PubCon 2007 – Social Media, Networking and Blue Men

On Friday the team and I returned from PubCon 2008. I have to say that PubCon is one of those events I look forward to every year (even though this is only my second year!) For SEO conferences, PubCon is easily the least expensive one. But on an ROI level, it is also easily one that provides the most bang for your buck.

Here are a few sessions that I enjoyed the most:

Social Marketing 101: The Playing Field
I started out Monday morning with the social media session and I have to say that I certainly got my money’s worth out of that session alone. I was ready to pack it up and head home! Normally I’m a big “how-to” fan, and social media sessions don’t lend much how-to information. I think the big takeaway from this was feeling overwhelmed. Social media is so vast and complex that I got hit with just how much stuff we are not doing in that realm.

Keyword Research, Selection and Optimization
I was a presenter at this session and I hope I did as well as I thought I did. Just a quick thanks to Brett for giving me the opportunity. The other speakers here presented some great information and I wish I had been taking notes. I suggest finding the presentations and looking over those if possible.

Podcasting and Podcast Optimization
This was a fun session all about how to create a podcast. I walked away with some great insight and ideas.

And the winner for the most useless session that should have been great:

Monetizing Social Media Traffic
As much as the first social media session was overwhelming, this session was underwhelming. One of the speakers was completely lackluster and primarily just talked about herself and how successful she was, despite not knowing anything about SEO or marketing, etc. Sigh. Good speaking style, just not good for these types of sessions.

The other great thing about these conferences is the networking opportunities. I had a great chat with Jill Whalen about SEO, running a business and kids. Her kids are all older than mine (she’s so lucky!) but it’s fun telling stories. I also got a chance to talk with Gillian at SEOmoz at the Gooruze social and a very quick introduction to Andy Beal. The SEOmoz party was a blast. I had never played Werewolf (in this case SEO spam) but it was a whole lot of fun.

Finally, we got the opportunity to see Blue Man Group. If you’ve never seen them, then I say make a special trip to Vegas. It’s a spectacular show start to finish!