SMX West – Part 2: Learnings

SMX West Social Track

My agency, JStokes, graciously approved me to attend SMX West in order to enhance our knowledge and capabilities around the buzz that is Social Media.  We have been pretty active in educating ourselves and staying up on the trends, but this was a great opportunity to get on the cutting edge of where this marketing medium is headed and how it is being used today.

There were a number of “Tracks” to choose from – the one I took focused specifically on social media and included four courses, each with a panel of industry professionals who have been active in utilizing social media as a marketing medium.

First, I’ll just give a quick run-through of the speakers and the broad learnings from each seminar, then will sum up my key learnings form the day.

Twitter Marketing Tactics
Speakers:

• Kelly Gillease, Viator
• Adam Sherk, Define Search Strategies / The New York Times Co.
• Chris Silver Smith, KeyRelevance

This course went over the basics of marketing on twitter, as well as ways to get the most out of your social media campaign.  A lot of great tidbits and a good broad overview tying all the pieces together.

Free Ways To Market On Facebook
Speakers:

• Greg Finn, 10e20
• Jon Fougner, Facebook
• Bill Parkes, nFusion
• Tony Wright, WrightIMC

This course covered off on all the different ways people and companies can utilize Facebook groups and pages for marketing.  It gave a lot of great examples of how some people have been very effective in their Facebook marketing and what kind of opportunities there are for using it as a marketing medium.

Facebook Ad Tactics For Search Marketers
Speakers:

• Brian Boland, Facebook
• Addie Conner, Course Advisor Inc. (this chick rocked!)
• Michael Kahn, Performics
• Will Scott, Search Influence

This course covered Facebook ads – something that I didn’t a lot about before.  Based on the panelists’ experiences, they have had some great success using Facebook ads as a marketing medium.  The ability to geo and demo target are a huge draw, as you can hone in pretty deep – you can even focus in on interests and likes which is pretty unique.  Cost per conversion also appears to be significantly lower than traditional PPC.  The negatives are that it is a new medium so a lot is changing on the fly and marketers have to be prepared to be flexible enough to deal with this.

60 Minutes Per Day For Social Media Success
Speakers:

• Jennifer Laycock, Search Engine Guide
• Matt Siltala, Dream Systems Media
• Chris Winfield, 10e20

The presenters made it clear that 60 minutes per day for social media success is really pretty far-reaching, and that to have a truly effective and comprehensive social media presence it will most likely take more than 60 minutes per day.  But to hone in on how to be as efficient as possible, all agreed that the blog is the keystone of any social media strategy.  They also went over a number of tricks and tools that can help discover and manage opportunities in the social media space.

Overall a lot of great information, and a lot of actionable tips, tricks and overall information that we can really apply directly to our client campaigns as soon as we have the opportunity to do so.

Here are a few of the most important specific takeaways I am now armed with:

• The blog should be the keystone of any social media strategy.
• Just being on Twitter alone will do little to nothing nothing for your business.
• Don’t Tweet for your business without first figuring out your goal, strategy, and plan for execution.
• Social media is not free.  It takes a lot of time and energy for it to become beneficial to your business.
• Social media is not fast.  It takes a while before your campaign will gain enough traction to truly make an impact.
• Social media is not easy.  It takes the former two – as well as a lot of strategy, research, and caring – before you will feel like you are getting a return on your investment.
• If you think social media is not right for your company, you are probably wrong.
• Don’t think of it is a way to get more business, but a way to interact with your customer community and generate a positive relationship with your customers and potential customers.  If done properly, an increase in business will naturally follow.
• Provide real value to your customers.  People will know if you are spamming, scamming, or if you just don’t really care about them – and it will show in your results.
• Google Alerts is pretty awesomely handy for social media monitoring.
• Facebook ads is currently a pretty big opportunity

Be Sociable, Share!

•