Social Media Experts Give It All Up

Finally i am settled enough after getting back from New York to put together a little post about my SMX Social Media thoughts and impressions.

SMX Social Media in New York was really an amazing conference. Never have i been to a conference where i felt like there was more back to back real tricks, tips, and information being given by experts that are very active in their field. All the speakers really did a great job.

I even have about 3 pages of notes that i took away from the great sessions to work on.

I spoke on the first day, second session, on Social Media Linkbait. Here is a copy of my slides if you are interested – Brent Csutoras’s Social Media Linkbait Slides .

Here is a great recap on the session that is on the Unofficial SEO Blog, Hope they don’t mind me snagging it since i am giving them a link:

Top 10 lists: Brent insists that top 10 lists are still one of the most effective tools of linkbaiting. According to Brent, he feels that Digg receives most of his focus as all the rest is equivalent to Digg front page hit. Numbers should be mixed up and they don’t always have to be 10. These lists should also include negative lists to make it fun and different for the reader.

‘How To’ Baits: These how to guides, foremost have to be helpful. It should be easy to read so that its easy to work. The how-to-guide should offer value and should be appealing to the eyes. Visual candy always works, so include images, video, bullets, and headings.

Current events: Making use of current events can prove advantageous. Foremost, you have to act fast, do some research on the subject and make sure everything is accurate. Do more than copy paste, add value by giving your own flavor. Do not misspell and use only the right jargon and terms.

Offbeat or Extreme: As risky as this may be, if you know what you are doing it can be very successful. Most of the time, clients are wary of taking such steps and this can have many pitfalls. In the end of the day, for a few more links, you do not want to harm your brand’s reputation. Remember to not violate Terms of Service with your content, no matter which social networking site you are on.

Humor

Tools

Image Campaigns: Campaigns that have images are more likely to do better than campaigns without images. The picture should be integrated into a post and have great content along with it. If you submit the post URL rather than that of the image URL, there are less chances of people stealing it.

Research: Before you begin, do research on the subject. Include RSS Feeds and set up alerts about your subject matter. Go through social networking sites and find out what works best for your interest group/community/niche.

Title & Description: Pay attention while creating the title and description. The title you create should be simple and strong to have an impact. It should focus on what the content is all about. On the other hand, the description should express the title well. With this, even if your website does not open, all because of a good title, users might vote for you in social networking sites. Simple things like using an upper case for the initials in your title, goes a long way in grabbing attention of the reader. Also, include numerics in your description.

Interact & Share: After posting your article, get people to vote and comment on it. Ask friends and people of your network to comment and vote your post. Based on what they say, up or down votes. On social news, try and avoid the negative feedback.

Brent’s Social Media Tips-

Your content should be relevant to the community.

Integrate images.

Restrict ads. For those that come from Digg, avoid ads.

Offer a summary to those who want to link to you.

Proofread your content and make sure that you do not have typos or mistakes of any kind tat your competitors can highlight.

Is it Duplicate? If the answer is yes, then avoid submitting it. On the other hand, older posts can work.

Check What Worked Before as this can work again for you.

Digg Effect- Check whether your server can handle high traffic as a lot of incoming traffic can bring down server.

Be link worthy.

Submit at the right time. Stick to weekdays and stay away from weekends, holidays and evenings.

Digg users do not like

Poker Subjects

Self Promotion

Announcement Pages

After the session i met up with Kara Ratliff who grabbed me for a quick interview about many of the things i had finished speaking on. You can view the interview here. I then spoke with Andy Greenberg from Forbes.com who ended up writing a piece about a few of the speakers, including myself.

“How to corral that traffic? Aside from making lists like the one that Olthuis created for LifeInsure, Brent Csutoras suggested trying quirky and extreme content (think “world’s largest” or “most dangerous”) or headlines tied to current events.”

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to come up and speak with me. It was a great time and i really enjoyed meeting everyone and the conference in general. Thanks to Vanessa, Cindy, Danny, Cameron, Neil, Chris, Micheal, Greg, Tamar, Rebecca, Rand, BOTW, Avi, Guillaume, and Li for being cool and making me feel comfortable.