[Photo Caption: At the end of his opening-day Keynote, David Meerman Scott bows to his appreciative audience at SES-NY.]

Search Engine Strategies 2010 Conference & Expo New York (SES-NY) is the premier trade event hereabouts for “search.” Search is the umbrella term of art for managing and making use of the digitized knowledge-base of our modern world on the Internet.

Now, why should you—Brooklyn Small Business—care about the arcana of search, search engines, search engine marketing, search ad infinitum?

Here's why: since Google started to dominate search ten or so years ago, search has become the way most folks launch their online interactions.

Even if the browsee knows the URL: s/he will most likely google it and link from the search results. Want your site to be found—by your would-be target!—among millions of sites and trillions of pages? Show up in the first six citations of the first page—that’s “above the fold” on most screens— of Google's delivered search results. It’s as simple—or complex—as that!

Be found or get drowned—in the high and rising seas of online info.

Now, recent stats (I garnered at last week’s Small Business Summit in Downtown Manhattan) project that only 56% of all small businesses have Web sites.

Of course, you can’t play the online branding and marketing game without an online presence. (To say nothing of participating in eCommerce, etc.) And, Brooklyn Small Business, a Web site is THE key to unlock your ICT (Information & Communication Technology) empowerment. Your site is now your substrate for some much else commercial. Still, you should always design and implement your Web site to take advantage of search systems and the techniques to max your positive profile with the “engines.”

OK, OK. The NEW truth is that NOW you MIGHT very well ignore this traditional “Get Thee A Web Site!” injunction—IF you swap out your site for your proactive use of Social Media. Depending on your audience, a “presence” on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Digg and Flickr will probably do as much or more for your online promotion—and profitability—as a Web site.

Of course, the integration of BOTH site and SocMeds is the sweet spot.

(Hey, SocMeds aren’t doing eCommerce just yet—but wait a few minutes…)

So, despite the phrase “Search Engine” in the SES-NY title, the event is evolving perforce. The online cognoscenti and thought leaders are moving to trust their “crowd”—however defined—more and Google less more. Thus, even the premier SE has to start rethinking its Googlian business model. (“Searching” Facebook being one of those “rethinks.”)

Enthusiastic SocMed adopters are morphing the famous Google Algorhythm: now it’s I’ll-Go-To-Them. Why should I trust an opaque robotic system residing across distant server farms when I can put my faith in transparent flesh-and-blood friends in the close-at-hand aggregate?! Forget the Cloud; I want the Crowd...

One of the problems of “niches to riches” is that over time your niche can move, disappear or broaden to useless generalities. This is a universal problem of dynamic business environments. Because our biz milieus are now totally ICT modulated, that dynamism has become dizzy-making—for Google, your small business AND the promoters of SES events.

SES owns a brand name that now constrains. Online Presence & Promotion “Strategies” is now closer to the real mark—how do you like OPPS-NY? Since “opps” is colloquial for opportunities, that delivers a nice resonance (inside a big tent)…

SES-NY kicked-off yesterday with the key Keynote by David Meerman Scott. Keynotes are just that: key notes. If you attend nothing else, the primary keynote should be it. Chosen effectively, it’s usually the zeitgeist of the show, the social spirit of the conference.

Funny enough, I met Incognito (to me!) David informally when I sat down next to him in the front row just moments before his Keynote gig.

(Always sit in the front row. That way the crumbs of wisdom brushed from the banquet of knowledge will fall in your lap. The clubhouse of the cognoscenti is up front. You’ll also have your Q&A query ready. {You always do, don’t you?} From the first row, you can pay rapt attention to the close-range speaker. Then, it’s easier to get chosen as the first questioner...analogous to first in the market.)

David Meerman Scott and I joked about the quality of the warm-up jokes told by David’s introducer. We smiled over my Press Goodie Bag offering up a spiral-bound, SES-embossed, paper-filled notebook. This very-analog device was presumably for the story notes I was to scribble with the pencil stub I keep parked behind my ear. I could rest this lovely notebook perfectly on my lap…if I closed my 13” MacBook Pro and used it as a handy desk.

David Meerman Scott is author of the best-selling book The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How To Use News Releases, Blogs, Viral Marketing And Online Media To Reach Buyers Direct. And, his newest: World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories.

I now own an autographed copy of this latter, compliments of PR Web. And, thank you, Guru DMS. I look forward to learning still more from you!

These books place David in the school of Contrarian Gurus. (An oxymoron? Perhaps all gurus must be disruptors to reach popular apotheosis...??)

During his Keynote, Mr. Scott tweaked the typical SE marketing sensibilities of commercial high and low alike. Here are some of his provocative concepts—I captured realtime as they slapped my sensibilities with their thwacking validity—delivered from his stage-striding presentation. (In follow-on parens, find my own “takes” on each of his quotes:)

>>> “Video is the new frontier.” DMS (And, I’ll state that the smartphone is the Colt .45: every denizen of this brave and bi-directional frontier is packing one… LG)

>>> “The trustworthy tweet becomes the Social Authority.” DMS (At least I think David said this! If not, then I was just channeling his ideas and adding my extensions in my realtime notes!! AND, your job is to influence that Authority by being scrupulously trustworthy. LG)

>>> “We’re about attention.” DMS (And, we garner that attention best by selfless wit, free value-adds and content gifts. LG)

>>> “Blog the story.” DMS (Because humans are genetically predisposed to tell stories and listen to storytellers: story lines have hooks that pierce the emotions and reel in attention; see above. LG)

>>> “On the Web, you are what you publish.” DMS (And, what you publish should be closer to wisdom than raw data: curate, curate, curate! LG)

>>> “Now, you must earn your attention.” DMS (Okay! Attention is a by-product of value-adding: don't strive for notice demanded, strive for knowledge delivered. LG)

>>> “Fear prevents our adoption of the new rules of PR and marketing.” DMS (The antidote to New Promo Phobia {NPP} is counter-intuitive: treat your fear to fearing your worst with the bravado of "homeopathic" testing. You've less chance of losing by trying the new than sticking with the old. Untreated, NPP will kill you—and your business—with the deadly disease of boredom. Nothing fails like dated marketing and/or the out-moded technologies that are driving it… LG)

So, Brooklyn Small Business owner, you DO need to pay attention to Online Presence & Promotion Strategies—yes, I’m back to OPPS...as in your OPPortunitieS.

As I continue to proclaim to all who’ll listen: ICT IS your solution, NOT your problem. Opportunities abound in the Web world—with your assimilation of appropriate OPPS.

Mr. or Ms. Brooklyln Small Biz, can’t carve out time for trade shows like SES-NY? Then, grab one of the germane info distillations to consume on your own time—perhaps by buying a why-to/how-to. Like one of David Meerman Scott’s latest books. (I list two above.) Go for OPPS!

C’mon Back!

LAND