Speakers:
Chris Smith, Lead Strategist, Netconcepts
Neil Patel, Founder & CTO, ACS

Watch the video interview here and decide for yourself.

Speakers:
Cam Balzer, Director of Search Strategy, Performics Inc.
Stephan Spencer, Founder and President, Netconcepts, LLC
Marshall Clark, Director of Search, Organic
Liana Evans, Director of Internet Marketing, KeyRelevance
Marty Weintraub, President, aimClear

View the full video interview here.

To view the video interview and learn more on this topic, go here.

This session focuses on balancing search-engine friendly practices with a persuasive and engaging visitor experience. Leading search engine optimization trends and advanced techniques for optimizing sites will be discussed by industry experts and Chris Murvine, Global Internet Marketing Manager at Promega will share advanced Google tips and tricks. There will also be a hands-on component in the afternoon with exercises to apply learnings and to develop SEO strategies you can use for your organization.

Presentors:
Jody Hartwig, Vice President, E-Business
Jeff Muendel, Online Marketing Analyst

UW Consortium event description page

Retailers can leverage this dialog to gain insight into marketing research, generate product feedback, conduct merchandise testing, and initiate product improvements. By taking a dialog approach to social media instead of a louder, flashier version of commercial interruption, you can learn what consumers want, and how they want it, on a one-to-one basis.

For more on this topic, read the complete article here.

Moderator:
Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land

Speakers:
Lise Broer “Durova”, Administrator, Wikipedia
Jonathan Hochman, Founder/President, Hochman Consultants
Matt McGee, SEO Manager, Marchex
Jeff Muendel, Search and Online Marketing Analyst, Netconcepts

Moderator:
Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land

Speakers:
Lise Broer “Durova”, Administrator, Wikipedia
Jonathan Hochman, Founder/President, Hochman Consultants
Jeff Muendel, Search and Online Marketing Analyst, Netconcepts

A Facebook application (or “app” for short) is simply a small program that can be placed on a user’s site to lend some form of added functionality to the generic interface. Applications are popular because individual users can customize pages to their needs and desires. One of the more interesting recent apps, for example, is the Zombies app wherein users bite their friends, who then also become zombies if, of course, they add the app to their page. It’s fun, simple, viral and monetized by horror movie advertisements in the app interface.

Ecommerce sites have had varying degrees of success with these applications, correlated directly to how useful or fun the apps are. These small programs need to have viral attributes — those hard-to-define qualities that make users want to add the app to their page and share it with their friends. BlueNile.com has created the “Blue Nile Wish List” app, which keeps friends informed about what jewelry an individual would like to purchase (or have gifted!) from the site. Buy.com has created the “Garage Sale” app, which ties the sale of used merchandise into their system. Rather than use branded Buy.com elements, the interface looks like a generic garage sale sign easily purchased at any hardware store, and the connection to Buy.com isn’t immediately apparent. It’s just a little ol’ online rummage sale! And therein lies its charm.

So, what exactly does it take to create a Facebook app? A knowledgeable programmer is one way (and they really need to know the Facebook coding parameters), and if you have one available to you it shouldn’t be a time-consuming project. Short of a good programmer, there are services like Clearspring.com. This company’s software can take just about anything — a small Flash program, animated gif, or even a static graphic — and wrap the proper code around it to make it a Facebook-ready application. And, their basic services are free. If multiple apps are in your future, consider their paid programs.

Creating an application that goes viral, of course, is the key and the hardest part. One tool many application developers are referencing is Adonomics.com, a site that tracks Facebook apps like a stock market. At the site, all the hottest apps are listed with many statistics about their growth popularity including graphs on daily active users, total number of users, ranking, related applications and links to the apps themselves. It makes for an ideal Facebook application research tool; identifying trends in either the design or concept of these apps allows both marketing departments and app developers to spot certain successful elements that can be applied to their own applications.

Creating a Facebook app doesn’t have to be expensive or intensive, and ecommerce sites would be remiss not to create at least one. Facebook makes it very easy to get an app up on its site because it wants as many apps as possible. Creating one that will be popular and go viral is the challenge for everyone, but there are research tools to help in that regard. If you don’t have the staff to develop an application from the ground up, there are white label opportunities out there that will take even a remedial design and wrap it in the code needed to get it live. My advice: Come up with your viral angle, keep it simple and put it together!Ye