Speakers
Liana Evans - Director Internet Marketing, KeyRelevance
Rand Fishkin - CEO & C0-Founder, SEOmoz

micro communities are vertical portals
people in micro communities are able to funnel their interests and network with people
so…what’s the point of going micro? The user count is relatively tiny.
it’s traffic vs relevance. You have a higher chance for a conversion
contributing on a regular basis will build brand recognition

How do we discover micro communities?
web search engines are the right way
search for terms that are related to your industry
another way to find good communities is through a social media discovery blog
there are usually a lot of lists out there that will help you to discover more micro communities

How do I determine if a community is right for my business?
look at membership numbers
use the Google operatives i.e. (condo rentals site:trulia.com) to find micro communities right for you
look for features that you can leverage

Micro communities mentioned:
Care2 - connects non-profits to other non-profits
WebMD - Medical community
LibraryThing - Let’s you share and review books
Yelp - Local reviews community, you can take control of your listing inside Yelp
Trulia - Real estate community, site is getting large, on the uptake
Peer Trainer - Fitness network, runners, bikers, climbers
Donor Choose - Find organizations to donate to
ThinkVitamin - Blog launcher
Minti - For parents
RealEstateVoices - real estate community
Deviant Art -Digital art community
Sports Shooter - Network for sports photographers
Threadless - Fashion Networking
Cork’d - Wine enthusiasts site
Imbee - Social networking for kids
Virb - creative community, video, music, art
Wayfaring - secondary tool for social media, shared maps
CouchSurfing - Put up your couch for rent or for people to crash at (um..what?)
WikiHow - How-to content, does really well with the SEs
Helium - Broader how-to, writers can contribute content
Etsy - handmade goods
Avvo - community for lawyers
Urbis - creative community
BakeSpace - Food blog, centered around baking
FoodCandy - Foodie network
Sphinn - search marketing community
TheStranger - Seattle newspaper community
Ebay - Auction shopping/selling community

Liana Evans is now speaking

Search marketers need to put a new spin on their strategies
Go to where you audience is
Looked all over to see where we could place our client. Where they would be accepted.
They first identified bloggers that they wanted to talk to to spread the word about their product.
They started small and then ramped-up in case of possibly receiving negative feedback
Kept a database of comments from bloggers
Gave a special offer to the community through bloggers. Worked well.
Followed Womma, word of mouth guidelines before proceeding
A blogger that was featured on MSN’s front page was talking about the product. This blew open the front doors for sales.
You have to take the good comments with the bad comments. You’ll get both.
98% of bloggers ended up trying the product
traffic incresed
SEO benefits
Boost in brand exposure

You need to factor SEO + PPC + Social media into your campaign equation

• Live: The Marketer’s Role In Social Media Marketing - SMX Social NYC
• SMX: Was it worth it? Did I learn anything? Will I go again?
• Search Optimization Declining, Focus on Social Networks
• How To Compete In the Social Networking Arena
• Define: Search Engine Optimization