Nancy Loderick

I knew I was going to enjoy myself when Aaron Kahlow, founder of the Online Marketing Summit (OMS), opened the Boston conference with “this is not your Daddy’s conference.” Aaron is a great speaker, very entertaining and topical.  He knows how to really engage the audience. The OMS Tour went to 11 cities this summer and is a unique conference. It’s purpose is purely educational, and no vendors are allowed.

This year’s conference focused on social media, the hot topic these days.  Wikipedia defines social media as:

“an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. . . . [It] can take many different forms, including Internet forums, blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video.”

Aaron explained that today’s consumer wants:

  • to control his media
  • honesty about when something isn’t working
  • two-way communication
  • no sales pitches
  • to stay constantly connected and updated.

These characteristics accurately described the both the conference content and audience. Attendees were all very open and friendly. I go to a lot of conferences and I’ve never been to another one where it was so easy to start a conversation with total strangers.Of course, it’s always easy for me to talk about the the Downtown Women’s Club.

Some of the conference highlights follow below.

Complete Website Strategy, presented by Michael Weisfeld, Senior Web Strategist, Business Online

Summary of this session:

  • Think of your users first
  • Make your website the hub of all marketing activities
  • Build a strategy before diving into the details(project management 101)
  • Insure your user has multiple ways to interact with your website
  • Start small
  • Test, revise, test and revise again!

Demand Generation 2.0: Social Media by Michael Lewis and Neil Costa, Stimulate Solutions

Social media is hot these days, but how do you translate this phenomenon into revenue for your company? After all, business is all about the bottom line.

Summary:

  • there is no magic bullet
  • there is no one formula that works for every company, since audiences are different. John Deere customers are very different than the Downtown Women’s Club customers.
  • listening is a major component of social media
  • people are in charge of their own media, companies no longer control the conversations.
  • figure out influencers, listen to what they’re saying and engage them.

It’s always good to learn the latest trends, however I would have liked more tactical information in this session on how to best determine your return on investment. My business school training tells me that in order to analyze your investment you should:

  • determine what you want to measure, i.e. is it increased sales, website visitors, newsletter sign ups?
  • do a controlled experiment, i.e. add a blog and see if this translates into more of what you’re measuring.
  • make another incremental change and see what results you get keep repeating until you’ve achieved your goal, or if necessary revise your goal.

All in all, the Boston OMS Conference was a fun and worthwhile experience. The tour is continuing in:

  • August 7 – Seattle
  • August 12 – Atlanta
  • August 14 – Denver
  • Sept. 25 – San Diego.

If you get a chance, I would definitely try to attend. There is more information on the OMS Tour website.

Nancy Loderick