SES New York: Successful Tactics for Social Media Optimization (SMO)

Rookie mistake! I didn’t get to the room early enough for the popular Successful Tactics for Social Media Optimization (SMO) track and all the power sources for my laptop are already in use. No batteries left. No choice... I’ll have to try and take notes by hand.

Hmm. Not sure my note taking went very well. I’ve lots of bullet points... but what do they mean? For this blog post I think I’ll simply list my bullet points verbatim (risky!) and see if I can remember what I was thinking when I made them. Comments below each bullet point reflect my after the track thoughts.

Update: This will come as no surprise but I've started a Twitter account.

Li Evans

  • Viagra Joke
  • Create Buzz

Okay... let’s see where Li is going with this...

  • Video Sharing

Gosh. We’re minutes into the session and I’m already wondering where we’re going... we’ve got Viagra, we’ve got the need to create a buzz and Li’s just suggested video sharing.

  • How to tie a tie

What? Tie tying? I didn’t see that one coming!

  • It’s all about links. Wow! SEO 2.0
  • Li remembers Yahoo (puts her ahead of many of yesterday’s presentations)
  • Li mentions Yahoo and doesn’t mention Microsoft. Wow!
I can’t believe how many videos of people tying ties that Li’s managed to find.
  • People respect honest reviews
  • Know your audience
  • Know how sites work
  • Know how the rules

Good stuff

  • Cheese steaks

Li used cheese steaks and Yelp as a social media example. But what the hell is a cheese steak? Logic dictates that they might be a steak covered in cheese... but, no? Surely no one would do that!?

Jennifer Laycock

  • Talking about Flickr and Twitter
  • No voice but she’s a good speaker
  • Conversation to join in
  • Shows pictures of cakes

Damn it Jennifer. I’m getting hungry now.

  • People digest images differently from how they digest text

Ha-ha! Clever! I see what she’s done there... shows pictures of cake and then talks about digesting images.

  • Shows images of Cookie Monster Cupcakes
What’s with the food teasing? Now I am hungry!
  • Shows ‘Edible Gardening’ community on Flickr. What!
  • Scrapbooking with food

Right. Jennifer’s beaten me with this food onslaught.

  • Sells cucumbers
  • Points out that you can take camera phone pictures and send them directly to Flickr
  • Li Evans takes picture of audience with her camera phone
  • Moves onto Twitter
  • Asks who’s twittering this session; people are; people are twittering that she’s asking who’s twittering this session.

I was beginning to fear an infinite loop at this stage. Thankfully Jennifer doesn’t ask whether anyone is twittering that people are twittering that Jennifer is asking whether anyone is twittering her session on twittering.

I skipped Twitter and went straight to Pownce. Tamar suggested this was a silly idea. I think she may be right. Must consider Twitter again.

  • Mr T picture shared via Twitter hooks interest from Lisa Barone

Hmm. Must re-consider Twitter.

  • Chicken Dance Elmo

Not sure why I wrote that down. An alien intervention? Anyone else remember Chicken Dance Elmo appearing – at all – in SES New York?

  • Twitter as a news source

I’m addicted to news; must re-consider twitter.

  • Retweets
  • Great shiny red shirt
  • It’s not stalking; it’s observing!

Hmm. Must reconsider Twitter.

Tamera Kremer from Wildfire

  • Cakes! Again!
  • del.icio.us

Ha! Another pun no one notices... pictures of cakes and then onto del.icio.us.

  • 4 million users at delicious
  • 100 million webpages bookmarked
  • She laughs at the mention of “A-List” bloggers

Good thing to laugh at. I’d have twittered that. Oh; if I had a twitter account.

  • Jennifer studies Tamera’s delicious screen grab closely
  • What? Has she seen a link building opportunity on the screen?

I remember studying Tamera’s delicious screen grab closely again at this point.

  • Wildfire produced a two page quick start guide for delicious
  • Boosted their clients’ delicious participation ten fold
  • Note to self; must delicious tag Lisa’s coverage of Lyndsay’s Orion Panel

William Flaiz from Avenue A | Razorfish

  • Note to self; AA | R have Apple has a client and are owned by Microsoft. How oddly cool!
  • Flaiz headlines with: Be Part of the Community

Got to agree with Flaiz here – social media is about being part of the community and not trying to trick or manipulate it. I hope the audience take this home.

  • Can tell this is a presentation from a big agency; it has a circle diagram in it

I think I need to get a circle diagram into one of my next presentations.

  • Screen grab includes the ‘share’ widget for blog posts
  • Note to self; consider the widget for this blog
  • Flaiz suggests social bookmarking positive and neutral mentions of clients’ brand and products.

Ooh. Isn’t this a controversial thing to suggest?

  • Flaiz suggests that this tactic can be used to push negative mentions of clients’ brand and products off the top of the SERPs.

Oooh. This certainly is a controversial thing to suggest... especially from an agency the size of Avenue A | Razorfish. I wonder if there were any journalists in the room?

  • Warns about using wikis and editing your own profile
  • Doesn’t warn people off editing your own profile and suggests avoiding using marketing talk instead

Wow. I would never have imaged that Avenue A | Razorfish would come to SES and be so bold.

  • Shows Search Engine Strategies profile on Wikipedia
  • Doens’t understand how the nofollows are added

Ah yes. I remember this. William noted that Wikipedia was supposed to be adding nofollow to the links but that he still sees Wikipedia in the backlinks. I can explain that; a) only new links in Wikipedia have nofollow on them and older links which pre-date that ruling are still followed and b) Yahoo SiteExplorer and Google’s Webmaster Console link reports include nofollow links anyway.

  • Photobucket of a can of soup
  • Byebye bees viral
  • Avenue A | Razorfish have a blog

That’s a blog I’m going to dig up and add to Google Reader. I do rate Avenue A | Razorfish as one of thought leaders within the ‘big digital agency’ landscape.

  • Be Social. Bee Social?

Flaiz’s final slide was simply “Be Social” but I think we should have had a final homage to the vanishing bee viral and concluded with “Bee Social” instead!

Update: This will come as no surprise but I've started a Twitter account.

Comments

Popular Posts