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So many smart people - speakers as well as attendees - packed two days full of content on email, search and social media marketing.

The recaps below came from speakers as well as attendees. Can you guess who was in which group?

Sonny Gill on Affirmation and Testing: Last year was People and Passion… click to read what Sonny has to say about this year.

Eric Hoffman on his Digital Marketing Mixer experience: “yeah I know, Swine flu whatever – there were people in white coats here so I felt safe”

Matthew T. Grant on The Long and Short of the Digital Marketing Mixer: Five high level themes from the conference [definitely worth taking a look at - great insights from Grant!]

Michael Brito on Lessons Learned: Get it straight from the horse’s mouth - what did Brito learn?

Jay Baer on 33 Hot Social Media Marketing Tips and Eight Killer Quotes: He crowdsourced his beard. ‘Nuff said.

Mack Collier on Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer Recap: Mack gives you a little sumptin’ sumptin’ to help you see the value of this event.

Thanks to Marketing Profs for inviting me to this year’s Digital Marketing Mixer, (re)connecting me with friends, and putting on a great show full of learnings, case studies, tips and discussions.

I haven’t been blogging here as much as I’d like to. However, I started a food p0rn blog that I regularly post to. 

I’ve also been traveling quite a bit - from an amazing inaugural year at Social South in Birmingham, Alabama to my regular trips to Seattle, this month finds me turning another year older and (hopefully!) another year wiser. 

This month, I’ll be in:

The Bay Area: I’ll be visiting my little sister and attending CAR EXPO in San Jose, where I’ll be meeting with DocuSign users and potential users to answer any questions they might have about electronic signature, paperless transactions, or just give out hugs.

Washington, D.C.: I’ll be visiting with a very cool nonprofit, Disaster Accountability Project. They have some great initiatives planned for the coming year, so keep an eye on them. After my experience evacuating from Hurricane Katrina, I’m inspired to work with such a motivated, committed and inspiring group.

Chicago: I’ve never been to Chicago, but I’m excited for my first time. I’ll be attending Marketing Profs’ Digital Marketing Mixer, Oct 21 - 22, and blogging with some good friends of mine, Mack Collier and Paul Chaney. Digital Marketing Mixer provides a wealth of programming. From one-on-one sessions, discussion groups, and more, you can learn how to see even more results for your digital marketing program. 

If you register with the discount code “DMBLG” you’ll get $200 off the conference pass. For every pass you buy with the discount code “DMBLG” I’ll donate $100 to Disaster Accountability Project. 

You get insight from amazing, talented marketers and Disaster Accountability Project gets donations… everyone wins!

  

Robert Matsui United States Federal Courthouse by flickr user Rojer

IMO, blog policies R 2 make legal dept feel better, the style guide is more important 2 me when comes 2 work blog #blogchat 

The above comment came out of last night’s #blogchat, hosted by Mack Collier. Later that night, I read an article in the WSJ, entitled “Corporate Blogs and ‘Tweets’ Must Keep SEC in Mind: Social Media Offer Immediacy and Spontaneity to Communications but Risk Running Afoul of Regulations.” From the article:

Blogs and tweets can run afoul of Securities and Exchange Commission regulations on corporate communications. But sanitizing such posts risks hurting credibility with online audiences.

Hrm. blog policies and post sanitation aren’t just to make legal departments feel better (although they probably do) - they protect the organization and its employees. Because organizations are held to different standards than consumers and those standards depend on the type of organization, I understand why companies take their time regarding social media adoption. 

That said, organizations like Dell, EBay and Comcast have done an amazing job adopting a social media strategy.

What About Startups?

Startups have a unique advantage when it comes to blogging - they aren’t publicly traded so they aren’t subject to the same SEC regulations on corporate communications. 

Startups can be scrappy, making much out of very little, figuring out how to get more for their money. The runway is only so long and business considerations like user acquisition, monetization, scalability and revenue generation tend to be high priority. 

Blogging, while time intensive, consistently generates fresh content for search engines while sharing the organization’s story, thoughts, opinion and values. That said, startup bloggers should also watch what they say… litigation ties up resources, such as time & capital, and can distract from progress on user acquisition, revenue generation, etc.

Keep the style guide in one hand and your legal-approved blog policy in the other. Be bold, yet thoughtful.

If your online audience is turned off by you protecting yourself, use your blog and your tweets to explain to them why you need to include the un-fun* language. Alternatively, you can take a page from Virgin America’s book and figure out how to add the fun back.

*as used here, fun refers to unsantitized content. Your brand personality may or may not be fun. Write in your own brand voice, as it makes sense for you.

This morning I woke up to a lovely reminder from Mack Collier about #blogchat, the Sunday evening Twitter chat that happens on a weekly basis. Mack specifically called me out (Thanks Mack :)) and of course, six people repeated (retweeted) Mack’s message that included the targeted reminder to me. Two others also passed the message along about #blogchat but stripped out the An-targeted reminder. 

Of the six who repeated Mack’s message with the reminder, five were those I wasn’t following nor were they following me:

• @aaiello
• @DavidSpinks
• @Eric_Urbane
• @AYoungOne
• @timjahn

The only one I was following was @arikhanson. Beyond the conversation from #blogchat are the five I discovered because they retweeted Mack’s reminder to me.

# Blogchat. Sundays at 8:00 pm CST. Be There.