Conference Buddies

PubCon Las Vegas 2009
November 10-13, 2009
Las Vegas Convention Center
Las Vegas Nevada
http://www.pubcon.com/

When it comes to creating marketing buzz online, webmasters pretty much invented the concept. PubCon is four days of leading edge education and networking in over 90 sessions featuring 200 expert speakers in Social Media, Affiliate Programs, Search, and SEO/SEM. In its 8th year, PubCon was founded out of the rich and diverse base of WebmasterWorld forums. These aren’t people who just talk about this stuff – these are people who do this stuff.

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Keynote Panel: Twittering with the Stars
Moderator: Edith Yeung, BizTechDay
Panelist: Kevin Rose, Founder, digg.com, Pounce, We Follow. 1.1 million followers
Panelist: Porter Gale, VP of Marketing, Virgin America Airlines
Panelist: Tim Ferriss, Author, 4-Hour Workweek, Angel Investor to tech startups. 60,000 followers

Edith: How are you using Twitter?

Tim: I use Twitter for chronicling interesting things that are happening, but not suitable for my blog. I post useful links, and get polling for feedback from people.
Porter: We use it to engage with our fans. Nick is our primary Twitter updater. We are the first airline with full-fleet wifi access. Twitter is a good way to connect, address service issues, quick recovery, marketing, PR, and guest services.
Kevin: I was on a Virgin flight, since I noticed the live streaming available, (called U-Stream), I tweeted about it, and got a lot of attention. In 5 minutes, I got 1200 viewers, people who were watching me eat a sandwich. I also use Twitter for announcements. I don’t like the big corporation feel, so use it to humanize your company, tweets about your screw-ups, too.

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How to Sell to Niche Markets Online

How to Market to Baby Boomers:

Panelist: Ali Moiz , COO, Peanut Labs Media, Virtual Currency Specialist

• Virtual currency is a new market, valued at $2 billion
• Baby Boomers are born between 1946 to 1964
• They have the highest income bracket
• Spends more than other age groups, especially in travel
• Fastest growing group of social networks users
• $1.2 billion in custom-sample market in 2008
• Fastest growing section of online gamers
• Only 5% to 15% are monetizing for gamers
• Example: Zombieland movie, finding a good trailer for that movie can generate $2 million more. Tested on baby boomers to find which trailer out of three they liked the best, used that one for the campaign
• Biggest segment of baby boomers make over $50,000 to $125,000 per year

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How to Run Your Business or Nonprofit on the Cheap
Moderator – Barbara Russo, Business Coach, Founder, Barbara Russo Strategies. Concept: CPR, Clarity & Confidence, Persistence, Resilience

Panelist: Kevin Reeth

Founder, outright.com

• Get a paying customer first
• Start off as a side business first, then start buying stuff
• Don’t buy any new equipment, get everything used if possible, go to Craigslist, warehouses, clearance sales
• Get on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, all the social networks, get personal referrals
• Get a web presence
• Get free tools, like Google analytics
• Big mistakes new businesses make: spending too much on details instead of focusing on getting more clients

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How to Build a Business Brand on Yelp, LinkedIn, Facebook, & Google
Moderator: Shawna Causey, Comcast Business Class

Google

Panelist: Ryan Hayward, Product Development & Marketing, Local Business Center, Google

• 80% + are looking for businesses through Google & Google maps
• Business Listing is free
• Helps you get more business
• Can see a daily report of your traffic
• Anatomy of your listing on Google: Business name, business hours, description of business, photos, reviews of that business, location on Google maps and Google street view, photos are provided by the business, Google pulls info from City Search and other websites
• To optimize your business on Google: add photos, keep all info up to date, add a thorough business description, select all appropriate categories and describe specific products sold, give unique details and use specific keywords
• google.com/lbc, add your business, verify that it’s really your business

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Google for Technophobes: How to Secure Your Number One Spot on Google
David Rodnitzky, Founder, PPC Associates

SEM vs. SEO

SEM is not magic, best practices in SEM can improve your business, but cannot cure your business. If you don’t have a competitive business, no amount of SEM will help you.

The seven habits of highly effective SEM:

1) Search engines.

The big 3 are Google (78%), Yahoo (11%), Bing (8%), the 2nd tier, AOL & Ask.

Google search:

Good: easy, reliable, and large.
Bad: competitive, direct-response, quality score

2) Content:

2 types: content & placement.

Google:

Good: easy, less competitive, latent demand, no quality score.
Bad: inconsistent, complex, requires effort

Google makes 1/3 of their revenue from their content network

Yahoo & MSN (Bing):

Advantages: no as much people are using using it, so it is less competitive. Focus on Google first, then use these (if you have time)

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Why Blogs are your #1 Search Marketing Tool

Speaker: Chris Baggott, Compendium Blogware
10/15/2009, 11am – 12pm

Notes:

• Blogging is the number one corporate focus. It is the fastest growing corporate initiative
• Blogging is a great way to get out information (to searchers)
• The goal is to get more first time searchers
• comScore: 43% more searches this year than last year
• Search is a way to find a solution to your problems
• Companies that have blogs have 55% more visitors to their website, with 97% more traffic to inbound links

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What Travel Marketers Look for in Blogs

Mike Taylor: B.L.O.G.S.

(B)ring the Basics: give general, pertinent information. Less than two paragraphs, your audience, affiliated publications, metrics, unique visits, ratings

(L)inks/Relationships: find ways to develop relationships, pitch blogs with specific content, reach out to establishments

(O)n Top of the World factor: the bells and whistles that set you apart from others, videos, photos, contests & promotions, fresh new ideas, become an influencer & let people know who you are

(G)oods: be up front, communicate what you can deliver, your focus, set the expectation, doesn’t always have to be editorial in nature, can be book tours, tweetups, present opportunities

(S)end and Share: what is your distribution strategy? E-mail, Twitter, Facebook? Are you independently well known?

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Travel Blogging 2009 & Beyond

Travel Blogging Tips & Advice

• Write stories about things that are happening, things you see, people you met
• Don’t do it because of money, do it because you love what you’re doing
• Make your travels into interesting stories
• Blog in conjunction with twittering, use bit.ly to put links on there

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The Value of Blogs To Hospitals, New Organizations, and Industry

Notes:

• Represent what you and your institution stands for. Why would anyone not do that?
• People like seeing posts of medical institutions, statistics, new medical breakthroughs
• Everyone else is talking about us, why aren’t we? Large Corporations might have legal & regulatory constraints, but they can give out new info, respond to customers, address issues

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