The closing sessions for day one of PubCon South were Organic Keyword Research & Selection, E-Commerce, CMS & Shopping Cart Optimization, and Consumer & Community Generated Content.
I made my way back to Salon C for the Generated Content session. First up was Roger Dooley of NeuroMarketing who talked about community websites like RateItAll.com. He said that UGC (user generated content) is organic & unpredictable. To host and work with this type of content, group it so that it’s easy to follow. Start with top level topics and then serve them up into sub-topics.
Dooley said to focus on the good stuff and that long-tail url’s make for good link bait.
Matt Genovese was up next, sharing his story about the beginnings and evolution of Door 64, a high-tech community/peer network for tech professionals. In building community, he said to focus on informing and building activities, to publicize community events, news, and in his case, job opportunities & skills. Persuading community influencers to help promote your community can be helpful (as they were in his case).
Laura Atler discussed techniques to incentivize your community by hosting contests & games and offering rewards & recognition. She mentioned game mechanics and Amy Jo Kim, a social community architect. Laura highlighted making a reputation system that recognizes leaders within the community and said that a good reputation systems runs in the background – if it becomes a reason, it’s not natural.
Ted Ulle was up next, and shared the importance of greeting, encouraging, clarifying and praising on social networks.
