Back from Blogger Connect and Inman Connect (aka #ICNY). Too much stuff to download in just one post but suffice it to say that Ted, Andy and I had a great time.

One of the consistent themes that I heard throughout the conference was an increased focus on visitor engagement. Right from Jeff Turner’s opening on Wednesday through to the end.

Basically, we often tend to focus on metrics like the number of unique visitors and so on when what we should look at, more often, are measures of engagement. Are people using/liking/spreading our content? Are they coming back for it? Are there some tools that are particularly effective at promoting visitor engagement (answer: yep and most of them fall into the social media category).

I’ll get a post up soon that has my presentation slide deck and narrative, for those who were unable to attend. Meanwhile, check out the social media dashboard for the Twitter feed, blog post recaps and flickr/video streams of Inman Connect New York.

Image by wallyg via Flickr

I’m back from vacation and I’ve built a social media dashboard for all of you going to Real Estate Connect in New York City this week. You can find it here:

Real Estate Connect Social Media Dashboard

It’s set up to gather images, video, twitter posts, blog posts and all sorts of stuff that are tagged with ICNY09 or #ICNY09. So if you’re at the event, tag some of your thoughts, or where the good parties are.

Also if you’re at the event, come ask me questions at the Blogger Connect event (I’ll be presenting the listening to your audience section) or at the Down and Dirty Analytics panel on Thursday. Or even just grab me in the hall and see if I can help you out with your web marketing strategy, site analytics or whatever.

Image by alliance1911 via Flickr

[Update: link to the dashboard itself is fixed. Click here to just go look at the dashboard.]

As mentioned earlier, I’ll be on a panel at the Vermont 3.0 Creative/Tech Jam on Oct 25th at Champlain College here in Burlington, VT. I’m really psyched to be up there with David Gibson from Propeller Media Works and Frank Canovatchel (who, it turns out, was an advisor to USM developer Scott Nellé). Our topic is about building websites and I’m sure between the three of us we’ll be able to handle most any question that comes up. Read a little more about the conference and my fancy conference dashboard after the jump.

So… uh… 3.0?

Yeah, so the whole Web 2.0 thing is old as dirt and probably not helpful. And I won’t claim to have any special understanding into why this conference is called Vermont 3.0 but my guess is that it is tongue-in-cheek. What I do know is that everyone had a blast last year. And it was a great time for tech/geek pros to hang out, jobseekers of all ages to see what sort of tech and creative jobs were available in the Green Mountain State and for connections to be made. If you want some serious thinking about a “web 3.0″ you’ll have to read cleverer minds than mine.

Conference Dashboard?

I got this idea from Chris Brogan who got it from Christopher Penn. Chris P. started out with a sort of mashed together dashboard in iGoogle to help him monitor social media, competitors etc for his business. Basically just take some feeds that are relevant to your business (some news, maybe some Twitter search feeds, etc) and put them on your iGoogle page. Pretty straight forward and smart.

Then Chris B. the idea to make his own personal dashboard for conferences he’s attending. He’s got maps and weather and all the things Chris P. had but with a focus on an event not a topic.

Now I’m hacking that idea to make it open and public. So we have the event feed items, plus the public discourse feeds and user generated content feeds. And then I’m just making it for the purpose of being a public, semi-curated space for gathering all content that is created around the tech jam.

As we all know, what happens in the hallways is often as or more valuable than what happens in the workshops and panels. By making it public and known to people, the intention is for participants to self-organize around the event and those who can’t make it to the Vermont 3.0 Creative/Tech Jam can find a one-stop spot for getting a feel for it.

Take a look at the Vermont 3.0 Creative/Tech Jam Dashboard.

Making the Vermont 3.0 Creative/Tech Jam Dashboard

I chose Netvibes as my platform. Not for any particular reason. I don’t have a ton of experience in any of these personal start page services so I think I just went with Netvibes because I liked the layout. While making the dashboard I encountered a significant challenge:

There are tons of widgets for adding content, but they are horribly organized. Want to find a Twitter feed search tool so you can just show Tweets that are hashtagged for your conference? Try wading through the 1000 or so Twitter widgets, 10 at a time all named more or less the same thing, half of which work. Want a map for the event location? Again, four or five which are all named about the same and not all of them work.

I have a feeling the entire “app” and “widget” space is due for a significant UI overhaul because I have the same feeling when I’m getting apps for my iPod Touch (I am, in VT after all and we’re still iPhone-less). To make things simpler for next time here are the Netvibes widgets I used:

• Twitter Search (search for “twitter” when making your page… I couldn’t find a reference to this from the Netvibes blog. I used this
• The generic Feed widget. I used this to handle the blog search (for “Vermont 3.0″) and the blog feed of the official conference site.
• The HTML “essential” widget for the logo and link to the official site.
• The Weather “essential” widget to give the weather for the conference town.
• The Maps Search (you’ll have to search again to find it) to give the location of the event. I found the Yahoo Maps to look nicer than the Google one so that’s how I defaulted it.
• Then there was the media column with Flickr and Video search. Right now the Flickr is just set for VT until I can take some photos and tag them vt3 or something so there can be more specific images.

When you’re configuring your widgets, make sure there is a “save last search” checkbox and that you check it. Otherwise you’ll spend a bunch of time configuring your widgets only to have them default back to searching for something you don’t want.

As a first attempt at this, it’s a little bit of a mess. But I think it should work out alright. Anyone else doing this? Got some tips for using these dashboards?

In true Union Street Media form, Jonny gets down to business and gives you a clear task and takeaway to get you rolling with Facebook. Complete with an example.

Maybe we should get Jonny to write more here on the blog, eh?

A bunch of other folks from the convention also talk about how they use social media. Twitter gets props, ActiveRain, Trulia etc all get some props and ideas of how people are using the tools.

Video after the jump.

Facebook is a great way to stay in the peripheral vision of your customers

And yes, in case you’re curious, Jonny is a dreamer, but his heart’s of gold.

And if you’re in Mass. then go hang out with Jonny at the Massachusetts Association of Realtors conference.

I’m sure that either of them would love to talk about Union Street’s real estate web design, baseball or both.

Union Street Media will be at the Northeast Real Estate Conference and Expo this week. It will be a good chance for existing clients to hear from Ted and Jonny about our new initiatives in real estate internet marketing, improvements to our software and just to chat. And if you aren’t a client of ours yet, maybe we can help answer any questions you might have.

Here are the details: Sheraton Hotel & Conference Center in Burlington, Vermont on September 10-12, 2008 and a little more information is available via a PDF at the Vermont Association of Real Estate website.

Stop by booth 24.

First up, I want to note off the bat that I’m wholesale adapting this article about getting extreme value from trade shows. Leave it to the metric-heads at e-metrics to come up with this sort of thing. So go read the source if you want more. Alright, down to business.

Before you get to the conference

You need to be absolutely certain you know why you are going to the conference or trade show. Just going to hang out or because you think you’ll hear something good. The more vague you are about your objectives, the more vague will be your results. Maybe you’re going to the show in order to learn something critical to your business success, maybe you’re going to pitch prospective clients, maybe you’re going to raise your profile in the industry. All of those would require some planning ahead. Let’s do some simple planning ahead:

1. Identify 3 outcomes you want from the conference. These outcomes should be clear, specific and measurable. The more detail the better (who, what, when, where). Bonus points if you use S.M.A.R.T. goals.
2. Write down your goals. You should write them in the past tense, as if they have already happened. You write them down this way so that you will know when you’ve achieved your outcome: when the statement is true, you have accomplished your goal.
3. Determine a method to measure progress. This is a nice place to put numbers, but it’s also a good place to break down your larger goal into specific phases.
4. Put copies of your 3 outcomes in the pockets of all the clothing you will wear at the event.

At the trade show or conference

Alright, you’re there listening to awesome speakers, excellent panelists and hanging out in the hallways. Your three outcomes are burning a hole in your pocket. Time for some action:

• Identify which speakers and sessions are most likely to attract people who can help your achieve your goals. Let that help you determine which sessions you attend.
• Early in any conversation, ask the other person what they’re most hoping to get out of the conference. If you can help them achieve what they’re after then do so.
• Chances are good they’ll ask you what you’re hoping to get out of the conference or what you’re enjoying most. This is a good time to let them know about some of your goals. Maybe they can help you out.

Bonus Round: Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell, does a great Q&A with herself about how to network. This includes some great tactics on when/how to approach speakers after a presentation. Chris Brogan provides a list of links to articles about making your conference experience great (scroll down).

After the show

Remember all that measurability you put in your outcomes? Start using it. Did you meet enough people? Initiate enough sales conversations? Help enough people? Did you let enough people help you?

I hope this is helpful and not too basic. How do you get the most out of a conference?

It involves using Twitter. But luckily you can find all the great Twitter resources you can handle over in the sideabar.

If you’re a realtor and are interested in building a strong brand through excellent customer service read John Keith’s Boston Real Estate Blog: “Survey: Most consumers don’t understand foreclosure”.

One resulting inspiration was the Real Estate Internet Marketing Map that I sketched at the conference, and then gussied up once home.
After all was said and done, among the trends this year were video, of course, as well as “instant” response to customer inquiries. We added a plugoo chat widget on our site last night – if you come by, say hello. I do think we will see many more agents and offices implementing some kind of basic IM/live chat into their sites, and it’s something that we are beginning to recommend to our clients as something to strongly consider.

Also, we were intrigued by the inexpensive Flip video camera and will probably pick a couple up to start playing with.

It will be interesting to see how realtors and others use the social networking space in the coming year. Like blogging, this can be a good passive channel for attracting customers. However, we are seeing more and more active types of marketing on Facebook, like groups, fan pages, and of course, ads. At the San Francisco Connect in August you couldn’t go through a whole panel without someone saying ActiveRain at least once. By contrast you didn’t hear this as much at the NY Connect. Nevertheless, the ActiveRain community is still a great place to spend some time online.