#BrightonSEO in Bullet Points

I attended our first Brighton SEO and can say that Kelvin really does organise a great event. As a one day event with over 1,500 attendees, it was great to see such a range of topics covered from various key people in online and advertising.

Here are some selective notes I wanted to share in bulletpoint form:

Keynote – Dave Trott on “Predatory Thinking”

Smart thinking: http://t.co/gYNZVLk4

— dave trott (@davetrott) September 15, 2012

• Whatever you do, stand out
• Predatory thinking are principles on how to kill the competition
• Form follows function
  • First is form. Start with reason and justify it
  • Function is the application of the form
• Separate yourself from your own thinking
• Viral is all about the punter. “Viral” was before youtube, internet and radio. Word of mouth is virality.
• Conversation has 3 elements
  1. Impact
  2. Communication
  3. Persuasion
• Complication is weakness, simplicity is strength
• Einstein quoted something that is still relevant today: “if you cant explain to 11yr old you dont understand it”
• You must adopt a language for your clients and another language for punters.
• More time needed on the “impact” part of a great conversation. 90% fails by spending too much on “persuasion”. If you don’t get seen then nothing else will work.
• Selective persuasion is a great tool. For example, if you are thinking of buying a new car, you will suddenly see them everywhere on the road.
• Direct Line has an advertising budget of £83m pa. How can you stand out against that if you only have £5m?
  • Opinion formers want to stand out. They’re usually the centre of a conversation.
  • Opinion followers are most people. Like to listen to the opinion former.
• The trick is to create something an opinion former will acknowledge and later speak about. So, how do you get an opinion former’s attention? You have got to be different. It’s a risk but if you stand out you;ll win.
• Predatory thinking is applied creativity
  • Adverts about drink driving ads are a good example. Targeting the drunk person didn’t work so instead ads were targeted at the sober person with the message “if you’re a real friend you won’t let your friend drive drunk”. This was much more effective.
• Go upstream to do what you need

Steph Troeth on User Experience

• What makes a great unique product?
• Brand can describe product – such as exotic, reliable, fun etc
• Add geek factor to your products
• Think of different uses for your products
• How do we want people to experience us? Create a two column table – “emotion” and “rational”
• Stephanie Hay once spoke about designing for content. Create a message hierarchy
  • Message for users
  • Associated business purpose
  • Underlying Business outcome

Martin Belam: “How to Make Friends and Influence Robots”

https://twitter.com/currybet/status/246586163278794755