Inbound Marketing Summit 2009 Overview

Written by Thomas Trumble
Posted in Internet, Marketing, Social Network on October 19th, 2009

After 2 days, 20 hours and over 70 speakers at the Inbound Marketing Summit 2009 I’m afraid that it took over a week to pull together my notes and links for sharing with the community. It seemed that most speakers at the event spoke in bites perfect for the 140 character requirement of the audience who madly twittered them to the world. In that spirit, here are the words of wisdom that I found the best grouped by the big themes of the meeting. Enjoy.

My apologies where I have miss-appropriated a quote or idea. Please set me straight in the comments.

Listen

If you are not searching Twitter, Facebook, etc for your brand every day then you are fucked
- Gary Vaynerchuk, Wine Library

Listening helps you find people as passionate as you are and that builds relationships.
- Randy Drawas, Kapersky

The social phone is ringing, are you listening? Are you ready to answer, to respond?
- David Alston, Radian6

Joining Social Media is like double dutch. Watch the rhythm and then jump in.
- Jennifer Zeszut, Scout Labs

Spend 1 hour per day in the war room, identify what topics are important to you organization’s customers, versus top-down “talking points”
- David Alston, Radian6

Wherever you are finding the most uncomfortable information about you, look there 10 times harder!
- Tim Walker, Hoover’s

I prefer for people to say ‘You suck’ because then I can go in and say ‘Hey, let’s have a conversation about that.
- Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent

Always say thank you when someone praises your brand online.
- David Alston, Radian6
.

Kodak is in the process of hiring a “chief listener.” This will probably be a standard position in 5 years.
- Jennifer Cisney, Kodak

Engagement

Old Thinking: The purpose of a business is to create customers. New Thinking: The purpose of a business is to create customers who create customers.
- Shiv Singh, Razorfish

Marketing = convincing people to buy your product. Great Marketing = convincing people to sell your product [for you].
- Dharmesh Shah, Hub Spot

Your customers are 45% Advocates and 20% Badvocates. Companies with advocated grow 2 1/2 times faster than those without. Badvocates will tell 14 people.brand your ar 2.8X more.
- Tim Marklein, Weber Shandwick

If you engage with a brand you are 2.8x more likely to search on it.
- Shiv Singh, Razorfish
.

Social engagement will lead to purchase 24 days later.
- Shiv Singh, Razorfish
.

Community is a privilege, not a property
- Chris Brogan, New Marketing Labs
.

Give your community something to do – a company that has already 150,000 fans on Facebook needs either educational or entertaining content
– C.C. Chapman, Campfire

If you think a social media tactic is creepy ask “would you like it if someone did that to you?”
- Chris Brogan, New Marketing Labs

Kodak uses a combination of logo and employee image for their avatar for a more personal and less corporate image.
- Jennifer Cisney, Kodak

Businesses are made of people, so social media is VERY relevant for B2B companies
– Chris Brogan, New Marketing Labs

PR Is Dead

It got said early and then seemed to echo throughout the conference, especially when anyone from a PR company came on stage.

PR is changing, but it will never be dead. The big difference I see is that rather than companies finding press, the press will be finding them.
- Brian Halligan, Hubspot

Journalists don’t need press releases, they use google and social media to get their stories just like your customers do.
- Chris Brogan, New Marketing Labs

In the past, PR was required to go through traditional media to reach consumers, but now PR can reach consumers directly via social media and other technological means.
Brian Solis, FutureWorks

Diagrams

http://www.flickr.com/photos/briansolis/ / CC BY 2.0

Content

Content is king, but marketing is queen and she runs the household
- Gary Vaynerchuk, Wine Library
.

Your website shouldn’t be product-centric, make it consumer-centric. It’s the consumer experience with your brand that makes people passionate.
- Jason Falls, Social Media Explorer

We are corporate journalists. We have no product information on the blog. Once we cross the line, game over.
- Randy Drawas, Kapersky

There is no rule that businesses can’t become media entities
- Paul Gillin
.

We own the insurance space and provide positive information about the industry that is lacking.
- Greg Matthews, Humana

If you’re not taking care of your home on the internet, what the hell are you doing anyway?
- Jason Falls, Social Media Explorer

Humana Social Fundamentals – authenticity, active listening, going where they are, personal voice, learning through action, sharing.
- Gary Matthews, Humana

Humana is talking about “health” vs. “healthcare”. Social can help move beyond idea of “sickness management.”
- Gary Matthews, Humana

Kodak’s blog is not about the actual product, it’s about HOW we use our products. Like Dog Photography: Not of dogs but taken by a dog
- Jennifer Cisney, Kodakews, Humana

Your Web site is not a brochure anymore; it’s a living and breathing thing, refresh it frequently and people will come back.
– Jason Falls, Social Media Explorer

The blog is the anchor of our social media efforts.
- Paula Berg, Southwest Airlines
.

Marketers sell the dream. Sales implements the nightmare.
- Chris Brogan, New Marketing Labs
.

People come for the games and activities then stay to ask questions about Humana’s products.
- Gary Matthews, Humana

If there are a bunch of kids in a playground, and there are no toys there, they’re going to leave.
- C.C. Chapman, Campfire

The keys to getting your video to go viral are story, spectacle, emotion, conflict, questions.
- Tim Street, APE Digital

Here’s the rapping Southwest Airlines flight attendent that was part of Paula Berg, of Southwest Airlines’, case study.

Steve Garfield’s video shot during his presentation.

And my video of Steve Garfield shooting his video.

Use TubeMogul for distribution of video across the web.
- Steve Garfield
.

Silos suck
- Tim Hayden, GamePlan Marketing
.

How To

To hell with permission. No king ever ordered a revolution.
- Chris Brogan, New Marketing Labs
.

How do you convince senior management to buy into social media? Show data on who is talking about your company. If nobody is talking about you, then you have a different kind of problem. Also show what your competitors are doing.
- Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent

Kodak mocked up their blog and sent to execs to get buy in and see what they had in mind. Gave it structure.
- Jennifer Cisney, Kodak

To blog consistently consider creating a team blog and helping coach the team on a regular calendar for posting and participating. Tap into those who are passionate about your company and their work, it’s a lot easier to stick with it when you want to do it in the first place.
- Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent

We keep in touch with product development, software and driver updates and holidays then map out blog posts on a big calendar.
- Jennifer Cisney, Kodak

Produced Twitter Grader, Website Grader, Facebook Grader and other tools.
- Dharmesh Shah, Hub Spot

On Sucking

No one writes a survey that says, “how much do you think we suck?” You need to look at your “share of suckiness.” If you suck less than your competition, that’s a win.
- Chris Brogan, New Marketing Labs

Events

Event marketers are the best social media guys in the world because we always have been about conversation
- Tim Hayden, GamePlan Marketing

Everyone is a blogger – what happens offline is just as important as what happens online
– Tim Hayden, GamePlan Marketing

Tradeshow events are dead. In a few years face to face events won’t be around
- Brian Halligan, Hubspot

90% of word of mouth is offline.
- Tim Marklein, Weber Shandwick
.

Email

Email still has value with a $44 ROI per dollar spent.
- Bill McCloskey, Email Data Source
.

Email is the driver of social media
- Greg Cangialosi, Blue Sky Factory
.

Search

85% of all web transactions begin with search
- Jason Falls, Social Media Explorer
.

Take the E out of SEO and focus on overall searchability
- Bernie Borges, Find and Convert
.

Tip – “favorite” mentions by fans positive about your brand – a “twestimonial” You can get rss feed of them
- David Alston, Radian6

Use Facebook ads signup form, you don’t need to buy ads just use the tool, to get detailed Faceook demographics.
- Dharmesh Shah, Hub Spot

This social network got a lot of name dropping at IMS ’09. No great quotes, but plenty of mentions about just how useful it is.

Stay Connected

If you didn’t stick around to see Chris Brogan’s fantastic speech at the end of IMS ’09 you also missed this link to the IMS ’09 Exchange in order to stay stay connected.

Thanks to @chrisbrogan and @justinlevy for the Inbound Marketing Summit. 2 days, 20+ hrs, 70+ speakers. Ugh, I’m full. #IMS09
- Thomas Trumble, Jack Morton Worldwide