The bloggers have invaded Las Vegas. There was no stopping it. For the third straight year, thousands of bloggers, twitterers, and affecianados converged on sin city to hear from some of the best and brightest in the industry and learn from their experiences.

This was my first year at Blogworld and I must say that it lived up to its hype of one of the largest conferences in the technology and social media scene. It was also the first year of Blogworld ever since it merged with the New Media Expo. You wouldn’t think that the conference was that large since there were only about 10 rooms and a giant exhibition hall, but most of the time it was packed.

To my dismay, I thought there would be more empirical data and facts that I could take away. However, when I’m listening to the panelists and even some of the keynotes, I don’t think that I got anything like that to write about – but there was more valuable information that would be useful from a personal level.

The 2009 conference kicked off with Laura Fitton talking about how to be awesome that had a close tie-in with Gary Vaynerchuk’s upcoming book “Crush It”. Her address helped provide a good impression on what to look forward to during this three day conference and also motivated the audience to be better than they are and to strive to be rockstars. But, of course, she couldn’t get away without mentioning Twitter during her keynote…more than a few times.

Then panel discussions were had until the lunch keynote that featured Wall Street Journal writer Kara Swisher interviewing Scott Monty about the social media work that he does for Ford Motor Company. While a great value, the dismal audio system made it hard to hear and, combined with, the incessant noise of chatter by people interested in networking instead of learning, made the whole affair rather meaningless.

More panels were held until the NEXT keynote – stay with me here…we’re only on the third keynote of the day. This time it was a panel discussion with Altimeter Group’s own Jeremiah Owyang leading the talk on whether sponsored conversations were any good. It was a bit of a lively debate and what helped this panel was the fact a genuine lawyer was on the dais to help explain the recent FTC disclosure guideline to everyone. Still, I had hoped to see more of a combative nature to the topic which would have made it more entertaining to observe.

Day 1 ended with the comedic and marketing stylings of Chris Brogan who left us with the message that bloggers need to get out of our own way and to be more helpful to others. Nothing really mind-blowing but always good to have a reminder of the potential we have to make a change in our community. I found it a great way to end the day especially since it was very much like a reality check.

To me, day 1 seemed very much like a source of inspiration. There was a lot of information passed through and that’s what people were expecting. Panelists shared their experiences and success stories, not necessarily facts and figures that you can take back to work and share it with your boss. This is probably one of the biggest things that I’ve enjoyed about Blogworld…it adds a very different feel to it and lets you just sit there and absorb the knowledge and then you can write your own success.

Photo Credit: All photos shown here were taken by Kenneth Yeung.

* I think this is the first social media event that I’ve attended where the event hashtag (#blogpotomac) became a Twitter trending topic (at least, since trending topics were added to the Twitter.com main page at the end of April.)

Attendees displayed a perverse pride at this fact, as well as an artificial sense of competition with the hashtag #beatlesporn (a Twitter meme involving turning any Beatles song title into a porn movie title), despite the fact that it simply means that a few dozen people are posting simultaneously to capture an identical moment (usually a speaker’s quote).

It was also my first experience personally monitoring a hashtag stream that attracted the attention of spammers, and thus started to get polluted by Twitter hashtag spam.

* While I do look a little askance at the phenomena of lots of people posting the exact same tweets about the exact same thing (see this Gizmodo article for a variation involving digital cameras), all that redundancy in crowdsourced note-taking does have its uses:

- Attendees can pay attention and free-ride off of the note-taking twitterers’ work

- Note-takers have a safety net in case they miss something

- Speakers can easily see which words and concepts grab people’s attention (at least from a soundbite-y perspective)

* Recurring themes:

- Blogging: In case of emergency, break glass: In response to a question / statement that “[corporate] blogs are dying a bit every day” (in the face of Twitter and other tools), Shel Holtz noted that while every organization should use the right tool for the job, each should have at least one blog (whether it’s a customer service blog, corporate group blog, CEO blog, etc), so that there’s a viable platform in case the organization need a rapid response from an authoritative, archived location. It’s a sentiment I first heard expressed by Steve Rubel back in 2006 (as corporate blogging was reaching peak hype), and it still applies even in an era of Twitter ascendancy.

- Hashtags: Shireen Mitchell, a prolific (even chronic) hashtag user, addressed the roles of hashtags, in both making communities more coherent to insiders (by helping to self-organize conversations), as well as making them more accessible to outsiders (that is, once you can decode hashtags that are often space-constrained to the point of arcana.)

- Crisis as Danger / Opportunity: Although I agree with the sentiment, I deducted a few cliche points from Ford’s Scott Monty for using this expression of dubious provenance — I group it with “teachable moments” and “making lemons from lemonade.”

However, I did like his points, including his notes on a mobilized, engaged community as both your early-warning system and “digital armor” for attacks, as well as his reality check for companies uneasy with employees using blogs and social media: Do the lawyers vet every e-mail and phone call that their corporate communicators send out? In an age where every e-mail or phone call can be published (well, wiretap laws notwithstanding), a lot of this discomfort is simply unfamiliarity with the context of the tools.

I add in this decidedly non-Far Eastern wisdom: “You gotta be in it to win it.” (The old motto of the New York Lotto.)

- Personal Branding: Yet again, personal branding was kind of trainwreck-y, mostly because you can never get people to agree on just what it is they’re talking about. Amber Naslund took issue with the idea of personal branding as a shortcut to building a real reputation; Aaron Brazell framed it in the context of “confidence vs. cockiness.”

In the context of personal brands coexisting with corporate brands, I do think you can have it both ways — people can use the company’s authority to boost their visibility, while companies can increase their humanity. As long as each has a succession plan (Scott Monty’s term), everyone benefits.

- Customer Service: Shashi mentioned the notion of customer service being the purest form of marketing, which tied in with other speakers’ notions of getting more employee voices to communicate. Again, to tie it all off, getting more employees to participate in social media increases positive contacts with customers, reduces dependence on any one social media communicator, and helps break down silos. So do it.

Other than that, Geoff dropped a small bombshell in announcing that the third BlogPotomac (scheduled for October) would mark his final involvement (not wanting to be “the guy who’s a community leader, but whose kids are stealing”)

In summary, it was another good event. To some degree, as with any blogging / social media confab, there’s a degree of preaching to the converted (especially as attendees are more familiar with the tools and concepts), though that’s where the community-building aspect comes into play.

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.