Interesting stuff. In terms of what we at Kiwi Marketing Group do, there were two cool tools that we thought might be useful.

The first is Nearby Tweets, based on Twitter. The concept is fairly simple, but we think it also has quite powerful marketing applications. Nearby Tweets allows you to enter your location, and then search all Tweets near you for certain search terms. For instance, I might put in “Lancaster, PA” as my location and search for all tweets about “Marketing”. Interesting stuff, but how is that helpful?

Well, imagine that you own a plumbing business. Run a search for “Plumbing” or “Hot water” and see what people in your area have to say about those things. It’s a good indication of what people might need help with, but let’s take it a step further. What if someone was complaining that they couldn’t find the right part for their Insinkerator at Lowes? What if you had that particular part in stock? Fire up your Twitter account, track that person down, and start tweeting, “Hi there! I saw that you’re looking for part XYZ. I have that in stock and can have it to you in 15 minutes.”

Free business leads anyone?

Now that I’ve shown you how sufficiently contrite we are, let’s talk about our experience at Search Engine Strategies 2009 in New York city.

By the way, did I mention that I’d never seen New York before?

Me. New York. First visit ever. We decided to walk from the train station. Needless to say I spent most of that walk staring at all of the famous things with an expression like that of a stunned mullet. It took us a little bit longer to get to the conference than it should have. In fact, we missed Guy Kawasaki’s keynote speech. Oops?

But, having said that, we actually made it to the conference in one piece (20 blocks later) and we had a good time. The show room floor was packed, much like New York rush hour (which I managed to avoid seeing). While the majority of vendors on the show floor were Pay Per Click companies, there were a few gems here and there, and of course we got to fill our pockets with all of the free stuff they were giving away.

All in all we had a good time, learned a great deal, and made it home in one piece.

More to follow on what we found there…

But, we digress. We plan to take lots of notes and have much to tell you over the next few weeks on the latest and greatest ways to bring your company to the top of the search results page.  Assuming we survive the cab ride back to the train station.

Kiwi Marketing Group teaches a series of classes on blogging and on Internet marketing methods to help small businesses achieve visibility and sales results. While these classes can be lead ins to further consulting work, we do them because we are passionate about helping entrepreneurs realize that the basics, anyway, are within their grasp. We’ve been offering these courses since last year and getting great feedback on how the information has been helping entrepreneurs integrate Internet marketing into their existing businesses.

Yesterday, we attended a seminar on E-Marketing, hosted by the Millersville University Software Productization Center. It was a generous undertaking, complete with five speakers and delicious refreshments, for free. Given that we are big fans of the Power of Free, we were impressed. And, we feel incredibly fortunate that the SPC is virtually in our backyard.

But, we came home feeling like we’d run a marathon.  It was all we could do to make dinner and watch a movie.  And, we thought, if we’re this exhausted after a seminar -when we teach and coach on expanded versions of what these folks were saying- how are the rest of the audience coping?  And, why were we feeling so wrung out?

It’s all about presentation, we decided. One presenter provided valuable information, but spent a lot of time talking about how their company did things, and hinting that their way was the best. Another speaker did well, using humor to vary the pacing. But, all of the speakers did very little to engage the audience and break the “talking-head” syndrome.

This is not the SPC’s fault. The speakers should have known better. Marketing using New Media methods is too intense a subject to spend four seated hours on if it’s new to your world. We’ve all heard that New Media emphasizes collaboration and community. That was missing in this event.  No one gave the audience an opportunity to know who else was in the room, or why. We knew a number of people in the audience, and any sort of discussion or interaction would have been dynamic.

Don’t get us wrong. The seminar was well worth the time, and there was some great information there.  In fact, we’re excited to see what the SPC will offer next. We’re just not sure that the Old Media style of an expert talking to an audience is the best way to present marketing technologies which are more and more geared towards peer-to-peer discussions and participation.

SPC, we think you’re a godsend. Just, next time, make the speakers walk their talk.