Social Media and the Mobile Web were strong themes at the recently concluded SMX Sydney 2009 conference

The best 3 speakers on these topics were:

Cindy Krum (Founder of Rank-Mobile)

Cindy says that organisations should remember that the mobile internet is very different from the internet access people have from their desktop computers because of : Simplified rendering, Smaller screens, More specific searches and these searches having a more immediate intent therefore there is potential to get great ROI

Mobile is very important because of its the most personal medium marketers have ever had and offers many interactive marketing possibilities eg: location aware applications that you can tell you where the nearest restaurant is.

Mobile is so important now because for the first time the combination of higher speed mobile internet access via 3G and WiFi as well as the hardware of iphone, blackberry, google android etc are providing an enjoyable web surfing great experience

You can I benefit by realising that mobile isn’t just a fad. Make an effort to master the medium before your competitors as there is lots of market share to be gained and the cost of failure and testing is low.

The iPhone sets the bar for mobile web access at present but it may not always be the market leader so make sure you test your website’s functionality on all the popular mobile platforms

Be aware that there are hurdles caused by many different mobile handsets with different screen sizes, lots of different mobile web browser types causing rendering to be inconsistent, expensive mobile data pricing and the requirement for User education – in a lot of cases it can be difficult to initially setup mobile web access on a phone

PS Cindy says that .mobi domains are terrible and you shouldn’t use them. If you design your website using clean XHTML/CSS code you won’t need to create a separate .mobi site as the mobile browsing experience improves with new hardware and web browsers on the iPhone and other modern phone platforms like Android and Blackberry

Rand Fishkin (Founder of SEOMoz)

Rand believes there are a few ethical tenets that we should be paying very careful attention to:Dont break any laws and don’t hurt other organsiations or people

However he says it is OK to use a “sock puppet account” (be anonymous) and promote content for your client under a contract. Rand reminds the audience that their job is to create value for the client – we have an obligation to do the best job for them.

He says Yes we should participate in social networks and Yes we should recruit experts for help as it is a complex field and letting amateurs run a Social Media campaign often results in PR disasters

Is there value in full disclosure when participating in social networks for a client or even for your own company? Most of the audience responded to Rand’s question by saying Social media marketers should operate ethically but without disclosing all their activities upfront

Rand Fishkin’s 10 Tips for Social Media Success

1. Build simple stuff
2. Be authentic
3. Expect 75% of viral social media campaigns to fail
4. If more than 5-6 people are involved in planning it will FAIL
5. Funny sells
6. Funny is really hard – Interesting is easy
7. Consider microsites for social media marketing
8. Hire professional pushers (eg: Digg voters) and leave them alone
9. Don’t try to help them – it will backfire
10. Remeber to use social media to accomplish specific business goals

Darren Rowse Founder of Problogger & TwiTip

Darren Rowse is founder and editor of ProBlogger.net, a Top 50 Blog Globally (as ranked by Technorati) and one of the leading sources on the Web for information about making money from blogs.

18 months ago Darren was a Twitter doubter, now he has around 50,000 followers, is the most followed person in Australia on this fast growing online network and recently launched TwiTip

Darren recommends Twitter to entrepreneur’s and businesses because it can help by driving traffic to your website, act as a Water Cooler for your fans/readers, humanise your web presence, acts as an outpost/satellite to promote and make your website more visible

Twitter is the faster growing member of community site on the web amongst 35-49 years of age (Neilsen data) and Hitwise says Twitter is the 85th most popular site in Australia and it’s trending up the list really fast

Businesses are starting to use Twitte as a monitoring tool to see what people are saying about them and monitoring their industry/niche eg: using tools like Twitterhawk.

Darren Rowse’s Tips for Business Twitter Accounts

• Identify your objectives – consider having multiple channels, each of which has specific objectives eg: US office, UK office, Australasian office. Dell has 34 Twitter accounts.
• Provide value, solve problems and fill needs
• Dress nicely: use an appropriate avatar and twitter background wallpaper for your profile
• Introduce yourself – Use the whole biography space to describe yourself and your interests accurately
• Learn the culture and language – make sure you are aware of the rules of engagement
• Ask questions and answer other people’s questions
• Be conversational and be as active as you can. Be active when the people you want to communicate with are online.
• Be a thought leader
• DO NOT send automatic direct messages to each new person who follows you
• Cotweet is a new service that businesses could use to monitor and manage multiple corporate twitter accounts
• Use an URL Shortener like www.bit.ly

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