Online Marketing Training

Video and Photos from Search Engine Strategies San Francisco 2011

Written August 22nd, 2011 by

There are conference attendees and then those bringing the Search Engine Strategies 2011 conference home to you as best they can. Nothing brings home the flavor of an event better than pictures and video.

Da Li Social’s CEO, Li Evans, is both a speaker and moderator for SES, as well as video reporter exclusively for State of Search. Her voice usually wears out but that doesn’t prevent her from sharing the sights and sounds from the conference.

Our good friend Li Evans, author of the book Social Media Marketing is speaking at the conference and is doing training sessions for attendees. She kindly agreed to give us an insight view on what she is doing there. With her camera she records how she experiences SES San Francisco 2011.

Li Evans her first report from SES – I was eating pancakes while she was making this video at Mel’s.

Li Evans Reporting on SES San Francisco: Day Two

A Speakers View on SES San Francisco: Li Evans reports

Li Evans at SES San Francisco (#sessf): her Wrap Up – Can you spot my cameo walk on?

Li Evans interviews Greg Jarboe and Eric Garulay at SES San Francisco – My favorite is the one of the “The Jarboe”.

Li Evans interviews Avi Wilensky and Christian Georgeou at SES San Francisco – Check out StatDash.

Li Evans interviews Christian Georgeou SES San Francisco State of Search – “I’m a Walking Genius”

And my beloved Canon Rebel:
322 Pictures from Search Engine Strategies San Francisco

Packed Crowds at Week of Digital Marketing Training: SES San Franciso 2011

Written August 16th, 2011 by

Li Evans and myself, Kim Krause Berg, are here in San Francisco for a week of intensive conferencing, networking and training in the search marketing industries. There are some interesting new things to note.

Firstly, not only is the Moscone Convention Center and the San Francisco Marriott hosting Search Engine Strategies this week, but other companies are offering training as well. Running alongside SES are the OMS Social Medea Marketing Summit, MMA, the EEC, the IAB and more, such as Bruce Clay’s Training workshop on Friday.

A group of SES Francisco 2011 attendees shares a Mexican meal Monday evening.

This Clickz Connected Marketing Week allows attendees of all the various training and conferences to mingle with each other. So for example, last night’s meet and greet at the Thirsty Bear drew a packed crowd of attendees with a wide variety of interests, careers and skills. This unique blending allowed for a nice depth of networking opportunities and permitted marketers to meet people in related fields.

Instead of conference handouts, booklets, printed schedules, and the usual, everything is put into a small 3 x 5 pamphlet that is attached to where the conference passes are typically worn. On the back of each one are QR Codes. The lanyards are sponsored by SEOMoz. While I need my reading glasses to read the tiny print, that’s worth the effort to save trees. The pamphlet is light, always handy (around our neck) and includes exhibitors, maps, speaking schedules, rooms, and in the back are the free lunch tickets.

For those who want a more robust amount of information, SES offers a free app to download in the iTunes app store, as well as Android and Blackberry. I downloaded it to my Android. It loaded quickly. The app gives you a “My schedule”, photos gallery, events, exhibitors, news, speakers, Twitter access and more. All from your Smartphone. Very fitting for a digital oriented crowd.

This year’s Connected Marketing Week gathers folks from the digital marketing industries and related fields (like mine, usability.) They expect 8000 attendees. The weather is in the low 70′s. And it’s San Francisco, with its trolleys and famous places to see. Flying in from the East coast I got to see the mountains along the way with especially gorgeous views over Colorado.

Will be working and blogging this week for Libeck Integrated Marketing, Cre8pc.com and Cre8asiteforums.

News Reporter Complains About Keywords

Written June 12th, 2011 by

Many major news agencies train their reporters in the basics of search engine optimization so their stories are competitive in search results. But what happens when they’re asked to overdo it?

Reliable Sources, CNN

In the Sunday, June 11, CNN morning show hosted by Howard Kurtz, Reliable Sources, Kurtz asked several guest journalists their opinions on the reporting of Anthony Weiner’s wife’s pregnancy, and whether or not this was an invasion of her privacy and necessary in lieu of the already exploding news about her husband’s sleazy online behavior.

 

One of the journalists admitted that he’d received an email at work that listed a slew of keywords he was expected to use in his story, such as “Anthony Weiner’s Wife Pregnant”, “Pregnant wife of Anthony Weiner”, ‘Pregnant wife out of the country“,etc. The main keyword had to be “pregnant”, which he found distasteful, not to mention a bit invasive. His personal feelings were being “sad” that he and other journalists had to run the story at all.

The reason I watch Howard Kurtz every Sunday is because he’s a journalist who’s not afraid to force his profession to look at itself and study its practices. Are they hurting or helping society, for example? Did they screw up, get the facts, run a story with no proof, or forcefully turn a weak story into something sensational? This was the first time I saw search engine optimization (SEO) or the practice of adding keywords mentioned by professional journalists, although it’s routinely taught to them. They and their editing staffs are trained to make their stories rank in leading news outlets such as Google News, stay on top and become known as reputable sources by search engines.

So what happens when their editors force them to slant a story a certain way just to get rank? Has link equity now become a goal for journalists? If journalists are unhappy with the reasons behind choosing certain keywords suggested for usage by their editors and publishers, should they have the right to decline and on what grounds?

Dear Well Rounded Web Designers: Come out, Come out, Wherever You Are

Written April 14th, 2011 by

It’s nice to see more and more companies investing in their web sites. Despite the poor economic news around the world, web site design and marketing help is still in high demand. What’s lacking are people who know how to do it.

Money in Jar

Experienced Web Site Design, Marketing and Maintenance People Needed

Before your feathers get too ruffled up, yes. You do know what to do. Most of you know how to do at least PART of the job. Many of you work for companies with staffs that put teams on a project. And you still have to sub-contract out for additional help with things like user experience design, or integrated marketing assistance, or meeting accessibility and mobile design requirements. Your company either had no idea these areas would be needed to build an online presence, or they were too cheap and ignored requests to hire skilled employees.

For someone to be, what I call a “holistic, well rounded web developer”, the list of skills would look nothing like what I see in job sites. They never say, “Must be qualified in or show working knowledge of  the following”:

  • 1. Program in any language our client(s) want to use or that we use in our company
  • 2. HTML5 and younger;  CSS3, younger and future versions
  • 3. Organic SEO
  • 4. Search engine marketing practices such as PPC, AdWords, etc.
  • 5. May need to know some “black hat” techniques (hey, just being honest)
  • 6. Usability standards/heuristics
  • 7. User centered design/engineering
  • 8. Persuasive/conversion design
  • 9. Accessibility (Section 508 and PAS78 standards) or basics
  • 10. Use Photoshop, Macromedia, and related tools and software
  • 11. Information architecture/taxonomies for SEO
  • 12. Information architecture/taxonomies for UX
  • 13. Create wireframes/mockups
  • 14. Gather and write Business and Functional Site Requirements
  • 15. User testing
  • 16. Software QA testing for functionality and usability
  • 17.  Performance Engineering
  • 18. Have exceptional writing skills
  • 19. Have exceptional business, management and communication skills
  • 20. Social media marketing/networking
  • 21. Content building and beneficial and non-spammy linking
  • 22 Understand hosting, domains, DB setup, DNS
  • 23. Mobile device design
  • 24. Data analytics and tracking

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Reports from Online Marketing Summit – Day 3

Written February 11th, 2011 by

It’s a wrap! Day three of the Online Marketing Summit in San Diego, CA, focused on the Search Engines Strategies (SES) Search & Social accelerator. This is a day of training targeted toward advanced marketers. Content included sessions on advanced search tactics and keyword modeling, HTML 5, YouTube strategies, and “Killer Facebook Tactics”, presented by our own Li Evans.

Opening remarks began with Mike Grehan, Chair SES Advisory Board, Global VP Content, SES/Search Engine Watch/ClickZ . This was followed by the Keynote Address: “Misleading & Myopic” vs. “Meaningful” Multi-Channel Marketing Measurement by Mikel Chertudi, SES Advisory Board & Sr. Director, Online & Demand Marketing, Adobe.  Chertudi informs us analytics is moving from a “siloed” single channel measurement approach to a multi-channel measurement approach. Instead of just measuring how your digital assets impact each other, look at how your offline actions such as print, public relations, direct mail etc. play a roll in the entire marketing mix.

Similar to what Adam Greco said, it is about closing the loop or divide between your data sources. The issue is how to tie together information from your web analytics and CRM to provide meaningful insights. Analysts need to work to optimize the entire marketing budget – not just the digital channel.

While I am not a developer I thought it would be fun to check out the session on  HTML5: The Interactive Social Web, by Maile Ohye, Senior Developer Programs Engineer, Google. Ohye explains that HTML 5 is HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (JS) rolled into one. The HTML handles your mark up, the CSS your presentation, and JavaScript handles the behavior. It is search engine friendly and has easy implementation for graphics, video and audio playback, threads, notifications, real time communication, and local storage. There was a lot more discussion on it’s implementation and if you are interested you should check out Html5rocks.com.

Click for more about Online Marketing Summit…

Reports from Online Marketing Summit (OMS) 2011 – Day 1

Written February 10th, 2011 by

The Online Marketing Summit opened February 8 at the Westin Hotel in San Diego, California with a brief overview delivered by Aaron Kahlow, CEO, Online Marketing Connect. He informs us that the theme of the conference will be the “Utility of Education”.  Approximately 1000 attendees are expected.  The majority of the audience (by a show of hands) are marketers. Audience participation reveals they are attending to learn about Social Media, SEO, and Analytics. By show of hands it appears about 80% of the audience have not previously attended.

Attendees are provided an innovative way to share information (instead of business cards) using “mingle sticks” which are provided to exchange information. (Don’t forget to return them they cost money!). In addition, educational sessions and labs are available for attendees to be advised or consulted by experts in their respective fields. Aaron reminds us that the conference is for the attendees and not about the speakers. In fact, he encourages people to boo if the speakers are too involved with themselves or being to self promotional. On the other hand, if you are approve or like something you should show it by snapping your fingers or tweeting #oms11.

Relax and have fun is the recommendation because the top 5 reasons, according to Aaron, folks enjoy OMS are:

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Report from Online Marketing Summit (OMS) Day 2

Written February 10th, 2011 by

Yesterday, I mentioned All Online Interactions Are Social Interactionsby Susan Weinschenk was one of my favorite presentations of the day. I plan on sharing more information from that presentation in the future but for now I will turn my attention to some highlights of presentations from Day 2 at Online Marketing Summit #OMS11.

On the second day of the summit I noticed some interesting overlap in some of the presentations. I attended Decoding Customer Behavior Online by Patrick Bultema, CEO, CodeBaby. Patrick provided insight into the nature of human behavior online. Like Susan, he makes reference to “old brain” responses and asserts that the best decisions involve instincts, emotions and reason .  He offered some reading recommendations as well including Susan’s book Neuro Web Design. I appreciated the recommended reading list and hope more presenters do the same. I always find it interesting what the leaders in industry are studying.

One of the presentations later in the day that stood out for me was How to Build Instant Trust Online: The Four Pillars by Tim Ash, Author, Landing Page Optimization & CEO, SiteTuners.com. Tim brought energy, enthusiasm, and humor which was refreshing so late in the schedule and “pre-cocktail” party time. In Tim’s presentation, he made reference to something I recall from Susan’s presentation as well. It was more of a reference to a number “150”. Why is this number significant? Well, according to Susan, it has to do with Robin Dunbar. Robin Dunbar was an anthropologist studying different sizes groups of different species. When applied to humans the natural social group size is 150, referred to as the “strong tie” group, (I believe she discusses this in more detail in her new book). The “strong tie” group refers to the people you are physically in contact with, people you know and how they are integrated or networked with each other.  A “weak tie” group, on the other hand, can be larger and are not in physical proximity or you may not know how they are networked. An example, maybe to consider your Facebook friends as a strong tie group and Twitter friends as a weak tie group. Of course, this can change.
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Social Media Marketing & Audience Research Training & Education Opportunities

Written February 2nd, 2011 by

LearnThe world of social media marketing is pretty big and creating a marketing strategy can be quite an overwhelming and daunting task if you are entering the space for the first time. Where do you begin?  Do you start a Twitter account?  Maybe set up a Facebook page?  What about taking on the challenge of setting up your own niche community?  How about dedicated websites?  Maybe a YouTube Channel?  Perhaps a Flickr account?  Don’t forget LinkedIn & FourSquare!

…. ok, stop, breathe in, breathe out … there is help (and hope!)

Frankly, these are all tactics in an over arching strategy that marketers need to learn how to implement and properly engage with.  However, before you even set out on these trails, you need to do some research into your audience beforehand to figure out if that trail is going to lead you down a successful path, or to a dead end.  That takes some training and some insight into understanding how to mine the data, interpret the data into actionable insight, create a strategy and then measure the response.  It’s not just something that can fall into your lap – unless you outsource some of those tasks.  If you can’t afford to outsource, training is your next best option.

Fortunately there are quite a few opportunities to gain the knowledge you need Read the rest of this entry »

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