• May 3rd -   Marketing for Health Care – Yelp for your Business
• May 3rd - Wordpress mastermind series:  How to Monetize Wordpress and Your Blog
• May 4th -  Morning Meet UP – Lifestyle Selling for Women
• May 4th -  Board of Trade Distringuished Speaker Program – Bonnie Brooks, President and CEO, Hudson’s Bay Co.
• May 4th -  Net Tuesday May 4:  Event-Based Fundraising
• May 5th -  Vancouver Entrepreneurial Geeks May Meetup
• May 6th -  Business Network International:  Weekly Meetup
• May 6th -  The Vancouver Unseen Value & Sustainability Meetup
• May 6th -  Marketing your Byz in the Media & Online
• May 12th -  International Internet Marketing Association Meetup Social
• May 12th – Board of Trade Distinguished Speaker Program – President and CEO, Mining Assn of BC
• May 17th -  Company of Young Professionals – Young Professionals Leadership Bootcamp
• May 19th -  Networking Roundtable – Vancouver Board of Trade
• May 26th -  Domain Name Investors Meetup

Do you know of an event that isn’t listed here?  Add the event name and a link to the comment section below!

-Alex

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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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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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*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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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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AK Note: these notes were hand written at the event (Convergence 2009) and are in point form and somewhat incomplete. Take from them what you can!

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

Twitter has 19 million visitors and continues to grow at a crazy rate. Is fast becoming a mainstream tool.

Brevity is the soul of Twits
What matters
#cvg09

Brad nelson from Starbucks. @starbucks
Michael Tippit from Now Public
Lyn Chan Vancouver Opera

Tipper: what twitter really represents is a real time conversation. You can find out what’s going on before mainstream news knows.

Starbucks watches what people say about them all day every day. Uses aggregators.

Opera experimented with live Tweets. Tweets specials etc.
Retention rate: third party Twitter apps may reduce visits to Twitter

Tippet: uses wireless, iphone, uses it as a distribution tool for its feeds, 5-6 people post to a single account,

Make sure your brand has its own account!!! Otherwise you may have to buy your name/account down the road.

Is it quality or quantity?

Do you wing it? Do you try to write with a voice?
Twitter is a widget, can be used in any number of ways. It is a widget.
In this day and age it’s how you stay connected.
All social networks have a context. If you take it out of context it doesn’t make sense.
You can respond to people better on facebook than you can on Twitter.
All social networks work best together. You hit people differently in different ways.
Van opera uses it to convert people / ticket holders…

1/3 watching Twitter, integral for every product announcement / launch etc.
Opera uses flickr, youtube, quite a bit of Twitter use throughout the day
Tippet: way of reaching out, social marketing is 100% of our marketing. Aggregating communities around events as they unfold.

How did you get buy in to get your org’s to start using Twitter?
Most people didn’t know what it was….(starbucks) What is Twitter and why should I care? Had to build credibility first.
Opera:

Starbucks: it’s about connecting with people where they are, as opposed to pushing them to come to us.

Starbucks: we post as Starbucks instead of me personally because we could grow faster this way. Makes sense as there is a huge investment into starbucks as a brand but I wonder about smaller companies?

Opera: posts pre-show talks, intermission parties etc. on Twitter and facebook.

Tippet: integration with Twitter and all of the other services will be part of our business model in the future.

Starbucks: 150K workers in U.S a lot of them on Twitter, store managers are on Twitter, Tippet: dealing with employees is the big challenge, look at dominos,
Q: how do you handle the language break down?

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Hosts: Sandy Fleischer and John Hall

Keynote introduction by the Dean of the Sauder School of Business: Dr. Daniel F. Muzyka

Keynote Speaker: David Plouffe

The mind behind Barack Obama’s social media marketing / online campaign

Obama has called him the “unsung hero of the campaign”

Obama hadn’t done any of the typical prep work for becoming President. He made the decision late compared to most people who run.

Could we put together a winning campaign? A remarkable campaign?

Knew that they needed a grass roots campaign with technology at its core.

Organization, fundraising and message were the focus

Campaigns have 2 fundamental pillars

Message and Electoral theory / strategy. In Biz you have to ask or know what your growth model is.

If you flail around you will fail. You’ve got to have a strategy, a message and a product. You have to put a lot of time into it.

First was fundraising. Going up against the best fundraising machine in the history of the country.

Via our social networking site, people would donate money and then get others to donate and they could track this. Obama would call people and let them know it was appreciated.

$750 million was raised, 500 million of it online. John McCain actually did it right against Bush but got it wrong this time. People raised $ on their own, built ownership of the campaign. 4 million contributed, 60+ million voted. Half had never given money before. The financial muscle allowed Obama to compete.

16 of 50 states were going to decide the presidential campaign. We did not run a national campaign. The financial muscle allowed them to go into “red” states. They had determined the playing field of the election.

Organizational part of it had never been done well in politics before. Our supporters live through technology. Encouraged people to organize online early in the campaign.

Because of strong grass roots presence in certain states, they placed staff in those states early.

Why is Obama President? A lot of reasons but if we had not had those grass roots supports and staff in those states we would not have won.  The only chance they had was to get an organizational head start. The organizational side was why Obama became a candidate.  Used tech to change the electorate – this is the holy grail.

If you could change the 20% of customers who buy a lot to 40% you could retire early. This is what we did. Usually you take the electorate as it is. Obama tapped the untapped. Iowa was the gate.

Demographics is destiny in many cases. We had to get people to do hard things like switching their voting registration.It’s easy to identify problems, it’s harder to execute.

Put huge premium on getting younger people to participate. 

We changed the electorate, it happened because people were texting each other, im’ing each other etc. It taught us we could change the electorate. So we did not accept the electorate as it was. Could we make it younger, could we make it more African American. We relied on people who did not have a voting history.

We did a lot of informational advertising. Here’s were you vote, here’s where you caucus. 25-30\% of people came in through our advertising. Had a lookup tool to find out where you caucus etc. Used these tools to follow up. Info was so important and technology was the driver.

Voter registration: spent millions on it. Here’s how you register, here’s how you early vote. 30% of voters vote early.  We thought we knew about 99% how you would vote. We tried to figure out how everyone in every state would vote. Discovered under 25 group was not voting as strong as they could be so they did research into it. A lot of them wanted to be there on election day.  Use of technology was enormous.  Registration of voters is considered a waste of time in the U.S. however, Obama’s group focused a lot of time on this. Volunteers did it all.

Moving of message is the thing that is least appreciated and least understood.

People don’t sit there and accept information anymore. What they trust is the people they live with.  We tried to build a message and a group of people who would spread that message. By the end of the campaign they were sending out 13 million emails, increasingly they did video. Video is king these days. People were more prone to open it and spread it.  They sent out an email explaining in detail their budget in Florida. People felt they were being levelled with and the response was huge.

We put pressure on our volunteers. It was brazen and it worked.

Non profits questioned their message. We needed supporters volunteers to know how important they were, that the strategy was built around them. Communicated news directly to their supporters. We wanted them to hear from us first. President is still doing this directly to supporters. What’s important is what their hearing day to day. Everything is soon going to play out on mobile devices. 

The power and belief in people talking to people is only going to get more powerful. It’s not sexy but it’s what won the election. People took ownership of the campaign. We tried to be in every space. TV, video on demand, radio, email, internet, at your door, on your cell, at community events, we tried to be everywhere so if you have an opportunity to capture them you need to do it. It all has to be coordinated. It all has to be synced. Not possible without technology. Real time message guidance for supporters who were talking to people. We were big believers in data.

Big drivers were email and the Internet. Did a good job of not falling in love with new things, you have to be involved in new things but marry your strategy with them.  Mobile was used primarily to provide information.  People aren’t consuming a lot of video on mobile yet but that is changing. What is your central belief on what tech will support your objectives.  At the core was email and the Internet. 

Power of people and the power of technology.

What is not replicable is the passion between a group of people and their cause, the tactics and strategy can be used by anyone. Obama and the campaign inspired people to do things they had never done before.

David Plouffe: my friends and family tune me out but..

We had unusual message deliverers and validates…people believed because their neighbours said it….

Questions: Blue State digital only digital firm you worked with? Built a big in house staff. One of the four founders of facebook came in. A lot of great talent. Blue state hosted the site, dealt with email.

Did graphics in house… Blue State had to learn how to grow with us to handle what we needed to handle. A lot of people from the high tech community got involved early. New media strategic plan.  Instead of putting together the best social media site and website ever done in politics they tried to create the best site ever period.

“Challenge to something is always a more rallying cry than maintaining the status quo.”

People over 70 spend more time online than the under 30 crowd.

You just can’t fabricate this. You can’t create it out of thin air.  It was a belief that Every state mattered every delegate mattered. Everyone;s got an idea, most important word is no in politics…if you know why you make decisions and this is clear to everyone, decisions can be uneventful. Obama followed the strategy. You have a well laid plan and it gets messed up because of political….instead of sticking to the plan.

We would listen to people but they had no way to

AK: What I wanted to ask during the keynote (but ran out of time) Question: How did you decide what technologies to focus on and how you would use those technologies to achieve your objectives?

—

Quick recap: this was one of the best keynotes I’ve listened to since seeing George Lucas and John Chambers speak at Dreamforce 2007 in San Fran. Great stuff. Very interesting and inspiring.

Hope you got an idea or two from all of that!

Here is a bit more info on David:

See a video of him on Youtube here.

See his professional profile here.

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Throughout the day I took notes at the sessions I attended. I’ve posted my notes and ideas here for those of you who missed the conference.

If you read anything, read my notes from the keynote address given by David Plouffe. David was Barack Obama’s campaign manager during his bid for the presidency and was the mastermind behind Obama’s use of social media to raise $500 Million in online donations. He is a very fascinating speaker and I learned a lot from listening to him.

FYI my notes are in point form for the most part. There’s 9 pages of thoughts and ideas here so I pretty much left the content as is.

• David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s Campaign Manager, keynote address
• Twitter
• The Intersection of Search Marketing and Social Media
• Mobile Marketing: Are we there yet?

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