The annual sailing business conference runs for two days and covers the commercial side of the yacht racing and sailing industry, from sponsorship to marketing and managing events.

Through its marine business publishing platforms, Pilote has been a media partner of the World Yacht Racing Forum (WYRF) since the first conference in 2008.

This year, speakers will include; Kevin Roberts, Editorial Director, Sport Business Group - Richard Worth, Chairman, America’s Cup Event Authority - Wolf Allisat, Executive Vice President Europe, Comscore - Jerome Pels, Secretary General, ISAF - Franck David, Executive Director, Multi One Design - Knut Frostad, CEO, Volvo Ocean Race - John Stork, President, International Council of Yacht Clubs - Staffan Salen, Commodore, KSSS (Royal Swedish Yacht Club) - Dee Caffari, Global Ocean Race - David Graham, CEO, Oman Sail - Christina Ioannidis, CEO, Aquitude.

David Fuller will moderate a panel on the first day of the forum entitled: The Value of Sponsorship in Yachting: Does the Sport Really Deliver Return on Investment? The session will cover brand perspectives of the sport and compare it to other sporting sponsorships available to marketing professionals.

David will also be involved with a panel later in the day titled: Internet and New Media: The Digital Highway to Growth. This session is designed to discuss issues around the measurement of digital and mobile media, how digital marketing can be used effectively to target the ‘right’ audience and what social media can bring to the sport of sailing over and above number of ‘likes’.

The World Yacht Racing Forum is held in conjunction with the Yacht Racing Designs and Technology Symposium which allows the technical aspects of the marine industry to be discussed.

There are several offers being made by organisers of the forum for delegates who wish to attend. Senior brand and marketing managers can attend the conference for free, while members of the yacht racing industry can get a 20% discount through Pilote’s marine business news site – yachtracing.biz.

YachtRacing.Biz will cover the forum and provide in-depth analysis of all sessions.

At the beginning of this year, I wrote a piece about the opportunities for PR companies to embrace SEO and deliver their clients better results. Since then, very few PR companies have changed the way they operate, however there is a new incentive to change – brands are waking up.

CEO’s and Marketing directors are starting to ask why competitors are above them on Google and Bing. Big brands who have competition from upstart businesses like price comparison websites are starting to notice that sales are down – and it’s not just because of the economy – it’s because someone else is stealing ‘their traffic’.

I still find people who call themselves digital marketing experts who don’t really understand the importance of SEO. As I wrote in the original article:

“SEO is not as sexy as witty creative. It’s not as trendy as social media or as cutting edge as an iPhone app, but my informed guess is that Google and Bing send more customers to your client’s sites than any of these marketing methods, and a lot more than mentions in printed press.”

PR Agencies and digital marketing agencies still have SEO on their menu of services, but in most cases it is a bit of an afterthought – if someone actually asked for it, they would scramble around and find an ‘expert’ who could help them out. SEO is not part of the everyday thinking of communications professionals and it really should be.

PR professionals are in the best place to deliver SEO for clients. Search Engine Optimisation best practise is all about content, which is something that PR people should be good at. If you know who your intended audience is, and you know what content is relevant to them and create it in such a way that they might want to reference it in their social media activity, then you are on the way to delivering SEO value.

A core PR agency competency is to be able to pitch a story to a newspaper or magazine. If you can do that, then you know how to pitch for a link from an authoritative website. Building relationships with influencers is a key part of SEO, so all your work building a following on Twitter and acquiring Facebook fans can add value too.

However, if you are still sending your press releases as PDF attachments, then you aren’t helping your client.

The same principles apply whether you are doing PR for a start-up in London, a sports team in Melbourne or a nursery in Mt Eliza.

If you are not using the right SEO keywords in your press releases, then you are missing an opportunity.

If you are not taking advantage of lazy cut-and-paste bloggers who are so desperate for content that they will publish your story with links already embedded verbatim, then you should be.

SEO, Content, Communications and Marketing are colliding, and to make the most of the resulting media landscape requires cultural change.

It seems to be a formula that people consume easily though, so here are my 5 reasons why your business should not be using social media.

1. Because it’s new and cool.

Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there making social media pitches based purely on fashion. There’s a buzz out there. It’s new and improved. If you don’t have it, you are missing out. Every couple of years, something comes along that changes the way people behave. Just because something is covered by the media, does not mean that real people are using it as part of their everyday lives.

2. Because it’s massive. .

I guarantee you that if you have sat through a social media pitch, that you have been bombarded with figures like ‘If Facebook was a country, it would the 4^th largest in the world’. The country with the 4^th biggest population is Indonesia, yet my bet is that your business has no presence there. What’s more, you probably don’t have any plans to be in Indonesia any time soon. That’s because pure market size is not the only thing that matters to real businesses.

Last week there was a story about how Pepsico were going to use location service FourSquare for marketing purposes. The article reported that FourSquare has a million users. Let’s put that another way – there are about 308 Million people who don’t use FourSquare in the US alone.

3. Because your customers are interacting with each other on social media.

In 2008 there were an estimated 6.5 billion texts sent every month in the UK, but the vast majority were between individuals. There are very few companies (other than mobile networks) that have successfully used SMS text messaging for business.

Just because your customers and potential customers are talking to each other on social media is no guarantee that they want to interact with your business.

4. Because it’s cheap.

Anyone can set up a YouTube account. It doesn’t cost anything to create a Twitter feed or a Facebook page. Creating a LinkedIn Group takes minutes and you can blog away for free on all many of platforms.

Once it’s been set up, you can get an intern or an expert social media consultant to represent your brand assets the best way they see fit, despite in many cases not having any marketing or business credentials.

You’ve probably spent a lot of time and money to create your brand, why risk devaluing one of your most important business assets by cutting corners.

5. Because your competitors are doing it.

I’ve always had a dislike for consultants who think that their technology based model can be applied across industries and businesses without any need for modification. Look out for a social media pitch that tells you that you need to be on social media because there are others in your industry that are doing it. There are probably competitors of yours that do trade-shows or sponsorship or other outdoor advertising that you might not do. Me-too is never a reason to do anything.

1 Reason Your Business Should be Using Social Media.

There are many reasons why your business may benefit from using social media including; better customer service, increased brand awareness, targeted product positioning and understanding your customer’s requirements, but the number one, and only reason that your business should be using social media is…

Because it will deliver you revenue.

Social Media is just another weapon in your sales and marketing arsenal. It has a cost and it has a return. The only reason you should consider using social media for your business is if it is going to have a positive impact on the bottom line.

Value social media the same way you would value any other sales and marketing spend. What are your objectives? How do you know if you have succeeded?

If you are being told that engaging in the conversation is enough and hopefully over time it may lead to sales, then ask yourself how much of your marketing budget you are willing to invest in that hope.

If on the other hand, you are being told how social media can have an impact on key metrics within your business like; transaction frequency, basket value, margin, customer satisfaction and loyalty, market share, recall rate, cost per lead and return on investment, then evaluate those numbers against your current marketing options and make a business decision.