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SES San Francisco 2010 Wrap-Up

SES San Francisco

QR code on the side of a building? Geek cool.

Last week the West Coast SES Conference and Expo went from San Jose back to its roots in San Francisco. It was a well attended show (5,000+ in 2009 vs. 6,000 in 2010 registrations), despite the illusion made by the voluminous Moscone.

As part of Connected Marketing Week, SES included a fantastic mix of sessions. In fact, there were quite a few new sessions and solo presentations such as the one by Andy Beal on Online Reputation Management and the one on Content Marketing Optimization by moi.

Networking events were well loved, but of course whatever business with free booze and thirsty smart search marketers equals well loved. Networking opportunities like the black hat / white hat brings an fascinating mix of people together. There were specialized training sessions as well and a full exhibit hall. I thought the hall closed a bit ahead of schedule, 3pm, but hey – if the vendors want to go home, let them go home.

Mike Grehan & Matt McGowan

White Hat, Black Hat Who? – Mike Grehan & Matt McGowan

I talked to Mike Grehan, VP and Global Content Director for Search Engine Watch, ClickZ and SES Conference and Expo, who said the conference programming mix was well received. On the launch of Connected Marketing Week, Mike says,

“I’ll borrow the motto from the UK special air service: Who dares wins!”.

Mike’s partner in crime, Matt McGowan, who is Vice President and Publisher for Incisive Media’s Interactive Marketing Group, had a few things to say about the event:

“The Connected Marketing Week “test” has now been proven.  While all of us @ Incisive Media were pretty sure it would work out (remember, it was past and prospective attendees who questioned us to do this) we never really did know how it was going to play out until now… the response from delegates, sponsors and speakers has been low clear.

Most of the partner events in their own right had strong attendance with @ 200 people registered for 140Conf,  100 for IAB, 100 for the E-mail and Search Marketing workshops, nearly 100 for OMS and just about 6,000 for SES SF.  We plot to build on this year’s success and we hope to see you at the 2nd addition of Connected Marketing Week in SF in 2011 (with many of the same partners and a few surprises) if not before!”

TopRank Online Marketing had a fantastic experience at SES San Francisco with a mix of liveblogging, speaking and moderating 3 sessions as well as plenty of networking. I gave two new presentations: One for a long running session on Blog and Feed SEO and another for an all new session called Content Marketing Optimization that I gave solo. It was a full room and such fantastic attendance was very much appreciated.

Here are a few of the blog posts published by other search engine marketing bloggers on the presentations agreed by TopRank plus one post from Yahoo.

One of the fantastic things about attending industry conferences is the opportunity to connect with our current clients and meet new companies to work with. Both PRWeb and Marketo exhibited at SES San Francisco:

Marketo Booth

TopRank Client Maria Pergolino and co-hand from Marketo

PRWeb Booth

TopRank's Adam Singer & Client Meg Walker from PRWeb

Quite a few of the software and technology companies that exhibit at shows like SES are the kinds of companies we work with at TopRank Marketing, so spending time at the exhibit hall is very productive for multiple reasons.

Liveblogging SES San Francisco

TopRank's Mike Yanke diligently liveblogging SES

In the spirit of our conference liveblogging schedule post for SES San Francisco, check out the nifty Flash thingy below made by Thomas McMahon to navigate to all the liveblog posts Mike Yanke and Adam Singer place up during the week. Congrats to SES for a fantastic show and to Mike and Adam who did a fantastic job covering the event for Online Marketing Blog.

What’s up next? I’m looking forward to speaking at the next SES, which is in Hong Kong, on “The Business Value of Social Media”.


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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
SES San Francisco 2010 Wrap-Up | http://www.toprankblog.com

SES San Francisco 2010 Wrap Up

SES San Francisco 2010 Wrap Up

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