What I Learned at Digital Summit Denver

Last week I attended the Digital Summit in Denver. The team at Digital Summit put on a great event that ran smoothly and was a very beneficial experience. I wanted to recap a few things I took away from the conference. I’m sharing knowledge like my tea tag from the conference said I should.

Be important. Not popular.

Seth Godin kicked off the conference with an extremely entertaining speech. The one thing he said that really stuck out to me is that it’s more important to be important than to be popular. Week after week I mention in Twitter chats that you need to answer your audience’s questions in content. And that is why he was making the point. If you’re popular, but not valuable, your popularity won’t last. You have to add value to your customers or they will go elsewhere.

He also shared this valuable tidbit, that a surprising number of people need a reminder about.

Customers are friends.

Andrea Syverson from IER Partners presented on The Power of Deep Content. My biggest takeaway from her was, “don’t think of your customers as a target audience, think of them as friends.” If you think of your customers as friends, you will connect with them more. You will have conversations with them. Remember to have empathy in your storytelling; it’s what a lot of friends want from other friends.

Analytics, analytics, analytics.

Dan Gilgoff with National Geographics had an extremely simple presentation which focused primarily on analytics. The majority of us look at Google Analytics weekly, if not daily. But what do we really gain from them? Dan Gilgoff shared six reasons to use Analytics, some of which you probably haven’t thought of.

  1. Analytics tell us about our core identity
  2. Analytics show need to offer unique value
  3. Analytics show us which messages work (and which don’t)
  4. Don’t ignore under-performers
  5. Teach the messengers analytics
  6. Use real-time analytics to deepen engagement

These points might make you look at analytics a little different.

Video is meant to be silent on social.

Jason Daily from Facebook focused on search + social for his presentation. He made a point about video marketing on social media that surprised me, but shouldn’t have. Think about all the times you’ve been scrolling through your Facebook feed and a video starts playing in a public place so you immediately close the app. It happens more than you likely realize, which is why marketers need to create video content without sound. It makes our jobs more difficult, but if you want a video to be watched, then it is necessary.

Think beyond the computer & cell.

Mike King with iPullRank presented on the future of SEO. With Google’s mobile-friendly update, those of us in the SEO industry really focused on mobile searches. Next Mike hit on the point that voice search is becoming more and more popular, which most SEOs now keep in mind while creating body copy and blog posts. Lastly, he mentioned the increasing popularity of in-car searches. Have you thought of that before? I sure hadn’t. With more and more cars providing this relatively new feature, you have to start thinking about it otherwise you will fall behind with SEO.

SEO First.

Rebekah Cancino from ONWARD shared info that many of us, including myself, probably know, but often forget. One note I have from her presentation is to not wait on SEO. In the SEO industry, we’re often given content and then told to sprinkle our SEO magic dust on it. Wrong. SEO starts before content. Jump in as early as possible if you can. SEO is also about user experience, which usually starts at the very beginning of a website redesign.

Lexie Kimball

Lexie is an Account Manager at Netvantage Marketing, an online marketing company that specializes in SEO, PPC and social media. At Netvantage, Lexie assists with online marketing campaigns and social media outreach.

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