Marketing Events

8am: Coffee…I need coffee… This is my first industry event experience, and somehow I’m late.  But first things first:  I need a Starbucks.

9am:  Clutching my Starbucks like it’s my life, I’m trying to figure out why there are in excess of 500 people in the line to register, even though I’m technically running a half hour late.  Apparently, there’s something wrong with the registration session, so anyone who has the confirmation email on their email-bearing electronic device can use that to get in.  The opening keynote starts in 10 minutes.  Awesome – I made it after all!

The opening keynote was given by Todd Maffin, and opening remarks made by Lindsay Smith.  I liked hearing what Todd had to say.  “Working less, getting more done” is all the rage right now, but Todd made an honest, candid case for taking things one step at a time, abandoning multi-tasking, and working no more than 8 hours a day.  I also liked his theme:  “Taking Back Crazy”.

10.30am: First session; “Social Media Metrics” with Darren Barefoot, Kris Krug, and Alfredo Tan.  They covered the basics of how to measure your social media presence and general sentiment.  It was informative but covered very little I didn’t already know.  I guess the discussion panels are meant for people looking to gain an overview of things that aren’t their expertise.

12.45pm:  Lunch Break.  Well, lunch started earlier than this, but I just wandered around and looked at trade booths.  By 12.45, I had wandered back out into the hall and ran into Brian Wong, a friend of mine from UBC who was on the App Development discussion panel later on.  We were talking for about 5 minutes when I realized… that the guys he was standing with were none other than affiliate marketing guru John Chow, and Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes!  Whoa.  I feel a little bit star struck, but they’re both very friendly and easygoing guys.  After a bit more running into people I know (and meeting a few I didn’t know), lunch break ends.

Rest of the afternoon:  I attend 2 more discussion panels, Cost Effective Video Marketing and Mobile Marketing:  The App Explosion, before I realize that discussion panels really aren’t my thing.  I go back to the trade floor and see Adam presenting to a standing-room-only crowd.  It looked to me like the mini-presentations in the trade show area were more popular than the discussion panels.  There are massive screens showing tweets about #F5EXPO.  The tweets’ general consensus was “#F5EXPO:  fun times, basic stuff.  Oh, and registration fail”.   It’s amusing to see dozens of opinionated tweets on one giant screen.

3.45pm:  I head home.  I wasn’t able to get in to see Malcolm Gladwell, so I grabbed another coffee and left.

Because this was my first time at an event like this, I didn’t even have time to blink because there was so much to see.  Rubbing shoulders with the Who’s Who of the internet marketing world also made for an exciting day.  Overall, I thought that the conference went over very well.  Despite registration woes, everyone managed to get in and learn, mingle and network.  I didn’t enjoy the discussion panels as much as I thought I would; I wish I’d spent more time on the trade show floor, watching the smaller presentations.  Also, the biggest thing I learned was this:

People attend trade shows to make connections and socialize.  The best place to pick up industry buzz, make connections and learn something worthwhile is in the hallways outside the expo rooms.

Probably a basic concept that most people would have known, but even so, I felt like it was well worth it for me to attend.  I can’t wait for the next one.  See you there!

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I’ve just landed a spot as a presenter at the upcoming F5 Expo that will feature best selling author and renowned speaker Malcom Gladwell (The Tipping Point, Blink, The Outliers).

F5 is a conference that is focused on teaching businesses about the latest web based marketing techniques, tactics and best practices that they need to adopt in order to remain relevant, competitive and profitable in an increasingly online world.

F5 is being run by Lindsay Smith (@techlinz) of Massive Technology Show fame and is backed by a board of well known Vancouver technology entrepreneurs. The event will likely be one of the hottest marketing conferences to hit the city in 2010.

If you haven’t done so already, head over to the F5 site now and pick up your pass while supplies last!

I almost forgot! I’ll be speaking throughout the day on the topics of Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click marketing and Local Marketing. If you’re interested in receiving and introduction to these marketing tactics, grab a pass and then shoot me an email or Tweet and I’ll make sure you know when and where I’ll be speaking.

See you there!

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Mobile Marketing

*Note: these notes were taken at Convergence 2009 and are in point form and should be read as such.

Click here to see my notes from all sessions at Convergence 2009.

Mobile Muse, Vortex Mobile, 3 Tier Logic, @vortexmobile

Stratford internet former principle/founder: Robert Craig, CEO 3 Tier Logic, past chairman of new media BC, entrepreneur of the year, 40 under 40.

Vortex Mobile
This is the year of mobile (j/k) been around for 5 years….lol
Greater convergence between mobile and SMM
Text to win is not what mobile is all about
SMS should not be overlooked but it’s also not everything that mobile is about

Levi’s Amateur model contest example
Pre-event
Live marketing
CRM, mobile coupon and facebook integration

Picked to try on a pair of jeans at an event, designer would create an image of what Jen would look like in an actual media campaign, don’t hit people over the head, allow people to share a new experience with the brand with their friends.

Mobile call to actions integraqted with: instore POS, OOH wild postings,
Voting application on mobile (more popular sms options)
Each contestant got their own code, you could vote for who you thought should be the top, you would get feedback on ballot as you voted,biggest promoters were the actual people in the contests. Also had an instant win mechanism to help get people walking by to vote. The vanity was the most important aspect of this campaign. Download the pic to your phone. Voting app remained up for 2 weeks after the event, (this whole thing took place 2 years ago) 78% of votes took place outside of the festival dates.

50 facebook and myspace groups started with 1000+ wall posts

SMS blast to all Vancouver participants. Mobile coupons for us would be the holy grail. Push people who opted in to hit a store and buy a pair of pants….e.g of how difficult it was, the store never setup a coupon code on the till..so it was impossible in the end to track ROI.

Robert

3 Tier Logic founded in 2008
Full service digital marketing firm
Focus on data capture and target market
PRM (prospect relationship management) reach consumer through mobile devices, through proprietary platform
80% of campaigns incorporate mobile, 20 campaigns in last 6 months
Major resistance to mobile marketing still – tipping point is not there yet (Opportunity!)
Consumers are ready. They have shown they will interact. Education and experience is growing, mobile is helping to drtive strategy in areas of media placement, market segmentation brand interaction, brand to consumer communication, leverage other channels and touch points.
Tipping point is coming

Never Stop. Milk
Mobile campaign 2008 and 2009, several stages,
Overall drove better results by taking what they learned in 2008 and using that to drive strategy in 2009, total entries in 2009 were 169% above objectives.

www.mobilemarketeducation.com – educational site

Jean Hebert from Mobile Muse
Project of New Media BC
Envisioning the future of mobiles and community: how communities can be engaged with technology and business

Wikitude: meta information

Air Canada and west jet you can get your boarding pass on your phone and scan it in.

Tagga media: education is a barrier: Q what are the three key educational barriers?

Case studies are key as are conferences to spread the word.

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Intersection of Search Marketing and Social Media

Click here to see my notes from all sessions at Convergence 2009.

John Hossack VKI Studios: Social in search results: google universal search results
Product sales up 200% e.g due to video getting indexed

VKI studios blog: May 7th copywriting
24 hours #1 ranking for the term copywriting hint
VKI has put up enough content to rank quickly, they look at competitors and write topics around their topics to see if they can rank

Signals SE are looking for: past – text and links, susceptible to spam and manipulation, crawlers cannot keep up with the rate of content and link creation, to many relevant pages are outside the scope of the search engine crawl. Google has indexed 1 trillion pages but this is a fraction of what is out there

Current: text, linkage, social media are things Google pays attention to. Google tool bar is a big indication for Google.

People are shifting towards using social media sites for searches.
The knowledge possessed by you and your friends acts as a supplement to the web’s huge amount of info.

DanZarella.com

Did research on the number of links a story would get after showing up on Digg.
Technology stories got the most links…
One to many sharing content types: bloggers rank highest on news, opinion, how-to-instructional in terms of types of content people share and link to.
Re-tweeting is a huge measurable factor. 69% of RT’s have a link.
Rob Jones, Build Direct
Building company without a bricks and mortar store.
Search’n social
Search is not step one, conversation is.

Give them something to talk to and search will follow, People trust people not websites. Authenticity is important. Content personality and placement all converge in social media
Join the conversation and search will follow.”meatspace” watchuswreckafloor.com

Depack Anand, Google May 2009

Video sharing: 82%, blogging, photos, social networks, commenting on blogs,

Google, Youtube, Yahoo are the top search engines.

Search is going beyond the keyword. Who are they what are they interested in? content category, search vertical, uploaders, demographic, daypart, buzz,

Susan Boyle video on youtube.

Treat them like a community, people start dialogue, you must deliver,
Youtube is place to engage with users not just a place to upload videos.
Doritos Guru campaign. When people know you’re trusting them with the brand in most cases they take it seriously.

Dan Zarella day job: ton of search and social marketing, still tracking the same things, not clearly tying ROI to social media, same statement from VKI.

John H: don’t necessarily know what will deem a success yet.

What’s next?

Dan Zarella: short term: disparate conversations are going on that I could leverage. There should be a push towards integrating that kind of stuff. Tools that bring the conversation to one place.

Google: it’s not the professional filming of something it’s showing people the other side (something unique and interesting)

Where do you see this intersection of search marketing and social media in 3-5 years?

Hossack: convergence of devices, technologies, location, etc. Search will always play an important part.
Twitter search: what happened 5 minutes ago. Real time searches..

Personal aspect of search is becoming more important.
What is everyone doing? That’s what’s important. Convergence.

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