Share15 Recap: Learning, Networking and Excitement Drive the Day
From Tuesday’s exhilarating opening keynote to the interactive acrobatics at Tuesday night’s Elevation Celebration, Share15’s first full day was a fantastic start.
We spent the day surrounded by some of the best and brightest minds in the industry, sharing best practices, challenges, successes and all things digital marketing. In particular, attendees have had the chance to dig into content performance marketing strategies with today’s leading brands, learning how to reach the right audiences at the right time. 
This year, our speakers represent even more top brands, including experts from The Home Depot, Salesforce, Google and Motorola. Starting off with several engaging labs, the day continued with sessions including an exploration into content demand with The Home Depot, Cabela’s and WPromote, as well as an insightful session on scaling content with CareerBuilder, Maxim Integrated, and House of Fraser.
In addition to all the great content coming out of yesterday’s sessions, we announced several new exciting solutions, including Content Atlas and BrightEdge Content, a pair of technologies that allow marketing leaders and practitioners to understand the impact of their content to the bottom line, identify opportunities in their existing content, and maximize the performance of their digital content.
We also announced Enterprise Edition, an enhanced version of our platform designed specifically to help large, sophisticated enterprise organizations run their marketing by the numbers. We saw some exciting news coverage of the announcements as well, including a piece in SiliconANGLE and Demand Gen Report, among others.
Finally, we loved interacting with everyone over social throughout the day. Everyone following along with #Share15 on Twitter was treated to a stream of expert insights, thoughtful questions, and humor (one of our favorites was when speaker Jennifer Day from Tableau Software sparked a mini-trending moment when she introduced herself as “DemandJen!”).
We’re loving Share so far and are excited to see what the rest of the day brings. Below, check out some of the excellent content that came out of Tuesday’s sessions.
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing requires understanding how the different online pieces fit together. You must know how to leverage everything from email to earned media, and it can be a labyrinth. Those who wanted to learn about digital marketing today were able to dive into the following hot topics:
Paid, Owned & Earned Digital Marketing
Presenters: Cindy Phan, the Senior Manager of Digital Marketing Strategy for VMware Charmaine Madamba, the Senior Search Marketing Manager for Citrix Michael Thomas, the Chief Marketing Officer for Noble Studios and Alex Edlund, Global Director of Search Marketing for Marriott
These presenters gave an excellent, in-depth look at how paid, owned and earned media come together to form a cohesive strategy. Numerous case studies and real-world examples helped to demonstrate how the three influence each other, major touch points and how they need to work together.
Email & Marketing Automation
Presenters: Dave Lawson, Director of Solution Consulting for IgnitionOne Tyler Altrup, Senior Consultant for Oracle/Eloqua Rodrigo Fuentes, CEO of Listenloop
These three presenters dove into the role of email in automation and behavioral marketing. Marketing automation delivers the personalized experience that consumers crave, so these presentations helped attendees really see how they can start to implement the latest techniques into their own procedures.
Channel Marketing - Digital Marketing Mix
Presenters: John Hensel, Associate Manager for Best Buy Jennifer Day, Senior Director of Demand Generation for Tableau Ujjwal Bhattarai, Senior Search Manager for Brady Corp
Digital marketers were treated to a close look at how marketers can leverage cross-channel best practices, including how to measure their progress and understand on and offline revenue attribution. #demandJen from Tableau talked about best practices for data visualization and reporting.
Content Marketing
Content marketers know that the value of high-quality content continues to rise, thanks in no small part to increased competition as well as Google updates that have focused on weeding out low-quality sites. The content marketing sessions focused on helping marketers integrate valuable content production into their processes and how to make sure that content attracts the attention for which it was designed.
Demand for Content: People, Personas & Intent
Presenters: Erin Everhart, Content Marketing Director for Home Depot Jesse Farley, SEO and Content Manager for Cabela’s Michael Mothner, Founder and CEO of WPromote
Attendees were able to examine case studies and see the true impact of creating a customer-centric approach to content. The topics covered how to plan content and create material that brings in customers and encourages them to convert.
Content Marketing Models: Content Mix
Presenters: Natasha Persad, Digital Marketing Manager for Prophix Kent Yunk, Owner and Consultant for Roaring Pajamas Whitney Parker, Director of Global Digital Marketing for Kroll
Building content is one thing, but for it to provide value to the brand, it has to have a strong ROI. These presentations dove into how to measure the impact of contact, predict opportunities and build revenue through content.
Scaling Content: Production, Process & Culture
Presenters: Kelvin Lee, Senior Content Manager for Financial Institution from Australia Robert Reneau, Director of Digital for Maxim Integrated Allison Fabella, Director of Global SEO for CareerBuilder Jamie Peach, Director of Global SEO for House of Fraser
As brands grow and respond to customer demand, they must be able to scale their content to meet their needs. These presenters have experience with large brands that must scale their content efficiently. Attendees gained valuable insights about the art of repurposing content and how to use organizational collaboration to accomplish these goals, including how to scale content for ecommerce.
Search
Getting to the top of Google SERPs can dramatically increase traffic, conversions and profit. Google’s algorithm has become increasingly complex over the years, however, as the developers have sought to better understand website value and user intent. This has left site owners struggling to keep up. Fortunately, our Share sessions have been designed to close that gap.
Mobile Friendly Momentum - Multi-Device Type Optimization & Measurement
Presenters: Sean Kainec, Senior Manager of SEO for the Home Depot Denis Scott, Senior Director of Acquisition for OpenTable Dave Lloyd, Senior Manager of Global Search for Adobe
It has been made clear that for businesses to succeed, they need to be mobile-friendly. These presenters explored the main aspects of a successful mobile campaign, including how to determine the right approach and measure progress. Even optimizing in an app store to attract more attention was covered.
Beyond the Algorithm - Advanced SEO & Technical Trajectory
Presenters: Jacqueline Urick, Enterprise eCommerce Manager for Sears PartsDirect Binti Pawa, Head of SEO for Time, Inc Dawna Olsen, Senior Director of Corporate Marketing for Epicor Adam Audette, SVP Organic Search for Merkle
These presentations examined the importance of site structure and how to handle global site changes. It examines the technical aspects of SEO and how they should be working alongside content efforts to maximize search.
Breaking Borders
Presenters: Marco Musijsert, Global Search Lead for Philips David Fisher, Head of Global Search for Schneider Electronics BeFound Online & Motorola, Steve Krull (CEO Befound), Michael Velasco (Director of Brand and Digital Experience, Motorola), and Bob Dearsley (Chief Executive, B2B Marketing Labs) Melissa Walner, Director of Global SEO for Hilton
As brands and online marketing efforts expand overseas, companies have many pressing concerns that must be addressed. They must learn how to scale efficiently and manage multiple sites. The teams must be able to collaborate and work together to promote the brand while still understanding the importance of localization. These presentations dove into challenges, case studies and tips to help brands succeed when expanding their site internationally.
The day’s general sessions
In addition to the exciting track presentations, we also heard from Matt Lawson, the Director of Performance Ads for Google, and Michael Kahn, the CEO of Performics, who spoke about the Content Performance Marketing Blueprint. Kahn explored examples of how to succeed and what is critical to a successful content marketing plan. Lawson used case studies to explain how to leverage micro moments and the mobile content battleground.
As we wrapped up the night with our Share15 party, the excitement and energy was easily apparent throughout the attendees and speakers. There is nothing like being able to laugh, learn and network among hudreds of fellow marketers, each with their own insights to add.
We cannot wait to see what Wednesday will bring at Share.
