online marketing

This one will be short and as concise as possible. I just came from a great event put together by the team at FoundPages. It was about 5 easy-to-use tools to improve your online marketing efforts. Great turnaround! 5 presentations followed by a few discussions were quick, to the point and very well moderated by Jimmy Wong. Presenters line-up was a follows:

• Twitter Basics by Terence Fong of Business Instincts
• Google Places for Businesses by Kathryn Blair of FoundPages
• Google Alerts by Shannon Bowen-Kelsick of sbk MARKETING
• Posterous.com by Bryanne Miller of Be Real Communications
• ActiveProspects by Ritu Singh of ActiveConversion

Feel free to contact each of the presenters using the links above to request a copy of the presentation. Lear more about the event and sign up for the next one at Meetup.com. I'll definitely be looking for more events by this group!

As promised, below are some notes from the second day of the event. Please note that it only includes notes for presentations by the following people: Shawn Ohler, Ernest Barbaric and Ken Chapman. I had to leave at the lunch break.

Social meida insights from Shawn Ohler, ATB Financial

• Social media campaigns are rarely a success, but when they work, the results are amazing.
• Asking audience "what do you know about our company?" is often a good first step to solve a brand recognition problem.
• Many companies say they care about communities, but in fact they rarely do. So, identifying a strong value and sticking to it is very important. The idea is to create a value that resonates with the entire company. ATB Financial found it as "we are Alberta".
• WeAreAlberta.ca, or any other social campaign site is not a place to sell your product. The company treats it as a place where conversations start.
• According to 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer, the top 3 corporate reputation factors are: transparency, quality of product / service being offered and trust.
• Based on ATB Financial's experience, traditional media started the conversation and social media picked it up and continued.
• Asking your Facebook friends to contribute to your social campaign does not work. Instead, look at relevant conversations in relevant online communities, offer help, contribute, share value, then ask for help.
• According to Shawn, any social media project should accomplish 3 things: publishing (content development and distribution), engaging (starting conversations with the target audience), and influence (ability to influence audience's decisions based on the relationship formed during the campaign).

Social media trainer and consultant, Ernest Barbaric, Ernest Media

Ernest's presentation was of two parts: trends and social media campaign steps. Below is the summary of key points.

• Trend 1: Mobile. Smart phones are taking over the market. According to admob data, 50% of all phones are smart phones. 30% of mobile users access social networks from their phone. In short, our experience is becoming increasingly mobile. As marketers, we need to make sure we strongly consider this mobile revolution.
• Trend 2: Location-based services. It's about here and now. Yelp and FourSquare are two example of location based services that have been growing substantially in their user base. Google Places is a good example of bigger company concerned with location-based services.
• Trend 3: Augmented Reality. Conversations are happening outside of places they originated. For example, I wrote an article on my blog, distributed to my social networks profiles. As a result, my article is discussed on those networks, not on my blog. Another lesson is that conversations are happening where it's most comfortable for your audience, not you. Learn more about Microsoft Augmented Reality Research.

To be continued with more from Ernest Barbaric and Ken Chapman.

I just came from another great Third Tuesday Calgary event. This time we had Jeff Nelson of Anduro Marketing talking about social media and SEO. Specifically, does engaging in social media help your SEO efforts? Below are some notes from the talk.

• One of the main arguments was that social media is NOT good for SEO because most of the social networking sites have a nofollow attribute in links.
• Jeff used seo-browser.com tool to parse a few social media sites including Twitter, Wikipedia, Youtube, etc.
• Results showed that neither Twitter nor Wikipedia pass the Google juice to external pages, therefore these sites were almost useless in contributing to SEO efforts.
• I sincerely believed that Twitter passes the link to your site in the right-hand sidebar (where it talks about the user). The reason for this was that I've seen a link count through SEOmoz's OpenSiteExplorer.org.
• On the other hand, YouTube had one link that actually lead to a site and passed authority (the link to your site in YouTube channel profile). Unfortunately you're not able to customize the anchor text.
• Jeff briefly talked about three characteristics of a link: anchor text, whether it passes the value (not nofollow), and the context (text content surrounding the link).
• Then Jeff went into a bit of history of when social media started to matter for SEO. He showed a list of links to resources talking about it starting in 2006. One of the articles by Rand Fishkin was the most valuable.
• Finally, Jeff got into discussing the three reasons to use social media to help your SEO: brand promotion, link bait, and viral distribution. Meaning that social media is not the best friend of SEO but can be a good buddy to hang out with sometimes.
  • brand promotion: although you're not getting tons of link value from social networks, it's definitely worth participating in social media for the reason of promoting your brand with the relevant audiences.
  • link bait: or developing valuable content on your site (in form of a blog post most often) that others will link back to. The emphasis is on the value of that content. Just writing frequent articles will not help. Make then infrequent, but super valuable. Here's an article Jeff shared that'll help you with creating such content.
  • viral distribution: somewhat related to link bait, yet a separate reason. The goal here is to create valuable content and ensure that it's as simple as possible to pass along. Jeff gave a couple of examples of principles behind successful viral distribution. Then, we all watched "will it blend" as a great example of a viral campaign.
• Here's a couple of great links on the topic Jeff shared:
  • 10 of the smartest big brands in social media, an article by mashable
  • social media marketing guide, an article by SEOmoz

I hope this summary of key points helps those who missed the event and those of you who are not in Calgary. Feel free to comment on other ways you know of where social media can be helpful in reaching your SEO objectives. Here's the link to a copy of Jeff's presentation at SlideShare.net

I just came from the first day of a two-day event by Acuity Forums in Calgary. I had an honor to present alongside with:

• Walter Schwabe, Founder / President / CEO, fusedlogic inc.
• Stephen D. Burns, Partner, Bennett Jones LLP
• Roger Kondrat, Director of Strategy, West17Media
• Jacob George, Manager Corporate Marketing & Communications, City of Calgary
• Rob Begg, Director Business Development, Radian6
• Doug Walker, Experienced Internet Strategist, pioneer in Canadian online marketing

Unfortunately I missed the first 3 speakers. I'm coming to the first half of the day tomorrow and will write an event in review post with more details.

My presentation on Social Business and internal social media tools was the last of the day. I also prepared a list of resources I used to prepare for this presentation - Social Business Resources. I hope you find it useful.

Although there are events happening on local level, we don't usually get bigger marketing events with reknowned speakers and writers. There's a few organizations in Calgary that are doing great marketing events, among them are Internet Marketing Conference, Digital Alberta, Calgary CMA. I want to share one of the upcoming events by The Art of Productions.

About The Art of Marketing

Building on the success of the SOLD OUT inaugural Toronto program, this one day conference features six internationally renowned bestselling authors and leaders who will share an exciting blend of cutting edge thinking and real world experience on today’s most critical marketing issues. Don’t miss out on your chance to be a part of history and network with over 1,200 of Canada’s most influential marketers. See the event agenda for more details.

About The Speakers

Chip Heath - Strategy & Communications

Chip Heath is the Thrive Foundation of Youth Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Made to Stick has been translated into 29 languages, the last of which was Slovakian, and it was retired from the BusinessWeek bestseller list after a 24-month run. More about the speaker.

Gary Vaynerchuk - Personal Branding in the New Media Landscape

Online marketing trailblazer Gary Vaynerchuk (VAY NER CHUK) is a 33-year-old entrepreneur whose dual identity as both business guru and wine guy has made him known as the “Social Media Sommelier.” A self-trained wine expert, he revolutionized the wine industry with his video blog, Wine Library TV (affectionately known as The Thunder Show), and grew his family wine business from $4 million to $60 million in five years. More about the speaker.

Sir Ken Robinson - Innovation & Creativity

Sir Ken Robinson, PhD is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He has worked with governments in Europe, Asia and the USA, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and some of the world’s leading cultural organizations. In 1998, he led a national commission on creativity, education and the economy for the UK Government. More about the speaker.

Mitch Joel - Digital Marketing & Social Media

When Google wanted to explain online marketing to the top brands in the world, they brought Mitch Joel to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California. Marketing Magazine dubbed him the "Rock Star of Digital Marketing" and called him, "one of North America's leading digital visionaries." In 2006 he was named one of the most influential authorities on Blog Marketing in the world. More about the speaker.

Sally Hogshead - Persuasion & Influence

Nine seconds. That’s the length of the average attention span today. Just nine seconds! People become distracted by the next product, the next ad, the next option. How can you possibly hold your customers’ interest long enough shape their opinion? How can you break through the clutter to nail your next sales call, or motivate your internal team? For that matter, how can you influence any decisions? More about the speaker.

Max Lenderman - Branding & Experiential Marketing

A pioneer in the field of experiential marketing, Max Lenderman encourages businesses to look beyond traditional communication to get customers interacting with and living their brands. More about the speaker.

Event details

• When? Monday, June 14th, 2010, 9:00AM – 4:30PM
• Where? EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts – Jack Singer Concert Hall

Find more at the event website.

I hope you get a chance to participate. I plan a surprise for you shortly, so please stay tuned. Talk soon!

I want to share what I learned at an event that was organized by Bruce Jensen through Calgary Web Communications Strategy Group on meetup.com. The key difference of this event was that attendees were either from communications departments inside major companies or from associations within energy sector in Calgary. The only person I knew was Doug Lacombe, who MC'd the event and did an amazing job.

The event was a mix of a panel discussion and short presentations by social media practitioners. Presenters shared their experiences of managing social media for both small and large companies. The three featured companies were: More than Mangos by Belinda de Wolde, TVI Pacific by Rhonda Bennetto and Encana by Belinda de Wolde. Here are my takeaways from this event. I hope it'll help you see how different companies deal with social media.

Social media lessons

• Simplify the way your customers connect with your brand. Connect, connect, connect. Create a separate page on the website: Connect with Us. For example, TVI Pacific page features three different ways to connect with the company.
• Social media can fix the trust issue. Transparency is the key, social media can help gain trust through making your company transparent. Engaging into conversations with your customers can help energy sector companies to regain trust.
• Always consider your audience. Explaining social technology in human terms helps a lot. Speak in the language of your audience. Blogging, tweetting and socializing on the web should be done considering the age and background of the audience you're talking to.
• Engage with your audience through conversations. Create a discussion board on Facebook page. Moderation is, of course, one of the biggest challenges but having a please where people can share opinions and ask questions about your company is extremely useful. TVI Pacific's practical application: every time a press release is issued, a new Facebook discussion topic is created, and Page Fans are invited to discuss the matter.
• Social media helps general awareness. Social media is not about a new opportunity to broadcast, but a new way to engage with your clients, vendors, partners, investors. Engagement with various parties is the key in distributing information through social media. Encana's practical application: Encana's helps community organizations. These organizations help Encana by linking back and talking about it in the social space.
• Ensure consistent messaging. Regardless of how many social media properties / network profiles you have, make sure the information is consistent across all of them. Ensure the information is consistent between traditional and digital space too. Create ways for your customers to connect with your company through press releases and other traditional marketing channels.
• It's worth hiring an expert. To train you or even take part in expanding your social media presence. For example, hash-tagging of messages on Twitter helps syndicate the messages through the web. This is not obvious when you first start with social media, but an expert, Doug Lacombe in this case, helped Rhonda a lot.
• Blogs are not always necessary. If you don't plan to update it at least weekly, don't start it.
• Be a champion inside your organization. Teach everyone inside your company by doing it and showing results. Dealing with social media you always have to be prepared for controversy and criticism from both inside and outside of your organization.
• Experiment. Test. Flirt. Track. Measure. And be consistent. Have been at observing, flirting stage of social media engagement. Haven't we all?

Thanks again to organizers and participants! Were you there too? Feel free to contribute in the comments section.

It was a good game. Canada won because they played better last night. Thanks to Anton Matveev for getting us all together. Thanks a huge lot to Valerie Fortney, Stuart Gradon and Rick Donkers of Calgary Herald.

Valerie Fortney has put it well in her article in today's Calgary Herald. A video from the event by Rick Donkers is available on Calgary Herald website. Something that the article missed was that there were two Russian groups at Brewsters that night. The other group was mostly represented by employees of Trican Well Service lead by Konstantin Dyskin as well as a group from Forum.RusAlberta.com community.