Things that went well:

• The venue was fantastic. The new Raleigh Civic and Convention Center is a beautiful building, and it had plenty of space for (most of) the sessions, adequate vendor and demo space, yet had enough “intimate” areas for attendees to network or duck out and get a couple of emails done during the event.
• The price was right. The event was very professionally run, and while I didn’t get a chance to experience some typical conference staples (didn’t go on the wifi, and got there too late for lunch), everything that I experienced was very well thought out, and at only $245 for early bird registration, I was pleasantly surprised they were able to do so much for so little.  I imagine with increased demands for the Raleigh Civic and Convention Center, the price may go up…c’est la vie.
• Great networking opportunities. The pre-event reception was stocked with a bar, decent food, music, and standing tables for great networking.  It gave @gregoryng, @jasonpeck, @waynesutton and me a chance to meet and brew up some crazy scheme for SXSW (More on that later).  Also, the 20-30 minutes between sessions gave people plenty of time to meet with the vendors, talk with other attendees or catch up on work.

Things that could be improved for next year:

• Power, Power, POWER! At a conference full of internet professionals, the lack of available power outlets and snacks/drinks was a glaring oversight.  People are tweeting their thumbs off on their laptops and (insert smartphone here, but most likely an iPhone…let’s be honest), and battery technology still isn’t what it needs to be.   Find some powerstrips and get that set up for next year.  Attention vendors: a laptop/iPhone charging station would be an AWESOME sponsorship opportunity next year….
• More sustenance: While one can argue that all internet professionals need is a Red Bull in the morning and a charged laptop, we too must eat and drink to survive.  Lunches QUICKLY ran out and we were left with the “Grilled Vegetables boxed lunch #fail”.  Also, bottled water finally made it’s appearance at about 4:30PM, after I overheard more than a few grumblings about its absence.  I understand that it would raise prices, but as most attendees have their admission paid by their employer, I say spring for the extra $25 to get some more snacks and beverages out there.
• Better room planning: Some of the most popular sessions (read: those that had the most actionable info, read below) were held in the much-too-small Room 402, as opposed to the large ballrooms.  Hopefully organizers for the event took a quick look in each room and will adjust the sessions/locations for next year.

And, my number one complaint/area of improvement for all conferences that I’ve attended recently:

• ACTIONABLE INFORMATION! In the latter half of 2009, if you don’t know what Twitter/Facebook/web analytics/email marketing are at a basic level, there are more than enough blog posts, social media gurus and other (more) reputable sources out there to learn about these technologies.  I want to walk out of a conference with a swag mini-notebook FILLED with ideas, sketches, best practices, new experts to follow and a renewed excitement about the state of our industry.  While there were some bright moments during the Internet Summit, I still found myself “singing along” with most of the panelists and their “visions” about what 2010 will bring.  I understand that I work in this industry, and all attendees may not have the same level of experience with the online world, but I think it is better to err on the side of information and idea overload, rather than oversimplifying things.

All in all, I’m glad I went, I met some AWESOME people and I think this is a big step forward for social media and internet marketing in the Triangle.  If you agree, or even better if you disagree, please leave your comments below.

Recently, QlikView 9 was launched, along with a new section of the website devoted to highlighting the new features and functionality of the release. Like most companies, we created detailed PDFs for our customers and prospects to download and read later or pass to their colleagues.  To call attention to them, we added them to section on the right side of the page named “Learn how easy it is…”  See the image below to see what it used to look like:

The "Before" Shot of the PDF Downloads

Not bad…if you glanced at this while reading the page in depth, you could probably discern that these were downloads of some sort, designed to give you more information about the product.  The problem is: Visitors do not read.  They skim. QlikView’s target audience is decision-makers in mid-size to enterprise level companies; not a group known for slowing down to read entire pages consisting of lengthy passages of text!

A few weeks after this page launched, an individual posted on our Facebook wall that he was looking for more information on QlikView 9 for his company, and wanted to know if anyone had “takeaways” for him to download.  As the manager for this property, I was eager to answer:  This is a guy who comes to OUR site, and is ASKING us for marketing materials!  I begin constructing a response, and it went something like this:

“Check out the QlikView 9 section of our website, look on the right side of the page, then the section called ‘Learn how easy it is:’, and those are PDFs, even though they don’t look like it…”

The finished product.

As you can guess, I did NOT post that.  Instead, a couple of us stepped back and asked a basic usability question: What do visitors to this page want? It became obvious: users need to know that these documents are here for them to download.  We quickly decided to make a very simple change to the section and add PDF icons next to the title of each download, as the Adobe PDF icon has become the ubiquitous symbol for  “this file can be downloaded, emailed, printed, and shared much easier than a website can.”

We stared at this page for weeks before it went live, but this was one of those little touches that skips through the design process, and by the time the page goes live, we were so ingrained with its elements that we thought “there’s no way a user could misinterpret the purpose of this section!”

Well, we made the change, and it’s been 5 weeks since we did.  Here is the data in a QlikView chart:

We made the change in Week 38; you probably guessed that.

We have seen a 41% increase in downloads since we made the change (with only a 21% increase in traffic), and it has remained consistent for the last five weeks. The lessons to take away from this are:

• Know what your users want: Often pages are designed with tons of text, pictures, charts etc. that come from a copy writer or stakeholder/department of the company.  While that will most likely never change (your website may be SNOWED), you should always think of a visitor’s motivations and needs when they visit a page.  Most likely, the target audience will not read a page full of content, but if they can get a data sheet and a couple of testimonials to go, then it’s our job to get out of the way and…
• Give it to them! Especially with small changes like this, move as quickly as possible.  It’s a good idea to do extensive testing with big changes, but for small changes like this, I say “go for it” and do your testing as you go; there’s little downside (PDF icons are pretty inconsequential) and a chance for a great upside (41% increase, anyone?).
• Measure, measure, measure: I had almost forgotten we had made this change until I went back into Google Analytics for another reason and remembered this project.  When you make subtle usability changes, make sure to establish a baseline and then see where it goes…you might be as pleasantly surprised as I was!

Social Media Experts are everywhere...be cautious!

I’m very lucky to have entered when I did; I (along with our team) was able to learn about the social contract, context and boundaries of these SM sites and how our company presents itself on these properties. Now that every CxO and VP has learned about SM in Fortune or the Wall Street Journal and declared them a must-have for every business, regardless of audience, product or brand platform, a new crop of enterprising individuals have come out of the woodwork: the “Social Media Expert”.

One of the most important things I’ve learned through my (brief) experience in the SM field is this: There are very few social media experts out there, but plenty of folks who claim to be.

Had I not been careful, I (or even worse, my company) could have been swept up into the frenzied world of buying followers or following the advice of some self-aggrandizing “brand evangelist”who doesn’t understand our customers, product positioning, or go-to-market strategy.

Before you go out and hire an expert, consider what you know about your company first.

The question that you (not the “expert”) must be able to answer is this: “How will our company and brand behave online?” Most “experts” will preach the pillars of social media interaction: full disclosure, organizational transparency, a hip, “with-it” social voice, etc. The problem is that these traits cannot be emulated by some companies; if you work in a highly-regulated industry or for a company that services a very unique clientele, you may be limited in what you can say online and/or how you say it.

Now, this may seem a bit hypocritical, as I am offering SM advice…the difference is, I do not advertise myself as a social media expert; I’m part of a team that saw an opportunity to grow our company’s presence online, and we put in the time, made the mistakes, and refined the SM presence of our company, and because of that trial and error we have gained the understanding of the business. Our corporate leaders know the boundaries and responsibilities that apply to our followers, fans and community members, and rely on the social media team to build and strengthen these relationships, all the time conforming with and reinforcing our brand and company voice.

This isn’t the last time I’ll speak (read: rant) on this topic, but I’ll save you from the rest. Before you go out and hire an expert to tell you anything, consider what you know about your company first.

I figured the best way to start a blog was to have a fun time designing a custom theme, then worry about posts…but since I’d rather Google not index “Test Post 3″ for my new site, it’s time to get writing!

My name is Jason Long, and I am the Community Manager for QlikCommunity, the online community site for QlikView, a Swedish-founded and U.S.-based Business Intelligence company.  We have over 500,000 users in 95 countries, and we’re growing at the rate of greater than 14 new customers every business day!  I also manage the company’s Twitter presence, Facebook fan page and other social media outlets.

This blog is going to be a collection of my thoughts, insights and experiences in running a B2B Community and Social Media program on a day-to-day basis.  There are a lot of great high-level bloggers in this field, including Jeremiah Owyang, Jake McKee, and the venerable Guy Kawasaki, but I found very little tactical information and thoughts about how to run a community every day; I figured that writing about my journey may benefit another freshly-minted Community Manager or Social Media Manager looking for information on how to make it all work.

The categories to which I’ll be posting are:

• Community – Day-to-day community management, moderation and optimization is my main focus at QlikTech, and it will be the same with this blog.
• Social Media - There is a lot of chaff out there regarding Social Media; I would probably do better not to enter the fray on this one, but I’m going to do my best to sort through the hype and hucksters and bring you some real actionable information.
• Strategy – Jeremiah and company are better at this than me, but I’d like to believe I can come up with a VP-level thought every once in a while.  I will also use this section to pass along great articles I find from the community blogging bigwigs out there.
• Tactical - Actions, plans and procedures that Community Managers and Social Media Managers can do to improve their jobs (and maybe even their lives!)   I’ll review systems and post code samples here from time to time.
• Analytics – ROI has quickly become the most important three-letter acronym in B2B marketing, and this section will outline advice and tools around community and social media measurement and monitoring.
• Thoughts - Anything that doesn’t go in the above categories will go in this category.  These posts may ramble on or go off on any number of tangents; you have been forewarned!

I don’t want to write too much on this first post and get burnt out!  Thanks for reading, and I’m really looking forward to bringing you a consistent, interesting flow of information about, you guessed it…Community and Conversation!