Pop Labs was at the SMX West Search Marketing Conference last week. Several people had excellent coverage of the sessions and some really hot discussions are still happening even after the event, so I’m going to stick with sharing my personal experience overall.

SMX West was huge. Conferences this size can be intimidating for newbies trying to network with strangers or simply ask questions to the experts. I thought Danny Sullivan and his team did a phenomenal job creating an interactive atmosphere with SMX Connect. Attendees were able to connect, send comments, and even make their own schedule prior to the event. I personally loved the scheduling feature. During the sessions, we were able to submit questions online. Ten times better than the moderator walking around from one side of the room to the other with a microphone in hand. Why doesn’t every conference do the same, really?

SMX Eat & Meet lunch tables brought people with a common interest together. Food was delicious; discussions were not as fruitful as I wanted. Too many people at a table make it harder to share an intimate conversation. Nevertheless, it was well organized. My husband-approved geek crush, cat lover, and glorious spam fighter Matt Cutts stopped by the Google Engineer table. I had a chance to explain why his signed drink ticket at Pubcon didn’t end up on Flickr. It’s ok though because this time Matt Cutts signed my SMX Meet & Eat reservation. Whoo-hooo! Now I need to make him a member of my “Cat lovers in search marketing” Flickr group. Maybe he will after he sees the group icon.

Back to more serious observations…

I have to say standing at the booth all day talking to people non-stop is absolutely exhausting. But, well worth it. Initially we thought two people can stay at the booth while another is attending a session. Yeah right! We were so busy that we quickly realized having 3 people at the booth is a must, especially on the first day of the exhibit hall. If you’re ever exhibiting in one of these huge events and want to get the most out of your money, make sure you have enough people representing your company and attending the sessions at the same time.

Pop Labs booth was quite an attraction for many. “What does your company do?” was the number one question. Well dear visitors, if you can’t really tell from the long bullet list of services in gigantic fonts, then we’re a laboratory for building, testing, optimizing, ranking soda pops and lollipops. Soda-POP, Lolli-POP, LAB-oratory. Pop Labs, get it?

Schwags were plentiful. I get a kick out of watching people comparison shopping. Not to sound like I’m bragging or anything, but people really loved our Pop Labs pins and lollipops! Honestly at first, my nit-picky, skeptic side thought the lollipops looked kind of cheesy, but oh-my-God, they taste good! I ate six or seven myself. It never ceases to amaze me how much people love candy and how easy it is to start a conversation over something sweet.

Conferences are an excellent venue for people to gain insight on best practices or be inspired by some of the exceptional speakers in the search marketing field. In my opinion, networking is as valuable, if not more. I follow Andy Beal on Twitter and I enjoyed chatting with him face to face at SMX. Not only that, but I got a signed copy of his new book “Radically Transparent”. Ha ha! (I just started reading it, will save the book review for another post.) My point is where else can you get to meet all the experts or talk to just about anyone in this field?

If you’re wondering where Pop Labs is going to pop up next, I suggest you check us out at SXSW Interactive, March 8-11, and SES New York, March 18-19.

Sicotte Out!