The end of SMX Social Media in New York is upon us. At the close of the conference today, the audience is leaving with a lot of tips and tricks and “how-to”s to make their social media marketing more effective. The main idea pushed on the audience by nearly every one of the presenters was that social media takes time and research, and when done correctly can increase traffic, links and brand recognition from all over the world.
To read about the sessions of Day 2, read my previous posts:
Effectively Leveraging Social Networking
Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers and Answer Sharing
And, since this is a recap of the final day at SMX Social Media, I thought I’d give you a list of what was covered for us in the conference, and specifically by Brent Csutoras, regarding social media and how to succeed in this field:
- Relate to the community you are in
- Use images. people always like visuals
- Limit the amount of ads visitors will see when they come to your site
- Offer a summary of the content you are promoting, especially if it is long and you want to appeal to those who skim descriptions without reading the article
- No spelling errors. This is a quick and efficient way to be labeled as ignorant and a non-reputable source
- Are you promoting something that is the same or very similar to something that was promoted last week? It’s true that recycled content is all over the internet, but only after a significant amount of time has passed. If you want to promote a top 10 list from three years ago on the best places to go to find cheap Christmas gifts, go for it. But if that list was up three days ago, stay away.
- Research what has worked before, and use those tactics for you
- Get prepared for the Digg effect. Can your server handle 500 visits per second? If not, get a new server or don’t try to get on the homepage of Digg
- Make sure your content is link worthy. No one will link to something if they don’t see any benefit from it
- BE SOCIAL! It’s called social media for a reason. You have to get out there, create networks, provide content they would be interested in, and you can end up with a power account with hundreds of friends and thousands of links from the work you have done to get there.
In case you missed our coverage day one, here are the links to sessions covered:
Social Media Marketing Essentials
Linkbait – Chumming for Traffic on Social Media Sites
SMX Guide to Social Bookmarking and Tagging
So there you have it, folks. SMX Social Media was a success, with informative and interesting presentations, and a laid-back fun atmosphere that made it enjoyable for all. And becoming a top community member takes time, so don’t expect to jump in feet first with content only about your company and not offering anything of benefit to anyone else. Engage in conversation, share information and provide interesting thoughts on a certain topic you happen to know an awful lot about.
This is how you can succeed with social media marketing!
[Note from Lee: Great job Dana! For a huge list of the SMX Social Media conference blogging coverage, visit Search Engine LandFlickr set for the SMX event and also be sure to check out all the photos on TopRank’s ]
