Mark Schaefer, Founder of #soslam and Jenn Whinnem (me!)
Last Friday, I attended Social Slam, a social media conference in Knoxville, TN. This conference is geared toward business folks. So why did I attend?
- My Twitter friends attend, and it’s a great chance to see & meet many of them all at once. As I’m fond of quoting someone whose name escapes me, the online is meant to facilitate the offline. That’s the important stuff.
- Last year I learned about up-and-coming trends for a low price. This year was no exception.
Many of the things I heard were “profit agnostic,” meaning they could be useful to either a for-profit or non-profit audience. Here are some things that apply to any social organization:
- Typically, video results show up in search results before text results. Typically, the first that show are YouTube links, not Vimeo links. Did you know video had such great search engine optimization (SEO) opportunities? Be sure to choose your video host wisely. Via @SWonderlin
- Use ‘versus’ in blog posts. People search on ‘versus,’ such as “above-ground pools versus in-ground pools.” How could you leverage this information to drive traffic to your site? Via @thesaleslion
- A siloed organization is a slow organization that can’t respond quickly to rapidly changing technology. The time has come for integrated marketing, communications, advertising, and public relations functions. Want to learn how? Start here. Via @ginidietrich
- Email marketing is NOT dead. Proof? You still need an email address to create Facebook and Twitter accounts! Additionally, DJ had impressive stats on how email is still the number one way to communicate electronically, even ahead of text messaging (see his slides here). Email is a great way to engage your audiences. Via @djwaldow
- Over 75% of projects on Kickstarter were fully funded last year. Via @mitchjoel
- Proctor and Gamble, as well as Domino’s Pizza, look for ideas from customers. The Swiffer Mop came from a customer’s idea. How could you crowdsource your way into innovation? I think a great example of this was the HealthJusticeCT challenge. (I don’t remember the source for this one)
- LinkedIn is personal SEO. Creating a LinkedIn account (and other social media accounts) changes the first page of search results for your name to items that you’ve created. Via @jonmoss
- Micro-niche-ing and more from Stanford Smith. “In 2012, blogs will succeed by identifying small audiences with specific problems that beg for novel solutions. If you are trying to write a general subject blog, pause, and rethink your focus.” The more specific ally you can appeal to a reader, the more useful your content will be. You can read Stan’s other ideas here. Via @pushingsocial
- Through the power of Google Analytics, Marcus Sheridan (@thesaleslion) found that his leads turned into sales after they consumed 30 pages of content. For organizations that take donations, do you know how many pages it takes for a lead to turn into a donor?
It was great to see my old friends and learn from them! What have you heard lately about social that you could share with our readers?