The Utah DMC Blog

Continuing an exciting series of educational & networking evening events, SLCSEM.org will host 
special guest speaker Dennis Goedegebuure
, (
@thenextcorner), VP of Internet Marketing at GeekNet on April 18th for an evening dedicated to making better business decisions through data. Online marketers often have access to an enormous wealth of web analytics data, which gives us unique insight into the behavior of prospective and current customers - the problem is, many search marketers are simply too overwhelmed with large data sets to do anything with them. In the evening's keynote, along with local member speakers, we'll discuss turning analytics data into actionable marketing strategies and how to use information to solve common business problems.

For the February gathering of SLC|SEM we were pleased to have Danny Sullivan, Editor in Chief of
Search Engine Land present on the state of search marketing. This was the second SLCSEM.org event held at The Leonardo and the venue held up its standard as an excellent place to host a large group of online marketing professionals. The reception area provided a light and fun atmosphere for food, drinks, catching up with friends, and networking with new connections in search. (See over 100 photos from the networking & content session on the 
SLCSEM Facebook page.) The presentation began with a brief breakdown of the history of search. Danny Sullivan quickly went over how search has evolved from the days of keyword stuffing, to the search plus your world update earlier this year.

Join SLC|SEM for an evening dedicated to paid search marketing strategies presented by Marin Software!

January was the start of a new year and a new chapter for the SLC|SEM meetings, complete with a new venue,
The Leonardo. The Leonardo is an art+science+technology museum nestled in the middle of Salt Lake City with a gorgeous view of the cityscape, creating a perfect backdrop for discussing cutting-edge SEO topics.

On February 22, 2012, SLC|SEM - Utah's professional association for search marketers - will host respected search industry leader Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of
Search Engine Land, the leading news publication for the search marketing industry.
Danny Sullivan is the leading analyst in the search engine industry, providing insightful commentary and reporting on search engine technology updates and key issues such as online privacy. Sullivan is often interviewed and quoted by major news outlets such as the
Wall Street Journal, New York Times, NPR and
USA Today, among many others, for his extensive knowledge about leading search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo, as well as Facebook and Twitter. In his keynote address, Sullivan will speak to the current state of search marketing, focusing on how popular search engine features can affect local / small businesses, to mid-size companies and major brands using search engine marketing (both organic and paid search advertising) to reach online consumers. Local search results, search advertising, social networks and personalized search features are likely to be hot topics of the evening's discussion, as Sullivan will take questions from the audience.

The first #SLCSEM networking and educational event of 2012 will take place on January 18th, in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah - at the Leonardo arts+science+technology museum.
On the eve of the official kickoff for the Sundance Film Festival, we'll be focusing our intellectual discussion around search marketing through multimedia, optimizing images and gaining additional visibility for online video. 

On December 14th, 2011, SLC|SEM held an informal holiday networking event with great food, great people, and lots of industry discussions at the
Red Rock Restaurant & Brew Pub.  The food and the service were excellent, and a good time was had by all!

On November 16, 2011, SLC|SEM members from all around Utah converged on 
Hotel Monaco for the inaugural members-only event. The excitement from the 60+ members in attendance was contagious as they greeted old friends and made some new ones.
With Marshall Simmonds (
@mdsimmonds) of
Define Media Group as the keynote speaker and presentations by local members & experts Rob Johnson (
@robkellas) and Aaron Wester (
@aaronix), of
Deseret Digital Media, we all knew to get our note pads ready. In case you missed the event, I wanted to give you five takeaways I gained from these awesome speakers.

For the past several years, online marketing professionals across the Wasatch Front have been forced to fend for themselves in this dynamic industry.  Without the support of a local group to turn to for help, most of Utah’s search marketing community have had no choice but to travel to out-of-state conferences to get the necessary education and networking to stay at the top of their game. Not any longer… Utah’s professional search engine marketing organization has finally arrived!  During the inaugural SLC|SEM event, the 150-200 marketing experts, business owners & entrepreneurs that attended proved to everyone that Utah is loaded with talent and poised as a leader in the interactive industry.  That said, in order to attend future meetings and receive all of the benefits of an SLC|SEM membership, you must officially join the organization by completing
an application. For those that still need a bit more convincing before officially joining, here are some of the benefits SLC|SEM offers its members:

Last month's inaugural SLC|SEM event kicked off with hundreds of search and interactive marketers in attendance. Conversations ranged from technical tip-swapping and job connections to convivial banter between old and new friends alike, and the room was buzzing with excitement about the upcoming events. Not only were the attendees some of the brightest minds in industry. Key sponsors for the organization represent the top search and interactive firms in the country, based right here in Utah: