Social Media Optimization | Search Engine Strategies Coverage

Thanks to Search Engine Strategies for including me in their press corps. Here’s a transcript from the Social Media Optimization session held in Chicago on December 10.  Notes captured using CoverItLive are as typed with no editing. You’ll see I figured out how to make longer entries as I went along. Still testing this technology as an alternative to live twitter updates. What do you think of this format?

Social Media Optimization Description from Chicago Search Engine Strategies Program
Community-built web sites, Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft Tagspace Wikipedia and new sites allowing content to be shared through “tagging” can be a great way to tap into links and search-driven traffic. This session looks at some social media services and strategies to tap into them in an appropriate manner. Hear how-tos and tips from search marketers who have discovered what works today and what to avoid.

• Moderator:
  Pauline Ores, SES Advisory Board & Senior Marketing Manager, Social Media Engagement, IBM Corporation
• Speakers:
  Erik Qualman, Search Engine Watch Expert & Global VP, EF Education
  Liana Evans, Director of Internet Marketing, KeyRelevance
  Jonathan Ashton, VP of SEO & Web Analytics, Agency.com

10:37

Liana Evans, Director of Internet Marketing, KeyRelevance  showing report from Deloitte services, really astounding to her is 17% of matures creating social media

10:40

read Groundswell by Charlene Li – showing social technographics of online US adults: creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, and inactives
29% of people watching videos from other people, 28% people read online forums or discussions groups, visit social networking and visiting blogs – are you doing this?

10:41

How do you know this works?
Define your goals before you start – beyond traffic and conversion.
Stuff you can measure:
-comments, ratings, views, links
– blog comments and subscribers
– replies to forum messages
– new users to forum
– number of subscribers and friends

10:49

Liana Evans, Director of Internet Marketing, KeyRelevance
Case Study: Barack Obama
!. understand your audience
– he needed youth vote, gen Xers, African Americas, blue collar workers, women, independent voters
2. hold a conversation
– www.mybarackobama.com – place for people to converse and share
3. make videos
– posted over 1500 videos with handheld cameras
– over 19,000,000 views to this channel
4. create videos – others for you
– yes we can video
5. take photos
– flickr stream he shares
– people share with obama
6. get on LinkedIn
– people talking about him
7. set up www.blackplanet.com
– first place he posted his message to the people when he won
– has over 480,000 friends/people seeing his message
8. twitter
– follows more people than he has followers
– team follows people who talk about him
9. all social stuff leads to SERPs
– social sites all in top 10 results for “Barack Obama”
– can dominate for key terms if social is optimized
RESULTS
from exit polls. . .
won female, African-American, 18-24, 30-39, independents and blue collar workers
Take aways
– know audience
– define goals
– create strategy
– start conversation
– let go of control
– encourage sharing
– be social!!!

11:05

Erik Qualman, Search Engine Watch Expert & Global VP, EF Education
@equalman www.socialnomics.net
Dating used to be what’s your phone number? Now – don’t I follow you on twitter?
Where do you need to be in the social media space?
What are you selling?
Customer service – maybe you should be on twitter
Publishing – digg or delicious
Band – MySpace
Non-Profit – Facebook
Artist – flickr
Long- term be everywhere, short-term test and get something in beta. Get something out there and let your users tell you how to change it.
Facebook designed to stay connected with people you already know, MySpace connect with people you don’t know.
Keep an eye on trends and it also depends on what country you’re in.
“Field of nightmares” build it an no one shows up – what happens if you build your own community. Check out www.livemocha.com if you’re trying to learn a language.
Shows a screen grab from Facebook about lawnmowers to show even if you’re not doing anything your customers are – John Deere fans.
Power Facebook – Ben & Jerry’s
250,000 fans before election
gave away ice cream on election day via social media sites
400,000 fans
Couldn’t do it before because of print and ads, social media is free or very small. Great increase in one week.
Top traffic source if you have a Facebook fan page – softer sell.
**** The next inbox is really social media – acts like a real time conversation. ****
Case Study on Application
A lot of what social media about is bragging – people talked about where they went in the world. Globalprint app for Facebook required people to fill out information before they could get it on their site. Got 50,000 people a day.
Huge mistake: don’t put up a facebook or twitter page and immediately send people to your site.
Where I’ve Been app developed by someone who objected to having to give information. TripAdvisor was going to pay $3M for application, built their own app instead – 1.4 million users can use data for product itself.
Can also use for public relations – have all that data that press loves to eat up.
Where to from here?
Will morph into a socialnomic piece. In the future, within their personal network, you can search to find who bought what and how they reviewed it. As a marketer, your job is going to change to being at the point of sale, to incentivize reviews and stay abreast of what they like and don’t so they can change in real time.
People starting to go to wikipedia first for search. Start small and then grow big from there.

11:25

Jonathan Ashton, VP of SEO & Web Analytics, Agency.com in Chicago
“A Cautionary Tale for the CMO”
Yes, CMOs there is a Santa Claus, but be careful for what you ask for.
Social Media is the marketing buzzword du jour – essentially what the Internet is and has been taking place since the 60s with bulletin boards. term from mid-2006
Need to fully understand your customers and respect their need for their own space and then contribute value.
What can social media contribute as an optimizer?
Links and Traffic
Retail ecommerce – socialized shopping and promos
CPG, in-store promotions, branding
B2B – lead gen, white papers
Restaurants – reservations, appointments
Create a branded blog, develop new content [link bait]
What is right for your brand?
– application?
– tune into twitter?
Examples of brand marketers who’s done well . . .
www.mycoke.com – all Flash, not good for SEO
build into the coke.com strategy, at the end of the day it’s a silo, doesn’t have any consumer incentive to transfer to another environment
Disney DXD social network, all Flash
get a chance to engage in a siloed environment, not portable into third party social environments
Winners of the Golden Turd – via Consumerist
lessons well learned
Wal-Mart – Jim and Laura traveled around to learn the stories of people who work with Wal-Mart, it’s fake blog – not real as is Sony’s Xbox Flog www.alliwantforxmasisapsp.com ends up having an echo effect for Sony
Best example of corporate social environment – www.blogsouthwest.com participate in a meaningful way with content you develop, have these people report to corporate communications
You can win advocates by solving problems.
As CMO you can do pretty well now, you can buy high quality services from people who know what they’re doing like tremor – pre-built for pre-packaged goods.
Be sure you’re listening to conversations.