Blog Indiana 2010 Sketchnotes

bin2010

Promo Video

Every August my favorite conference is held in Indianapolis: Blog Indiana. In its third year, Blog Indiana is a fantastic event to learn about Blogging, Social Media, and anything online. The crowd at Blog Indiana is a bit irreverent and snarky; yet close-knit and willing to teach and learn from each other. I can’t say I’ve ever been to another event where everyone is looking out for each other.

Last year I got the idea to take sketchnotes of the sessions I attended. Sketchnotes are one-part notetaking, one-part doodling. After each session, I posted a snapshot of my notes to Twitter where they became a huge hit in the backchannel of the sessions. I decided to do sketchnotes again this year. To get myself pumped up, I created a time-lapse video for a title page in my new Moleskine sketch book.

The final sketch looked like this:

Blog Indiana 2010

Session Sketchnotes

When I arrived at the conference, I found that my sketchnote has been published on the back of the event schedule! Cool! I got a lot of great encouragement and feedback from other attendees as they saw and shared the link to the sketchnotes. My only regret is not being able to attend all of the sessions. Everyone had such great presentations I wish I could sketchnote them all.

(Each of the following images can be clicked on and viewed on Flickr. The sketchnotes are all licensed “Attribution Creative Commons”, so feel free to copy and reuse, as long as you give credit.)

Let’s Talk: The Art of the Conversation

Lets Talk: The Art of Conversation - Jason Falls

In the opening keynote, Jason Falls (@jasonfalls) picked up where he left off last year and discussed trust and intent in the conversation. People congregate in micro-communities, whether online or off. Businesses can’t be the sleazy marketer barging into a micro-community to peddle his wares. We need to be intentional in our conversations.

Takeaways:

  • People won’t tolerate used-car salesmen in their micro-communities.
  • Trust is biological and isn’t always relationship-based
  • Our intent online is the key to trust.
  • A key phrase is: “if you are interested”.
  • Handle detractors appropriately.

tastefully selling yourself online

tastefully selling yourself online - Casey Mullins

Casey Mullins (@mooshinindy) isn’t afraid to buck the trend with all lowercase session titles. Her first session was about tastefully selling yourself online. She presented real-life examples of people failing in online interactions and offered tips and tricks to building your reputation.

Takeaways:

  • You will still need your social skills when online
  • Get to know bloggers (read 3 months of archives) before you ask them for something.
  • Sprinkle gratitude liberally.
  • Don’t be a jerk
  • Don’t make it all about “me, me, me”

Defending Your Brand with SEO, Social Media, and WMD

Defending Your Brand - Jeremy Dearringer

Jeremy Dearringer (@slingshot_seo) from Slingshot SEO knows the Search Engine Business. His session covered methods to defend your reputation online through Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM).

Takeaways:

  • Many people confuse Google’s Search box with the address bar.
  • Watch out for what Google suggests when people search for your company
  • 70% of people read negative reviews first.
  • Build your reputation on websites you control (stake your claim)
  • SERM is a long-term strategy.
  • Handle small problems before they become large problems.
  • Be careful about reacting to criticism.
  • Monitor, monitor, monitor.

Jeremy’s presentation slide deck: Search Engine Reputation Management

The Email Marketing Lifecycle

Email Marketing Lifecycle - Bill Dawson

Bill Dawson (@2sentences) with DK New Media covered the Email Marketing Life Cycle.

Takeaways:

  • All social media relies on email. It is the hub of the internet.
  • 95% of online interactions is email.
  • 65% of smartphone owners use their phones to triage email as trash, to-do later or archive.
  • Increase your email open rates by paring down your mailing list to only qualified leads.
  • TINS (This Is Not Spam) is a metric used by some to see how many emails are recovered out of email users’ spam folders.

Driving Leads Through Facebook and Twitter

Driving Leads Through Facebook and Twitter - Kyle Lacy

Kyle Lacy (@kyleplacy) from Brandswag finished up the day with a dynamic presentation on how to use Twitter and Facebook to generate more business leads.

Takeaways:

  • Lead generation is not traffic
  • Lead generation is interest
  • Lead generation is getting permission
  • With customers, you should deal in your story, not on your price
  • If you aren’t doing email marketing, social marketing doesn’t matter
  • It’s all about Targeting and Niches.

Off the Cuff

Off the Cuff - Paul Poteet

Paul Poteet (@paulpoteet) is the Hoosier Weather Daddy :-) With 30 years of experience in mainstream media, he knows online media is the place to be. His presentation, while suffering from some technical difficulties, was well done. His experience with live TV meant the glitches didn’t slow him down one bit.

Takeaways:

  • Don’t bother impressing the weasels.
  • Create your own channel
  • Everything is now. No one waits for “Story at 10”.
  • Always have a Plan B
  • Always have a Plan C
  • Always have a Plan D
  • Apparently, YouTube is Plan D

11 Secrets to Promoting Your Blog

11 Secrets to Promoting Your Blog - Erik Deckers

Erik Deckers (@edeckers) of ProBlogService cranked things up to “11” this year with 11 Secrets to Promoting Your Blog.

Takeaways:

  • Cater to readers, not search engines
  • Use microsites to generate traffic to your site.
  • Leave 3 comments on blogs each day.
  • Find guest bloggers at myblogguest.com.
  • Write Good S**t (hat tip: Jason Falls).
  • Use many forms of media to promote yourself.

Online Reputation Management

Online Reputation Management - Duncan Alney

Duncan Alney (@firebelly) from Firebelly covered Online Reputation Management.

Takeaways:

  • Know your story and version it based on the audience.
  • Customers, competitors, and the media are all listening
  • There is a trust deficit
  • Music is one of the most under-utilized branding tools. Create a mood for your brand
  • Branding is more than a logo

No Road is Long with Good Company

No Road is Long With Good Company - Carissa Newton

Carissa Newton (@delivra) from Delivra talked about how her company became a 5-day a week blogging machine.

Takeaways:

  • Get executive endorsement for your blogging efforts
  • Build your blog to be the hub of your online efforts
  • Blog on a regular schedule (rain or shine).
  • Build up a lead time. Schedule posts out 1-2 weeks in advance.
  • Give good incentives to your bloggers

The Blog That Press Built

The Blog That Press Built - Heather Sokol

Heather Sokol (@justheather) talked about how she used the mainstream media to generate visitors to her blog.

Takeaways:

  • HARO – Help a Reporter Out is a good start to getting mainstream attention (helpareporter.com)
  • Welcome new visitors coming from mainstream media sources
  • Live TV is better than pre-recorded (and edited).
  • Carefully word responses and go right to what you want to say.
  • Facebook Uno isn’t needed when you attend good presentations ;-)

Producing Content Without Agony

Producing Content Without Agony - Robby Slaughter

Robby Slaughter (@robbyslaughter) author of Failure: The Secret to Success Produces Content Without Agony and writes a blog post in 5 minutes – half the time from last year.

Takeaways:

  • Study blogs you admire
  • Get into flow.
  • Flow happens in high-challenge and high-skill situations
  • Research multiple blog posts in batches
  • Write multiple blog posts in batches
  • Edit multiple blog posts in batches
  • Be lazy
  • Use the scheduler plug-in for WordPress
  • Use the Future Post plugin.
  • Press this plugin – “It’s amazing”
  • Make a blogging checklist to follow.
  • Use the fast image adder plugin.
  • You can still be put to shame by Robby’s 5-minute blog post writing, or Mamacita’s 2-minute post.

Final Thoughts

The neatest part of Blog Indiana was the consistency across presentations. Social Media is all about relationships and contact whether that’s through email, your blog or Twitter. Building on relationships is the key.

I love doing sketchnotes and I’m glad the participants of Blog Indiana enjoyed them. @hunkler even got into sketchnoting of his own, which was neat to see:
Owly Images

You can see the full Blog Indiana 2010 Sketchnote set on Flickr.

Last year I posted my sketchnotes here: Blog Indiana 2009 Sketchnotes.