Take-aways from AAN's 2012 online conference

The Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) 2012 Online conference yielded thought provoking digital insights and practical ideas. Key take-aways from executives who shared ideas at the conference included concrete ways to increase traffic and revenues. 

The first "aha moment" for us came when Jack Krawczyk of StumbleUpon pointed out that even editors who understand how SEO works don't know why stories are shared.  Krawczyk  identifies five ways to improve referrals to your stories from your sharing tools such as Facebook, Digg or his own company. 

Joe Larkin, VP of Sales at VillageVoice Media Group gave these ten ways to increase national sales revenues. 

Peter Stuart of MMA gave a rousing presentation on "Why Marketers will Destroy Us If We Let Them" and several practical ideas for reversing the trend.

Peter Mortensen, senior strategist at super smart Jump, a management consulting firm that helps new and very large companies invent and reinvent themselves, walked us the only eight basic business models that exist today - and how local media has "only scratched the surface." 

Next week Part Two: Report on the AAN conference gives a round-up of tech tools and partnerships that AAN members like or are coming online today. 

Many thanks to the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for a great conference; splitting off online into a separate meeting that replaced AAN West, is a huge improvement. 

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