Links and Tweets and Pings, Oh My!

The St. Louis Publishers Association meeting last night covered two topics - search engine optimization (SEO) and social networking as part of an author/publisher's marketing plan. The two guys speaking on the topics were very knowledgeable and informative. All I could think is that this is a whole new language, sometimes as confusing as trying to figure out one of my daughter's text messages. I was somewhat pleased with myself in that I am involved in three of the social network platforms that were discussed: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. I wouldn't touch MySpace with a ten foot pole because, as my daughter says, that is so yesterday. I was able to follow along with the social networking discussion fairly well. The search engine optimization spiel was a little more technical, not helped by the guy sitting behind me. You know the type - there is one in every crowd. His questions revolved around his specific situation, which was fine for the first two or three questions he threw out. You could tell that the presenters enjoyed having another geek squad person in the house, so unfortunately this only encouraged Magazine Man (he apparently sells magazines involving his wife's motivational speeches off their web site) to constantly shoot his hand up in the air. Apparently Magazine Man thought last night was a personal tutoring session for him alone. The program moderator really needed to nip this kind of behavior in the bud. At any rate, the most interesting thing I learned was that you can create widgets without know html (talk about geek speak!), and place said widget not only on your website but within your social networking sites as well. That sounds like something to sing about - tweet, tweet!