Share16 Day 1 and Day 2 Snippets and Reflections
Share16 has gotten off to a fantastic start. With countless marketers and digital professionals from dozens of companies joining us for the week in beautiful San Francisco, we have had the opportunity to engage in invigorating conversations, hear from some excellent speakers thus far, and learn from some of the best professionals in the industry.
Monday, October 24: The First Day of Share16
Share16 officially began yesterday, with two sessions of BrightEdge University. Attendees had the opportunity to attend both the basic certification course and the master’s certification course to help them better understand the platform and really get the most out of what BrightEdge has to offer.
The courses were taught by several different engaging members of the BrightEdge staff. Through hands-on guidance and easy-to-follow slides and demonstrations, hundreds of BrightEdge users can now call themselves Masters of the BrightEdge Platform.
If you are one of the many who passed Monday’s certification course, we would also like to extend a special invitation to you to join our LinkedIn BrightEdge Certified group. This group is an excellent opportunity to hear the latest news from BrightEdge while also connecting with other professionals who have demonstrated their strengths on the BrightEdge platform.
Tuesday October 25: Day 2 of Share16
This morning kicked off with a bang. During an exciting and energizing keynote, BrightEdge founders Lemuel Park and Jim Yu were joined on stage by other BrightEdge leaders and guests, including Avi Bhatnagar from Whitehat Security and Chris Maddox from March of Dimes, to discuss how the BrightEdge platform is preparing to help customers conquer the micro-moment and the disrupted customer journey.
BrightEdge officially announced three new products that will help customers remain strong competitors on the SERPs, regardless of the industry.
- Data Mind. Data Mind helps marketers better understand the wants and needs of their customers by analyzing the moments that matter.
- BrightEdge Content. The BrightEdge Content helps users create material that relates to their customers needs, quickly and efficiently.
- ContentIQ. The ContentIQ feature will quickly analyze sites to identify any potential problems that could arise, helps users prioritize these tasks, and measure their results.
The announcements were made to a packed house of excited customers. To learn more about the new products,
read our blog post
that covered the release in more detail.
After the keynote, attendees split up into three tracks to hear from some of the industry’s leading minds about the latest trends and best practices in the field.
The Search Track at Share16
S101: Algorithmic Change and Response: SERP Positioning and SEM Alignment
Danielle Yuthas
Danielle Yuthas, the Senior Digital Media & Marketing Specialist from Wellbiz Brands, spoke to us about the regular algorithm changes that impact us all and the upcoming expected changes in 2017. This includes the interstitials penalty, site speed, machine learning, and the importance of featured snippets.
Ryan Sullivan
Ryan Sullivan is the Senior Vice President of Performance Services for Performics. He spoke about the rise of voice and visual search as well as shifting search behaviors. He believes the key is to use schema; maintain a balance between utility, transactional, and informational content; optimize for search engines; provide contextual aids about where your content is relevant; and use product feeds syndication.
Nik Rajpal
Nik Rajpal is the Vice President of Marketing Services for Exclusive and he covered 15 ways that brands can lose SEO rankings. The number one way was to not use BrightEdge when choosing target keywords for Amazon. He also touched upon topics like duplicate content, page authority, and keyword diversity.
S102: Advanced Mobile Optimization: Accelerated Mobile Performance
Maile Ohye
Maile Ohye, the Developer Programs Tech Lead at Google, spoke about how mobile search has already surpassed desktop worldwide and that customers can now use voice search on a variety of different products, including their phones. Customers need to be paying attention to their load times and bounce rates while working to provide an outstanding user experience.
Binti Pawa
Binti Pawa, the Head of SEO, FLL Group for Time Inc, spoke about the importance of load time and using AMP pages to maintain engagement with users. She touched upon Time’s own experience with the endeavor and successes they have seen.
Jason Stevens
Jason Stevens, the SEO Director for Food Network, also spoke about the importance of site speed and how Google’s answer to customer demands for site speed was to develop AMP. Food Network has been developing their own AMP pages and saw tremendous load time drops once they had done so.
S103: Data Sources and Data Sets: Mastering Analytics and Integrations
Adam Singer
Adam Singer, an Analytics Advocate from Google Analytics, spoke about the importance of using Data in marketing and how Google Analytics is working to help marketers. This includes setting up a public demo account, a Data Studio for data visualization, and Analytics Academy– where people can take courses for continuing education in analytics.
Dixon Jones
Dixon Jones, the Marketing Director for Majestic, spoke about the research his brand has been doing into the role of backlinks and their impact on site success. They found that when brands were grouped by industry and they focused on trust flow, there was a high correlation with performance.
Freddie Blicher
Freddie Blicher, the Senior Manager of Corporate SEO for Marriott/Ritz-Carlton, spoke about the challenges of understanding and interpreting the wealth of data available. He made suggestions about how to combine data sources to create a more comprehensive, holistic look at business progress.
Competitive Benchmarking and Building Your Ultimate SEO Dashboard for CMOs Using BrightEdge
During this session we heard from Harry Gold, the CEO of Overdrive, and Brian Moore, the Director for Client Services at BrightEdge. They spoke about some of the metrics that executives want to see and how to make the value of SEO clear to those on the board or in the c-suite.
The Content Optimization & Digital Integration Tract at Share16
CO 201: Intelligent Content for the Customer Journey: Engagement & Experiences
Jonathan Schmucler
Jonathan Schmucler, the Global Expert and Branded Content Strategist at YouTube, spoke about his framework of understanding how people digest content. Bite-sized material is only 5-6 seconds and reinforces a key message. Snack-length is 15-30 seconds and conveys a key message. Meal-length content is longer, but not traditionally available on TV, and builds equity for the brand. Each requires different storytelling methods. Understanding your goals can help you develop the best way to tell your story.
Alex Volk
Alex Volk, the Director of Traffic and Content Strategy at Microsoft, described a 4-step process for content optimization. 1. Assess key opportunities, consumer needs, and evaluate the competition. 2. Analyze the data needed to find key opportunities and current site stats. 3. Gain insights into traffic and content. 4. Execute and develop the core content needed.
CO 202: The Content Management Cycle: Optimizing for Scale & Efficiency
Steve Krull
Steve Krull, the CEO and founder of Be Found Online, described how ‘sustainable content marketing’ can be used to understand content promotion. ‘Solar’ refers to shining the light on existing content. ‘Wind’ means creating momentum, and then ‘water’ describes pulling customers through the funnel.
David Langrock
David Langrock, the Senior Director of Marketing Services at Groupon, spoke about how content and ecommerce can work together. Content can be found in product descriptions, reviews, merchant tips and details. Use the BrightEdge Data Cube to find keywords and create engaging, useful content applicable to your unique customers.
Steven Saltzman
Steven Saltzman, the managing editor at Consumer Reports, spoke about the importance of having content with a plan and a purpose. It is no longer a ‘if you build it [they will come]’ scenario, now brands need to plan ahead to ensure that their content meets user demand.
CO203: Metrics that Matter: Traffic, Engagement, Conversion, and Revenue
Eric Baudais
Eric Baudais, the SEO Campaign Analyst II at PennWell spoke about gaining insights from combined data. When Google stopped providing keyword data, they had to take a more holistic approach to their sites. Using BrightEdge, they were able to identify content gaps and move forward with an effective strategy.
Jaimee Stauffer
Jaimee Stauffer, the SEO and Content Marketing Strategist at Citrix Systems, Inc, spoke about going from insight to action and using data to drive results. Realizing that users need different types of information at each funnel level, they were able to meet that need and produce a workable framework that led to success.
Dan Toplitt
Dan Toplitt, the Associate Director of SEO at Resolution Media, delved into cross-channel content and uncovering the metrics that matter. He described four key components of a holistic content marketing program: insights, content, distribution, and measurement.
The Business & Career Elevation Track at Share16
BE 301: The Digital Marketing Maturity Model: People, Process & Technology
Kelly Rivard
Kelly Rivard, the SEO Strategist at Hallmark, spoke about the efforts and success that Hallmark has had in turning around their digital presence and establishing themselves online. They did this by investing in people they can trust, breaking down silos, and being willing to reassess anything.
Vicqui Chan
Vicqui Chan, the Demand Generation and Digital Marketing Manager at HPE, spoke about simplifying processes to see success in the digital space. People get overloaded with things like too many tools, campaigns, and vendors. Creating clear and scalable processes can help with optimization and centralization.
BE 302: Creative Storytelling & Evangelizing Success: Selling Ideas and Building Business Cases
Amy Shipman
Amy Shipman, the Global Digital Go-to-Market Strategist at HP, spoke about the importance of problem solving in business success. She also emphasized the importance of taking a holistic view of marketing to reach digital goals.
Michel Kant
Michel Kant, the SEO Manager of Staples Europe, explained his 5 point plan for in-house SEO. He believes that increasing understanding in the business, making goals tangible, and sharing success make it possible to have a leap of faith and make your goals happen.
Dan Petty
Dan Petty, the Senior Editor at The Denver Post, addressed the challenges of bringing the paper into the digital age. The transition was achieved by understanding how headlines and page elements work differently online. They educated their employees about the changes and praised good results.
BE 303: Digital Career Success Stories: From Practitioner to Organizational Leader
Jolene Pierangeli
Jolene Pierangeli, the Associate Director of Digital Marketing at Mylan, described achieving SEO success with just one person or a small team. She elaborated on the importance of helping everyone understand SEO and building dashboards to manage the data.
Jairus Mitchell
Jairus Mitchell, the Program Manager of SEO at Red Hat, told us about the challenges of getting SEO buy-in at an open source company. He said the best way to get people on board is to be a teacher and spokesperson and not portray optimization as magic.
Scott Lavelle
Scott Lavelle, the Director of Global SEO Marketing at OpenTable, opened his session explaining how to become successful in your work life. It is important to avoid barriers such as fearing change and doubting yourself. You need to recognize your moment, prepare, practice, and take the opportunity.
Share16 has gotten off to a fantastic start with great speakers, exciting product announcements, and an air of enthusiasm and excitement that only comes when you put some of the best marketers in the same room with each other. We cannot wait to see what Wednesday will bring at Share16.