I suppose this post is a little less than timely… but I wanted to get it up anyway.

We (SEMpdx) were honored to have Vanessa Fox come down and give a great presentation on “Navigating Social Search”. If you aren’t familiar with Vanessa, she used to work at Google, but now she is features editor at Search Engine Land and a moderator at Sphinn.

Vanessa touched on a few key things – my two favorite takeaways:

1. The basics haven’t changed – knowing your keywords, creating compelling & relevant content, titles/headlines etc are all important for social search as well
2. To execute well, you need to get involved in your community. Be active, useful and authentic.

For more, check out Todd’s post on the SEMpdx blog, and you should also check out Syzlak‘s reviewIn addition to planning, coordinating and running this Hot Seat event – I also participated on the ‘Hot Seat’ panel. That combination makes for a long day.

We reviewed 3 different Web sites:

• DonateLifeNW.org – Oregon Organ Donor Program (say that fast 3 times)
• BanksLawOffice.com – Investment Fraud Attorney
  
• CathedralRidgeWinery.com – Hood River, Oregon Winery

My parting thought – why oh why did we book this on the same night as the BCS championship game? Remember to check the football schedule next time around…