2 Minute Video Book Review: Search Engine Optimization

I hope you enjoy my first video review! I really enjoyed this book, Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint for effective internet marketing. Highly recommended if you want to learn more about SEO.

Becoming a Resource

Justificiation is a big word out there right now - justifying a job position, justifying an expenditure, justifying time spent doing something if no immediate ROI is demonstrated, justifying a face to face business event, etc. It's a hard time to be in any position right now, let alone sales, marketing, and business development in the meetings and events industry.

While our clients are currently in a holding pattern until they are given leeway from their bosses to begin face to face meetings again, my company has brainstormed how we can continue being a great partner and asset. So, we have turned part of our focus to becoming a resource. And this is part of the beauty of social media! We have created a Delicious page, which is a social bookmarking tool that allows us to share links of relevant articles and information. Best part is that we can categorize and "tag" the content, so people can easily navigate to the subjects that most interest them. We read A LOT, and now we can share the best of the best out there with clients, potential clients, vendors, colleagues, and anyone else interested in meetings and events. Please check it out and let me know if you have any feedback: http://delicious.com/dynamigroup.

LinkedIn and Social Media Tips from David Nour

So I heard a great keynote speaker the other day who is a Social Media/LinkedIn/Networking expert named David Nour. He had some great advice and tips that I wanted to share with ya’ll. I hope you find it useful and please let me know if you have any questions or need clarifications.


LinkedIn:
-less than 10% of people know how to use it (use it for growing a network and for business contacts).
-to search for a target person do an “advanced search.” Example, type in “Current VP at Disney.” The number to the side of the list that pulls up is the degree of separation between your network and theirs.
-advanced search also lets you filter by geography.
-if you are looking for an introduction to someone in your friends’ network, don’t ask for an introduction unless you know your friend very well. Ask “what can you tell me about him/her” and get creative.
-build a content rich profile
-recommend others and get recommendations for yourself
-on your profile promote what you’ve done and what you want to do, projects, etc.
-use bullet points
-join groups specific to your industry and interests. Then contribute relevant information to questions, discussions, forums, and start initiating your own thoughts and questions.


Websites to visit:
-slideshare.net is the YouTube of presentations. Visit slideshare.net/dnour for the speaker’s page.
- http://www.relationshipeconomics.net/RENetworks.html. (This is his social network/community site)
-aNobii is a social media site about books
-American Well is a social media site reinventing healthcare

Other information:
-when utilizing social media, have a voice and a perspective. Get yourself out there!
-Enterprise 2.0 is defined as “The Business Web” and you will want to be a part of it.
-Google your name and know what’s out there about you.
-Specificity drives credibility
-social media is not the place to be humble
-use social media to gather, compile, and share best practices

Social Media for Event Planners

This afternoon I attended the PYM (Plan Your Meetings) Live 2009 event at The Atlanta Event Center at Opera. The topic was Social Networking Strategies. Although this was my first PYM event, they have a reputation for facilitating events with great speakers and about 80 planners were in attendance. Prior to the keynote luncheon I spoke with several people who were hungry for knowledge on how they can apply social media strategy to their organizations. It’s interesting how our industry is still very much in the educational phase of social media. No one knows quite how to implement it for several reasons:

1. It transcends departments and no one knows who should take ownership: meeting planners, the IT department, marketing, corporate communications, or sales?
2. Setting up a social media site is easy; maintaining it purposefully on a consistent basis and using it to achieve marketing objectives is another thing.
3. ROI – marketing departments and planners are all under pressure to demonstrate returns and social media is very difficult to gauge short-term.
4. There is still skepticism and pushback from conservative (older) colleagues, internal clients, association members, direct reports and stakeholders who think social media has nothing to do with them.

Although I’m sure many planners are interested in general social media, I specifically have been educating myself on applying social media to our clients’ conferences and events. It’s a very exciting niche.

So David Nour of Relationship Economics was the keynote speaker. I have seen him speak several times and as always he engaged the crowd and essentially “dumbed it down” for people. What I appreciate is that he shows concrete examples, leaves great takeaways, and his content is relevant for both beginners and more advanced social media learners such as myself. More to come in the next post about a synopsis and review of his presentation.