Day two of the #SIC2011 conference was well attended, with a slow start due to the party last night :-). I attended quite a few sessions, with mixed results in terms of quality. The Spring Creek panel on Social Media ROI was lame and I was hoping for some more specifics and action items out of the Yelp and Ubermind/Alaska Airlines sessions.

On the good side was Rand Fishkin – he and I are totally aligned on Content – Social – Search – Conversion working together for earned media, but I don’t think he went far enough. I’ll have a post on this in the near future. The session by Brian Fling on mobile development was great – he had one slide that showed a timeline of technologies: computing, network, internet, devices and web transitions and why we are at a major transition point (see below). The Digital Music panel and the So-Lo-Mo (Social, Local, Mobile) were both great.

Sessions I attended:

•  Rand Fishkin – Inbound Marketing is All Connected – Presentation @ http://bit.ly/inboundconnected
• Brian Fling – Pinch/Zoom – Mobile Design – Get Slides! @fling, book: mobiledesign.org
• Yelp – Darnel Holloway – Local for Business
• Digital Music Panel – Ross Reynolds (KUOW), Aaron Starkey (KEXP), Nick Harmer (DCFC), Sir-Mix-A-Lot, Tim Bierman (Pearl Jam Ten)
• Social Media Panel – Measuring ROI – Kevin O’Reilly (Spring Creek), Ben Straley (Meteor), Neil Beam (Conversean), Julie Storer (HTC)
• Mobile Experience – Alaska Airlines (Curtis Kopf) and Ubermind (Shehryar Khan)
• SoLoMo – Social Local Mobile Panel – Scott Macklin (UW MCOM), Bryan Trussel (Glympse), Daniel Cowen (Echoer), Jason Wilson (MapQuest), Monica Guzman (Geekwire)

Rand Fishkin – Inbound Marketing is All Connected – Presentation @ http://bit.ly/inboundconnected
– Why did we become a marketer? To push? Interrupt?
– You can’t buy my business, you have to earn my business
– Inbound Marketing – any tactic that relies on earning people’s attention instead of buying it
– Additional decks: social media marketing + seo
– Content > Search > Social > Conversion
– Search is still a big deal and growing – Google – 3 Billion searches per DAY
– Social is Discovery Prior to Interest = awareness?
– A front page post of Reddit will drive 50k – 100k referrals to a site. A top post with some longevity will drive 250k+
○ Kimpton: thanks for visiting, anything we can do? > I want bathtub full of reeces pieces and a bed full of kittens > We’ll see what we can do > arrives to a note card with a bathtub and bag of reeces pieces + photo of kittens on bed > takes picture, submits to Reddit – 100,000’s of visits > BIG ROI
– Top three positions covered by SEOmoz – third position was a video – more clicks on 3rd position than first two
– Conversion: listen/survey > why did you buy, why didn’t you buy? What do you like/not like? What is confusing/clear?
– What you say > how you say it
– Trust happens “out there” not just on Landing Page
– Tips/Steps
○ #1: Data as Content Marketing
○ #2: Video Content + SERP Visuals – SEOmoz uses http://wistia.com to host and measure videos to embed on site – link points back to SEOmoz NOT YouTube and send and submit videoXML site map for you
○ #3: Thought Leadership + Rel=Author – Author markup, connected to Google+ (see social media kpis)
○ #4: Social Networks for Personalized Rankings – using social to personalize results
○ #5: Link Building w/ Your Social Followers – use export.ly by Simply Measured > Klout Score > Good people who are following me who have good sites who are not linking to me. LinkedIN, email lists, other connected sources.
○ #6: Long Tail SEO via Gamification – Quora uses a point system, 80% complete
○ #7: PR through Social Outreach > followerwonk – search by profile description “bend journalist”
○ #8: Viral-Worthy Content via Q+A Research > what do people care about in your niche? Google discussions, Quora, what are people asking for?
○ #9: Influence Search Suggest through Branding > Google – not logged in > generic term brand > “travel blog everywhereist” example
○ #10: Leverage Thought Leaders to Build Content > survey people in your biz, ask an important question (how much do you charge for a website), collate and present data, survey responders and others will link to it

Brian Fling – Pinch/Zoom – Mobile Design – Get Slides! @fling, book: mobiledesign.org
– We are in the third major stage of mobile
– Mobile experiences are NOT made in Photoshop or Basecamp
– “We could build the best mobile app in the world, but if the client doesn’t understand it – it could be the worst app in the world”
– Mobile is REALLY hard
– Business Goals + Technical Goals + User Goals > sweet spot is in the middle of equilateral triangle
○ Ex: technical – dispense soda, business – improve productivity, user – satisfy thirst quickly
– Apple Strategy against innovators curve
○ Refresh product lines before they become tired > OK with just 50% of market
○ A bold vision empowers people to cross the chasm together
– Social media is not a thing – it is pervasive across everything
– I love the slide that overlays time lines with computing, network, internet, devices and web transitions – get slides?

– Massive convergence of ubiquity + 4G + ipv6 + touch phones + HTML5
– Pinch/zoom – mobile bootcamp > get slides!
○ Get brands on mobile path quickly
○ Create shared vision of how mobile is meant to improve vision
– Challenges
○ Platform aesthetic
○ Many resolutions
○ Pixels per inch
○ Orientation
○ Design grids
○ Perspective
○ Dimensions
○ Interactions
○ Motion
○ Transitions
○ Color
○ Typography
○ Iconography
– Phones (currently) are about short, simple tasks (less than 5 minutes) and context sensitive
– Inverse Journalist pyramid is a good model: Most Noteworthy Info (who, what, when where, why, how) comes FIRST, then details. Can leave anytime.
– Tablets are about focus + consumption + portability
○ Swipe vs scroll

Yelp – Darnel Holloway – Local for Business
– Transactional interactions
– Younger audience – 18-34, but affluent – money to spend
– 80% of reviews are positive (3 stars or more)
– Restaurants are largest group, but shopping is close secon
– Quality control for reviews
○ Users can take down own reviews > restaurant had responded, reached out, fixed it > reviewers take it down or update
○ Set of reviewer guidelines > no hate speech, have to represent first hand experience, no conflicts of interest
○ Automated review filter > suspicious reviews and reviewers – fake profiles, fake reviews, cottage industry
– Biz.yelp.com > starting point for business owners
○ Respond to reviewers > join the conversation
○ Reviews are a form of market research > look at competitors as well
○ Respond privately or publicly (don’t freak out)
– Recommend others on your Yelp listing to get them to recommend you
– Post check-in offers in Yelp > similar to FoureSquare > check-in can post to Twitter and Facebook like 4Square
– Consumers are looking at overall trends not necessarily individual bad reviews
○ Engage the bad review in a polite, respectful way

Digital Music Panel – Ross Reynolds (KUOW), Aaron Starkey (KEXP), Nick Harmer (DCFC), Sir-Mix-A-Lot, Tim Bierman (Pearl Jam Ten)
– Napster and broadband changed everything
– Transactions happen all the time > monetary and musically and interpersonal communication
– Digital has benefited fans the most > lost the radio filter
○ Cream rising to top > walking talking brands
– Easier to spread word about music
○ Musicians are spending as much time thinking about how to connect and share vs practicing and writing
○ Content, video, conversations way more time thinking about generating content and connecting to events
○ A lot more work involved now
– Is radio less important now?
○ Independent radio is needed, Comcast type mega stations/format are dying
○ There is so much music that the stations have to listen to listeners more
○ The future is IP connectivity
– So many options I don’t know what to do – smaller, trusted radio stations help guide
○ Delivered via airways vs via Internet – the personal touch is important
○ More than just jumping in a van and going on-tour
○ Hire a social/marketing firm instead of a record company
– Two way communication and how people interact
○ Social networks have huge influence > reviews, recommendations, radio choices – replacing the record store guy
○ Spotify > what friends are listening to
○ Ambassadors – many more out there -who do you trust? Who do you spend your time listening to
– Crash and Burn Tactics
○ Trying to manufacture a viral event/piece of content/fake website
○ Underestimating the connection speed available and how to balance cost vs audience
○ Not ready to support a success event – special tickets, items, new sales, etc. Server crashing, slow, bad experience
○ Video about exotic cars > do not buy views on YouTube – bought 30,000 views to get rolling, but audience was looking for Ferarri’s not Mix A Lot
– Success Tactics
○ Last album, 1st video – live-one take video-happening live-recorded and shown all at once – streaming in HD while making it
○ Underestimating the success of videos – Florence and Machine – 100k plus views of in-house
○ Local photographer – Chase Jarvis – Shot album cover based on what the audience wants you to wear – kept going and going
– There is a glass ceiling on touring revenue
○ You can only do so many shows for so long in your life
○ At what point do you stop touring and continue to monitize your music
– Younger artists
○ Fame first > I had 2,000,000 downloads of our video! For free!
○ How do you start making money to support the music?
– Social tools for audience development
○ Maps, cell phones, Twitter
– I can define myself now vs going through the publicity department or DJs
○ Lady Gaga re-defines herself on a weekly basis
– How do you support the giant middle class of working musicians
○ Longer careers
○ Bigger middle class of musicians
– Recored labels have shifted the contract
○ Not a record deal, but a full package deal: concerts, images, likenesses, downloads, streams, t-shirts, everything
– Future of Music
○ Celestial Jukebox coming
○ Free music, everywhere – 4G (LTE) connection speeds
○ The way we make music > big divide in terms of production of music – higher quality, virtual collaboration
– Mix misses the “Mystique” of artists – transparency can work for a lot of folks, but not everyone
○ I don’t want to see Prince eating BBQ 🙂
– Contract process has to speed up
○ It should not take 3 weeks to license one song

Social Media Panel – Measuring ROI – Kevin O’Reilly (Spring Creek), Ben Straley (Meteor), Neil Beam (Conversean), Julie Storer (HTC)
– Email – when new – experienced the same issues
– What is the business objectives?
– If you could track one metric, what would it be
– Direct measurement vs indirect measurement
– Long cycles, multiple touches, on-going conversations
– What are the transactions that you can and should measure > what was the financial impact
– Influencer Campaigns
○ Macro influencers (Justin Bieber), Micro Influencers (Matt Cutts at Google)
– Engagement as a metric
○ How to define

Mobile Experience – Alaska Airlines (Curtis Kopf) and Ubermind (Shehryar Khan)

– Work with leading companies
– Game changing, disruptive solutions > what is different, compelling
– Deep expertise in mobile and what it means
– Mobile is not a project > it is a long term channel and strategy
– Had to be designed for agility – iterate rapidly and often
– UberInsights
○ New to airline industry’s underlying complexity
○ Availability of backend services
○ Leaving “platform solution for truly custom app
○ Differentiated mobile strategy
○ Apply lessons learned from other industries
– Principles
○ Start with customes > not just an Alaska customer but what are they used to on mobile
○ Simple, intuitive experience
○ Be different
○ Seamlessly integrated teams
○ Be agile, learn and adapt
– Scenarios
○ User interface – the “flight jacket”
○ Mobile boarding pass
○ Responsive to customers changing needs
– What Helps
○ Committed product owner
○ Embrace agile development process
○ Tem chemistry
○ Constant feedback loop
○ Living, eating, breathing mobile

SoLoMo – Social Local Mobile Panel – Scott Macklin (UW MCOM), Bryan Trussel (Glympse), Daniel Cowen (Echoer), Jason Wilson (MapQuest), Monica Guzman (Geekwire)
– Where are you, where am I, what are we doing?
– Layer of utility and enhancing social relationships > connecting to places
– Help me make a decision about what is worth doing, what do my friends
– 350 million mobile Facebook apps, more smart phones purchased than not for the first time
– Where do you want to meet?
– I am here, come get me
– Find/attach one need
– Becomes more useful as more people are on it (the app)
– Phone has eyes (camera) it knows where it is (geo-location) > point the camera at something to get information – replaces the need for key input
– Read Snow Crash – merger of CIA with Library of Congress
– Sharing and generosity is at the core
– Privacy
○ They used to call it stalking, now they call it location based notification
○ Privacy means different things to different people
○ Share your location for a limited time frame, only you can send the Glympse > different for various situations
– Building the slo-lo-mo infrastructure
○ Like building a city > you didn’t start out saying how are we going to monetize this road
○ We will be surprised with what will come out of it
– Lots of Gadgets and how they are uses
○ Google maps, kindle, iphones, etc.