Wednesday March 30, 2011
How to (Mostly) Control Your Message Online
Dorie Clark (Clark Strategic Communications)
Dorie Clark is a consultant specializing in helping clients increase sales, enhance brand reputation, and move policy issues forward. She has worked with clients including Google, Yale University, the National Park Service, Howard Deans presidential campaign and the Ford Foundation.
The ultimate reality is that you can only control your message If youve created the platform to do so. Websites, blogs, social media, email lists, press contacts need to be in place first. I will be bringing back some serious information for various clients on this topic. Call me next week if you have questions.
No Need to Google: how to Intercept Customers Before They Search
Alex Rampell (TrialPay)
So how do you connect your website to traffic if no one is searching for your name or if they dont know your product/service exists? Alex highlighted some awesome techniques that are forward thinking and quite intuitive once youve started thinking outside the box.
The Top 5 Mistakes of Massive CSS
Nicole Sullivan (Stubbornella Consulting Group)
Critically important to my work for you - absolutely more than you ever want to know about behind-the-scenes of your website.
Challenging the Challenge of Accessibility through Design
Victor Tsaran (Yahoo! Inc.)
Have you ever thought how your website reads to a blind person? I had the opportunity to Hear a website through the fascinating presentation led by designer and accessibility expert Victor Tsaran of Yahoo! Inc., who is also himself, blind.
While the old accessibility tools are still valuable a number of new features are available to make websites truly user-friendly for all. Neither onerous or complicated to implement the value to you and your site visitor is enormous.
Tuesday March 29, 2011
Data Mining: Why, When and How to Use Customer Data
David Michaels and Aaron Forth (Intuit)
When Intuit - the largest company offering personal finance management tools - bought the startup https://www.mint.com/ they didnt wrap their competitor into their existing tools but recognized the unique business model and set it free to become a mover and shaker in the world of data acquisition. Most of us do not have the scale of customer data to mash then sell but we can now access their data for our strategizing. We should also be looking at the numbers we do have available and crunch every last sale we can.
Be Innovative, Yet Familiar: How to Create a Comfort App People will Actually Use
Andrew Filev (Wrike.com)
App, website, Facebook page - its really the same message. Make it easy to use, address the client, customer or visitors real world needs and make it mobile.
Buzz in the Hallways
Being surrounded by a couple thousand geeks is always culture shock. The clear message Im taking away from todays energy is that the economy has plenty of cash flow & lots of jobs, its just flowing in side channels and new pathways.
Startups abound and are successful when they address a problem, solve it and make the customers life easier. Make it personal, make it now and make it accessible - people are buying.
Webfonts: Why Bother
Greg Veen (Typekit)
So far this has been the most exciting workshop of the day. While I've been experimenting with the new css font-face tools Greg has been actively developing the applications that allow us to move from "web-safe"/boring fonts to typography that will revolutionize website design. Can't wait to start applying this innovation on real websites!
Monday March 28, 2011
Effective Facebook Ads and Applications
Dennis Yu (Blitz Local)
Justin Kistner (WebTrends)
"The key to success is to be genuine - fake that and you have it made" - Mark Twain
From the largest Facebook marketing campaign to the smallest, most personal service project the bottom line is to be personal and start a conversation. The reach and scope of opportunity on Facebook is growing exponentially. However, it is a completely new approach to marketing and can not merely regurgitate what you do in print, television or on your website. From the early strategy sessions through running apps and ads, successful Facebook marketers understand the paradigm shift and take advantage of a the fast paced viral nature of the media
101 Killer SEO & PPC Strategies & Tactics
Mona Elesseily (Page Zero Media)
Stephan Spencer (The Art of SEO)
The Art of SEO is really a science and still requires a constant and careful approach. The actual formula has not changed significantly over the last few years but the tools available for testing and measuring efficacy have improved dramatically. We still need to use a customer-centric approach to the process. How does your visitor think? What do they think they are searching for? From that understanding we can actually target real consumers and businesses with pinpoint accuracy. Organic search optimization is still the holy grail and strategizing for PPC should have the goal of maximum ROI.