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As I walked into the conference room, in front of me were rows of long white tables facing toward the center stage and large projection screen. It all seemed too good to be true – every table had a power strip or two underneath it (yes!). There were laptops, i-phones, blackberries, smart phones, i-pads, and probably a bunch of other cool gadgets that I don’t even know about, everywhere. Almost every laptop screen had Hootsuite or Tweetdeck up on it. I was in a room surrounded by social media enthusiasts, technology fanatics, and real-time marketing connoisseurs. Welcome to the Inbound Marketing Summit 2010.

Thanks to Patti Fousek (Chief CreativeMind), I got to attend the Inbound Marketing Summit for my first time. As an IMS newbie, there was a lot to take in. From the engaging speakers and thought-provoking presentations, to the online #IMS10 chats and offline networking opportunities- the Inbound Marketing Summit rocked. After the two days, my brain was filled to max with a lot of great information that I haven’t even finished sorting through yet. But, I’ll share a few top key messages:

Send human emails. I enjoyed listening to Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs talk about the importance of adding human into the marketing mix. Seriously though, Chris gave some great advice: send human emails, don’t sell every time you send an email. I may have even laughed a couple of times, thinking about all of the automated emails impersonal emails I receive daily. It makes the personal e-mails I rarely receive from companies so much more appreciated.

Social media is only a tool, real-time is a mindset: David Meerman Scott, author of “Real-Time Marketing & PR,” explained  the importance of engaging in real-time. Businesses communicating in real-time are at an advantage over their competition. As an example, used the blog TMZ.com. TMZ was the first to report the  news of Michael Jackson’s death to the world, not the well known media outlets CNN, LA Times, NY Times or Fox News. TMZ was prepared to engage in real-time while others were thinking on a print schedule. “The media is not dead. The media is alive and well if they understand the concept of real-time.”

SEO isn’t quite rocket science… but it’s pretty close: Wow what a presentation. Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz, took us into the real down and dirty of SEO, showing us formulas and explaining the science behind the way search engines crawl and rank content, keywords and tags. One major takeaway from Rand’s presentation was his expert opinion on Google Instant – Data shows that Google Instant has had very little to no affect on search rankings. I’d really like to learn more about the scientific formulas of SEO sometime in the near future.

Companies are the best at telling their story: Who can tell your story better than you? Hopefully no one can. I agree with the suggestion made by C.C. Chapman, that an agency should educate clients about inbound marketing and give them the tools and knowledge they need so they can use social media to tell their story themselves. Of course not every client has the time or resources available to do it themselves. They’re still the best tellers of their story, so find a way to include them in the messaging as often as possible. Even it’s just having them read and approve messages before they go out each week. (Pretty good compromise, right?)

Online to Offline (O2O): The concept of O2O makes a lot of sense. As explained to us by John Jantsch, the brains of Ductape Marketing, “There’s no more B2B or B2C, it’s now O2O: Fusing Online to Offline.” Tim Hayden, of Blue Clover, also talked about the importance of fusing those online to offline relationships with the 3 social touch points- live, mobile, and online. One thing Tim said that immediately grabbed my attention and stayed with me was a fascinating statistic, “90% of word-of-mouth marketing takes place offline.”

Social media- it’s called “talking”: I have to include this as a major take-away for a couple different reasons. Scott Stratten, the author of “Un-Marketing,” is hilarious and did a phenomenal job closing the first day of the Inbound Marketing Summit. His presentation has inspired me to go out and buy his book, “Un-Marketing.” Aside from being funny, Scott explained social media networking in understandable terms while also demonstrating both sides of the spectrum, those who get all this social media stuff and those who don’t. Here are some memorable quotes I found to be most entertaining:

• I don’t believe in social media, it’s just a fad. What do you mean you don’t believe in social media? Social media is not a fad, it’s not a religion.
• Social media. We used to do this years ago, it’s called “talking.” Having a “conversation…”
• Social media is picked on. What is the ROI? I don’t know what’s the ROI of the conversation you just had?
• Cold calling, why do we do it? I could punch all of you in the face and you’d buy something just to make me stop.

If you’d like to  watch the video of Scott Stratten speaking at the Inbound Marketing Summit for yourself, click on the link.

What was your favorite part of the Inbound Marketing Summit? Did anyone else become slightly addicted to adding #IMS10 to the end of almost every tweet? Clearly I had a lot of fun. Thank you to the New Marketing Labs team for putting on such a great event.

Digital Descenders: Activate!

Let me explain. This weekend we are going to rappel down the side of a 24-story building in downtown Manchester, NH – Batman style. It’s not just any building that we are going to rappel, it’s the tallest building in the state of New Hampshire, the Brady Sullivan. I know it sounds crazy but, it’s a great opportunity and supports a good cause.

So what’s with these Digital Descenders? Well, they have been  called “social media and digital junkies” and described as “ambitious.” But more importantly, the Digital Descenders are a team of 5 dedicated individuals who have decided to join forces and support the Daniel Webster Council, Boy Scouts of America by raising money – and rappelling the Brady Sullivan for the event Xtreme Descent.

Two of us CreativeMind’s are Digital Descenders. As a team, we’ve set an ambitious goal to raise $5,000 by the beginning of the Xtreme Descent event on Saturday. We are going to need all of the support we can get! So we have a few favors to ask from you:

1. Come to the event and watch. We’re going to be dangling from the top of a building (once in a lifetime opportunity). There will be a lot of fun stuff going on at the event. And specifically, helping the Boy Scouts of America celebrate 100 years.
2. Donate. Donations are very much appreciated. You or your organization can make a donation on our team page, just search for Digital Descenders.
3. Help us spread the word. We only have a few more days until the event – it’s sneaking up on us.
4. Rappel. If you want to rappel and think you can raise the money by Saturday, sign up! (click register to rappel) Find your inner super hero by rappelling a 24-story building while supporting the Daniel Webster Council. Sounds fun to me!

Event details can be found on the Xtreme Descent website. But to make it easy, I’ll cover a few of the basics:

When? The Xtreme Descent VIP Preview is Friday, September 24, 2010 and starts at 6pm. The main Xtreme Descent event is Saturday, September 25, 2010 and kicks off at 10am.

Where? The Brady Sullivan Plaza, 1000 Elm Street, Manchester, NH

Follow the Hype! The official Twitter hashtag for the event is #XD2010 and you can follow @xtremedescent & the mysterious @CaptainMerit on Twitter  and the XtremeDescent Facebook Page for event details.

We’ll be posting updates to our Facebook and Twitter page as well.

…Digital Descenders: Activate!

Facebook and Privacy are a combination of words that have been handcuffed together and receiving a lot of attention lately. In a post we wrote earlier this week, we discussed the announcement that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made on Wednesday afternoon that satisfied many Facebook users: Facebook simplified its privacy controls.

Attention Facebook Users: Facebook is simplifying its privacy controls. Facebook has been growing and making many changes to the site over the past few years. Recently, Facebook tried to give users’ more control over their privacy settings- but all of the customization options were just too confusing.

In response to many complaints and criticism, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that his company would “simplify” privacy controls starting with a re-designed privacy settings page.

So what does this mean for Facebook Users? On the official Facebook blog, Mark Zuckerberg posted, “Today we’re starting to roll out some changes that will make all of these controls a lot simpler. We’ve focused on three things: a single control for your content, more powerful controls for your basic information and an easy control to turn off all applications.”

We will keep you updated by posting new information up on our blog about the new Facebook privacy features, so check back soon.