Attendees got the inside scoop from Forrester's Nate Elliott, as well as from H&R Block and Digg marketers, and learned how Coldwell Banker is going social at a global level. For those of you who couldn't make the trip out to San Jose, here are some key messages from the sessions:
- Know your audience. Before you set out to engage users via social media, know where your users already are. As Nate Elliott reminded us, you only have permission to ask users to extend what they're already doing. If your audience isn't on Twitter, don't ask them to submit tweets; if your audience isn't active on social networks, don't develop a strategy around growing a Facebook friends list for your brand.
- Have an objective. Marketers and agencies echoed each other: the best social media campaigns have clear objectives at the outset. Whether it is awareness, consideration, or sales, having a clearly defined objective can help inform the social media campaign you choose to create.
- Make your videos discoverable. With 20 hours of content being uploaded to YouTube every minute, search becomes an important discovery tool for users. Tag and name your video smartly. Include detailed descriptions of your video's content -- including key text or time codes for important moments. Your description gives the algorithm more data to work with. According to marketers like Zagg, Promoted Videos is an efficient way to drive views, and lets you bring your search prowess to the video space.
- Think beyond the web. TV ads can drive search and increase your bottom line. Marketers like ooVoo are bringing their video creative offline with Google TV Ads to drive results. And what if you don't have video content? Services like Spot Mixer can help build it for you.
Behind-the-scenes interviews with many of the day's presenters have been added to the SES Channel on YouTube, so take a look, and we hope to see you next year!
