We learned some of Yahoo's global editorial standards from the authors of the Yahoo! Style Guide.  (All attendees also received this book that recently went on sale.)

Headlines
-It is the reader's first encounter.  It provides the first (and sometimes only) impression with your readers

-Should align with your voice/audience

-A good test for headlines is whether or not you can summarize what your story is about in five to six words.  If so, then it is probably focused.  If not, it probably lacks focus.

-Is it clear what your story is about based on the headline?  Someone should be able to read your headline and subheading and understand what the story will be about.

-You can do a preliminary search to test.

-Does it show what readers should be searching for?

-Make sure that important words are at the front of your headline. (Include what people would be searching for.)

-Headlines help filter stories to reach what the readers want

-It appears in many places: title of story; page title tag; heading in browser tabs; text in bookmarks; header in search results; text in news feed or mobile browser

Four Functions of a Headline:

1. Summary: Accurate, complete, concise information about your story

2. Selection: Helps reader filter

3. Promotion: Motivates potential readers to click

4. Reputation: Reflects your voice and standards

SEO Selection

-Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of strategies for making your page easier to find.

-Search engines basically play matchmaker (they match the words in your page with words people are searching for).

-If you seed your page with the exact words people are searching for, then you are more likely to make a connection.

-Search engines crawl your whole page but give particular attention to the following: title; headline; other bolded headings/subheadings; links (don't just put "click here" - it's a wasted opportunity); bulleted and numbered lists.  Introductions and conclusions are also given extra notice so if you seed keywords in these spots, search engines will like your page more.

How to select keywords

-Make a list of possible search terms. (If a reader was looking for a story on your blog's topic, which words would they try?)

-Test a few of your words on search-volume research tools.  They will give you a list of terms/related terms from most to least used.  You can find such sources at http://styleguide.yahoo.com/resources/research-tools/keyword-research-tools.

-An interesting test keyword example was used.  It was last year's swine flu.  It turned out that more people were searching for "H1N1" than swine flu...by far.

-Another notable tip: people tend to spell out proper names and full words when searching (i.e. Internet Explorer 8 was searched ten times more than "IE8").

An important note was made: SEO is competitive.  Even if these suggested changes don't improve your search rankings, they will still help the readers that you do have.  The bottom line though is that good content is the best "strategy".

-It was noted that it is also important to focus on readability.  People tend to focus on what is at the top left of the page.  Then their eyes dart down to headings and subheadings.  As such, focus on the top of your page.  Also, research recommends no more than 300 words on a page.  That is the most that the average reader will "see".

More Headline "Dos"

-Place most relevant words first

-Try to use the subject-verb-object structure

-Use concrete keywords (i.e. proper nouns)

-Type your draft headline in a search engine to see what comes up. (Use quotes around your phrase to get an exact search.)

-Make it strong and interesting

-Call out what is important

-Make sure that your headline can stand alone

-Stay under 65 characters

-Make sure that the voice is appropriate for the story and your site

You can learn more at styleguide.yahoo.com

Cody Simms, Senior Director of Yahoo! Social Platforms and Anne Toth, Vice President and Head of Privacy led this session.

Historically, there have been several Internet phases:

-Editorial: Editors would curate available information and place them in "buckets"/categories in order to make it easier for the everyday user to find.

-Communications: Email became popular.

-Search: Google and others helped Internet users find what they were looking for by typing in keywords.

In each of the above phases, Yahoo! has been a leader/in the top three providers.

The newest phase is social sharing where users share the things that they find and discover with multiple people simultaneously (i.e. Facebook and Twitter). Shopping is another phase that is currently big in Taiwan and Vietnam at the moment. Although Americans do shop online, it is still not one of the biggest uses of the Internet for American consumers. (Interesting...)

In any event, Yahoo! does not want to become a social network. Rather, they want to make it a part of the Yahoo! experience. That is why we learned how Yahoo! is integrating new functions across their various line of products. Users can now share their comments, ratings, polls, buzz and such both across the Yahoo! brands as well as on Facebook and (soon) Twitter. Also, Yahoo! updates (mail, messenger, home page, profiles, etc.) will also connect to the two. Lastly, users can also see their Facebook (and soon) Twitter streams on Yahoo! properties (Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Pulse, Yahoo!'s homepage, etc.)

These changes lead to new social opportunities for Yahoo!

The plan is to increase reach with social distribution. An example that was provided was how Yahoo! recently acquired Citizen Sports, a property that publishes solely on Facebook.Yahoo! has 80+ products that they can socialize. They are working on some plans to create social participation by users sharing across platforms (but I won't "spill the beans").

2. Drive engagement on Yahoo! (especially since the users are already there).

They will drive engagement by aggregating social media across Yahoo! (For example, Yahoo! users can update their Facebook status from their Yahoo! Mail account already.) They provide a unique combination of social media and content and have some (private) plans regarding pulling in related content across social and content platforms. *Note to bloggers: Your MyBlogLog updates are already showing up in the feeds of your Yahoo! friends.

3. Monetize

By using all of the various pieces, Yahoo! will be able to amplify social messages for advertisers in new ways. (More private concepts were shared.)

Then, Cody spoke about "The Social Flywheel". Basically the four areas are production, distribution, consumption and conversion.

-Production

This is where you give the reader an opportunity to do something. Sample improvements in Yahoo!'s new updates include: rating television shows, reviewing television shows; readers being able to give thumbs up/down, etc..

-Distribution

This is about who sees it. With new changes, there will be more social activity (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)

-Consumption

What can "seers" do with it? They will be able to comment/like updates across channels.

-Conversion

What happens as a result of the reader's consumption? A reader can comment on an update which can lead them to a related article that tells them what their Yahoo! friends are saying and gives them a chance to respond back.

At the end, we saw some practical demos of a few Yahoo! properties that utilize social media products: pulse.yahoo.com, mail.yahoo.com and Yahoo!'s home page.

Meg Garlinghouse, the Senior Director of Yahoo! for Good; Erin Carlson, Director of Yahoo! for Good, Yahoo! Green and Connie Chan, Manager of Yahoo! for Good all spoke on this panel.

Yahoo! makes a difference.  Yahoo! for Good was created to empower people to make a difference.  

Lessons:

-Charitable efforts should align with your business

-Focus if you can

-Leverage what you do best

-Be authentic and transparent

-Be relevant to your audience (timely and personally)

-Give them a way to get engaged (take action or share!)

Social Media can be used for social good. They shared an example from their company (Random Acts of Kindess: "You In?") and a couple other social media bests: Facebook Causes' Birthday Wish and Nelson Mandela's Birthday Card on ONE.  (Bloganthropy was also cited by one of the bloggers in the audience as a great example of using social media for social good.)

   

Click here to download:

yahoo-for-good-yahoo-green-gaGeDnwcdJyqlBHFHGop.zip (6555 KB)

-Solely "green" messaging doesn't usually work (very few people care that much)

 -Rather, present green topics as practical, timely information (i.e. cities with best and worst tap water ; use can opener to open hard plastic packaging)

When writing about green topics...

-Serve the dessert first (make it a great article that catches the readers' attention)

-Certain topics are tricky to write about like saving money - readers want easy, immediate, deliverable (exact numbers/percentages) tips. Health can also be a tricky topic because people have become desensitized to warnings that practically everything is going to hurt them.

Social media lessons from Yahoo! Green:

-Facebook: 70% women; conversational; ask questions; most active fans don't overlap with twitter

-Twitter: more deeply green; focused on sharing information; is less about asking questions.

Lastly, one of the speakers asked the question: "What annoyed you last week?"  (I think the point was that if you can address those things, then it makes for a good post.  I'm not sure though, because this was the point when I locked myself out of my computer/needed to resort to good old-fashioned pen and paper for a while...)

Yahoo's Catherine Teitelbaum, Policy Director, Child Safety & Product Policy and Anne Toth, Vice President and Head of Privacy led this session.  They were joined by Holly Lawrence, a police officer with the Sunnyvale Police Department and Jeanne Moeschler (with Yahoo!'s social marketing team) moderated.

This section started off on a somber note.  They showed a video that was created at Yahoo by the request of a family who had experienced a tragedy. Yahoo! is working together with the police to create a prevention program. (For their privacy's sake, I won't be using the girl or her family's names.)  Basically, the video was about a local California family's tragedy when their daughter got involved in sexting.  "J" was a popular high school cheerleader who ended up hanging herself.  After her death, her parents learned that their family's nightmare was due (in part) to sexting.  "J" had sent a provocative picture of herself to a boy that was a friend. The picture got passed around from boy to boy and it eventually ended up on the Internet. Days before her death, "J" was texting her friends that she wanted to commit suicide. Unfortunately, her parents did not learn about any of this until she actually did so.

Overall, the point of the session was to reinforce that keeping kids safe online is an ongoing conversation that involves different things along the way.

The Three "C"s:

1. Stay current on what your kids are interested in/current trends/etc.

2. Keep the lines of communication open with your child.

3. Keep checking up on what they are doing online and with their phones.

It's hard for kids to grasp the concept that what you put online lasts forever.

Practicals: Keep checking what your kids are doing. Share real life examples of negative online behavior that they can relate to/empathize with. Teach kids to take responsibility for their actions. (Personally, that was the saddest thing about the video.  After everything, none of the boys - who were involved in passing around the photo - took any personal responsibility for the part that their actions played in "J"'s death.)

Lastly, it is important to note that there are differences in motivations behind the negative things that girls do online versus what the boys do.

An Internet safety coalition website that comes highly recommended is ikeepsafe.org .  There is also a lot of great information at Yahoo! Safely (http://safely.yahoo.com/index). In addition, parents can print out a Common Sense family media agreement for parents and teens in high school.

Chris Jaffe and Michael Mcelligot ran the ad products session.  Several bloggers (including Heidi of Coast2Coast mom) sat on the panel.

Yahoo's goal is to create fewer, more relevant ads that stand out in all media and devices (web, video, mobile, etc.)

Talking about products and brands is important and organic.

Their findings:

-People want to talk about and connect with brands/businesses.

-Compelling commercial offers (coupons, sales) are "news".

-People want to share these messages with their friends and family.

Question: How much of your social time now deals with...

-Products or services that you use?

-Sales, coupons or other types of promotions?

-Ads that are funny or interesting?

Answers: It depends on type of blog; some tweet info; some do all three (i.e. "Old Spice" coupon; iGo charger); we also share bad experiences.

Question: How do you like to share these things?

-Email?

-Facebook?

-Twitter?

-SMS?

-Other ways?

Answers from panel/audience: Many put items on Facebook if we really want people to notice because Twitter goes by so quickly; school groups use email groups and now are starting to use Facebook more; many of us share on multiple platforms now; many non-social media moms are not on twitter; it depends- is issue local/national?; integrate all types of media with social media to catch all potential customers.

Other comment: Companies need to engage not just tweet out promotions.

(Confidential prototype was then shown/given feedback on)

Four Tips For Advertising/Content Success

1. Know your audience

this helps you choose the right content and ads.

2. Give your audience what they want

don't sacrifice them for the sake of advertisements

3. Use standard display ad sizes

makes it easier for advertisers to work with you

4. Place your ad units"above the fold"

high visibility on your site = value for advertisers

   

Click here to download:

advertising-products-panel-IdzqJemejtqJoaHHcsje.zip (7752 KB)

Cathryn Weems and Marssy Benitez, Flickr Community Managers are leading this session.

-Being from England, Cathryn uses Flickr to share pictures with her family back at home.

-Flickr - you can download program to your computer to upload directly from there or you can do it on the Flickr site by clicking on "upload photos & video". (The Yahoo! Mother Board attendees are getting a free year of "pro" - yes! I'm hearing "I love you" being said - ha!) Increased bandwidth is the greatest benefit of the "pro" version.

-You can upload Flickr to photos on Facebook. (She doesn't really like to do it personally due to the privacy issues)

-On Flickr, you can set privacy settings (by set/by account/by individual photo).  You can have a default setting and make individual changes (public/family/friends & family).  Search for your friends on Flickr. Hover over their picture/buddy icon and add as a contact, friend, etc. or invite your friends to join Flickr under "Contacts" heading on the home page.

-You can also share sets of images with those that don't have Flickr accounts by creating guest passes (under "Contacts") .  You can also expire guest passes.

-You can also share public Flickr photos to twitter, blogs, Facebook, etc. You can do this by going to "Sharing and Extending" under "your account".

-You can use Picnik to edit Flickr photos due to their partnership.  You can watermark individual photos through Picnik. (I love Picnik!)

-You can order Flickr photo prints through their Snapfish partnership.(You can pick the photos up at Walgreens.)

-Video can be up to 90 seconds long (as "long photos").

Audience comments: *Batch watermarking would be an ideal feature.  There was a lot of interest in the "Groups" feature. Suggestion: Integrate Flickr into Yahoo! Groups platform.

Ways that Yahoo! Shine can work for mom bloggers:

by Annette Cardwell, Managing Editor, Yahoo! Shine

1. Writing as an individual contributor or independent site 

-There are many success stories i.e. Brett Blumenthal (Sheer Balance); Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project), Em & Lo (love and sex bloggers) and GAL Time.

-The key to seeing results is to make yourself a collaborative partner with the editors on Shine.  There are different content/business/audience goals, etc. Basically, Shine helps to deliver reach and volume to help bloggers grow their site's traffic and brand's visibility. (It is tailored for a wide, mainstream audience.)

Answers to questions from mom bloggers: The contributers are not paid for their content. It is an open blog platform. You can cross-post your content on your own blog. There are 16 million visitors a month to Shine. The writer owns the material. The material is on Shine servers. There is a user agreement available on Shine.

2. Writing for contributor sites

-The Stir, Babble, Strollerderby, etc. are sites that post to Shine.

-If your contributor site is already on Shine, you can work with Shine editors to come up with topics that will work for both Shine and yourself.  

-If your contributor site isn't on Shine, you can encourage them to take advantage of Shine as an outlet distribution.

*If the sites that you contribute for are not interested in working with them, Shine can feed you feature-worthy content ideas - both for Shine and the Yahoo! home page...especially if you can turn the content around quickly.

Answers to questions from mom bloggers: Shine currently uses "no follow" links because it's an open platform, but they are working on a way to remove that for real relationships. Comprehensive information is helpful.  You can use a portion of the post and link to the rest of your article. They support video clips.

(I will be live-blogging much of the agenda today.  I will provide any reactions - positive or negative - after the conference.)

Jeanne Moeschler and Amy Heinz of Yahoo! welcomed us - the orginal 17 (plus all of the rest of us). 

Keynote speaker Elisa Steele, Yahoo! Chief Marketing Officer (and wife/mom) is providing the keynote address for this "mother of all conferences".

-This is about sharing/learning from each other - an exchange/dialogue.

-All moms are c-level executives (COO, CFO, CHO, CPO, CMP, CCO, CLO, CPP)

PLUS: chief cleaner upper, chief fashion officer, chief hard worker, chief of awesomeness, chief meanie, chief good looking (from her kids)

Research (not quite sure of the research sources):

-Working moms spend 44 hours/week at work and 50 hours at "mom job" totalling 94 hours per week while stay at home moms work 92 hours at their "mom job".

-Technology helps moms to be an active mom - 88% say that the Internet helps them stay connected to the world.  85% believe that technology has made their life easier as a mom; 66% say they rely more on technology.

-Communication and entertainment are the top things that moms spend time on online in America.  Shopping is really huge in other areas of the world (i.e. Asia).

-Yahoo! is the most trusted brand amongst technology companies.  They are a pioneer in protecting privacy and keeping people safe online. 

Yahoo! & the Mother Board relationship

-The goal is to address moms holistically (share and listen regarding what moms want in their overall online experience).

Answers to audience questions

-Integrating social media with yahoo! mail.  They are getting the pieces together (twitter/facebook/etc.) before doing full launch.

-There was a suggestion regarding calendar/group integration - especially for school groups on Yahoo! groups.  Yahoo! tools for schools/school districts was also mentioned.  Technology for school communication is a big topic. 

-Simplifying using Yahoo! groups is a big topic.  Ease of use in general is HUGE for moms.