WebProNews

This week WebProNews is at SES Chicago covering the conference. Stay here for all your SES coverage.

In the session "Igniting Viral Campaigns" Bill Hanekamp, CEO of The Well got things started by saying, "I get really nervous in front of SEO people, because I'm a marketing guy."

He said the content you provide should be:
1. Entertaining
2. Relevant
3. Timely
4. Exclusive

Those are the key elements to making things buzzworthy.

The content that visitors provide are:
1. Engagement
2. Referrals (links)
"Marketing nirvana is reached when you do this perfect," he said.

Ed Kim, CEO, Red Bricks Media, pointed to Eric Jackson as a good example of the user generated revolution, because of the Yahoo shares he owns he was able to nominate himself to the Yahoo Board, which empowers other users.

Kim said consumers are often going directly to their communities to get advice and what they want. He said, "You should identify and influence the influencers!"

Fionn Downhill, CEO, Elixir Systems, said social media is the hot new buzzword among online marketers. She noted that a recent Nielsen Survey found that 78 percent of people trusted recommendations from consumers. That's 15 percent higher than those who trusted the second source, which were newspapers.

She offered these free viral techniques:

1. RSS Feeds
2. Articles
3. White Papers
4. Adding links
5. Add email
6. Social Media (LinkedIn and Facebook)
7. Blogs
8. Forums

Video Anchor/Reporter Kara Ratliff contributed to this article