10 Takeaways from Blogworld Expo 2010

Callan // October 18, 2010 // Social Media // 17 Comments

I’ve already shared with you my top ten takeaways from Scott Stratten‘s opening keynote, and to be honest, if that was all I had gotten from Blogworld, I would have been pleased. But as it turns out, the conference was chock full of interesting information, and I left with a lot to think about. Below are my ten takeaways from my three days in Vegas.

1. Content is so “in” right now – While good content has always been a staple for successful blogging and social media strategies, this year it was talked about more than ever. To me, this was part of a shift towards making the things we are already doing, simpler and better. Overall, there was much less of an emphasis on what’s new and next, and much more talk about the subtleties that can make all the difference in your strategy.

2. Conferences are about much more than the sessions you attend – I was reminded of just how great it is to meet people in your field and share ideas and learning. I love being around people who are motivated by the same things I am and who can talk social media all day long. Plus it is always great to put a face to a Twitter avatar.

3. Timeliness is everything – With everyone being so busy, it is easy to forget how important a timely blog post can be. I was reminded of that this week, when I wrote my post about the keynote. I was excited to write it, so I worked on it in between sessions and at lunch, and was able to make it live just a few hours after the presentation. By getting it out before most others and when people were still paying attention to blogworld and the hashtag #BWE10, the post was shared more than 100 times and picked up by Smart Brief. As a result our site saw a large spike in new and qualified traffic.

4. There are a few new tools/platforms to look into – Just like last year, there were a couple of products/service I heard mentioned more than once. In the next few days I’ll be looking more into Disqus, Whrrl, Gist, Plancast, Tungle, and Livfyre and shall report back on my findings.

5. We are going to see many, many more location platforms – Many have argued about which location platform will “win out” and kill all the others. But in the location session I went to Lawrence Coburn from Double Dutch explained that their philosophy was that there would never be just one LBS platform that every person used. Rather, location based services would be like newspapers, where there are many different platforms for different areas and/or interest groups, and people would choose to use the platform that suited them best.

6. Forums and social search are good places to find blog topics – I often have our blog team asking me what they should write about and I sometimes struggle to help them since they have different areas of expertise than me. Chris Garrett mentioned using forums to see what people are asking and then writing a post that answers that question. Lee Odden suggested using social search (eg Twitter Search) to see what people are talking about in regards to your keywords, and then structuring a post around that.

7. Klout is the ubiquitous measurement for influence - No joke, I heard Klout scores brought up on approximately 100 different occasions, including social settings. People were comparing scores and many were announcing their scores with pride and in conjunction with the term “internet celebrity.” I’m not lying.

8. Creating a community is more than just getting comments, it is a shift in the way you manage your blog. During Darren Rowse’s session on building a community, it became clear to me that it isn’t just about asking for comments, or responding to people who comment at you. It’s an entire strategy that is reflected in everything you do from a content strategy to design to even SEO.

9. PR should be actively participating in link building - This is something we’ve talked about quite a bit internally, but it was interesting to hear it discussed here as well. Public relations teams have the opportunity to improve SEO by requesting that editors use a specific link and designating what they’d like the anchor text to be.

10. Guest posting is awesome - not just for you, but for your company too. The in-bound links from your guest post to your company’s site will help with SEO. Plus you are exposing yourself and your company to an entirely new audience.

Those are just my top ten. How about the rest of you? Have any good ones?