Organic Response

I’m currently listing to the founder of the human edited search engine, Mahalo.com, at SES NY.  He started off by saying he thinks “white hat seo” is important, and his comment 3 years ago at SES San Jose about seo being bogus was actually only referring to “black hat seo”

Mahalo currently has 400 people working from home submitting pages to the Mahalo for money per page submitted.

He’s now talking about a pretty cool service on Mahalo that allows you to submit links (descriptions, tags, etcs…) to 12 different social sharing sites all at once.

Mahalo has a rather robust social network that allows users to build friends, and discover their likes and dislikes.

“The New PageRank” Calacanis believes, is an algorithm based on human trust…This appears to be built based on the human review process.

Good Reads…social networking for books.  You can import your reviews of books on Good Reads to the Mahalo search results…

Flickster…social networking for movies

One more thing…Mahalo content will be syndicated into Google search results… the future SERP is part engine & part human….

SEO people “stuck in short term think”…”more into the gaming of the system than the long term value”…”black hats are poluting the web” leads to consumers not trusting the internet…”create less pages, but make ones that are really a lot better.”

Before attending my first marketing conference I decided to consult an industry veteran, well known social media blogger, and fellow Ogilvy PR / 360 DI colleague, Rohit Bhargava. Rohit has spoken on and moderated several Search Engine Strategies panels, so he’s definitely a qualified teacher for a novice like myself. Here are some of his pointers for making the most of a day at SES:

1. Have a back-up plan for which speakers/panels you want to attend each day in case you don’t like your first choice.
2. Sit near the back so you can slip out to another session if you don’t like it or got what you need out of it.
3. Choose a presenter or two to introduce yourself to.
4. Hit up the expo hall to get some cool gear
5. Look for vendors who offer something innovative and different
6. Don’t try to write everything down. Just make note of the big ideas

As a favor for providing his expertise, I’ll be passing out some flyers created for Rohit’s book coming out soon, Personality Not Included: Why Brands Lose Their Authenticity – And How Great Companies Get it Back.  Hopefully tommorrows Search Engine Strategies Expo will be a success and I will be able to develope my own list of tips for making the most out of such a day of learning.  Here are some of the sessions I’m most excited about:

Social Search Track
Social Media Marketing – What is it and What is it Good For?
Marketing to and through social networks means humans are hot again. Not as directory editors; it’s Web 2.0 and your customers are in control. The old-fashioned media buy has gone bye-bye. Social Media marketing is fast emerging as a must-have in search strategies. Learn about the social search revolution, and hear case studies of how marketers have successfully promoted brands and products with it.

Vertical & Retail Track
Big Brand Search Strategies: Build Connections and Fuel Online Promotions
If 80% of web browsing starts with Search—and consumers are spending up to 50% of their media time online—then why are many major Brand companies spending on average only 2.5% of their media budgets online?

As consumers search, they are expressing their interest in specific categories, brands and interest areas. How can Brand companies better connect with these hand-raisers and how can they better leverage their offline media investments? And how can SEM dramatically improve those connections, conversion, brand health and volume rates?

Carol Kruse, VP of Global Interactive Marketing at The Coca-Cola Company will address what it takes for big brand companies to shift their marketing mix to align with new customer behaviors, putting more ad budget to Search and digital advertising.

Presentation topics include:

• Tips for how to win budget increases for digital advertising within Brand companies
• How Search acts as a bridge between offline advertising campaigns and online interactive experiences leading a customer to action
• How to increase brand connections and fuel online promotions by enticing customers with relevant, affinity and community based offers such as the Olympics, and Nascar
• Tips on how Search can amplify the effectiveness of online campaigns such as Display and Social Media to fully realize the opportunity for customer engagement
• How Search can drive direct marketing goals for customer loyalty programs such as My Coke Rewards

Social Search Track
Social Media Research: Informing Search Strategies
If search engines are tapping into human knowledge more widely through tagging, click through tracking, search history features and other methods, so can search marketers. Social networks, blogs, feeds, tagging, social bookmarking and immersive game environments provide 24/7 real-time focus groups. Learn how Buzzmetrics, Cymfony and others help quantify and reveal critical insights.

Stay tuned to find out what I actually learn…

I finally found an EASY way to add the social bookmarking buttons to my blog posts.  Of course I am weary of overdoing it, but I’ve been trying to find an easy way to “socialize” my blog for some time, so I’m doing it!  Your on your way to Social Media Optimization bliss in just 5 steps:

1. Download Sociable 2.0 here: http://push.cx/sociable
2. Unzip the files to your computer
3. Using FileZilla (or another FTP server) upload the social folder (not just files in it) to the wp-content/plugins folder of your blog
4. Go to your WordPress Admin and activate the plugin on the Plugins page
5. Go to Options and choose which social buttons you want and how you want them presented

 You get to choose from the following 61 sites (but be tactful!):

blinkbits, BlinkList, BlogMemes, blogmarks, co.mments, connotea, del.icio.us, De.lirio.us, digg, DZone, Fark, feedmelinks, Furl, Fleck, Gwar, Hemidemi, IndiaGram, IndianPad, kick.ie, LinkaGoGo, Linkter, Ma.gnolia, MisterWong, MyShare, My-Tuts, NewsVine, Netscape, Netvouz, PopCurrent, ppnow, RawSugar, Rec6, Reddit, scuttle, Shadows, Simpy, Slashdot, Smarking, Spurl, SphereIt, StumbleUpon, Taggly, Technorati, TailRank, Webride, Wists, Wykop, and YahooMyWeb.

My favorite 7 are in bold.  Which one’s do you like?