We arrived from our quick flight out of Dulles to a cool building with an awesome view of downtown Chicago. When walking into the room it was bustling with people clustered around tables and it reminded me of the blogger lounge at South by Southwest (SXSW). If you took the blogger lounge times four put all of the top bloggers from around the country in one room and added content to the discussions you have SOBCon. An awesome feat to acheive and Terry Starbucker & Liz Strauss did an outstanding job.

(Photo by Geoff Livingston)

Few things new this year:

Corporations that understand social media or are making a great attempt at engaging using social media

Sponsors like Colgate and marketing firms that brought in cool products we know (like Klondike Bars) and things we are going to see soon (reusable soap dispensers) to get feedback and engage a community of people that understand the concept of community and conversation.

Dual tracks the first day

This is only thing I didn’t like because it split the room up and made you choose between speakers you wanted to see. I guess I am more of a Gnomedex person with a single track, but that is just a personal preference.

Outstanding Content Examples from the First Day

Since our flight came in later I missed Chris Brogan and Julien Smith talk about their book “Trust Agents”. These guys wrote the book on trust in building community and participation in a 21st century business.

Photo: JD Lasica

I then was able to finally meet Brian Clark, Founder of Copyblogger and then meet the other half of the book Barack 2.0, David Bullock. I did an interview with his writing partner, Brent Leary about Social CRM (his specialty) and the Barack 2.0 project in October, five days before the election. David stated that their book was a matter of historical record and was not there to be political but a true analysis of the campaign’s use of social media through election day and beyond. He noted that many of the services used (Facebook, Twitter) didn’t even exist during the last election which was a very poigiant observation as to the adoption and rapid evolution of social media.

We had some other great presentations in addition to awesome networking in the halls and at your table. At the end of the day we had the opening day party at Hotel 71 on the top floor which was spectacular. On a side note, it was used as the set for Batman’s apartment in the movie “The Dark Knight” so you know this place was ultra cool and again showed that Terry and Liz know how to put on a conference.

More awesome sessions and content from Day Two

After a late night of umm, networking, we arrived bright eyed and ready for day two with started with a lively Q&A consisting of Chris Garrett, Lucretia Pruitt, Jason Falls and Zena Weist they had lots of feedback on social media in general and that basically we have only scratched the surface since 24% of people are even aware or planning to use social media.

We were then treated to a change in presentation with Kali Evans-Raoul talking about appearance and her image consulting business. We learned alot of major things (dress and ettiqute) to weird little things (your teeth move and change color over time without you realizing it). It was a very appropriate conversation since most of the mainstream media thinks that all bloggers work in their pajamas this session was to prove that we don’t, well most of us…

After lunch Geoff Livingston spoke about how to do a complete customer outreach program that consisted of online and offline components.

Photo by Shashi Bellamkonda

This was followed up by KD Paine and her awesome presentation on metrics and the ROI of relationships in social media. I have embedded the presentation here because it is that good and feature rich.

Wrapping up the day we had fun at Morton’s in Chicago and many headed off to Karaoke or off to bed.

Heading out and Wrapping Up

On Sunday morning they had a farewell breakfast and wrap up back at “Batman’s Apartment” at the top of Hotel 71. Not to let a good gathering go to waste, Terry Starbucker & Liz Strauss did some experimentation with this year’s conference and allowed sponsors to show a product (physical or software) to the attendees and get their input and feedback along with how they would leverage social media to maximize outreach and promotion of the product.

Think about it… Attendees get tapped for their expertise because they are experts and not just getting pitched to and sponsors maximize the investment in the conference and get some great feedback and free consulting from the top people in the social media space.

This was truly brilliant and I am sorry we had to catch a plane home. There is always SOBCon 2009 and I am looking forward to it next year.

Here are some quick recaps:

Brian Solis, Author of PR2.0, CEO Futureworks: Small businesses now have direct access to the people who can help them make their businesses grow, on a mass scale. Now, small businesses can be influential and become authorities, and build communities around them, based on their expertise.

Rohit Barghava, author, “Personality Not Included“: Small business owners understand the power of word of mouth marketing and customer referrals. It’s cheap, viral, and works.

Tim Ferriss, author, The 4-Hour Workweek: To get online, first get offline — go to conferences, meet people, have credible people online vouching for you — then connect with them online.

Steve Hall, Publisher, Editor, Adrants: Reach out to everyone in your industry, get to know them, and broaden your circle of social friends. Eventually, you’ll be able to use the network to help spread whatever you’re trying to spread.

Toby Bloomberg, CEO Bloomberg Marketing: Small businesses especially build businesses through relationships, which they can do through through blogs, podcasts, video. Social media was built for small businesses, and lets them scale further.

Ryan Anderson, Community Relations, Overlay.TV: It’s an incredible opportunity for small business to bypass filters to get to core customers. The tools let you create conversation that you just can’t do through traditional media.

Darren Rowse, Author, ProBlogger: If starting out again, he’d spend a lot of time defining his niche, establishing self as expert, offering to guest blog in other expert blogs (for free), to get own his content and expertise out.

David Alston, VP of Marketing, Radian6: Small business can use social media to build a brand, in a highly targeted way. Talk to the people in your space and reach out to them.

Mari Smith, Relationship Marketing Specialist: Radical Strategic Visibility — your goal is to be ubiquitous, in a way that excites people.

Liz Strauss, Social Web Strategist, Successful Blog: Use the internet to become irresistible — know which type of people on the Internet they’re going after — readers, people who do, offer and sell things, and people who pass on info to their friends.

Paul Chaney, President, Int’l Blogging and New Media Association: Small business is best suited to use a lot of these tools — an example is a custom signmaker with a blog, who shows the process and tells the story of making the sign, to help customers get to know him.

Find anything particularly meaningful (or offbase) here among our experts’ opinions? Leave a comment and let us know what you think about the social opportunities for small business.

Here are some recaps of what they said:

Guy Kawasaki, founder, AllTop: Twitter is a great way to find and spread information — it’s a way to reach thousands of people, immediately and free (which is great). It takes a little getting used to; give it a month or so — you might hate it for the first few days, but it’ll work out [which mirrors my own experience with Twitter, except I took longer because I am slow]

Ryan Anderson, Community Relations, Overlay.TV: They’re active on Twitter (including the executives), not just for promoting their stuff, but engaging with community. Their CEO will also use Summize weekly (now Twitter’s search) to get feedback directly from users, which is great for businesses, especially young companies.

Wendy Piersall, CEO Sparkplugging.com: You should also use other tools (depending on your business) like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. She doesn’t think you can conduct business online without participating in these types of communities.

Scott Monty, Global Digital and Multimedia Community Manager, Ford Motor Company: People have been networking since the Stone Age, but modern tools let us create networks of subject matter experts. “You don’t have to be the best accountant; you have to hire the best accountant” — online social networks let you tap into people who can help you — you’re not in it alone.

Liz Strauss, Social Web Strategist, Successful Blog: All this has changed the way she would start a business today. Use social networks to find out who’s out there; start on Twitter to listen to people and watch what’s going on. Open the door by promoting other people.

Tim Ferriss, author, The 4-Hour Workweek: Blogging isn’t for everyone, but there’s no excuse not to be on Twitter. You can use it as a blog, and you can be effective using it as a personality and brand on Twitter (like newspapers, activists, others are using it).

Chris Brogan, VP of Strategy, CrossTech Media: Small businesses should use social media tools to create  outposts where people can get to know you — put your face and presence out there, just like shopkeepers hanging out and meeting people in a town. “It’s all the same, it’s just different… but it’s all the same.”

Jason Billingsley, Co-founder, Elastic Path Software — Retailers need to build relationships and community; once you do that, your message is accepted. There are many avenues, like YouTube — many people are educating consumers by doing how-to and instructional videos. They’re informing, not selling, and by creating trust, then they look to you when they need to do transactions.

Mari Smith, Relationship Marketing Specialist: “Radical Strategic Visibility” — using Facebook, social bookmarks, blogging, Friendfeed, etc, — all the tools, in an integrated strategy.

Jennifer Openshaw, President, WeSeed.com: Bringing credibility online is important, and positioning yourself as an expert. A way to do this is to create content on your site, which you can also distribute through partners and social networking sites, so you can add value to people, even when you’re not trying to sell them stuff.

Agree or disagree with something from one of our ten social media experts? Please leave a comment below.

All for small business: connecting you to the experts
I really liked the Network Solutions Solutions Stars video conference when it first released October 29th. It featured an online video interview series with top social media and marketing minds from BlogWorld Expo. They discussed challenges facing small businesses – and tips available – regarding their online presence and social media outreach. There were (9) segments to the video series. And throughout this month, I look forward to recalling some of the highlights with you here at Solutions Are Power.

Revisiting the cool stuff: a recap of Rising Above the Noise
Straight from the experts, here are some quick, smart bits from those interviewed. They talk on weeding through online ‘chatter clutter’ to a better online presence for your business. By all means(!), check out the full (3) minute clip below and the full series of conference clips mentioned above anytime.

Darren Rowse, Author, ProBlogger:
talks on finding the right voice for your online presence, the tools, and knowing the challenges that small businesses face;

Scott Monty, Global Digital and Multimedia Communications Manager, Ford Motor Co:
addresses interruption marketing and other hurdles for small businesses to conquer in building their online name with customers;

Jay Berkowitz, author of Ten Golden Rules and podcaster:
knows how to help your business compete through the online ‘noise’;

Robyn Tippins, Community Manager, Yahoo Development Network
believes enthusiastically that anyone these days can make it big; and she shares more on how your business can avoid being ‘the needle in a haystack’ in Web 2.0;

Jason Billingsley, co-founder, ElasticPath with Linda Bustos, blogger
learn how to transcend the ‘me-too’ mentality in online retailing and to get ahead when so many businesses are learning to reach out through social media;

Liz Strauss, Social Web Strategist, producer of Successful Blog
reveals her #1 suggestion when finding your online customer community;

Warren Whitlock, Book Marketing Strategist
gives away a few ‘you gotta be … ‘ tips;

Don’t stop! …just hit play to get even more.

If you’ve been enjoying the events that we’ve been bringing you, then you will NOT want to miss this one! This one requires no travel you can attend it from the convenience of your office or home! We’ve created a free video conference that’s jam packed with insights & online marketing tips for small businesses!

Mark your calendar because on October 29 at 1 pm we’re providing the Solutions Stars Video Conference! Geoff Livingston, author of Now is Gone, & Network Solutions Social Media Swami Shashi Bellamkonda met with 32 top bloggers at BlogWorld Expo. We asked them to share their insights & tips on online marketing for small businesses for you. It was all captured on video & now we have a conference features nine different documentary style video sessions:

• Building Web Presence
• The Social Opportunity
• Start with Listening
• Strategy Drives Outreach
• You Need Social Networks
• To Blog or Not to Blog
• Visibility Through Search
• Rising Above the Noise
• Time Demands

In addition to the Solutions Stars Video Conference site, please visit the event pages on Facebook and Upcoming.

Here are the steps:

a) Bookmark this page – http://www.solutionsstarsvideo.com/

b) Create a calendar event for themselves

c) Choose the event time

d) Come up with good questions for the chat room

We’d love it if you’d grab a badge for your blog or site.