Society. It was a night filled with messages for the leaders of the world, and for the hearts of individuals. The room was filled with Kentucky’s most influential people, mixed with some of the region’s diverse Indian community with their families…a spectral array of native dress and beaming smiles. Standing in the Marriott vestibule, it was easy to imagine I was at a celebration in Hyderabad or Jaipur, and it was intoxicating.

Kalam, who served India as president from 2002-2007, moved India forward and set up an ambitious plan to create a fully developed nation by 2020 (see Technology Vision 2020 plan.)

Dr. Lee Todd of UK did a nice job of talking about diversity on campus and in Lexington, which I think is critical to the future of our community. During the presentation, a gift of $1M was given to the Gatton School of Business by Melappalayam S. and Sowmya Vijayaraghavan of Lexington to support professorships and research in India business studies. There was a commitment made to increase the ties between UK and universities within India. (more…)

It was pretty sad to see. CompUSA today fell victim to throngs of bargain hunters picking every nook and cranny, fixtures included, from the store in Lexington Green. What struck me most was that, despite 50%-60% discounts, some of the prices were still higher than web-based pricing on the same items.

I feel badly for the folks who lost their jobs at the company and I’ll miss the ability to get a quick part when needed. Best Buy and Circuit City just don’t cut it when it comes to parts. I only shopped in the store 4-6 times per year, though.

Wow, I miss Fry’s.

I’ll be hopping on I64 and heading to the Social Media Louisville meeting at Ramsi’s Cafe tomorrow night. Hope to see you there!

WHO: Social Media Club Louisville

WHAT: February Gathering

WHEN: 7 p.m. until 9 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2008

WHERE: Ramsi’s Cafe on the World, 1293 Bardstown Road, Louisville

WHY: To share, learn and grow as social media experts both individually and together

About the meet-up:

Three members of the group have graciously volunteered to lead our discussion, which will focus on selling social media to clients, bosses and CEOs and the public, media and more. Brian Wallace of NowSourcing.com, a full-service social media and reputation management consulting firm, will share his thoughts and expertise on pitching social media to clients. Clay Marshall, a social media specialist with Digital Business Solutions (DBS), will tackle the topic of convincing bosses and CEOs to buy in and Rick Redding of The Ville Voice (and LEO columnist) will offer his insights on selling social media through to the media, advertisers, media buyers, friends, co-workers and more.

PS: It looks like the SMG was covered in Louisville Business First - on the front page. Nice Job Guys.

Webpronews did a good Interview 

Well, it happened again.

I have a whole database of new friends from SMX Seattle and SMX Denver, yet have not done a good job of following up, reviewing their stuff and generally making friends. I’ve been utterly slammed with the disappearance (figuratively) of a programmer resource, I’ve needed to make up slack on several fronts.

So don’t take it the wrong way. To those of you who’ve followed up without a reply, I have every one of those messages here and will do my best to contact you… if not today, soon.

I’m replying to Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social networking pings pretty much realtime, btw.

Oh yeah… does anyone know what happened to the SMX Local Mobile group photo?

Attention those heading to SMX Social Media Expo!

Internet Marketers of New York will hold a Charity Party sponsored by Best of The Web to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Simply donate $40 at the door to help the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society fight cancer and enjoy three hours of open bar partying with fellow social internet marketers. At the end of the night they will be raffling off prizes.

About the Party: (Make sure and check the real site for any last minute changes)

$40 Donation to Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (I’m sure they’d take more.)
Monday, October 15, 2007
7:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Town Tavern Bar & Grill 134 W. 3rd Street and 6th Ave. (Google Map)
All Internet Marketers Are Welcome!

As this is a Meme per Marty at AimClear, I’m tagging some of my blogroll. Pass along this information to other bloggers if you can:

Seth Godin
Bill Slawski
Marketing Pilgrim
Barry Schwartz
David via WebproNews

Note: I won’t be at SMX NYC. If you’re not able to go to the party, be sure and check out the ultra-convenient on-line donation form for the society. It took me less than 5 minutes and it felt great.

A terrific brain trust of folks answered great questions that I’ve tried to aggregate into an organized list you may find very helpful. Enjoy! The Q/A was especially helpful and added a lot to the session.

Moderators:
Chris Sherman, Executive Editor, Search Engine Land
Greg Sterling, Founding Principal, Sterling Market Intelligence

TIP: See the end of this post for other coverage on the conference too.

 

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