Comments on: SEMPO Needs to Get Sexy

By: Marta Turek

Marta Turek — Sat, 15 May 2010 20:14:39 +0000

@Christian: I appreciate your comment and respect your perspective. What is important to understand from my post, is that I support SEMPO and believe that SEMPO could play a very influential role in the search marketing industry. However, we need to first critically evaluate SEMPO’s current position in the market, ascertain where we want to take the organization and then make a plan to do so. Being complacent or putting on a smiling face when things are not so rosy, is not going to solve the problem. You’ll notice that I use ‘we’ rather than ‘they’, because I believe that the more people who get behind this organization, the easier it will be to implement change.

By: Christian Maund-Anderson

Christian Maund-Anderson — Sat, 15 May 2010 01:01:00 +0000

I am completely turned off by anyone throwing anyone or any organization under the bus, so to speak. True criticism is not about this, but rather professionally speaking about a topic and offering a perspective that intelligently puts a POV forward. Ultimately, until you place yourself in someone elses’ shoes, you cannot give a real perspective as a whole.

Not to discount your experience, this is important too.

And for the record, I am not an SEMPO member, or an employee/employer.

Cheers

By: Marta Turek

Marta Turek — Fri, 14 May 2010 19:33:36 +0000

@ Frank: I think the problem, as with most thing is money. It is a non-profit organisation which means that the people who put some effort into SEMPO are doing this in their own time.
Maybe SEMPO needs to come up with some interesting and compelling ways to entice search marketers to invest in SEMPO. It needs to be a win-win scenario

By: Marta Turek

Marta Turek — Fri, 14 May 2010 19:31:18 +0000

@ Andy: I too was surprised to see such low Twitter figures – there’s a real opportunity for SEMPO to actively seek out search marketers by following these people. In this way, people may become exposed to SEMPO and start following SEMPO in turn and even using their resources

By: Frank Reed

Frank Reed — Fri, 14 May 2010 18:07:23 +0000

As with anything it’s always about what you put into an organization but it appears as if SEMPO is putting nothing into itself so it will likely fade off into the sunset and have no power or influence in a rapidly advancing and expanding space.

By: SEO Company Herefordshire and Powys

SEO Company Herefordshire and Powys — Fri, 14 May 2010 17:47:11 +0000

I am shocked at the Twitter follower/following figures, it’s a really poor effort on their part which is resulting in areally poor return.

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By: Andy @ FirstFound

Andy @ FirstFound — Fri, 14 May 2010 15:52:56 +0000

Sounds like a textbook case of resting too far back on those laurels.

The Twitter stats you mentioned are a real blow – most people in the industry are talking about the importance of engaging with people. That’s a real failure to do so.

By: Marta Turek

Marta Turek — Fri, 14 May 2010 14:36:49 +0000

Hi Marc!

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I think this is the first step, we need to get SEMPO back into search marketers consciousness and then SEMPO needs to give search marketers what they need from this type of organisation.

By: Marc

Marc — Fri, 14 May 2010 06:18:39 +0000

I’ve had similar expectations and experiences as well. When first jumping into this field one of the first things I did was sign up as a SEMPO member.

Now looking back, I probably got more real-life, applicable knowledge out of local meetups, tight-knit blog communities and personal networking at conferences.

I still hold SEMPO in high regard, but they really need to look to the competing options out there to see how they can attract and engage both new and experienced search marketers.