Moderator:

• Joe Laratro

Speakers:

• Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOMoz.
• Neil Patel, CTO, Advantage Consulting Services, Inc.
• Michael Gray, President, Atlas Web Service.
• Cameron Olthius, CEO, Factive Media.

With social media, booming at a staggering rate, everyone wants a piece of the pie. Knowing this, the experts came to give us their two-bits on how to further businesses. First to speak was Rand Fishkin, who kicks off the second day by showing two presentations.

• Social Media 101
• 60 websites worth watching (more advanced)

Social Media 101. Listed below are websites in a random order:

• 23hq.com
• adultswim.com – message board
• babblz.com
• ballhype.com – Digg-based sports portal
• bloggoggle
• blogs4god.com – Religious portal
• buzzflash.net
• care2.com
• chipin.com
• comagz.com
• couchsurfing – Leave your links there
• deviantart.com – Drop your opinion, has live links
• dfinitive.com – social bookmarking site
• dnhour.com – add a link to your profile
• fanpop.com – profiles come with links
• flickr.com
• hugg.com – eco-friendly community
• memeorlame.com
• mixx.com
• photographyvoter.com – as the name goes
• pixelgroovy.com
• plugim.com
• qoolsqool
• scoreguru.com
• showhype.com
• sk-rt.com – profile’s come with links
• smallbusinessbrief.com
• sphinn – live links
• tweako – social bookmarking site
• videosift.com

Some of Sites

1. adobe showcase
2. askmen.com
3. digg.com
4. picks.yahoo.com

 

Next is Michael Gray, President, Atlas Web Service who says that two important things to remember before starting on these are sites are:

You have to think long-term, so act and perform accordingly.

The story you publish should be about how relevant it is to the site. Examples are:

1. digg.com: How to paint the social bookmarking site’s logo on your wall
2. hugg: how to pick an eco-friendly paint
3. lifehacker: This is where you learn how to paint your living room in a weekend
4. propeller.com: Find out what the color you use reflects about your personality

Important Pointers:

• Back to school
• Spring time
• Tax time
• Use calendar and current events
• Fall: save money on heating bill
• Winter: last minute tax saving

Rands puts up a presentation about a new website which received over 120,000 visits within a span of two months. Next, he shows a graph about blog subscribers, which shows an upward movement. Apparently, social media is about owning a crowd/audience that isn’t search engine-dependent. Also, your site must have regular link growth (refer to Google patent). The stories you have should be connected to other parts of the site. Create brand awareness, repetition is key here. So, it will take about 7-8 times before your audience remembers it. The audience you create should know how to use social media as if they like your stuff they will finally do the work for you. Join a community and be part of it regularly, don’t do a half-hearted job. Don’t be shy about linking to other blogs.

Rand’s 10 Tips for Social Media-

Titles must be eye-catching

Site should be and have images

Content should be short, simple, witty, easy to scan content

Don’t make the page deadends

Share links

Stay topical and keep an eye on trends

Find a solution to someone’s problems

Incorporate buttons and widgets to encourage voting

Use less ads and target links

Everyone loves top 10 lists – break some rules and make yours go to 11

Next up is Neil Patel, CTO, Advantage Consulting Services, Inc, who discusses the ‘Dark side of social Media.’

1. Pay for votes – Apparently, it has worked for Neil, whenever he used pay sites
2. Social media rings -

   Have a long e-mail list and make your friends vote.

   The bigger the ring, the better

   Be a part of multiple rings

   Don’t vote right away

   Don’t vote on just about everything

   Never abuse the ring

   Use hxxp instead of http – helps block the referral

3. Social media apps.

   Add friends

   Vote on stories you like

   Ask a developer to build you an app

4. Forced Actions-

   Use iframes to vote/add a friend/subscribe to something

5. The dark side. Think of the best stuff. Don’t think it loud. Think dark and shady and it will come out sooner or later. (Audience loves it)
6. Light reading. 10e20.com Brentcsutoras.com Seomoz.org/blog

Next up is Cameron Olthuis, CEO, Factive Media, who talks about linkbait. Cameron suggests using ‘remakeable content,’ that will compel people to link to you from their site.

Methods:

Be informational

Be controversial: Jason Calicanis

Add humor

News: Try to be the first one to break a story

Tools: Include tools like widgets, calculators etc.

Benefits of Linkbait:

Links

Link profile

Traffic

Branding

Bookmarks

Media publicity

Cameron next brings out a Case Study: Sobercircle.com

1. Research. Go though social media sites and find out what people like. Use Digg and Del.icio.us to know what different audiences like. With Del.icio.us, you get associated tags that is beneficial in giving you more ideas. Also, you learn what is popular.
2. Brainstorm. Try to find as many ideas and suggestions as you can. The more the merrier, in a while you can lessen it down after a while.
3. Create the content. SImplicity is key. Moreover, most of the readers are channel surfing.

   Format lists. Easy to scan, add images and videos.

   *Cameron shows the audience an example*. The site is about a drug. His slide shows 1001 Diggs, page has a video, image, and a good amount of content.

4. After content, comes seed.

   - Submit the site and select the topics and tags.

   - Use a Power Account

   - Use Witty titles & descriptions – Titles can make or break you

   - Categorise and tag properly. Don’t go with what is popluar, go with where it belongs

   - Target sites
   
   

   

   Results:

1000 diggs

150 comments

800 links

Wikipedia link

read/write web found the page and gave it more exposure

Takeaways

Research your target audience

Content should have appeal

Must have aPower account

Test test test

Use good titles and descriptions

Keep your server up!!!!!

After this came a Q & A round, where some of the best questions were:

How much traffic can you expect? What type of servers?

Cameron: 5-25k vistors from reddit. Digg can do 100k+.

Graywolf: Call your hosting provider before hand

Rand Fishkin: for images use flickr and other sources. If your page uses a DB, make the page static and it will help you. The Database could really hurt you so just make it static.

Neil Patel: CPU somewhat matters, its the memory. Have 4GB of memory and use Memcache.

How do you get access to power users?

Rand Fishkin: the power users are for sale. Find the users and befriend them.

GrayWolf: Vote on their stories early so they see you. Really pay attention to stories they are interested in.

What are some other measures of success?

Rand Fishkin: Hard core tracking. Track your brand name in the results. Blog Search in Google reports accurate links, or use Yahoo Link. Watch your referring stats, where did it come from? watch your repeat visitors.

Neil Patel: Track your PR. Watch magazines, web sites, and other press contacts. Rand suggests using Google/Yahoo news to see how often your brand was mentioned.

How many man hours goes into an idea?

Neil: as little as possible (gets laughs) The hardest part is the idea

Rand: As little as a day, as long as 60 days (it took Jane 60 days to put together the Web 2.0 awards and get the votes)

GrayWolf: 2 Sides: Maintaining the Power Account and then creating the content/idea.

Cameron: No cookie cutter approach.

In the end, the best cam from Cameron Olthius who said, "No cookie cutter approach."

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“CouchSurfing,” Fenton wrote, “was born out of a dream.” The site, in the words of Wikipedia, was a “free international internet-based hospitality service.” It “blossomed in beautiful ways,” according to Fenton, and he saw what “beautiful, heartfelt good this community can offer the world.” CouchSurfers had “the power to change not only they way we travel, but change the world itself.”

If you haven’t fallen out of your chair already in a fit of giggles, hold on tight. “Life is continuously changing, evolving, dying and being reborn. After a fire, the earth is replenished; after a storm, the air is cleared. It feels to me like this loss of CouchSurfing is how it’s meant to be. This crash is like a sign from the universe.”

Grab your tissues. “What we’ve built together is not dead, it lives on in each of us. It lives in the connections we’ve fostered and the culture we’ve created. I want us all to take this CouchSurfing spirit and continue the mission out in the world.”

The flame imagery is revived for a final hurrah. “We all own a piece of the CouchSurfing flame, it’s up to us to keep the fire going and light the world. So let’s do it, let’s light the world!” The letter is signed, “I love you, Casey.” Oh, and you can also “send your thoughts, encouragement, or positive messages” to Fenton.

I don’t mean to insult the CouchSurfing spirit (or whatever), but Fenton’s letter sacrifices any pretence of dignity. You can read the rest of it here. Let this be an example of how not to respond to a website’s demise.

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Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.