Interesting take on the SES conference from Rohit and Kate Zimmerman. Now the SES conference had standing room only for many of its sessions, with the new social media track generating a lot of interest.
Since this was a search engine conference, most of the focus of social media was on driving large busts of traffic and generating large numbers of incoming links through link baiting.
Yes these tactics work, but social media optimization is so much more than that. As Rohit wrote:
In terms of social search and social media optimization, the one thing that came out of our panel which I was a bit bothered by was that attendees could easily have left with the impression that many of the SMO tactics employed by the panelists were only suitable for small businesses or capable of reaching teenagers with time on their hands. … Search and the rise of social search has big implications for large brands and requires a shift in thinking. It’s a viewpoint I bring to my clients every day as I talk to them about their search efforts and how consumers are hearing about (and talking about) their brands.
The SEO field needs to stop thinking of social media optimization as a short-term tactic that they can use to game the search engines. Not everything needs to center around a company’s URL.
Social Media Optimization is still in its infancy, and it presents businesses with a way to connect and interact with their customers and prospective customers in a way that they cannot through their web site.
Social media optimization is interacting with consumers wherever they are online, in whatever format they want the interaction to take place. Social media runs the gamut from blogs, to MySpace, to forums, niche social media sites and Podcasts.
While it was great to see that so many people at SES were interested in social media, it is a shame that many in the room who are not engaged in it, came away with a distorted viewpoint of what social media optimization is and how it can be used to help their business improve customer satisfaction and gain market share.
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Cameron Olthuis 04.17.07 at 1:41 pm
David, First of all I’m disappointed that we didn’t get a chance to meet at the conference. I had no idea you were going.
Second, I agree completely with your opinions on the conference tracks. Not only that but I felt like some of the speakers did a very poor job at representing our industry. They came off sounding very spammy and that reflects very poorly on what we’re trying to accomplish. We already get enough heat for being spammers, now I can see why.
mblair 04.17.07 at 11:18 pm
It’s interesting in that mainstream SEO has moved more towards “white hat” long-term content-centric strategies where value is baked into their marketing. Yet for many SEOs, when it comes to social media its a bit back to the old school — doing everything that they can get a way with and then some.
While Google’s algorithms for auto-detecting spammy material are far ahead of those of any of the social media websites, the risk of it all backfiring is much higher than in the social media.
In Google you can file a reinclusion request, but in social media where do you go to get your reputation back?
David Wilson 04.18.07 at 3:01 pm
Hi Cameron
I actually never made it to NY for SES. My comments were based on what I read and heard from people that were there.
I did make it out to the Elite Retreat in San Fran last month so I did get to finally meet Neil.
David Wilson 04.18.07 at 3:25 pm
Mark
Great points. I also find it interesting that SEO tactics for social media are almost all spammy.
I think that “social reputation” will become part of the search engines algorithms and that anyone company engaging in these tactics will find their web site traffic impacted.
David
Daniel 04.19.07 at 6:52 pm
Hey David,
I feel for you in your frustrations. I’ve had the same feeling too when everyone thinks Social Media Marketing is brand spanking new, when it’s a new form of Word-of-Mouth-Marketing and still follows many of the same rules. I’ve posted it here
“Hey Social Media Marketers, Remember Word-of-Mouth Marketing?“
Jeff Quipp 04.25.07 at 11:50 pm
Agreed asbout SES NY … the focus was more on generating short bursts, but not how to make that traffic more sticky. I found the speakers knew their subjects, but were somewhat unwilling to part with the tidbits of knowledge they had that would have truly made it worthwhile. Neil Patel was funny though!