On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, I attended the Inbound Marketing Summit conference put on by New Marketing Labs at the Gillette Stadium. Attending this conference was an interesting milestone for me, as it is where I really got my start in social media last year.  Day 1 of the conference last year I showed up without a computer and barely any knowledge of Twitter (I was registered but wasn’t using it, and didn’t “get it”) and much of social media.  Day 2, I showed up with my laptop, and started tweeting.  I haven’t stopped since, and have learned so much since that time about other forms of social media, and have put them into practice at work and through consulting projects.  A lot changed for me in that year.

Anyway, the conference was even more incredible than it was last year, so I thought I’d share some of my favorite quotes/learnings. (Not necessarily quoted word for word; and if you know who said some of the unknown quotes or if I made any errors, please let me know!)

Day 1

• How do you engage customers without pissing them off? Just need to listen. And then figure out WHEN in the conversation it’s right to jump in. ~Citrix (name?)
• SM needs to get out of the corporate communications group. It should be spread throughout the company ~Innovative marketing panel
• In terms if marketing, it’s not about the thickness if your wallet, it’s about the thickness of your mind. It’s a great time to be a poor marketer. ~Justin Rasmussen, Coffee House Ideas
• Who will own social media in the future? PR agencies, interactive agencies or ad agencies? Answer: The companies. ~Brian Halligan, Hubspot

• PR is dead. ~Brian Halligan, Hubspot (I couldn’t disagree more.  I do believe PR is changing, but it will never be dead.  The big difference I see is that rather than companies finding press, the press will be finding them.)

• People turn to social media traditionally to solve 3 problems: 1) sales 2) get the word out , 3) need to make a relationship better or change it.” ~Katie Delahaye Paine, KDPaine & Partners
• You need to look at your “share of suckiness” vs. your competitors. “We suck less” ~Katie Delahaye Paine, KDPaine & Partners (it’s important to look at what your detractors are saying, but also keep in mind industry norms for sentiment.)
• PR = helps groups communicate with one another and facilitate discussions. What is PR2.0? A new approach to PR (PR isn’t just media relations) — it’s about building long term relationships, and now we can do it directlly with the customer. ~Katie Delahaye Paine, KDPaine & Partners
• What is a social media press release? Integrating keywords, SEO, interactive content, links to SM sites, enabled for social media. ~”Getting the Word Out” panel
  
• Measure engagement (not impressions), which will then lead to sales. ~”Getting the Word Out” panel
• Marketing = getting people to know, like and trust you. ~Rich Ullman, Ripple6
• What do you say to the people that say they don’t have time to create good content? Tough! ~Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent
• If you’re doing SM, and not email, you’re insane. It has a $44 ROI per dollar spent, on an email campaign. ~Email panel
• Using purchased email lists is just spamming. The people didn’t sign up for the email. ~Email panel
• “Rented list” – means using another list to communicate your message (i.e Daily Candy). ~Email panel
• 20% of tweets mention brands (source http://bit.ly/MVSlV). Twitter users are twice as much likely to engage with brands than on other platforms. ~Jesse Engle, CoTweet
• For a company with multiple tweeters, it’s best to have logo as avatar, twitter background with faces/names of tweeters, and use cotags. ~Jesse Engle, CoTweet
• Kodak’s blog is not about the actual product, it’s about HOW we use our products. ~Jennifer Cisney, Kodak
• Cool free listening tool www.socialmention.com ~unknown
• How to get your video to go viral? Story, spectacle, emotion, conflict, questions. ~Tim Street, APE Digital

Day 2

• Listening helps you find ppl who are passionate about what you do, out on the web. That’s how you build a comunity centric way to market. ~Listening and monitoring panel
• Email’s role in the marketing mix is more important than ever. Email is a main DRIVER of social web activity. ~Greg Cangialosi, Blue Sky Factory
• The blog is the ANCHOR of our social media efforts. ~Paula Berg, Southwest Airlines
• Where else can you get immediate and passionate feedback from your customers other than in social media. ~Paula Berg, Southwest Airlines
• Social Media optimization created the findability of social objects – keywords, titles, descriptions, tags, syndication. ~Christopher Carfi, Cerado
• If there are a bunch of kids in a playground, and there are no toys there, they’re going to leave. (referring to making your Facebook and website interactive). ~CC Chapman, Campfire
• Everyone needs a CMS (even if it’s just WordPress), in order to update site,keywords, tags, etc. ~CMS panel
• Whereever you are finding the most uncomfortable information about you, look there 10 times harder! ~Tim Walker, Hoover’s
  
• What are Social Media Influencers (SIM)? Harnessing social media and social influencers to achieve a goal. ~Shiv Singh, Razorfish
• Market to the community not just the individual. ~Shiv Singh, Razorfish
• Social engagement results in purchases 24 days later on average. ~Shiv Singh, Razorfish
• Focus not just on the platforms, but on the relationsips… focus on WHO is influencing your customer. Research influencers. ~Ken Chow, R2 Integrated
• Great Marketing = Convince people to SELL. ~Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot
• Google’s ranking algorithm = context (does it match what they’re looking for?) + authority (how much does Google trust you?). ~Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot
• Titles are the most important piece of information you’re giving to Google about what the page is about.The MOST important is the one on your home page. Earlier words send a stronger message to Google. So, your title keywords need to be ordered appropriately. Don’t make your Home page titled HOME (even if you sell homes!. ~Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot
• Don’t buy ads on Facebook. Use it to look at the demographic info to find who meets your target profile (brilliant!). (I don’t agree about not buying ads, but the target demos are great!). ~Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot

If you want to see even more highlights from me or others during the Inbound Marketing Summit, check the #IMS09 hashtag on Twitter Search.

Overall, an incredible conference!! A few suggestions for IMS next year. Include people’s Twitter names in the program, on their nametags,  and on the screen while their speaking. Improve the wireless.  Add a case study component… so many great minds together in one room!  We can break into a group of 10 and all work on a different case to put together a social media and marketing strategy and tactics.  Do short presentations so we can all learn from eachother.

(Photo credits: Group, Chris Brogan, iPhone, CC Chapman)

Anything important I missed?  Feel free to add or comment on the above!

One of the things that makes my days different from when I was working full time, is managing my diverse daily schedule. When I was working, sure, every hour was different, but I was at work, working on the same job. Now, my days are filled with networking meetings, emails, twitter, checking job listings, going to physical therapy, babysitting, consulting, and more. I find it great to have the variety, but also find it very tiring. So, here’s what my day looked like on Friday:

I met someone for coffee who wants to change careers and get into marketing. She also is very intrigued by the online space. I love sharing what I know, so had a great meeting, giving her some advice about marketing, they way I’m conducting my job search, what I’ve learned so far in social media, and where to look to learn more. Great meeting!

Next, I was off to a physical therapy appointment for my back. I have had back trouble for a long time, and finally found a great therapist. Feeling much better!

Then it was time for the Salty Legs Networking Group meeting. More on this group in a blog post to come. Anyway, this week’s meeting had Chris Brogan (social media god) as our guest speaker!! Very lucky to see him in person, with such a small group. Here are a few things he said:

• Everyone should read “Tribes” by Seth Godin – we are all in a Tribe, and should strive to be in multiple tribes
• Go after the 1,000 PASSIONATE people, versus 10,000 people
• Facebook and Twitter are different in that FB doesn’t allow you the opportunity to necessarily find like-minded people; Twitter does. (BE where the conversations are that you want to have)
• I asked him how can using Twitter help in a job search, when you don’t want to be “screaming” to people all the time telling them you’re looking for a job. His number one recommendation was to use Twitter Search. And learn how to use the OR function, so you can put in strings of words of what you are looking for and terms that would help you find a job. And then listen for the opportunity. And then contact those people. He gave a great example about an ISP company that did this and searched for “ISP is down”. Their sales rose due to this proactive approach.
• How does Chris manage 20,000+ contacts? Well, if you google “no I don’t sleep” he’s #1! (I googled it, and he wasn’t #1, but he was #5… pretty impressive (or scary depending on how you look at it!)
• Write strategically — Blog on the types of jobs you want. For example, if I want a job at a specific nonprofit doing marketing, I can blog about ideas I have for them.
• Comment on other people’s blogs — that’s the new way of networking
• 30% of online social media is the content; 70% of it is being the human around the content
• Chris’ Book “Trust Agents” – how to use the web to humanize business – is coming out in May
• When a brand talks back to you, it makes you feel good. For example, Chris was on a bad Northwest flight, and tweeted “I wish I was on JetBlue” and JetBlue wrote back saying they loved him too.

Chris is truly amazing, and I’m grateful I had the opportunity to hear him speak!

After the Salty Legs meeting, I went over to the JCC (my former employer) to meet with my programmer, and the webmaster there. I’m working on a website for them on a consulting basis. Summary of the meeting… we are very behind… the programmer has been slow, and I’m hoping we don’t launch more than one month late :-(

So, that was my day. A great variety of things, but I was exhausted by the end of it!