Best of Social Slam 2013 Morning Addition

There used to be a service called Conference Notes, but I don’t know if it still exists.  Social media participation at conferences may have made it an obsolete model.  My friend Dan Morris shares his ideas on a weekly basis with his Letters From Dan, that sometimes include “conference notes.” I love going to conferences and when I can’t, to be able to follow along on a video feed or by following a hashtag is the next best thing. (But it’s no substitute for making connections in person)

I’ve been monitoring the Social Slam #soslam hashtag on Twitter today, which has been hard to keep up with.  Great insights on social media and SEO.  I haven’t done this in a while, but here are my notes from the morning session of Social Slam in Knoxville.  I want to thank everyone who shared their takeaways on Twitter and ultimately blogs.  I plan to return the favor at next year’s Social Slam.

Social Slam 2013 Tweets

Best of 1st half of #soslam:

The fear of social is simply the fear of the unknown.

Employees are the most under utilized social media resource – they want to be brand ambassadors

Most underutilized platform isn’t a platform at all, it’s your employees

Social media marketing doesn’t mean “Be on Facebook”

Education is key to getting your employees to engage in social.

Every social media platform has it’s purpose.

Most underutilized platform isn’t a platform at all, it’s your employees

I get better engagement on LinkedIn for B2B then G+

Title tags, alt tags on images… make sure your site is set up for SEO.

Keep your web site content fresh and dynamic: RSS feeds from elsewhere, chat events, blogs. It can’t just be a brochure

“Mirror social engagement with face-to-face engagement”

Fill out your Twitter profile. Show personality even if it’s a business profile.

Inbound links is still very important, and you don’t get them without phenomenal content.

Use high word counts filled with valuable content, or be very funny.

If you ain’t first, you’re last. “@hollywoodslinky The #1 search result produces over twice as much traffic as being #2

On social media… “be creepy but don’t sound creepy!”

Fill out your Twitter profile. Show personality even if it’s a business profile

@seanmcginnis @rhogroupee @jfloyd AND @ericpratum – #SEO ROCK STARS! #SoSlam

McDonalds gets about 3 million tweets a month!

You don’t own your followers they will stay with your if they want to.

If you’re a smaller company, it’s easier to change the culture.

Be genuine and passionate.

Write epic “shit” to add value. Either funny, controversial or adds value

What happens when sales, PR and marketing are all the same person?

Casual internet users don’t think they use the internet. They check email and use Google.

Use “calculated authenticity.” Don’t tell all your secrets, but do get personal.

Share with people. Show your personality.

Longer form content is king

Think of your site as alive.  You can’t get to the top of #Google with a static
website you have to regularly adding content.

Search engines aren’t the enemy. They are just a connector, and they want to connect searches with results.

Love the idea: “Calculated Authenticity”: share something personal without being naked! Humanizing yourself makes you relatable.

Image file names should not be published with underscores, but with dashes.

Use alt tags on images that are clear and fully descriptive.

Folks really have to leverage the “alt tag” with their images on blogs/websites – that’s how Google finds you!

Google doesn’t read images. It reads alt tags.

Blog comments come from emotional reactions to your content. They need to WANT to share their take on your content

You need to have a professional design, good headline, well spaced content and subheadings, show personality.

Deliver answers to questions with your blog. That requires listening

Every engagement should have an objective.

Actively listen to ideas for blog posts.” Monitor the conversations around you and respond by writing the post.

Note to self: look up Google Authorship and add to blog.

Google Authorship basically just connects your blog to your Google+ page, and that tells Google Search.

It’s official, #soslam has convinced me to head back to Google+. Now how the heck to I navigate the app?

Places your friends check in at will rank higher on your Google search if you use Google+

Five Facebook Competition Applications To Build EMail Subscribers bit.ly/ZcE0hE by @IanCleary

Genius icebreaker by @dinodogan… Picture of audience taken, posted to Facebook, invited audience to tag themselves.

To test SEO, sign out of your Google account, change your location to United States, to get more generic results.

What do you want social to do for you? Brand awareness? Sales?

There’s huge value in commenting on other people’s blogs.

Comments don’t provide any SEO benefit. When have you ever seen a comment in a google search result?

Comments have no SEO benefit, bummer! What’s your preference between Livefyre and Disqus?

If you want 100 comments on your blog, comment on 100 other blogs.

Look up tedtalk “Filter Bubbles”

Social engage, nimble and twitter lists are great ways to remain engaged with followers. What do you use?

Tip from #soslam: send your Google #Authorship link with your bio when you guest #blog

The devil question arises: How do you tell ROI in social media… “Is your phone ringing?” Great answer!

Expectation setting with #SEO? Don’t talk rank – talk traffic & conversion

Search results are now highly personalized so that rank is misleading…

Trust me you can MARKET on LinkedIn! I have generated thousands of dollars of business from LinkedIn connections!

Write great headlines. Five times as many people read the headlines as read the body content!

Instagram is great for making content for Facebook and Twitter

Your biggest takeaways from Social Slam?

I may post highlights from the afternoon session of Social Slam later today or tomorrow, but I’d be interested in your biggest insights and aha moments!

UPDATE: My favorite Tweets from the afternoon session are here!