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.

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.

Dear Retailer who sells very nice gift items in Lexington Green. When I snap a photo of something, I’m not here to scam you.

I’m not the front for a big Chinese manufacturer who is about to knock off your stuff and put you out of business. I’m not planning out an elaborate “Mission Impossible”-style robbery.

My wife and I are multi-tasking. I need to send her a picture of something I like and see if she wants to swing by and look at it. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars in your store and you don’t need to break the delicate positive brand image I have of you with some petty “We don’t allow pictures in the store” rule. I explained what I was doing, nicely, but it didn’t matter.

It’s amazing that I’m even in the store - with as much as I buy online. Since it’s an artsy-store, I flip the tag over on the item I’m photographing. … yep, URL. I surf to the address, yep. photos. Get a clue. This small, unique retail shop is one example, but not a unique one, and it’s about to collide with new technologies for comparison shopping we discussed at SMX Local Mobile in Denver last week.

If this were a one-time situation, I’d blow it off. But it happens to others, who blog about it too. I’m pretty fast with my camera, just hold it up and snap a quick picture, so I’m not making a scene or asking people to move, etc. I guess I could get better at it. I’m also not there photographing every thing on the shelf. I’m the best type of interested customer.

Seth Godin was busted for photographing oreos, and had this to say:

The irony of the Stop & Shop approach is that the people who you don’t want taking pictures–snoopy journalists or competitors–can easily conceal their cameras and you’ll never know. But the raving fans, the bloggers, the folks twisted enough to want to take and flickrize their supermarket experiences are your friends.

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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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Mobile Search: Beyond 10 Blue Links

Fascinating presentation at SMX Local Mobile.

Mobile searchers don’t want lists of web pages - they want answers or fast ways to take action. Mobile search providers are increasingly experimenting with alternative interfaces, such as location-aware browsing, voice recognition, text messaging and other innovative approaches. Learn about these new efforts and how they potentially impact mobile search marketing efforts.

(room sparse, but excellent presentation!)

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Show Me the Money!

So there are Billions out there. But who’s making money now. How will SEMs place bets now to ensure their success? Show me the money!

Moderator:
Greg Sterling

Speakers:

• Ian White, CEO, Urban Mapping
• Shawn Riegsecker, Chairman & CEO, Centro
• Justin Sanger, CEO, LocalLaunch
• Alfred Chow, Head, Yellowbook

 

Lots of energy in the room for this one. Big variety on the panel. PACKED ROOM.

 

Live Blogging after the jump

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