2008 MIMA Summit at The Depot
UPDATE: We have a winner! Liz Giel was selected by a mysterious voting process contrived within the ranks of the TopRank staff and involving various secretive and hurried Account Managers. Suffice it to say, we appreciate all who ReTweeted, linked and commented. Don’t worry, there will be liveblogging of the event here on Online Marketing Blog and live streaming of several sessions at MIMASummit.org. Congratulations Liz!
In just under a week the annual Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association Summit will be held downtown Minneapolis at the Hilton. With keynotes from Seth Godin and Jackie Huba as well as a collection of local and national subject matter experts ranging from Greg Swan of Weber Shandwick to Scott Monty of Ford, it should be a veritable vortex of interactive velocity. I apologize, that alliteration was so bad.
Anyway, TopRank has been asked to participate in the “Migrate” themed event on the topic of search engine optimization and social media convergence.
After writing, presenting and most importantly: being a paid consultant and self-practitioner of SEO (12 years) and Social Media Marketing (5 years) respectively, I thought it would be a good appetizer for next week’s presentation to highlight some of the most popular blog posts covering SEO and social media marketing from Online Marketing Blog.
Top SEO and Social Media Marketing Posts from Online Marketing Blog:
(by traffic in the past 12 months)
1. 25 Must Read Social Media Marketing Tips (Apr 27th, 2009) – This popular post offers specific advice on justifying investment in social media strategy, how to decide on tactics and measuring success from in-house social media marketers including: Dell, Comcast, HP, Wells Fargo, Intel, Best Buy, General Mills, Ford, UPS, Home Depot, Cirque du Soleil and a mix of SMM consultants/agencies: Altimeter Group, Crayon, Ogilvy 360, Future Works, Doe Anderson, New Marketing Labs and others.
2. Guide to Twitter as a Tool for Marketing and PR (Nov 15th, 2007) – Excerpt: “The key with Twitter is not to look at microblogging as individual posts, but think of the overall impressions and value that can be created over time. Each 140 character or less entry serves as a seed of an idea for an overall objective. Over time, you’ll build a footprint and brand of influence within the Twitter community”. This post also includes tips from other early adopter Tweeple including:Andy Beal, Todd Defren and Michael Gray.
3. Best and Worst Practices Social Media Marketing (Feb 12th, 2009) – Many marketers are unsure about the difference between best and worst practices when it comes to commercial participation on the social web. Identifying best and worst practics is a work in progress of course, as communities develop, grow and change. This post outlines the basic best/worst practices that will hold true for years to come. Internet years that is.
4. 25 Tips for Marketing Your Blog (Jun 15th, 2006) – An oldie but goodie, this post contains many of the fundamentals for creating search engine friendly blogs and has been cited by over 14,000 web sites including Search Engine Land, Copyblogger, Mashable, Stuntdubl, SEOBook, Duct Tape Marketing a and HubSpot.
5. What is Your Social Media Marketing Strategy? (Mar 25th, 2008) – Social media is hot, every body’s doing it. But the question needs to be asked: why? This post offers several good business reasons why companies should invest time, money and resources into social media.
6. Top Ten SEO Tips for PR Professionals (Apr 29th, 2009) – After presenting these ten tips at a public relations conference, I blogged the presentation and wrote another blog post detailing each of the ten tips. It should have been an ebook, but I decided it would reach more people as a series of 11 blog posts.
7. 16 Rules For Social Media Optimization Revisited (Aug 4th, 2009) – A follow up to a post originally published in 2006 that defined a new marketing category, this 3,117 word article by TopRank’s Adam Singer offers an update that resonated well with Online Marketing Blog readers. Is social media optimization still relevant and why?
8. 5 Link Building Tips for New Websites (Mar 20th, 2009) – KISS, as in Keep It Simple Stupid. It’s sage advice for many things, including blog posts. This link building basics post from TopRank’s Dana Larson hit the nail on the head for many new web site owners in search of those ever elusive first links to boost search engine rankings.
9. Lowdown on Press Release Optimization (Oct 24th, 2005) – One of the first really popular blog posts we ever published, still gets new links every week from sites like WebProNews, Bruce Clay, Techipedia, LED Digest and Yahoo.
10. SEO Basics: 6 Tips for Google Webmaster Tools (Apr 7th, 2009) – Google set the stage for formal search engine support of the webmaster community by developing Webmaster Tools (thanks Vanessa Fox) and TopRank’s Thomas McMahon wrote up this popular tips post highlighting some very useful features.
BONUS! While not one of the most popular posts overall in the past year, a few recent entries made on Online Marketing Blog speak specifically to the presentation I’ll be giving at the MIMA Summit next week:
SEO & Social Media Roadmap – How do you plan for a social media strategy? How do you leverage the Yin/Yang benefits of both SEO and Social Media for objectives, tactics, specific tools and measuring goals? This post attempts to answer those questions specifically.
Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success – This post was published over at Mashable and focuses on making the most out of combining SEO insights with social media marketing tactics through development of a roadmap. Like any digital marketing effort, a combined SEO and social media program is most effective that identifies a target audience, specifies measurable goals and a strategy to guide implementation of tactics.
Hopefully your appetite has been stimulated enough to come to our MIMA Summit SEO/Social session right after Seth Godin’s keynote. If not, you’ll definitely have actionable tips you can use in your SEO and Social Media Marketing efforts today.
Session Details:
The Intersection of SEO and Social Media
Oct 5, 2009 – 9:45 am
Tactics Track, Salon C
Hilton, Minneapolis
Session Overview:
Successful social media efforts build community, better connect brands with customers and can influence both media coverage and increased sales. Yet implementing a social media marketing program without optimizing content for search is literally “leaving money on the table.” Useful social content (blog, video, images, audio and applications) that cannot be discovered via search is a lost opportunity to reach audiences that are looking.
Why do so many companies fail to leverage their participation on the social web for SEO? This session will provide specific “Do’s and Don’ts” of social media optimization and provide attendees practical examples of how companies can leverage SEO and social media content to improve their search marketing performance.
If you like video, here’s an interview with Phil Wilson of Minnov8 & myself talking about SEO/Social and what I’ll be presenting at MIMA Summit.
Win a Free Pass to the MIMA Summit!
Want to attend the sold-out MIMA Summit in Minneapolis next week but didn’t get your ticket in time? Or maybe you’re a Seth Godin fan and just can’t stand the fact that you’ll miss hearing him speak in person. Well dear readers, we just might have the solution to that problem. TopRank Online Marketing has one extra ticket from the corporate table we purchased for the MIMA Summit and we’re going to give it away.
All you have to do is leave a single comment below with a creative and/or compelling reason why we should give YOU a free ticket to next week’s MIMA Summit ($595 value) OR if you Tweet a similarly creative link to this post, that will show up in our comments too. We’ll pick one lucky winner on Thursday Oct 1st.
Sound easy? Sound doable? Then get to it. If you comment, be sure to enter your email address so we can contact you. If you Tweet, be sure to follow @toprank so we can DM you. We will ONLY contact you if you win and will not rent, sell, post, hack or do anything unsavory or sinister with the information you provide.
Obligatory Q and A:
Q: Does it include gratuitous coffee in the morning before Seth speaks?
A: If MIMA provides it with the corporate table tickets, then you get it. Pretty sure they’ll be offering coffee. Maybe even some bacon.
Q: Does it include lunch?
A: Pretty sure lunch is included. If not, I’ll buy you lunch. 🙂
Q: Does it include door to door pickup service from my home in Ham Lake to downtown Minneapolis with sidetrips to Starbucks on the way there and Lucia’s Wine Bar on the way home?
A: I don’t think so.
Q: OK, what about cab fare?
A: Nope.
Q: Transit pass?
A: Not going to happen.
Q: Bus fare?
A: That would be, ah, no.
Q: Schwag?
A: MIMA Summit events and sponsors have been amazing with their schwag generosity. Can’t imagine this year will be any different.
However, we might bring a TopRank mugs. We’d bring the TopRank Old English Sheep dog, but he has a sinus infection and believe me, you don’t want to be around when a 90lb sheep dog sneezes.
Any other questions? Please Tweet them to @toprank or email seo at toprank dot org
