Converge South was an amazing experience for me. After listening to Tracy Myers keynote speech, I snapped my suspenders and headed over to the “geeky” room for some hardcore sessions. Kicking off the hardcore geek 301 track was Phil Buckley. He covered SEO, Google Analytics and adWords. I have always been interested in this topic but had never had a chance to take a class in it or have someone sit down and explain some of the finer details. Buckley did an amazing job covering both broad updates that Google made as well as smaller topics.
After the presentation, a group of iMedia students and I went up and introduced ourselves to Phil. He encouraged us to head over to Mark Traphagen’s Google + talk after lunch. “Google+ – but isn’t that dead” I thought out loud. Buckley was quick with a laugh and informed me that he thought the same thing at first, but I believe the word Buckley used to describe Traphagen’s Google+ skills was “ninja-like”. Because you see, Google+ isn’t meant to be the new Facebook. It is a place for people – who do not know each other – to connect with others who share similar interests.
With a new view of Google + (after a hour long lunch that involved more frantic note-taking than actual eating) I somewhat hesitantly left my fellow hardcore 301 geeks behind. Two slides into Traphagen’s presentation my hesitation disappeared and I found myself furiously trying to record every word. Traphagen walked us through Google authorship which is tied to Google+ profiles. Instead of showing up as just another link on the Google results, a person who has Google authorship will appear in search results with a picture, a link to their Google+ profile and links to work that they have done, both on their blog and on blogs or sites they have contributed to. This leads to a higher click through rate, even if you are appearing below the fold on the first page.
My next session was with Kelly O’Brien, the interactive Media Manager of Krispy Kreme. I honestly don’t know which part of that sentence excited me the most. Krispy Kreme – yum. Interactive Media Manager – hey that’s what I want to do! Kelly O’Brien – after listening to her five and dine speech I was convinced I had found a future professional role model. I listened intensely as O’Brien outlined strategies that she uses for Facebook and found myself staring almost every bullet point as something to remember in the future.
The final session I attended was my only 101 Track talk. While they covered a wide variety of information, what was most eye opening to me was how much I actually know. being surrounded by 27 people who think and specialize in the same things I am interested in – it is easy to forget that interactive media is a foreign land for many people still. I have completed a handful of in-depth research studies on both social media as a whole and individual networks. I have had experience planning social media communication strategies and implementing them for real companies. And I am constantly educating myself on the “latest and greatest and trendiest” in the interactive media world. This session helped pull me back and allowed me to realize just how much I know and how qualified I am becoming to be a future leader in this industry.