But like many industry rockstars, Heather’s work goes well beyond that which she puts into speaking gigs and PowerPoint decks. She’s an accomplished author and SEO copywriting pioneer with well over a decade of professional experience under her belt. SuccessWorks, Heather’s SEO copywriting firm, cross-trains in-house copywriters from companies of all sizes and types– Fortune 50 retailers to travel destination sites. A keen focus on leveraging strategic content to increase online visibility makes the SuccessWorks team one-two-punch-tastic.

On the advent of SMX West, aimClear had the pleasure of sharing a candid Q&A with the lovely Ms. Lloyd-Martin. Discussion topics ranged from “Hi, who are you?” to Google Search Plus Your World (SYYW) to must-have online tools to amphibious childhood memories. Read on for the full scoop.

| aimClear: Welcome, Ms. Heather! Let’s get the formalities out of the way– who are you and how did you end up in the online marketing realm?

Heather Lloyd-Martin: I wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl. I didn’t think that you could make a living as a writer, so when I graduated college, I took all sorts of marketing jobs that allowed me to write – but I was stuck doing other things (like answering phones) that I really disliked.

One gig was working for a company that made industrial freezers for fishing boats – and I would write their marketing copy (it’s hard to make a “screw compressor” sound interesting, but that’s exactly what I did!). My then-boss loved to go online and surf around (this must have been about 1995,) – and I realized that there was more opportunity in the online world than there was in my current job. So, I quit so I could “become an online writer.” Did I have any freelance gigs lined up? Nope. Did I know anything about writing online? Nope. I just quit and figured that I could make a go of it somehow…

Fortunately, I was blessed to meet a lot of other first-generation search marketers who were just starting to get their online feet wet. Jill Whalen is one – and we started the RankWrite newsletter together in the late 1990′s. RankWrite was the first newsletter that discussed how to write good SEO copy, and people still mention that they remember reading it years ago. Things blossomed from there, I got on the SES speaking circuit…and here I am today. I’ve been doing this for about 14 years now – and wow, time has passed quickly. I feel so blessed that I get to have fun doing exactly the type of work that I love to do!

| aC: Inspired! So. You forged your mark in the industry about copywriting. There’s been some rumbling in the industry that on-page content will become devalued, if not minimized – in light of Google Search Plus Your World. What do you believe will happen? Has SPYW completely screwed the SEO pooch? (On the flip side of the coin: Are you excited about forming a community in Google+?)

HLM: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that SEO is dead, we’ll all be out of jobs soon, blah, blah. Here’s the thing: Good content is ALWAYS important, and has been since the beginning of content time. People don’t link to crappy content. People don’t share crappy content. Crappy content doesn’t convert. I’ve said it before – yes. the opportunities in SEO copywriting will change (for instance, we weren’t writing tweets 10 years ago). Content, however, will also rule. And if you want to maximize the ways that folks find your content, that means knowing how to create solid SEO copy.

I think that the last few Google changes have been wake up calls to those folks who haven’t focused on content. Having said that, I feel for the small business owner with a zero budget trying to keep up with Google+/SPYW. I’ve heard a number of folks complain, “I don’t have time to do this myself. I don’t have budget to outsource. I don’t have time keep up with all of these changes.” I definitely feel their pain.

(And yes, I’d love it if you added SEO Copywriting to your Google+ circles.):)

| aC: Noted . What is it that excites you about SEO copywriting in particular, more so than, say, reg’lar ole’ writin’?

HLM: I dig reg’lar ole’ writin’, too. But SEO copywriting is just…different. I think it’s because so much of my career has been wrapped around keyword-based writing. I watched SEO (and SEO copywriting) “grow up” – and it was a blast to be a part of it. Having said that, I find myself wanting to write about things that have nothing to do with SEO copy, marketing, or the search engines. That’s good – I think it’s healthy to shake things up and do different things.

| aC: Indeed. Guilty-pleasure time! Tell us 3 websites you visit daily… NOT work-related.

HLM: Ha! Great question! I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t been surfing for fun. But when I do want to kill some time, I love checking out…

• MindBodyGreen – Yoga and wellness tips.
• Budget Travel – For when I want to plan my next getaway.
• Facebook. If I’m bored, I’m here.

| aC: Groovy. Okay, now tell us 3 work-related websites, services, or tools you wouldn’t ever want to live without.

HLM:

• I love HootSuite – I love how easy it is to schedule tweets and track conversations.
• SearchEngineLand- Great writers, great information.
• GetItDone App- This app has helped me organize my entire life. Really. Considering all of the “stuff” in my brain, that’s a major accomplishment.

| aC: Right on. The morning of Day 3 at SMX West will find you on the The “New” Killer Content panel. Give the readers at home a sneak peek at what you’ll serve up!

HLM: So many marketing teams see changes like Panda, SPYW, etc. and say, “OK, I give up. I have no idea how to leverage existing content, or build new content.” So, I’ll be talking about ways companies can create quality, sharable content, leverage their opportunities and develop sustainable content strategies. The panel has a really great speaker lineup – I’m excited and honored to be a part of it.

| aC: Excellent! Looking forward to it. Now, last but most certainly not least: Favorite ethnic cuisine, foreign city, and amphibian, GO!

HLM: Fave ethnic cuisine: Indian. The spicier the better. If it’s not making my mouth burn and my eyes water, it’s not worth eating. Fave foreign city: It’s a tie between Amsterdam and London. I LOVE Amsterdam, but London always feels like home. If I can combine a London/Amsterdam trip, I am a happy girl. Fave amphibian: Um, never thought of this one. I did have a pet salamander named Sam when I was 5…

| aC: Well  now if that isn’t the cutest thing I’ve ever heard. Right on. Big thanks, Heather, for this special glimpse into your life & upcoming preso @ #SMX West. Let’s get some Gobhi Aloo and Chettinadu kozhi varuval while we’re out there. Safe travels!

Noran’s moxie comes backed by some serious smarts that extend well beyond social media best practices. From charting the customer’s PPC journey to understanding buyer voice and intent, to quality score, analytics, and conversion optimization, she’s far from pigeon-holed in this industry. Noran’s set to take the stage at #SESCHI 2011 and speak on Ads in a Quality Score World. Prior to the event, I shared a bite-sized interview with Noran to learn more about the girl who once asked, “What’s ‘an Avinash’?” during a job interview. Read on for the full scoop.

| aimClear: Thanks for your time today, Noran! Tell us a little bit about how your background, how you ended up in the online marketing industry.

| Noran El-Shinnawy: I wish I had one of those “Navy Seal turned PPC Rockstar” stories, but I’m just a little Egyptian girl who moved to Canada at the age of 17 to study marketing. I started working for a web analytics company in Montreal (and I remember asking what “an Avinash” was during my interview) and eventually fell in love with the industry and worked my way up to Director of Marketing at BoostCTR.

| aC: You write for a variety of top-shelf online marketing publications, including Search Engine Watch, Visibility Magazine, SES Magazine and ClickZ. What’s your absolute favorite topic to write about?

| NE: Testing and optimization. It’s such an important aspect of our industry that applies to many different disciplines, but it’s one of those things where everyone agrees on its importance but no one cares enough to make it a big part of their strategy. How many people do you know whose full time jobs are testing and optimizing?

| aC: …I’m at a loss. On a similar note – in the past, you’ve spoken on an array of SES sessions, some defining the social media rockstar, others taking a more technical approach to PPC. Do you have a preference of presenting one over the other?

| NE: I’m a lot less technical and a lot more creative. We have tools and platforms to do all the grunt work for us, but no one has invented anything to replace the human mind and creativity. That’s they type of stuff I like to talk about and encourage people to focus on.

| aC: On the afternoon of Day 2 at SES Chicago, you’ll speak on the Ads in a Quality Score World session. Can readers at home get a glimpse at what your presentation will cover?

| NE: If I tell you, I’d have to kill you. But you can expect to see secret mission envelopes, sketch pads, crayons, contests and, brace yourself, elephant diapers. On the more serious side, I’ll be talking about some factors that make up quality score, why it’s  important and how you can improve it.

| aC: Right on. Thanks for not killing me. Favorite city, cuisine, and adult beverage, GO!

| NE: Darjeeling (small town in the Indian Himalayas), French, Scotch… sometimes I wish a had a moustache, pipe and silk scarf to go along with it.

| aC: How classy! So… according to your SES bio, when you unplug from the Internet, you enjoy diving with sharks in the Red Sea. Please… enlighten us

| NE: I grew up in a country with two seas and have always been fascinated by everything under the water. On my first dive, I came face to face with a white tip shark… not the friendliest of the bunch. Yes, I heard the theme song from Jaws over and over in my head and I might have peed my wetsuit a little. But after what seemed like the world’s longest staring contest, I came out of the water with all my limbs intact. I was shocked, curious and mostly fascinated, so I started learning about sharks, how most of them are endangered and horrors of shark fin soup. I’m now a big shark activist and make sure I go shark diving every chance I get.

| aC: Totally inspiring. Thanks for this glimpse into your life, Noran. Safe travels to the Windy City!

Bryan Eisenberg is, in the world of online marketing, generally a man who needs no introduction. Co-author of bestselling books, frequent keynote speaker and session sequencer at an array of conferences, co-founder of this, advisory board member of that, authority and pioneer in persona marketing, conversion rate optimization, persuasion architecture and more. Wait, this is turning into an introduction. Let’s just get to it!

Next month at Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2011, Bryan will take the stage on Day 1 to contribute his insightful two cents to the Conversion Tools of the Master Craftsman session. On the advent of #SESCHI, I had the chance to share a candid Q&A with Bryan on a variety of topics, from his professional background to thoughts on marketing personas, favorite conversion optimization tools to favorite vacation spots. Read on for the full scoop.

| aimClear: You’ve been a familiar face on the search marketing landscape for years as a keynote speaker, session programmer, author, and more. Care to share a bit about how you ended up in this industry?

Bryan Eisenberg: I have been tinkering around with online interfaces since 1983 when I first ran my own BBS (bulletin board system) on my Atari 800 with my 1200 baud modem and would change the menus to “persuade” people to visit different parts of the BBS. By the mid 1990s with the dot com boom hitting like mad, I was working client-side helping an online niche grocer increase sales by doing basic conversion optimization and some SEO. By 1998, Jeffrey, my brother, and I were working closely with an Internet incubator and the head of the incubator told us we should focus on what we do best, which was conversion optimization since there were so many others doing SEO. He was right. So we turned out to be right but way too many years early.

| aC: What are three conversion optimization tools, free or paid, you wouldn’t want to live without?

BE: Ok, you know I am a tool junkie and I keep a list of over 150+ tools to improve your website and marketing efforts at websitetestingtools.com but you are limiting me to just 3… what torture!

• UserTesting.com – There is nothing like showing executives and their teams video of actual people using there website.
• Feng-Gui – You got to love a tool that can show your designer why they may be costing you money.
• BoostCTR – Does anyone really have enough time to keep writing better PPC and Facebook ads? This service uses crowdsourcing and their network of writers to compete in A/B tests with your best ads to find a better one. Bonus, you only pay when their ad beats yours.

| aC: You know that was intentional on my part . Okay, @TheGrok… I’ve turned to Google in an attempt to decode this alias but let’s get it from the source. What’s it all mean?

BE: It was a nickname given to me back from our Internet incubator days. Grok comes from Heinlein’s book “A Stranger in a Strange Land.” It is a Martian word that literally means ‘to drink’ but taken to mean a deep ‘understanding.’ They gave it to me because I “grokked” why people do they things they do online.

| aC: Enlightening . Favorite adult beverage, vacation spot, and wild animal, GO!

BE: Never developed a taste for alcohol, so does unsweetened iced tea count? Orlando with my 3 kiddos and wife. Rhino – do you get my point?

| aC: Yuk yuk! The afternoon of SES Chicago Day 1 will find you speaking on the Conversion Tools of the Master Craftsman session. Can we snag a sneak peek at what you’ll tackle?

BE: This week some interesting research about conversion rate optimization came out from eConsultancy. What they found, mirrors what I found, is that the more tools you use to improve your conversion rate the more you tend to master control over your conversion rate and have a higher conversion rate. In my session, I’ll cover what I consider all the main categories of tools from insight gathering, analytics, testing, landing page creation, A/B and multivariate testing, personalization, and campaign optimization tools and how to use them to clobber your competition.

| aC: Very cool. Speaking of speaking - anyone who’s heard you present at a conference knows your word-per-minute rate is pretty much off the charts. I’m from the East Coast– I get the whole fast-talking thing. But, seriously… what’s your secret?

BE: If you look at the audience in many sessions you almost always see them busy on their laptops or smart phones instead of paying attention. That’s partly because the pace of the speaker is too slow to keep up with the pace inside their heads. While I speak too quickly for people trying to take word for word notes (sorry, Lauren, for making you work so hard), I know that psychologically people can take in stuff pretty quickly by hearing versus trying to type. Anne Holland also found this concept of moving along quickly was key to keeping audiences engaged (of course, you still have to have a good presentation, too).

| aC: Yeah, I’ve come away from sessions of yours I’ve live-blogged with smokin’ fingers and blisters to boot. *Bonus question from Marty*: Are online marketing personas a bunch of bullsh*t, or do they work now?

BE: There’s a lot of BS making the rounds in our industry. Many agencies try to use “design” personas as developed and described by Alan Cooper in his book The Inmates are Running the Asylum. Some other try to use marketing personas or buying personas. They’re all directionally correct. However, the personas we developed were based more on scriptwriting than from a design or outbound communications point of view. Our personas are more concerned with creating deep empathy for the buyer’s experience while crafting a carefully designed micro-conversion to macro-conversion narrative of the  buyer’s story as they engage with a company digitally and across channels. I’m sorry, that’s too short of answer to be precise and too long of an answer for the question you asked.

| aC: Good stuff. Thanks for your time today, Bryan! Safe travels, and we’ll be seein’ ya in Chicago .

I met Simon last year at SES New York, and in addition to being a seriously smart dude, let me tell you – he’s got a super magical accent. On the advent of SES Chicago 2011, I got to share a casual Q&A with Simon over tea and crumpets (well, I imagined that’s how it went down, anyway), with topics including favorite animals to the overlap between search and social, even a sneak peek at his upcoming #SESCHI preso on Strange Encounters of the SEO Kind. Read on for the full scoop.

| aimClear: Give us in the inside scoop, if you please — how didja end up in the online marketing industry in the first place?

Simon Heseltine: In my previous life I was a developer, working for a firm that got into the local IYP space. We had four of the top five telecommunications companies as clients at one point. One product that we developed was an online, searchable yellow pages, the actual print book online and searchable. Smaller telcos used this product as an upsell to their print book. After a short while we realized that our search traffic was pretty static month over month, that’s when I first heard the term “SEO.” Within a month I was put in charge of SEO & PPC for the company’s product, and have been in the industry ever since.

| aC: You’ve been speaking on the conference circuit for years. What keeps you going? What keeps you coming back year after year?

SH: I like to share knowledge (I also teach at Georgetown University), and I like to hear from others in the industry. Speaking means I get a free pass to the shows, and entrance to the speakers room where you can have some interesting discussions with other speakers.

| aC: Indeed you can. What about the online marketing industry scares the living daylights out of you these days? Put another way… what are the unique challenges of being a digital marketer in this day in age?

SH: I don’t know that there’s anything in particular that scares me that much, but this is such a fast moving industry, with changes that can have huge impact on your company if you don’t keep on top of them.

| aC: Truth. Does being an SEO expert qualify one to be a great social media marketer, and vice versa?

SH: Does being a great soccer player mean that you’ll be great in the NFL? Both require being athletes, being fit, and there’s some overlap (NFL teams have used soccer players as kickers), but I don’t think you’ll see Becks playing for the Vikings next weekend. Now, before I’m reported to the analogy police, there is more overlap between social and SEO, and as time moves on that overlap is going to become larger and more pronounced, but the way you currently approach social and SEO requires slightly different mindsets, sure there are people who can and do do both well, but not all.

| aC: Favorite animal, vacation spot, and adult beverage, GO!

SH: Tiger (I’m a Hull City A.F.C. Supporter, couldn’t be any other animal), Reykjavik, a nice pint of west country cider.

| aC: Lovely. The afternoon of SES Chicago Day 1 will find you speaking on the Strange Encounters of the SEO Kind session. What can audience members expect from your presentation?

SH: This is the first time this session has been presented. We’re going to be talking about all kinds of different strange issues we’ve encountered over the years, an how we noodled through them. This will give the audience an insight into how they should approach different types of weird and wacky issues that they’ll undoubtedly encounter over their SEO career.

| aC: BONUS QUESTION: What is the absolute strangest SEO play you’ve ever encountered during your time in the industry?

SH: For that you’ll just have to attend the session and find out .

| aC: Blast! You clever Trevor, you. Fair enough. Thanks for your time today, Simon. See ya in the Windy City!

I remember kicking it with Melissa at Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2010, and right off the bat it became apparent that this venerable industry pro was also a super-cool down-to-earth gal. On the advent of #SESCHI 2011, I had the pleasure of sharing a candid Q&A with Melissa. Topics spanned AdWords obstacles, PPC platform secret weapons, brand term cannibalization and a peek at her upcoming Day 1 presentation on Introduction to Paid Search. Read on for the full scoop.

| aimClear: Thanks for your time today, Melissa! Enlighten the readers at home – what led you to a career in online marketing?

Melissa Mackey: Funny story, actually. I spent many years in traditional marketing and advertising, including a stint in the classified advertising department of the local newspaper. After that, I was doing in-house traditional marketing for Magazineline, a magazine subscription agency that sells subscriptions online. When Google Adwords debuted in 2002, I was assigned the “special project” of testing Adwords because I “used to work in classified ads, and know how to write short ad copy.” That special project turned into an awesome career in search. I’m now Search Marketing Director at Fluency Media, a full-service digital agency based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

| aC: Funny how that happens . Alright, next: What are the greatest barriers to staying good at AdWords?

MM: For me, it’s time. Google rolls out a new feature weekly, it seems, and to really understand them, you need to try them out. We all get so busy with the day to day that it’s hard to find the time to test every new thing. But if you can find the time, it’ll pay off, because you’ll be ahead of your competition.

| aC: Are there any AdWords or Bing adCenter formats that you consider secret weapons?

MM: If I told you, they wouldn’t be secret, would they? Seriously, I’ve been really into Adwords Sitelinks lately, which is a great way to boost your campaign’s CTR. And I’m a huge fan of Adwords Campaign Experiments, or ACE – where else can you test bids and match types and have the data spoon-fed to you?  As adCenter goes, I have a love-hate relationship with ad copy parameters. They’re ridiculously complicated to get the hang of, but they’re also awesome for e-commerce advertisers who want to easily incorporate price, percent discounts, and other dynamic variables into their ad copy.

| aC: Your top 3 tricks to prevent the cannibalization of organic brand terms by way of PPC brand terms would be…

MM: Well, I don’t believe that PPC cannibalizes organic traffic. The two complement each other, and having a presence in both PPC and organic has been proven to dramatically increase overall traffic. And oftentimes people who click on organic listings are a different type of visitor than people who click on PPC. All that said…

• Including a special offer in your PPC ad copy is a great way to attract attention and get great conversion rates. It’s nearly impossible to incorporate special offers into organic title tags and meta descriptions, but with PPC it’s a piece of cake – and you can test different offers to see what works best.
• Test, test, test! Test different special offers. Test ads without offers against ads with. Test whatever you can think of. I’ve found that using the phrase “Official Site” in PPC ad copy on brand terms works very well. The point is, test different things to see what grabs the most attention and gets the best ROI for your brand.
• Measure your results!  You should be measuring results from organic and PPC ads anyway, so look at the data and see where you’re getting the best conversion rate and ROI. If you find that branded PPC terms aren’t converting at a good cost (which would shock me, but it could happen), then don’t run them.

| aC: Awesome stuff. Okay, now onto the important stuff. Favorite adult beverage, ethnic cuisine, and vacation spot, GO!

MM: I love microbrew beer, although I rarely drink anymore. I’m a fan of most any ethnic food, but I’ve gotta go with Italian as my favorite – I always seek out the good Italian restaurants when I travel. Hawaii is my favorite vacation spot, but Northern Michigan is a close second, and a hell of a lot cheaper than Hawaii.

| aC: And how! Day 1 of Search Engine Strategies Chicago will find you delivering a solo presentation on Introduction to Paid Search. What are some ways you like to jazz up PPC n00bz, to get them excited and engaged during this beginner-level session? What pearls of wisdom would you leave with new/young paid search marketers as they begin their journey?

MM: I find that the strategy for a lot of new PPC advertisers consists of “hey, let’s do some PPC!” They run straight to Adwords with their credit card in hand before they’ve really thought everything through, and they get burned. In my session, I’ll go over the fundamentals that newbies will need to have in place in order to launch a successful PPC campaign, and I’ll share stories and examples from my experience over the years so they can see how PPC can help their business. On top of that, PPC is just plain fun, so I hope to capture the cool and interesting aspects of it in my presentation.

| aC: Right on Sounds like attendees are in for a real treat then. Thanks again for sharing such top-shelf insight, Melissa. See ya in Chicago!

Amy Vernon a.k.a. The Bacon Queen a.k.a. fellow New Jerseian and IRL pal is just about as genuine as they come. With over 20k Twitter followers and the title of “top 15 submitters of all time on Digg.com (and the highest-ranked female ever),” she’s also a powerful social media maven worth paying mind to. VP of Strategy and Alliances at Hasai, Amy’s a familiar face at an array of digital marketing conferences, whether she’s on stage speaking or in the crowd pumping out lightning-fast tweet coverage.

I met Amy at last year’s #140Conf in NYC, and as we “chewed the fat,” so to speak, over U Café grub on the upper East Side, it became apparent why her cult-like following across various social media circles, from Tumblr to Facebook, flocks to her consistently. She works a seriously smooth combo of calculating community manager and super-cool social-savvy friend.

On the advent of #SMX East, I had the pleasure of sharing a candid Q&A with Amy. Topics ranged from “Who are ya, howdidja get here?” to favorite social sharing services, advice for social marketing n00bz and the battle between newsprint & online media. Read on for the full scoop.

| aimClear: Thanks for your time today, Amy! According to your bio, you were pretty deep in the trenches, professionally, at a traditional newspaper just a couple years ago. Now, you’re a widely-known social media authority on all-things awesome. Care to share a bit on how that transition came about?

Amy Vernon: Well, as happened to many people in newspapers, I was laid off. The next day, I had my first contract for consulting and friends reached out to their contacts to help me get freelance writing jobs. What made that transition so seamless, however, was that I’d spent the previous year-plus at my job blogging and figuring out how to get people to our website using Digg, StumbleUpon, Blog Catalog and other sites and communities. (In addition to being a metro editor.) Without setting out to, I had set up my new career while still at my old one.

| aC: How very efficient of you . On a scale of “Get the defibrillator! This ain’t over yet!” to “Good riddance to inky, outdated rubbish,” how do you feel about the battle between newsprint and digital media?

AV: It’s basically the Doctor, before he begins regeneration. Very vulnerable, but just has to change form and it’ll be OK.

OK, for the non-Doctor Who geeks, what I mean is this: The news organizations behind newsprint will survive. Not all, but some. And they will evolve into this new form, as the best have begun to do already. The role of newspapers is not gone – it’s just the format itself that’s dying. And, frankly, it’s forcing news organizations to adapt and change for the first time in decades. I watched for 20 years as newspapers tried to figure out how to get young readers, and then ignored any substantial advice and suggestions that could have helped. Then the Internet came along and newspapers ignored it until it was too late. Now, it’s adapt or die. The best will adapt.

| aC: Darwin would be proud. Because we’d all like to know the daily routine of a “social media maven,” describe a typical… Thursday… to us. Please

AV: I have two little boys, so I’m generally up by 7 a.m. (Eastern) or so on most weekdays. During breakfast/getting ready for school time, I usually check my email, Facebook and Twitter to see what happened overnight, to get a sense of how much catchup I have ahead of me before I can start anything new. I generally sit down at the computer sometime between 8 and 9 a.m. After I respond to email, Facebook and Twitter, I start working. That can involve working with clients to find articles they have with viral potential or updating Facebook pages or talking strategy with clients or co-workers.

In the background, I have several Tumblrs open and check in on my EmpireAvenue account throughout the day. I’m on Digg, Tumblr, Reddit, StumbleUpon and other sites and whenever I see anything that amuses me, I post it somewhere – whether on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter or a combination thereof. I feel as if it’s my duty to share the funniest and coolest stuff I see – I’m on these sites that really aggregate the best of what’s out there, so why not spread it around?

I’m a little bit ADD, I think, so it suits me to have to hop from tab to tab, looking at different things. I also contribute to several blogs and squeeze in posts for them, though I’ve let that lapse a bit too much, I think.

That’s basically what I do all day long. If I’m going into Manhattan at night for a seminar or networking event or party, I hop on a train with both my smartphones (iPhone and Droid X2) and focus mainly on Foursquare, Instagram and Twitter for the evening, though I’ll continue to check on my email. (Who said email was dead? Really, it’s not even close.) And I wouldn’t be able to keep track of the events I attend without Plancast and Meetup (and their mobile apps).

On Thursdays, in particular, however, I try to spend some time with the hubby, watching our sitcoms. Big Bang Theory is teh awesome.

| aC: And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen! Okay. Now. Your top 3 go-to sources for finding super-cool content and/or top 3 tools for streamlining social sharing, ready, go!

AV: Content: Tumblr, Reddit, StumbleUpon. Sharing: Dlvr.it, TweetDeck, HootSuite.

| aC: Two words: Bacon Queen. Enlighten us.

AV: Once upon a time, I submitted a photo of bacon to Digg. It hit the front page. I laughed as hard at the comments wondering why it was on the front page, as it was nothing more than a photo of bacon, as I did at the comments from Diggers who were bemoaning they had to put on pants so they could go cook some bacon. Apparently, a lot of people use Digg while pantsless.

Anyway, I started seeking out the coolest bacon-related submissions (there are multiple groups on Flickr dedicated to bacon, for one), and a lot hit the front page. Let it be known that not every bacon-related submission hits the front page. It just seems that way. So people started pinging me when they saw a bacon-related submission on Digg that I hadn’t commented on. People started calling me the Bacon Queen. So, doing what any web geek does, I bought the domain, BaconQueen.com. I wasn’t sure what to do with it at first, because there are a LOT of bacon blogs out there. So I decided to become the bacon news aggregator. A Drudge Report for bacon/pork news, if you will.

| aC: Rounding out Day 3 of #SMX East, you’ll be participating on the Social Media Site Clinic. Imagine a deranged audience member stands up and shouts, “But I just don’t get what social media can do for my company! What’s the point? Why should we try?!” What would you say to get him/her down off the ledge?

AV: I’d ask this person if they understand why marketing/advertising/pr is useful for a company. Social media has become the new form of that triumverate. The main difference is that it’s real-time and has to be both proactive and reactive. Social media can be whatever you want it to be. It can be a customer service tool; it can be a venue for advertising your sales; it can be a lead generator. It’s all in how you use it. And if you haven’t found it useful yet, you’re either doing it wrong or you’re not using the right platforms for your needs.

| aC: Looking to the future, what social networks are you paying attention to, or feel are worth paying attention to? What platforms have the most potential that the masses aren’t on yet?

AV: I think the next big play is the business-level network. I think LinkedIn will continue to dominate as the Facebook of sorts for business, but other platforms that focus on different aspects of business and networking will be the next to explode, I think. Those include Hashable, for acquaintance curation; Commonred, for finding connections to and commonalities with new people; or EmpireAvenue, as a gamified cross between Twitter and LinkedIn (that doesn’t really explain it well, but it’s the best I can come up with right now). And Empire Avenue is, by the way, a great tool for keeping you aware of your activity levels across various networks.

Also worth paying attention to: Posterous, to see if it makes a play to be regarded as the more grown-up, business-focused version of Tumblr. Though it operates in much the same way as Tumblr, it has an extremely different feel and a very different user base.

| aC: Awesome stuff all around. Thanks for the time, Amy. See you in the Big Apple

Next month, Thom will lead marketers through the Introduction to Analytics on Day 2 of Search Engine Strategies San Francisco. aimClear’s Matt Peterson attended this same session in the New York installment of SES earlier this year, remarking, “Elementary essentials of analytics were addressed, but there were deep technical chestnuts that would pique the interest of even seasoned marketing vets.” In other words, don’t let the “Intro” angle of Thom’s session fool you; attendees should saddle up for a seriously deep dive into the core technologies of analytics every deep marketer should master.

aimClear had the pleasure of sharing a candid interview with Thom a month outside of #SES SFO. Topics of conversation ranged from shop-talk to dream dashboards and metrics in need of some TLC. Read on for the full effect.

| aimClear: You’ve been knee-deep in HTML code for almost two decades and involved in search marketing for more than ten years. Impressive. What about coding attracted you in the first place – and what prompted the shift towards SEM?

In 1991, I got involved in a student-run campus information system for RIT. It was, essentially, a series of hypertext map of the campus with information about the buildings, departments, etc. When we were at beta, another student outside the project said to us, “That’s cool and all, but why didn’t you just use Mosaic?” At the time, I didnt’ know what Mosaic or HTML was. I learned very quickly, becoming the “Web guy” at every position I held afterwards.

A number of years later I started one of the first Web development (and hosting) companies in Rochester. I took a unique approach of teaching my customers about the Web. I would create custom back-end interfaces to updating information on their site, putting that power in their hands. These types of interfaces are known today as a CMS.

During that time, I had a number of clients asking for confirmation that if I build it, they (the customers) would come. After a while, I couldn’t guess my way to that answer any longer and started researching how people got found online. I read everything I could and started attending SES Conferences. Ultimately, the coding was less important to me than helping people make the Web actually work for them. I learned a great deal about SEO, conversion and calculating ROI online. I passed this on to my clients and led the new SEM initiative after successfully merging my firm with a local interactive agency.

Now, I’m back at RIT as an employee, passing on information to students and leading the charge on analytics for the university’s mobile web initiative.

| aimClear: Quite the backstory. I dig. What’s your “most underrated” analytics package or feature? Or what metric do you think doesn’t get the love or attention that it should?

I think bounce rate gets more attention than it should, but not in a good way. Everyone looks at bounce rate as a bad metric (even Google, to an extent). But in the grand scheme of life, if someone searches for some arcane piece of information that’s burred deep within your Website, finds it in the first few blue links, clicks it and instantly has their answer by viewing the first page they see on your site, is that bad? Having deep content appear atop the search results and serving the customer’s needs quickly with less clicks is what good SEO is all about. Content is king. Not having a confused and frustrated customer clicking 20 links only to fail to find the information they seek is horrible service. Certain returning visitors with high bounce rate may conceivably show customer retention and loyalty.

| aimClear: You turn on your computer one day and the analytics dashboard of your wildest dreams magically appears on screen. What three features or data points are present that you couldn’t see before?

It should show that I’m earning enough to retire early and spoil my kids rotten clear through college!

Seriously, it depends on which site I’m looking at and which metrics I’m measuring. However, I can assure you the metric will never be an aggregate number measuring all visitors at the same time. The metrics will be segmented by certain criteria and would include historical trends, groupings and automatically suggest actionable recommendations for me.

| aimClear: Care to share your two cents on the future of analytics, in regards to recent EU case law, and where we may be heading with Do Not Track? Are we moving towards more obvious disclosure, opt-in only analytics, or are we about to lose all the cool data we love so much?

Privacy is going to be a concern. I’ve seen many opinions, too. On one hand, there’s a few generations of individuals who do not want to be tracked at all. I know many people that don’t want to be tracked ever, but want to make sure we track everyone who hits their site. On the other hand there’s a whole generation of students at our mostly technical university who have the opinion that they’re not doing anything wrong, so track away. Which, by itself isn’t a stance on privacy laws. Both the EU and Congress need to apply some common-sense rules regarding non-personal tracking. Everything on a computer is tracked; it’s the way networks are analyzed and repaired. Marketers just happen to hitch a ride on existing logging of publicly accessible information. If the government says we have no reasonable expectation of our cars parked in our driveway, we should clearly have no reasonable expectation of privacy when we request information from someone else’s Web site.

| aimClear: What is it about analytics revs your proverbial engine?

Making sense out of chaos; it’s the ultimate thrill.

Having gone from simply building “cool Web pages” to tracking how much revenue a company earned as a direct result of those same cool pages is really fascinating. I’ve been helping build the Web longer than this year’s incoming freshmen have been alive. I’ve grown from “this is cool” to “I had 100 hits” to “how do people get here” to “these kinds of people are more apt to buy” to “We saved n-thousand dollars directly because of x,y and z actions online.” It boggles my mind everyday.

The ever-changing Web landscape and the myriad of metrics feed my ADD, too.

| aimClear: Day 1 of SES San Francisco will find you up on stage delivering a solo presentation on Intro to Analytics. Can we get a little behind-the-scenes look at what you’ll dish up? (Also… what are some ways you like to get beginners excited about something as analytical as… analytics?)

I truly go through the all the basics of collecting data and determining which metrics are available. I start with how data are collected to how they are measured and a bunch of lame jokes. I move on to which metrics are available and, without actually mentioning the phrase KPI, I talk about which metrics make sense to use and which ones don’t. As we progress, the jokes get worse, but you’ll have some great insight into a dry subject by someone with a gentle bedside manner. When you’re done, you’ll have a good understanding of where to start measuring your own site and a better appreciation for good comedy.

| aimClear: Right on, Thom Thanks for your time today. See you in San Fran!

Whether she’s sharing first-hand knowledge of Japanese online markets in the boardroom, showcasing it in digital or print trade publications, or serving it up to a room of eager conference attendees, Motoko is a bright, familiar face in our industry. Next month she’ll head to Search Engine Strategies San Francisco to psyche marketers up about Getting Ready for Global Business. aimClear had the pleasant opportunity to sit down for an interview with Motoko prior to the event, where we we talked about what channels and regions have got her jazzed at the moment, the best and worst of keyword translations, as well as personal and professional milestones. Read on for the full scoop.

| aimClear: You’ve been in the online marketing space for over a decade, helping companies leverage the Internet to tap into Far-East marketplaces. Could you share with us about how you became invested in this industry – what sorts of previous work led you to to what you do now?

Motoko Hunt: In the mid 90s, my husband started an eCommerce site, which I helped to localize for Japan and to market it with display ads and various Japanese web directories including Yahoo Japan. Japan was the second largest Internet market after the US. After the story of his business targeting overseas using Internet was featured in the Inc magazine, many companies contacted and asked us to help bringing their online businesses globally. I left my position at B2B/B2G agency, and created AJPR in 1998.

| aimClear: What’s your gut instinct (or expert opinion) on the rumored deal between Facebook and Baidu? Does Facebook have a place in the PRC’s social network landscape?

MH: Yes, I think it does have a place in PRC but only with the experience of a partner like Baidu.  Like most western companies, Facebook would have struggled to grow in China, even if there were no government restrictions. I think they’ll have a good chance of making it in China with Baidu’s help, assuming that Baidu actually incorporates Facebook services into their search and portal services. Facebook may use Baidu’s infrastructure to offer the ad services, which would create new opportunities for businesses.

| aimClear: Quick: What region and / or network (channel) are you most excited to market in at the moment, and why?

MH: Singapore, Indonesia and Philippines. These are open and increasingly important markets especially for B2B businesses in Asia. They all have an English language base, relatively well educated and good internet infrastructure that allows large percentages of the population to interact with them. They are all putting a lot of emphasis on foreign tourism which will expose western markets as well as locals to foreign cultures and products.

| aimClear: What are some of the funniest / worst / most bizarre keyword localizations or translations that you’ve come across in the field?

MH: It would be a site using a Japanese word for “able” as a translation for “(tin) can”. Sites with machine translated content are always fun to look at (and headache to work with.) I once saw a site with 90% translation mistakes. Automated translation tools are great, but you should always have it edited by a professional human translator.

| aimClear: The U.S. tends to lead by example with many of the “classic” marketing strategies and concepts. Have you encountered any marketing strategies or case studies in foreign countries that you think U.S./western marketers could learn from?

MH: Old habits are hard to break, and unfortunately, the “classic marketing” or “branding” strategies are on many people’s mind in Asia, too, even when it comes to the Internet marketing. However, some are integrating search, mobile and social marketing really well to bring huge success. When H&M opened its first store in Tokyo in 2008, they kicked-off the opening campaign just with a mobile site 2 months prior to the opening. As a result, they had 6000 people lined up at the store opening in September. It created a huge buzz online, which created tons of quality links to the newly opened PC site.

The use of mobile campaign site was a well thought out strategy targeting young adult female market in Japan. H&M didn’t have the brand awareness in Japan prior to the opening. It created the awareness in mass media by targeting their core market with added value (exclusive offers for VIP membership, etc.) without going mass marketing.

One of the biggest differences we see in Asia is advertising that is more about benefits and functionality for the user and less about the brand and being bigger, better and faster which is the norm in the US.

| aimClear: In March of 2009, you were honored for your hard work and dedication to the online marketing industry by receiving the first SEMPO President Award. Could you talk a bit about what that award meant to you?

MH: I believe in SEMPO as a great industry community that provides various information backed by the fact, educational opportunities and the place to network, which is in large operated and managed by the volunteers like me. This type of organization is desperately needed especially in the Asian market. It was a surprise to receive the award, and I was very honored by it. SEMPO gave me a place to give back to the community, and I’m not alone. On the SEMPO board of directors and in the APAC committee, I work with many dedicated search professionals from around the world. I believe the award was given to me to honor not just me but also the other members of the groups, and I share it with them.

| aimClear: On Day 2 of SES San Francisco, you’re set to take the stage and share tips on Getting Ready for Global Business. Care to share a sneak peek of what you’ll discuss during your presentation?

MH: In addition to the logistical and cultural issues when targeting Asian market and some of the information resources available in English, I plan to touch some of the common “I wish I thought it before the launch” issues and the success stories that relate to many sites regardless of the size.

| aimClear: Thanks for your time today, Motoko! See you at #SES SFO

Debra Mastaler

You’ll find Debra’s insight on link building showcased in guest columns across Search Engine Land, Search Engine Guide and Search Engine Journal, and on the stage at industry events a la Search Engine Strategies. aimClear had the pleasure to share a casual Q&A with Ms. Mastaler a month outside of #SES San Francisco, where she’ll take the stage to tour attendees through the basics of link building. Interview topics ranged from link building best practices (as well as no-nos) to the impact of social signals… even hypothetical Grim-Reaper-awesome-power-type situations. Read on for the full scoop.

| aimClear: Tell us a bit about how you got into the online marketing industry – and specifically, as deep as you are into link building.

Debra Mastaler: When I graduated from high school in 1976 the Internet was little more than a collection of wires between a group of colleges and the military. Even after I graduated from college in 1981 it was a long time before I heard the word “Internet” and understood what it meant. I came into the business without any web design or IT knowledge but with years of valuable corporate marketing and media relations experience. So while I didn’t know how to design a webpage or set up a redirect, I knew how to market both using the same techniques I had been using offline.

After college, I worked Civil Service for a number of years before taking a job in the marketing department of Anheuser-Busch. They are one of the most marketing savvy companies in the world, the experience and education I received in the 15 years I worked there was priceless.  After the birth of my second child in 1998, I decided to remain home with the kids and focused on learning how to navigate the Internet. One thing led to another and in 1999 I found myself owning and marketing a directory in the organic foods niche. When the directory started out-ranking some major green sites (like Mother Nature) I started getting emails from green business owners asking me to help them with their search engine results.  As I shared my methods, I learned I was practicing something called search engine optimization (SEO). I had never heard about it so I started doing research and one of the resources I found was Jill Whalen and Heather Lloyd-Martin’s newsletter “Rank Write“. The newsletter is gone now but that’s where I started learning about SEO, content and the importance of having something worth linking to.

I quickly realized there was an opportunity to develop my linking skills into a viable niche business so I went to work for Jill for a period of time as a way to gain link building experience on a wide variety of sites. In late 2001 I officially launched Alliance-Link and it’s been a joyride ever since.

In 2002 I attended my first SES in Dallas (this show was subsequently moved to Chicago) and in 2003 Danny Sullivan invited me to speak on the linking panel at SES San Jose. Here’s a photo of that panel, from left to right, Daniel Dulitz from Google (the original GoogleGuy), me, Danny at the podium and Greg Boser to his right. Eric Ward was also on the panel but unfortunately not in this shot.

When we’re all together we often joke about how long we’ve known each other and how things have changed; when we started Greg had hair, Eric’s didn’t have kids (he’s up to three now) and I was 25 pounds lighter.  It’s all good!

| aimClear: Well said! Speaking of present times… SEOmoz has observed correlations between social signals (e.g.: Facebook likes) and rankings. Bruce Clay says “likes are the new link” and Google just unrolled its +1 button. What’s your take on the importance of social signals, and have you incorporated these in a typical link building mix?

DM: Yes, I have incorporated social media into our basic and advanced linking campaigns and like Bruce and Rand, feel they have an influence in ranking and traffic streams. From a personal standpoint I’m not a fan of telling the world where I am (Foursquare) or sharing my family’s daily life (Facebook) and not because we’re boring and never go anywhere but because I find it intrusive and time consuming. However, professionally I can’t ignore the potential of these social media sites since millions and millions of people use them daily. How and to what extent are the challenges and I find we’re spending more and more time on certain sites looking for leads.

For example, the Networked Blog area on Facebook is a gold mine when searching for popular blogs. Working the food niche and want to find an influential blogger talking about cilantro? You’ll find one there with a built in following. How great is that? Once you find these hubs it’s only a matter of time before you can tap into their authority and build links.

| aimClear: Picture yourself as the Grim Reaper of bad link building. What’s one avoid-at-all-costs or just poorly understood link building tactic that you’d put out of its misery?

DM: I laughed at the vision that popped into my head after reading the phrase “grim reaper”. I look terrible in black so it wasn’t pretty! If I had to pull a Norman Bates on one tactic it would be automated reciprocal linking. Talk about a time and money suck for little to no return. Here’s why:

A.  No one likes getting those stupid, non-personalized, form letters that sound like they’ve been written by a third grader. (No offense to anyone’s child).

B.  No one likes getting an email from someone in an industry so far removed from yours and then hears it would be a good exchange. Really?

C.  No one needs a link sitting on a buried page or a non-indexed page.

D.  No one needs to have their website be one of 15,000 links on a page. There’s no algorithmic or branding benefit to being there.

E.  No one needs to go against Google and Bing’s terms of service by participating in excessive reciprocal linking.  The risk is not worth it since the tactical rewards never amount to much.

That said, swapping links with a couple of sites in your industry won’t hurt you and may be the only way to get a link on certain sites. But keep it to a very small number and only do it if you can control the anchor text, where the link sits and where it points on your site.

| aimClear: What the craziest link building scheme you’ve seen that actually worked? (One you can discuss… you know, legally.)

DM: Probably the “ kid steals credit card to buy s#x” link bait several years ago, it’s a classic case of viral media gone wild. No matter if you dis/liked the campaign or not, it got links, a ton of them.  I’ll also say this about successful link bait; good titles are the difference between success and failure. If you don’t have a decent title the piece won’t fly, period. There’s an article by Tucker Cummings that sums up the important points on this issue, she’s spot on with her recommendations.

| aimClear: Fun Fact #235: The Linkspiel was required daily reading for employees in the early years of aimClear. What are some of your favorite ways to train, learn, discover new tactics, and keep up with the latest industry news?

DM: Only in the early years? Ouch! Well I probably deserve that, I don’t get to spend as much time on my little blog like I used to, it’s one of the drawbacks of being a small shop, wearing too many hats, and spending copious amounts of time online looking for sources. On average, I spend six hours a day surfing the web reviewing new sources to add to our databases or use in ongoing campaigns. Over the years we’ve amassed a huge database of sites who have shown they’ll share content; maintaining it and keeping that resource fresh is a lot of work. If I didn’t have multiple alert systems in place (like Google Alerts and Watch That Page), I couldn’t survive. I cull sites in lieu of building networks like a lot of my colleagues; I don’t want more sites to maintain so I need to keep fresh sources coming instead.

For SEO industry news (as in breaking news and information I may not know about) I read Search Engine Land every day, Barry’s SearchCap, Search Engine Watch, SEOByTheSea and Hacker News. (Disclaimer, I am a columnist for SEL). With the exception of SEOByTheSea, I view these sources as online newspapers and often get my first whiff of a new service or issue from them. I included SEOByTheSea because Bill always writes about new patents or papers popping up within a day or two of their launch.

To keep up with insider talk I head to the SEOBook Forum (disclaimer, I am an Admin there), SEODojo, and Webmaster World. And like I said earlier, I set my alerts for key people and terms so I can read and keep up. Truth be told, my IM is faster than anything, it hums all day and keeps me close to people.  :)

| aimClear: On Day 2 of SES San Francisco, you’ll kick off the morning with a solo presentation on the Basics of Link Building. How do you like to jazz up beginners to this facet of optimization? What words of Zen wisdom would you leave with new/young link builders as they begin their journey?

DM: I love doing this session and deliver it classroom style. I break it into four sections, each ties into the next so in the end, the attendee understands the concept of link popularity and how to use it. We also cover link tools, what to avoid and link building tactics. The latter makes up the largest portion of the session, I go over the basics but also kick-it up a notch and cover content, media and technical tactics I use with success.When you leave my session, you’ll have a linking primer you can take home and use the next day. The session is only an hour long with tons of material to cover so I tend to speak quickly,  if I can’t cover something in detail I provide links so you can review later. You won’t go home empty handed so come prepared to write fast and listen hard!

About the Zen words of wisdom……if I had to leave you with some it would be these two points:

All links, provided they work, are good links and work toward building your link popularity. Link popularity is not PageRank, it’s a far bigger application with more working parts than just quality factors so don’t ignore a possible link opportunity because they sport a low meter of green. And…

There is no such thing as advanced link building. Why  Because it’s not about the link and never has been, it’s all about the page it sits on. There are tactics using spiffy tools which people equate with being “advanced” but those tools are about finding pages and opportunities to link with, not creating some advanced technique. Anchor text has to sit on an indexed page before it will work, sitting on relevant, quality pages makes it work all the better. Before anything can happen, you need to find the pages.

The next time you’re at a show and someone complains they’re not hearing the “secret” or “advanced” techniques, nod your head and agree. And then smile inside and know you have the real secret; it’s not about the how, it’s all about the “where”. See you at SES San Francisco!

| aimClear: Wow, I feel so enlightened! Words of Zen indeed. Thanks for your time today, Debra. Safe travels

You’ve seen her speak about search PPC at mainstream conferences where, instead of creating dense PowerPoint decks, she’s more likely to  leverage Nerf balls and dart gun toys to get her point across. But don’t take this congenial young-as-she-looks lady in blue jeans for anything less than the very embodiment of next gen’ marketing meets high finance, in the vernacular.

Recently we had the opportunity to ask Addie a few questions, as she prepared to appear at SMX Advanced, Seattle next week. On Day 2 (June 8), Addie will take the stage on the Facebook Ads, Meet Search Ads session, at 10:30 am PST, along with aimClear’s Marty Weintraub. Read on for the fruits of our candid Q&A.

| aimClear: Your reputation as a shrewd, nearly devilish, AdWords, Yahoo, & Bing PPC technical genius precedes you. What’s most exciting about the intersection of Facebook Ads targeting, technical, & creative?

Addie Conner: Facebook ads are just so much more fun. Whereas in search you just have three ad elements and the engine’s algorithms to deal with, on Facebook there are tons of added variables to play with and learn from. Facebook isn’t just an acquisition platform; it’s a place to research and discover learnings about your audience while at the same time acquiring a base of users. Clicks aren’t one and done, they’re just the beginning. That’s kind of how I feel everyday. We are just scratching the surface of the platform and it’s exciting to be part of the innovation.

| aimClear: What is your educational background, and the top characteristics you look for in marketers you would hire and train?

AC: I was an economic major and I use it everyday. Economics is the study of how users make choices, which is exactly what I always work to understand within any advertising campaign. Admittedly, I’m partial to econ majors (I just hired three starting this month). What I really look for is balance of quantitative and qualitative.  Sometimes you can achieve that balance across people within a team; other times, people themselves have that balance. My favorite people are 70/30 quantitative to qualitative – basically a creative, rational problem solver. I think I’m more like an 80/20.

| aimClear: Who are the top 3 marketers you look up to, and why?

AC: I think Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and Charlie Sheen have all run brilliantly entertaining advertising campaigns lately.

| aimClear: Touché! In the years you spent at your previous gig (Course Advisor/Avenue 100), you helped build some of the edgiest PPC API tools on earth, which were deadly and proprietary. Now you’ve done it again with FB Ads for SocialCode, the new advertising agency you helped build as a new subsidiary of The Washington Post. What advice would you give fledgling tool makers, who have enough volume to justify the investment of building an in-house single platform management tool? What’s the secret? How do you bootstrap it and when is the obvious time to start spending more money on building out the tool?

AC: I always feel inferior that I’m unable to build tools, I can only just think of them. But that’s my role. At CourseAdvisor/Avenue100 I was lucky to join an extremely talented team that had already built some great tools to expand upon and hone. Coming from an SEM company that had problems on the tool building front, it was an amazing change in environment. Anything I was able to think of, our engineering team could execute. It was a privilege that doesn’t exist in most places and allowed me to progress in my own thinking and understanding.

At SocialCode, I’ve gotten to start from scratch, which has been something I’ve wanted to do. Building a tool for Facebook right now needs to strike the right balance of nimble and scalable due to the constant changes on the platform. I’m a skunkworks team type and like going fast, which Facebook innovation supports.

In terms of advice, go after the lowest hanging fruit first, i.e. don’t waste valuable time on something like a complex bidding algorithm up front. Start rules based. Automate tedious workflows. Work on collecting data to inform what and how to build. Experiment a lot manually and see what sticks. You can get far with some basic but custom automation and then do significant amounts of R&D prior to building something complicated within a tool set. Once you know you have something that’s proven and scalable, it’s time to build it.

| aimClear: Sage insight. Now, onto the real scoop. What’s your favorite city, food, wine, natural location? Are you a dog or a cat person? Pictures, please!

AC: This is five questions in one! City: San Francisco. Food: Sushi at Yasuda’s in NYC. Wine: Just had an Archery Summit Pinot Noir from Oregon that was pretty awesome. Natural location: Alta, UT if you are making me choose one. I’m a dog person, big dogs though. If they let you have big cats, like full grown leopards, I might be a cat person.

| aimClear: You’re speaking my language. Especially in the dog department– go big or go home. So, you’re speaking with Marty at SMX Advanced, Seattle, June 8th, on the Facebook Ads, Meet Search Ads panel. Care to share a preview of what you’re going to discuss?

AC: First of all, I think this is the first time, after all these years, that Marty and I are actually on a panel together. I’m quite excited. Marty will probably have 100 slides, I’ll have like 10. Since I don’t do search anymore, I won’t be looking at interactions. That I know. I plan on comparing and contrasting Facebook and search in hopefully an interesting and thoughtful way. I have no idea what the audience will be like, so we will see how it goes. At least Marty will like it .

| aimClear: Right on . Thanks for your time today, Addie. See you in Seattle!

Heading to SMX Advanced? There’s still time to register for our full-day Facebook Marketing Intensive workshop! Get the low-down on workshop registration straight from SMX.