• If you have an old site you should use analytics to track what keywords you are getting traffic for. For most webmasters it is easier to rank for more related keywords than it is to discover and dominate new areas.
• When you start a new site make sure you use keyword modifiers in your page titles, meta descriptions, and page copy. It is easier to rank for long tail terms than shorter search queries.
• You can find many keyword modifier types in this free XLS spreadsheet.
• When you start doing keyword research, you can start with a seed list of broad keywords to power a keyword tool and keep digging deeper. Then repeat the process with related keywords and other keyword tools. No tool is perfect. Think of them more as qualitative than quantitative. I like Wordtracker and my keyword tool.
• Organize your keywords into relevant baskets of keywords and modifiers that should be covered in different sections of your site and on different pages from your site.
• I listed many bonus keyword research ideas in a recent Wordtracker article.
• Some of my favorite follow up keyword tools to use when optimizing a page are
  • Quintura – shows a visual layout of related keywords
  • Google AdWords tool – shows you what keywords Google thinks a URL is relevant for and should be advertising on
  • Compete.com Search Analytics – shows keywords that competing sites rank for

Comments

Tag:

In any case, I managed to stay awake throughout the day long enough to take some notes on some key takeaways from the summit which you will find below.  I also had the chance to meet several folks in person that I have been reading or known from afar, including Peter Kim, Henry Copeland, and Emanuel Rosen (author of The Anatomy of Buzz).  Though some of the "wonder of Nielsen" presentations that I expected throughout the day ran a bit long (not yours, Pete!) – overall the day was a great deep dive into all the ways we can and should be measuring.  As one speaker shared earlier in the day, "media is not an island" and is interconnected as consumers watch and interact with messages across mediums. Marketers may be specialists in one particular channel (TV, Online, Mobile, WOM, etc.) … but consumers are most definitely becoming experts in all of them and use them concurrently. 

Anyway, here are some key notes and insights I took away from the event:

1. Influencers are emailers.  There was an interesting data point in one of the presentations that said that 55% of people who were considered "speakers" (those who share opinions vocally) have emailed directly to a company about a product that they liked.  This was a big insight throughout the day, as it indicated that brands seeking their influencers may simply need to listen more closely to the feedback they are already getting.
2. CGM generates powerful insights, not just influential voices to "target" – In response to a question from Max, I shared this point of view during the recap of the day and it was something that came up repeatedly throughout the morning.  Listening to CGM can drive strategy if you find the gaps which you can use CGM and social media to solve.  One example I shared was using CGM to find the conversation about Julian Beever (a sidewalk chalk artist) before we started our Fountain of Youth program for Aveeno.  We learned that there was lots of discussion online where people wanted to see more of his images and know how he does it.  So we created a Flickr gallery of all his images and a video of him drawing to rave reviews online.
3. Buzzphrase #1: Consumer Fortified Media - This was a new concept that Pete introduced in his presentation about how brands are putting their commercial messages online (like Dove Evolution), and consumers are talking about them and adding credibility to these messages, thus making them fortified.  Of course, there is a handy acronym for this as well: CFM.  (I suppose it could be CFM2 when those commercial messages are for products already "fortified" … um, like Fruit Loops).
4. A new reason 2008 Superbowl ads will be better than the game - The guy from Fox Interactive shared that next year Fox has a deal with the NFL to create an official site where the 30 second spots will be accompanied by "long form video."  The smart marketers will take the chance to create "making of" secondary ads around their $3 million Superbowl spots.  Not sure how CGM plays a part here (unless lots of brands do the "you can create our Superbowl ad" thing again), but I still thought this idea of extending the most watching ads in the world with long form content behind them is a great concept.  Maybe worth an idea bar post at some point …
5. "Getting out of the way" is a strategy - During the panel where media brands shared what they believe will happen in 2010, the guy from CBS talked about the things that they are doing and noted a significant moment where a random user placed a clip from Letterman where he interviewed Paris Hilton on YouTube and the clip got millions of views.  His point … we didn’t go after him, which signifies a great case study.  I loved the irony that getting out of the way is now considered a strategy.  Actually, sometimes it’s the best one. 
6. Buzzphrase #2: Consumer Emulation- In this second concept from Pete’s presentation early in the day, he talked about how we are in the midst of a wave of "consumer emulation."  Citing examples like the JetBlue and Mattel CEOs addressing the public as if they were doing consumer produced Youtube videos, or politicians and celebs who have Facebook or MySpace pages  – the point he made is that the pros are sometimes emulating the amateurs.  And of course, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t …
7. It’s not about volume anymore - The great conflict with how brands used to purchase media to buy influence online versus how they do now is that tricky measure of CPMs.  When you are buying in blocks of thousands of impressions, it is impossible to say you are not buying volume.  Yet as many marketers noted today, less is really becoming more.  One thought I shared is that sponsorships of blogs and social media sites that are persistent can offer a much higher value, but not measured in terms of page views, but rather in terms of brand perception.
8. The silo-fication of marketing remains a barrier – Many of the brands that participated in the day were large ones, and all seemed to struggle with similar issues when it comes to ownership.  This was not about the typical debate on whether blogs belong in corporate comm, or product development, or marketing, etc.  The silos on a macro level are those between marketing/communications, customer service, product testing, and other large divisions.  In many large organizations, these groups are in geographically disparate locations.  CGM may be a brilliant place to gather insight, but if the marketing team who gets the blog monitoring reports isn’t sharing them with product development, or the customer service team who is speaking with a blogger doesn’t share that information with marketing … the power of CGM is never realized.

Comments

With content that you freely distribute you are primarily trying to build relationships with people who don’t know you and have never bought from you. Since attention is limited you have to make your content accessible to gain market attention.

Highbrow = Low Readership

Most potential buyers can not distinguish between great information and average information, but most people…

• can distinguish between well formatted information that is easy to read and information that appears too complex Formatting plays a big roll in selling content.
• follow the crowd and look for signs of trust from others (recommendations, on site comments, etc.)
• care about enthusiasm and topic selection (why read a site that is not unique and/or too negative?)

Some of My Errors

One of my biggest problems from a conversion standpoint is that I often write copy that does not sell…content that speaks well to some, but not to the buying market. Many posts exhibit the following traits:

• are focused on big picture ideas and broader market relationships
• are seen as being negative for being too blunt & honest
• offer too much information for people to get through
• try to convey too many different ideas

People want to feel the comfort and accessibility of reading a for dummies guide one page at a time while being told they are becoming gurus / experts in the process. Which creates an interesting problem for anyone trying to sell how to information. Do you aim to make it as accessible as possible? Or do you aim further along the learning cycle and write at a higher level?

Where to Aim if You Are Looking for Profit

There are more people at the bottom of the pyramid, and if you capture their attention that will likely make you considered an expert to most outsiders looking to your field. As the online experience improves hobbiests use the web much more frequently. Yahoo! and MediaVest have done research about hobbyists, calling them Passionistas:

Passionistas heavily engage with communities of like-minded consumers who use email, text messaging, and instant messaging significantly more than typical users, and are more likely to create and share user-generated content online such as photos, blog posts or videos about their passions.

Because of their intense engagement around sharing information, Passionistas are 52% more likely than typical users to recommend or influence others about brands aligning with them.

In the SEO market (and probably most business related markets) it seems passionate hobbyists new to a field are much more likely to exuberantly promote brands than those who have been in the field for a great deal of time. I am not sure how well that translates to other fields though.

How Can I Use This Post to Help Market My Site?

Become a Platform for Passion

If top rated competing sites lack passion you can own your market in well under a year. If they are passionate then to stay competitive you have to raise your game and become a platform for passion.

Microsoft recently held a search event for SEOs to show they are serious about search. Google gives passionate charities free services to promote YouTube and Google Checkout. Cater to the passionate and create purpose driven media – use the same marketing techniques that Microsoft and Google use.

Make Your Site Look Alive

You can always add interactive features to build community interest. When you do so people are more likely to participate (fueling more people to participate) and they are more likely to market your site because they feel a sense of ownership.

My designer place the recent comments and this week top 5 sections on this site before I ever saw it. And I love it because it gives the sense that the site is dynamic, alive, and active. If you receive awards or have many feed subscribers publishing those signs of validation help improve your credibility and bring in new visitors.

Virtual Demand is Becoming Real Demand

Amazon tapped some of their top reviewers to review transcripts for a book publishing contest. How long until publishers are no longer required? You can look at the success of shows like American Idol to see how much people want to be engaged with what they consume. Also look to the stats about how often passionate hobbyists turn to the web to fulfill their wants. Deep profit margins exist in deep pools of passion.

Eventually consumers will go from hell to create the markets THEY want. The businesses with passionate communities will grow while the remaining businesses go to hell. Look for new ways to track demand and get feedback to create what people want. You don’t even need a product off the start…just an audience willing to give you honest feedback.

Comments

It is a line of thinking that necessitates doing what is optimal: when to balance user experience with "bot experience" to create a site that will harvest any legitimate traffic without detriment to conversions, or without venturing into areas beyond the given risk threshhold for the project.

Technology and marketing were formerly unique disciplines with very different types of people. SEO’s are the folks in between. In my mind, the reason SEO goes well beyond just search marketing into most areas of business is because search engine marketing IMPACTS many of the decisions that are made in a business. Marketing, infrastructure, customer relations, analytics, accounting, human resources can all directly impact search marketing and vice versa. SEO has become more and more of a strategic vision as top rankings become more competitive, and more valuable. SEO is in large part the communication gap between marketing and IT, combined with top level executive strategy (The only good SEO’s that leave the field at this point, do so to become CEO’s – visual illustration).

This is intended to be an "advanced beginner’s guide" – which is a bit of a paradox, but the idea is that even the most proficient of SEO’s often revisit the basics, and that execution on simple solutions can be very elegant and effective. It will also help to cover many of the things that all too often get overlooked. Executing on basics is the most advanced play in the search engine marketing game. A little secret I’ll let you in on – Even the "SEO Pros" go back to basics – content and links. They’re only pros because these two critical elements have become second nature, and nearly every waking thought is based around how to create mo’ betta content, or get some new links in creative ways.

Even if you understand every single technique available – no matter what play you call – you still have to block and tackle to reach the endzone and score your top rankings. The most proficient SEO’s realize that search ranking, branding, marketing strategy, conversions, and postive conversations consist of two major elements – CONTENT and LINKS.

Content

User Experience and content organization

The user experience should be concise, and simple. Simple is elegant. You can have multitudes of functionality locked within a extremely simple streamlined interface. Read Don’t make me think, and the Big Red Fez.

Key tips with site architecture:

1. User architecture and bot architecture don’t need to be identical. A bot will determine the heirarchy of a site through it’s link structure. A user will determine the heirarchy of a site through the placement of the main navigational elements.

2. Search engines are becoming extremely proficient at incorporating semantics into link structure. Keeping a site sectioned into themes is extremely important. The importance of internal anchor text to this factor is rarely over-rated.

3. Internal search is incredible for gathering data on your site.

Resources for understanding information architecture, and balancing the user experience with the bot experience:

• User expectations for common ecommerce elements
• Search engine theme pyramids

Content Creation

Keyword based content

Creating content specifically to rank for keywords. This is a borderline practice, depending on the intelligence level of the content. A thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters could lookup and change content based on a set of words.

User generated content

The beauty of web 2.0 – people decide to connect together to do something. Whether it’s worthwhile or otherwise, two heads are very often better than one, and conversation is the backbone of the web.

How to content

Everyone loves to know how to do something. I really wish I could download things like "how to do your own plumbing", and be able to figure it out. Someday, perhaps a well optimized and informative video will be able to do that.**

**after publishing Rob pointed me to these installation resources on Vintage Bath and Tub (who have some cool clawfoot tubs) – great examples of howto content

Blog content

Write what you know. Talk about a relevant, cohesive topic.

Linkbait content

Make a GREAT idea even better. Be remarkable.

Commodity content

Sometimes cheap content is better than no content. Don’t be lazy.

Content Resources:

• 10 Web Tools to Help Generate Blog Content Ideas
• Adding content pages – 78 possible topics – Jim
• Can your content pass a hand check – Martinibuster_
• Content Planning for Search Engine Optimization – SEO by the SEA
• Content to create links – SEW
• Read Copyblogger through twice
• Directory of Government RSS Feeds _ Threadwatch.org
• Fifty (50!) Tools which can help you in Writing – lifehack.org
• Search’s Long Tail
• The Long Tail_ SEO Tips
• When Unique Content Is Not “Unique” – Sugarrae
• Finding Hidden Content – Content idea – RogerD’s notebook
• Editing Press Releases
• Writers’ Block_ Breaking Out With Ten Simple Ideas

WebmasterWorld Supporter’s forum:

• 63 Questions to Ask Prior to Building a Content Site
• Content creation What do you know about writing for the web
• Providing Decent Content vs Providing Crap Content

Content Structure:

Duplicate content thinking

LINKS

The "Bot Experience"

"Create a site with your users in mind" has become an oft-quoted mantra of search engine representives when asked about how to rank better in search engines. While the logic is sound, it is also somewhat incomplete. The "experience" that a bot has when visiting your site will often determine the initial experience that a user has with your site as well. Controlling where the bot enters the site, and how the bot "sees" the site is of paramount importance to determining how users will find and navigate through your site.

Information architecture is one of the most overlooked areas of good search marketing. Mainly because it is one of the most difficult areas to retrofit on a site, and it’s extremely difficult for consultants to demonstrate the value to justify the workload needed to overhaul a site.

Link Development

Old is good – Old sites are trusted. Trustrank is a part of the game, and if you don’t believe it you’ve been sleeping. There is no sandbox, there is only the trustbox, and the trustbox emphasizes old, aged links that are on trusted domains that are relevant to your targeted query.

Link equity is the new brand building. Perhaps I’m a bit wrong – link equity, strategy, and development is the new brand building. Brand building and link building should coexist peacefully. Those folks out there that you’re paying $10 – $20 per hour for link building, are building your brand for the future. Why? because a brand is only a google search away these days. If I want to know how strong McDonald’s brand is – I do a google search. Perhaps I’m ahead of the curve, but even Joe sixpack isn’t that far behind me. He knows that google is a verb, and he’ll soon figure out how to change his default search application from windows live to yahoo or google. New brands don’t underestimate the intelligence of their consumers. Default search doens’t "WOW" anyone. Relevance, and information quality does.

Types of links and how to get them. Learn what they are, and how they apply to you. 12 types of links and how to get them.

Article link development

Write articles – submit to various sites based on automation for quantity or personal contacts for quality.

Press link development

Write articles – see above.

Partner link development

Network at conferences, through IM, or email, and make nice with friends.

Affiliate link development

Start an affiliate program with a service that is in the know. Redirect appropriate pages.

Paid link development

Buy text links on relevant sites

Viral link development

This one is probably among the toughest because it is becoming increasingly difficult to do something remarkable that people talk about.

Try learning what linkbaiting means.

Directory link development

Proceed with caution – you don’t need many.

Reciprocal link development

See above.

Link Development Resources:

• Graywolf’s Linkbuilding roundup on TW
• 10 steps to getting links to your site from M$ employee
• 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity in 2006 _ SEO Book.com
• 131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies
• A Few Quick Link Building Tips – Jason Hendricks
• Advice_ Increase Email Response Rate _ Justilien.com
• All links are paid – More No-Follow Fallout
• Are You Guilty of Stinkin’ Linkin’ Thinkin’_
• 7 Even More Effective Ways to Build Links SEO Black Hat
• Building an outsourced team of link builders
• Buying Links – O’Reilly In Debate Over Link Selling
• CSS Redesign list – How-to increase your links through a redesign
• Delegating Link Development_ Outsource or In-house_
• Determining the Value of Links from Link Renting
• Does Your Site Have Link Building Potential
• Doing SEO in a Vacuum – natural link development
• Email is Still the Key to a Successful Link Building Campaign – seomoz
• Filthy Linking Rich by Mike Grehan
• Finding Most Relevant Powerful Page for Link from Jim
• Getting Links 1 of 5 – Neil ACSEO
• Google s New Link Filter
• How to Request Links From Picky Sites – mm – seomoz
• Increase Your Link Request Conversion – Don’t Do This!
• Interview of Patrick Gavin
• Jump-start Your Link Building (without Getting Sandboxed) by Andy Hagans
• Link Building 101 – SEW
• Link Building for Blogs Online Marketing Blog
• Link Building Guide – jim westergren
• Link Building Services – How much $$ per link_
• Link Building Strategies – Who To Link To
• Link Building Wiki – Main – Link Building Wiki
• link building with affiliate programs — does it work_
• Link Building with Landing Pages_ a basic guide
• Link Popularity and Link Building Basics-Linking101.com
• LinkHounds – Great Link Building Tips & Link Popularity Tools
• Linking Strategies that work in 2005
• Linking Strategies, items 1 to 50
• List of Searches for Link-Popularity Building
• Natural Backlinks – Getting backlinks without even asking. – Jim Boykin
• Natural link paterns – How “Internet Phenomenon” Gain Links Over Time
• Recommendations on Content to Attract Links
  Secrets from Debra M
• SEOmoz – Unconventional Link-Building Ideas
• SEOmoz Blog _ 5 Rare & Valuable Link BuildingTactics
• SEOmoz Blog _ Long List of Link Searches
• SEOmoz Blog _ What a Good Link Request E-Mail Looks Like
• Seth’s Blog_ What makes an idea viral_
• The Link Building Knowledge Base by Andy Hagans @ www.linkbuilding.info
• Threads of the Web – Linking for Success
• Threadwatch to Build Killer Link Analysis Tool

Linkbaiting

• 21 KEYS TO LINK BAIT SUCCESS
• Blogger Relations 101 – Lee – How to pitch a blogger
• How to Attract Links and Increase Web Traffic The Ultimate Guide
• I Just Hired A Billion Linkbuilders _ Scoreboard
• Link Bait – jim westergren
• Linkbaiting or Link Baiting Strategies – Aaron Wall
• Linkbaiting or Link Baiting
• Linking The Unlinkable_ When Digg Won’t Work
• Viral Marketing With Blogs _ Copyblogger
• What is Linkbait

Webmasterworld Link Development Threads

• Bad Webmaster – No Donut for You!
• Basic Link Dev Strategies
• Buying text links
• Confessions of a Link Building Casanova
• Explaining to Clients How to Get Links
• How can I get inbound links
• How much to quote for link building_
• It’s time to get some new links!
• Link Development in the Blogosphere
• Link Development Persona_ Male Versus Female
• Link Development Post Toolbar PR
• Link Development Strategies In the Age of Sandbox
• Link Development vs. Traffic Development and Staying with the Times
• Link Strategies To Build Presence and Gain Exposure
• New Link Spamming Technique
• Promoting deep linking
• Quality Content as Passive Link Development
• Research your Competition
• The Art Of Persuasion in Link Exhange Requests
• The Dark Side of Exchanging Reciprocal Links
• Buying Links – ‘Staying under the Radar’

Supporter’s Forum (worth every penny of membership)

• How many new links per month to be on the safe side
• Things to watch out for when outsourcing link development
• Tips For Attaining One Way Inbound Links
• If I was a search engine, part 1…
• "Triangular" link exchange
• Brainstorm On How To Get One Way I.B. Links
• Employing Link hunters
• Hints from Search Engine Engineers about Links
• Link Patterns
• The text link market
• They Handy Dandy [Sponsoredy] Linky Getting Guidy
• Paid Links – Is it time to take it seriously_
• Part 2 Explaining to Clients How to Get Links

Welcome to the Rabbit Hole Alice – Resources for those figuring out what SEO really is.

You can take the blue pill or the red pill. The blue pill will take you back to your cozy desk job coding for the man, and the red pill might lead you to insomnia induced by ideas of how to turn your startup into a real company using only your laptop combined with some technical and marketing skills, and a realistic gameplan to pull it off. Or you might end up going from self employed to unemployed real quickly.

The first converstation I have with folks generally consists of them asking some questions about what SEO is. If they are REALLY interested, and get beyond thinking about the fact that I tell them meta tags generally don’t matter much, I would guess it feels a bit like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. I am still overwhelmed with information overload on a daily basis, and this is after over about 6 years of studying and experimenting with SEO techniques on a daily basis. I think the information overload stems from having so many opportunities to apply the information, as well as trying to keep up and evolve process with emerging opportunities. Digesting, managing, and even thriving on the information overload is extremely important in a business built on timely, relevant information.

Here’s where to start with your SEO Training if you’d prefer the red pill:

• SEO Glossary
• SEO Beginner’s Guide
• Google hot topics (Tedster is truly amazing)
• Search Engine Ranking Factors V.2
• SEO Tools
• SEO Tools 2
• SEO Manifesto
• Jim Boykin’s best posts

If that’s not enough, check out Lee’s list of SEO/SEM blogs, or Search through them. 

More resources on site strategy: 18 questions your CEO forgot to ask when building your website

Practice your blocking and tackling every day. Read these long enough, focus on refining tactics, and experimentation, and you’ll always have a team to play for; your clients, vendors, employer, or partners will be dumping the gatorade all over you for being the one that "made it rain".

What resources do you use for your SEO Playbook or your SEO blocking and tackling?

Comments

Tag:

I just bought a domain name off SnapNames for the $60 minimum. Other bidders must have thought it was worthless because the name matched a scam. It does, but if I create an advocacy website then I have a self reinforcing authority that is a clean link source which can branch out in scope as it gains authority.

Every market and every idea is something you can build up or arbitrage against. Sometimes arbitraging against a scam helps reinforce the feeling of self worth in a group of powerful people. As long as you are comfortable with the position, don’t be afraid to bet (and build) against scams.

Comments

So anything you see about the Under the Radar 2007  event going on today is likely to peak your interest if you are a compulsive seeker of new ideas online.  The title of this event promises to expose new ideas and sites in a way that Demo 2007 did (without the great title).  The scope of this event is far smaller than Demo, though, as it only covers innovations in relation to the office of the future.  In addition, many of the sites featured in the event seemed pretty ordinary – as others have also noted.  Regardless, here are a few sites I think are worth taking a look at as well as some ideas on their potential uses for marketing:

Teqlo

This is a site I have been tracking for some time, but offers a great tool for creating mashups of widgets.  The site features an example of mapping product search with ebay and Google maps to create localized search tools.  There are lots of other unexpected applications, like mapping weather forecasts to upcoming sporting or music events on a site like Upcoming.  Just as Yahoo’s Pipes effort allows you to mash your own content feeds – Teqlo has tons of potential marketing applications for taking the widget trend to the next level.

Stikkit

Winner of the Technical Achievement Award at the SxSW web Awards last week, this site takes a concept that others have tried and uses some smart technology to make it useful and easy for developers to build on top of.  Using these online screen-based stikkits to appear as permanent IM windows of tasks and other notes has lots of potential, especially in the new 3D interface models of screens used in Vista.

Wufoo

Creating forms has always been a big part of site development, but there are surprisingly few widget-style tools that let you create these forms easily.  It’s an obvious idea, after all tools exist to integrate polls, video, lists and lots of other pieces of content.  Yet Wufoo seems in a class by itself when it comes to simplifying the usually complex art of inserting forms into sites and collecting data, as well as receiving it in a format that allows you to actually do something with it.  In truth, it’s really the reporting that makes this a marketing tool worth considering.

For other roundups from the event, check out the following links:

• http://www.undertheradarblog.com/wp_blog.html (Official Event Blog)
• http://mashable.com/2007/03/23/under-the-radar/

Comments

There are a lot of these types of opportunities in the market. If you are looking to start a business and want to work from home, running a site like one of these is a great way to go. There are tons of such ideas that you can come up with. If you read through the NicheGeek article, you will see a common theme running through them all.

All of the ideas grew out of the personal experience of the people involved. This ranges from people who are dealing with the solution to a health issue, to people who are leveraging a personal passion. Some of the businesses have grown to be quite sizable – Greekgear.com has revenues of $1.9M per year.

If you are trying to think about how to start an online business, start with your passion(s). Most likely you have a real chance of bringing some value add to the business that way, and you will be in a better position to market it effectively. In addition, you will probably enjoy it more, and that will make it easier for you to continue to work on it while you are still trying to build your initial revenue stream.

Comments

1. Using the tag as the tagline.  Everywhere you look there are signs posted telling you what tag (identifier word or series of words) to use when posting content to social networks, uploading images online, or blogging. The tags add order to the vast amounts of content that are being created as a result of this event.  I am tagging this post with "sxsw" and "sxswi" as recommended by the conference organizers, adding to the library of content created by those at the event.  Without tags, users are forced to rely on inexact methods to find content such as search algorithms.  With them your content is part of the community and consumed by others at the event.  The tag is the new tagline for marketing signs all over SxSW.
2. Sponsoring something useful. Unfortunately for everyone, as part of each of the three events at SxSW – each attendee received a magazine quality program for the conference.  I say "unfortunately" because each of these programs was heavier than a May issue of a Bridal magazine filled with ads.  The end result was that no one could carry this around on a daily basis.  In any situation of information overload, everyone will seek the "hack" or summary to help make sense of it all.  To solve the problem, Iconbuffet http://www.iconbuffet.com had the brilliant idea of sponsoring a handy pocket guide – the ultimate widget for the interactive conference.  This was the only thing I saw people carrying around, and Iconbuffet was the only sponsor.  The lesson?  Think outside the program and do something useful for your audience and you will stand out.
3. Selling old stuff as "vintage." At the conference shop, you can buy t-shirts from last year’s SxSW event.  Conference t-shirts at events are usually one of two things; a mark of ultimate dorkiness, or a signature of coolness that declares to the world that you were there.  SxSW is an event that fits into the second category – and what could be cooler than pretending you were as cool last year as you are this year?  Now I’m just waiting for the shirts that have the SxSW logo on the front and the simple tagline on the back: "I was cool before you."  Now anyone know where I can get a SxSW 1987 t-shirt?
4. Integrating open source marketing. Sponsorships are a big part of every event – and we have all been to events where these sponsorships and the exclusivity arrangements negotiated put a strangle hold on all other marketing efforts.  Here at SxSW in the convention center on the main floor are tables where anyone can place their posters, flyers, promotional cards, and just about anything else.  The tables were packed with marketing materials for other Film Festivals, services for artists, films, stickers and even samples of books and music.  The tables were the chance for anyone with a service, film, song or book to market their wares.  Strewn across the table were the many voices of the little guys, the nonsponsors who still had a chance to put their message in front of the SxSW population.  And anyone could take that message and spread it to others.
5. Drawing audience with the drum solo. At an event focused on live music in a city that thrives on live music, you would think the every bar would get a band to play live every evening.  Surprisingly, there were several bars on 6th street without live music.  Shame for them, since the bars that were packed with people inside and out were the ones where the drummer was by the window and had drum solos often.  The lesson here is to find the equivalent of the drum solo in your business and help it spread by making it highly visible.

Comments

They provide too much information.  If I wanted to compete with you… all I would need to do is read your website or blog.  The purpose of a website is to solicit interest… you’ve got to get people to respond… to generate leads."

My response…

People use the web for research; they are looking for fresh ideas, insight and actionable information.  Intellectual property is difficult to protect and is quickly commoditized by the market.  Why not leverage some of your IP to your advantage?  Leverage it and demonstrate your thought leadership. 

It’s difficult to defend technology that can easily become commoditized and your processes can be copied or improved upon as well.  You can’t even keep all of your people indefinitely.  There are more protections for tangible products but not many for service based business, which most companies are evolving to anyway.

I have a friend who is a NASCAR fan and what he loves is that it’s more about the driver than the car.  All the cars are the same.  It’s the driver and the crew that make the difference. It’s kind of like that with business now. 

Most companies have the same basic car.  It’s really about how well you drive it.  The driver and crew in this metaphor can be seen as thought leadership; the ideas and talents that set the team apart from others. It’s what people remember and identify with.  Features and benefit are cool, but sooner than later everyone’s car has the same features anyway.

This is particularity important for companies engaged in a complex sale, where up to 70% of a customer’s perception of your brand comes from their interactions with your sales people.  I believe that the people and companies who succeed today are those who learn faster and teach others what they know more effectively. 

My skeptical coffee companion had a schitoma (medical term for blind spot) because his viewpoint came from a product driven, B2C, branding perspective.   Fortunately, I didn’t have any formal training in B2B marketing before I got started.  Which at first that seemed like a disadvantage, but now I realize that having a clean slate gave me a unique advantage.  I don’t have preconceived notion of how it SHOULD BE.  Instead, I listen to the voice of my customers and what I hear is that they want a relationship with a trusted advisor, not someone who guards their thoughts and ideas.

So what happens to people or companies that keep the ideas to themselves? Jure Cuhalev over at the g. blog also has great thoughts on giving away ideas. Jure writes, "…I have a theory of what happens to them. They start losing their ability to produce new ideas, since their current idea preoccupies them. They think about it all the time to the point that they can not think of anything fresh." 

Jure also quotes David Kelley, one of the most visible product designers in the world, especially in the world of high technology. Kelly is founder of IDEO, America’s largest independent product design and development firm.

I think Kelly’s viewpoint goes well beyond design. Read the following quote and replace "design" with your role (ie. CEOs, Marketers and so on)… I think it will ring true.

According to Kelly, "Successful designers just send out their vision to the world; and then, when somebody else builds on it, that’s okay. They’re not protective of their ideas because they’re so used to having ideas. A creative designer has an idea a minute. Publicizing an idea is a way to improve on the idea—someone else can build on it, expand it. If you’re fluent with ideas, as most design people are, you don’t have to be fearful. You don’t protect your one good idea because your afraid you’ll never have another good one."

Again, it’s not the car. It’s the crew and driver.

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