This real-estate web site guy and I engaged in some useless networking today at the online marketing conference in Hollywood.First came the quick check of name badges. He read mine; I read his. No apparent help. Then a few minutes of what-do-you-do? Zip. We had nothing to offer each other, really, standing there awkwardly in the hotel's Grand Ballroom -- but it sure beat paying attention to the ad panelists as they droned on from the stage. Something about performance and ROI.
Real estate guy and I quickly agreed on one thing: Subscribe to the right feeds and you'll learn more from opening your morning email than from any of these multi-day online conferences.
Only a fool runs into a swarm of "experts" and comes away empty-handed, though. Here are some things I picked up at OMMA Global Hollywood just before fleeing the scene:
Great expression: "It's just new sprinkles on the same old cupcake." Man, I miss those corporate sayings of the week, spread on the wings of hipster salesmen.
Instant web traffic-builder. Work the word "Twitter" into all of your blog's headlines.
Analytic anality: "Metrics are useless if you can't act on them." The corollary being most second-tier metrics are useless unless you seek to kill time.
What to say to SEO clients: "If you build it, they will not necessarily come. You have to go out there and find them."
SEO tip of the day: "Build your keywords for conversions, not traffic."
Resistance is futile: "If you are going to be an online publisher, you are going to be invested in different distribution channels."
New definition of online video: A power point with some guy doing a low-fi voice-over.
Apologies to OMMA, which does put on a good show. I believe that if you go to any industry conference and have your mind expanded, you're either 22 or in the wrong business. Wish I could put names to these quotes from panelists, but I was in sloppy mode.
