It's the Skinny on Search and Synergy.

Search and Social Synergy.

At this jewel of an ad:tech session, each panelist lavished the audience with a drop of wisdom from their collective fountains. What follows are my scoopings.

Tips for managing a brand in the new media landscape, courtesy of MTVN's Julie Sun:

• You've heard the expression "knowledge is power." Well, sound social knowledge can protect a brand. Monitor user-created pages like Wikipedia; see what people say about you, and communicate your point of view. (Avoid the temptation to link-whore, though.)


• Do research to find out where your users are. (Don't play with Facebook, for example, if your users aren't there.) Given your objectives, ID which space works best for you.


• Support your online social initiatives year-round. (For chrissake, don't take down a subsite just because you stopped running TV ads for it. What makes the web cool is its ability to keep ads going long after the money stops. KEEP THE SITE UP. DON'T DELETE THOSE VIDEOS, EITHER.)

How important is being involved in all social media? Does it really matter if you link your Twitter feed to your Facebook, or your Facebook to your blog, or your blog to LinkedIn? Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land argued in defense of heavy social network cross-pollination. People are dynamic, and social media enables you to express all facets of yourself. Better still, it enables others to decide which aspects of you they want to seize and share.

A user doesn't have to read your blog, but he can link to statements you make on Twitter, for example, which increases your online girth. The more you're out there, the more likely it is that your name - and the perception of its value - will spread like anthrax. Or Rubel.

No salad's complete without a sprinkle of apocalypse. Mike Grehan of Acronym Media predicted search engine optimization as we know it will cease to exist. In SEO, anchor text and linkbacks are the most important "signals" that indicate a site's industry merit. But the most important signals of the future are available in on-browser toolbars. They follow users outside the general crawl - and can track across-the-board online activity. The significance now lies in harnessing that data.

Adam Lavelle of iCrossing topped off the last question: Where does PR tie in with social media? Should you use your PR firm for social media outreach? His gift of myrrh:

This is very much an organizational question in terms of ownership. PR agencies better wise up DAMN fast because this is their business -- but those of us in the geeky underbelly who understand these technologies are gonna learn PR fast too.

In other words, we're in the midst of a horse race between the old guard and the new. If you didn't already know that, well ... God help you.