SES Chicago was a blast. We had the chance to network with a ton of new people and also had a great time hanging out with old friends we’ve made over the last year while attending other conferences. Some of the things that stood out from the week are…
Neil and I are both leaving very early in the morning for SES Chicago. We’ll be meeting up at the Chicago airport around noon and then heading over to the Hilton where we’ll be staying for the rest of the week. Neil is speaking on the Social Media Optimization panel and I will be speaking on Linkbait & Viral Search Success. Both of our sessions are on Wednesday. Beside that we plan on hanging around during the day and catching a few sessions here and there. In the evenings we can probably be found at the parties or the hotel bar. Hope to see you all there.
A few weeks ago Mike Stopforth mentioned in an article that one of his goals before he dies is to drive an Aston Martin. Aston Martin, who was obviously tracking their buzz, saw this and sent Mike an email offering him a day with an Aston Martin. Now, Mike and all the other people that saw this story that are interested in exotic automobiles are now evangelists for life. Aston Martin did not have to do this, as Mike was already an evangelist. But they did and in the process created a little buzz for themselves and also possibly won over a few new customers, or at least future customers.
One good thing that is coming from social media is that it is pushing companies to treat consumers with a higher level of respect. Days when companies can lie to us, cheat us, treat us like crap, or get away with creating crappy products are gone. A few examples we have seen lately include the infamous AOL customer service call and the Comcast technician falling asleep at a customer’s house. Companies that continue to allow these things to spread through social media without managing them will clearly be caught and hung out to dry.
We’ve seen companies publicly document their startups before, most notably on Bare Naked App, from Carson Systems who by the way is now documenting the sale of one of their businesses, DropSend. The latest one that I’ve been paying attention to is MojoPages. I’ve been reading their blog ever since I came across their videos on Veoh and it is very addicting.
Neil and I will be heading to Pubcon in Las Vegas on Monday. Neil is going to be participating in the Ad and Landing Page Site Reviews session on Tuesday so if you’re coming to the conference make sure you check out the panel. Besides that, we’ll be checking out some of the other conference sessions and hanging out at the parties at night. Maybe even sneak in a game of poker or two.
Not only are social networks starting to fill little niches but we are also starting to see a lot of creative uses with them. Take for example this one that is setup for Affiliate Summit. It’s great because it was setup so that attendees can network before attending the actual conference. Building relationships before the conference even starts is really going to take networking at conferences to a whole new level. This is good news for anyone that is planning on attending.
Wow, there are some great stats that come from a MarketingSherpa Poll that shows viral marketing is bigger than we initially thought. I can’t believe that 80% of people are using tell-a-friend links as marketing techniques. That is obviously a pretty good indicator that it’s working well too. This is also a good indicator that SMO works as a whole. Look at some of the other numbers too.
* [Blinkx.tv to Power Microsoft Video Search](a href=”http://www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=3878)
Microsoft will be using Blinkx technology to power video search within MSN and Live.com.
You wouldn’t let your nephew be your accountant, so why would you hire him to build your website? That’s pretty much the question Todd Malicoat is asking with his latest post titled “[You wear a suit to work, but let your nephew design your website?](http://www.stuntdubl.com/2006/10/11/you-wear-a-suit-to-work-but-let-your-nephew-design-your-website/)”
