Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Dallas Inbound Marketing Summit - From the Back Row

SEO 101 with Mike Volpe at Inbound Marketing S...Image by LevelTen Interactive via Flickr
Last week I attended as many of the sessions from the Inbound Marketing Summit's Dallas stop as I could. (I'm still not quite sure what I was thinking in scheduling myself out of the school district for any period of time in second-to-last week of school, but that's a different story.)

What we have here are presentations I attended and some take-aways worth sharing:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 101
by Mike Volpe - VP of Inbound Marketing at HubSpot

Take-aways
  • Have a broad footprint of published content
  • Publish content worth sharing - Would anyone actually want to share this beyond its intended audience?
  • Shhhhhhh! Social Media is actually an important aspect of SEO.
  • The type of marketing that works today is not the same as what worked before.
  • It's less about the big-budget and more about creativity, hard work, and brain power.

Advocacy, Badvocacy & Upsetting Apple Carts
by Tim Marklein - EVP of Measurement & Strategy at Weber Shandwick
Take-aways
  • We need to rethink the channels, reach, influence inside and outside the organization.
  • Traditional marketing needs to adapt to Advocacy marketing.
  • Tell many stores, one at a time, synchronized, through many voices, to "micro" markets.

Discovery & Ambient Awareness
Tools, Techniques & Processes
by Mike Walsh - CEO of Leverage Software
Take-aways
  • We are all limited by what we are able to consume.
  • Low "noise-level" helps keep you super-efficient.
  • Be like a kid [again] through filtered discovery!
  • Your community helps by letting you discover information you didn't know you needed.
Internet Marketing by the Numbers
by Mike Moran - Chief Strategist for Converseon

Related blog post: Internet Marketing, Texas Style

Take-aways
  • Once we start measuring things then we become responsible for making them work.
  • Your aquisition costs for new customers is much higher than for existing customers.
  • Case for Public Relations: How far did your message travel?
Social Business from the Inside Out - case study
by Greg Matthews - Director of Consumer Innovation at Humana
Take-aways
  • Be a vacuum - study, try, read, talk to trusted sources, and get good information
  • Try stuff - have the license to experiment
  • One of the benefits of doing wacky stuff is that it gets you noticed.
  • One thing to remember about Social Media is to be careful of what you say and where you say it.
Nuts About Online Communication
by Paula Berg - Manager of Emerging Media at Southwest Airlines
Take-aways
  • Engage with your advocates first.
  • Negative feedback is secondary.
  • Make the mundane fun.
  • Establish channels before a crisis.
  • Don't be afraid to join the conversation.
  • [Internally] You already have all the talent you need.
  • Take the organization's message and translate it into the language of the Social Media tools.
Greg's session and Paula's session were particularly interesting to me because each works in highly regulated industries (healthcare and airline) and both are being innovative and creative within their organizational structure. Many of their lessons learned could translate very well for other professionals who work within regulated structures like government agencies.

That's it. I was not able to make any of the other sessions. Thankfully others did and you might find their posts, decks, and videos useful as well.

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