So what did I hope to take away from the conferences?
From Friday’s SEOrestart, I was expecting a bit of inspiration and
an outline of new trends in online marketing. On the other hand, I
headed to BarCamp expecting to hear many interesting marketing examples and
to be able to take the best from them and draw inspiration for our future
projects.
So what did I think of it?
First of all, I must take my hat off to the organisers of both
events; everything ran exactly as it should. From the flow of information to
the attendees, through the excellent refreshments (I certainly felt the effects of that on Sunday
while out for a run :))
right down to the lecture schedule. During the breaks, it was always possible to chat
with the speakers and get further information.
And now straight to the point. I’ll start with SEOrestart
If I’d written about SEOrestart the very next day, I’d probably have been
more critical, but as the information has settled in and I’m now rereading my
brief notes, I realise that some interesting and inspiring
ideas were put forward.
Both Honza Tichý with his “World Without Search Engines”, Zdeněk
Dvořák with his new-age link builder, and Martin Matějka with his clever
linkbaiting made me think about things a bit differently. Martin showed,
in fact, that we must above all think. And go to the pub more often. 🙂
It was mentioned several times how important it is to know your
target audience, to understand how they think, and what emotions they respond to most.
This sparked a debate over whether it is better to “teach a baker online
marketing, or a marketer to bake”. The majority opinion was to train internal
staff in the secrets of online marketing, with the marketing specialist acting
as a consultant and trainer.
The talk by Štěpán Škrob, product manager at Seznam,
was the most technical and the most entertaining. I took away from it, with a touch of hyperbole,
two things – that everything is simple, and the confirmation that websites should be made for
people and not search engine bots.
To conclude, Marek Prokop put forward a few ideas, and we were able to
debate them in depth at the after-party.
4.45 wake-up call and off to Brno
BarCamp got off to a slow start; apart from getting to know
my neighbours, the opening talks gave me virtually nothing. Unfortunately, I realised I hadn’t chosen
the best ones. Afterwards, as an online ‘marketer’, I went to listen to
a talk on app testing, and I can definitely recommend attending presentations
slightly outside your field. It gives you a different perspective on things, and I think it can only help.
After lunch – Mára really enjoyed it – Jindra F. and I
went to hear why you shouldn’t set up small e-shops. We agreed that
the takeaway for us was not to set up e-shops, as I know nothing about business, marketing and
commerce. This was followed by an engaging talk by Roman Hřebecký; I definitely recommend
going to hear him speak sometime, which only confirmed Friday’s idea that
a marketer should primarily be in the role of an external consultant and, above all,
show the company the way forward.
And the best for last. During Michal Janík’s talk, I
jotted down a few ideas for our websites and found inspiration for further
marketing steps.
A final word
In the end, I was very glad I attended both events; I enjoyed both
days. And that’s despite the fact that my expectations, perhaps at times exaggerated or
misplaced, weren’t met 100%. For example, at BarCamp I would have welcomed longer
discussions at the expense of the speakers’ talks; most of the most interesting information
came right at the end of each presentation.
You can read a summary of SEOrestart itself in the next article by my colleague Michal.