Transforming Your Visitors Into a Dedicated and Passionate Community

Speakers: Simon Heseltine & Jennifer Sable Lopez

Moderator: Lindsay Wassell

Building an audience from nothing is a great feat, but then maintaining that audience to form a loyal, contributing community is a separate and sometimes even more difficult challenge. This session will examine ways to grow your audience and encourage brand advocacy within your community.

Some topics of discussion will include:

• How to build a platform that encourages your community
• Methods for rewarding community contributions
• Optimizing user-generated content
• Ways to make your site more community focused
• Planning editorial calendars incorporating user-generated content
• Moderating and supporting growing communities

Simon will be sharing an insider look at how one of the AOL brands relaunched their online property to encourage more community interaction. He’ll walk you through the ideas that went into a more community-focused platform, how it was built, and their progress today (all from an SEO’s perspective).

Then, Jen will give insight into the transformation of the SEOmoz community (and, in turn, their overall business) since her role started focusing 100% on their community. Come to Jen’s session prepared to learn the secrets behind their success and the methods she’s used to grow such an amazing and passionate community at SEOmoz.  It’s guaranteed to leave your brain buzzing with new ideas and techniques to put into action right away!

Simon Heseltine, Director of SEO at AOL, Inc.

As the Director of SEO for the Huffington Post, Simon brings a unique perspective and insight into community building that few others can offer.   He has hands on experience working within one of the web’s largest news-focused communities, and the challenges that come with such scale.   As a frequent public speaker and Select Distinguished Toastmaster, Simon is known for presentations that enlighten, engage and entertain.   When you combine a great message with the ability to clearly deliver that message, sparks fly….

Jennifer Sable Lopez, Community Manager at SEOmoz

Jen is a one of a kind person with a unique & diverse set of talents and experience.   This dynamic lady has proven her chops by growing the SEOmoz community to astounding heights.   Jen is a Mom, a social media maven, and an expert on managing and growing highly dedicated online communities.   As the manager of the SEOmoz Blog, as well as the YOUmoz community, Jen can speak at length on the (often overlooked) importance of catering to, nurturing, and being loyal to your community.

Lindsay Wassell, CEO of Keyphraseology

Three words to describe Lindsay? Smart, determined & creative. She’s the CEO of  Keyphraseology, an SEO consultancy located in BlueGlass’s hometown of Tampa, FL . Prior to Keyphraseology, she led the SEOmoz SEO Consulting Team. Lindsay has helped companies from the Fortune 500s to small and medium businesses succeed on the web.

Each day until August 8th, check back here to get to know your speakers and the amazing content they’ll share at BlueGlassX 2012. You can also follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook for more updates about the next “eXperience.”