The Beginning of Something Great?
When James hollered at me about MNsem launching, my reaction was “Finally!”.  There are so many great search minds in the Twin Cities as well as those with a desire to learn more on search, let’s find a way to get together.

My thoughts and hopes for MNsem:

• Lots of sharing, open to all interested
• Hit all the aspects of search: local, PPC, organic and on and on
• Education, workshops, structured topics
• Improve our industry’s visibility
• Have fun!

Event one was great.  I caught up with familiar friends and faces and connected with a ton of great new people.  I think close to 50 attended.

Connect with MNsem on Twitter:  @MNsem or on LinkedIn

Here are some more photos from the night.

Paul Jahn and I, great friend & local search guru.

James, Clint & Lisa address the crowd

FRWD has a great view of Target Field from their 11th floor offices

Marketing Options & Best Practices
Chamber members learned about the various ways to use Facebook to both market socially with deals and interaction as well as using direct advertising with Facebook ads.  My slides are embedded below.

It was a packed room at Wild Marsh Golf Course, with great food and a great variety of local businesses. I’ll be interested to see what they put to work out there in the coming months!

Here are a few more photos and a big thank you to the Buffalo Chamber and attendees for having me.

Feel free to give a LIKE to Five Technology on Facebook as well.

Heads Down Is A Good Thing
There was a time when a presenter would shudder at half the audience having their head down.  Now, you expect your audience to have a face glowing from their laptop, netbook, iPad or smart phone, tweeting and sharing the valuable points of your presentation.

Event attendees repeat, regurgitate and push out a ton of great information to their followers. Conduct a quick search using the event hash tag and you’ll quickly tap into a stream of great content.  How solid is that?

Benefits Of Twitter
The way I see it, every aspect of the event wins with this social sharing of the content.  Here are a few things that Twitter has amplified and improved for events:

• The presenters get more exposure & gain new followers.
• Attendees become resources to their followers.
  
• The conference/event gets much more exposure, LIVE exposure and buzz.
• Attendees find it easier to meet/network with others there tweeting.
• Those back at the office at home, get some GREAT info … FREE.
• Attendees and presenters can further connect and interact during and after the event.

Twitter Round-Up
You can even take a group of tweets from an event and turn them into a tutorial.  Search Engine News contributor Andrew Shotland did this from Local University’s Minneapolis event.  Learning Local Search Via Twitter is a true “crowed sourced” article packed with takeaway tweets from both the attendees and speakers.

What’s Your Experience?
Every event I have attended in the last few years has been made better thanks to Twitter.  Big Omaha (#bigomaha), Social Media Breakfast MSP (#smbmsp), MIMA Summit (#Mimasummit) and Local University (#localu) to name a few that are all enhanced thanks to the sharing and communicating on Twitter.

For many events that I can’t make, I’ve still learned and gained from others sharing tips, links and content with me.  Three years ago, that wasn’t likely to happen at all.

Lastly, Twitter is just the tool and connector.  It’s great people that create and share the message.  It’s incredible the amount of great people I’ve learned from and met thanks to this tool.  Talk, tweet, or RT you at the next event!

At each of the Local U stops I’ve been a part of, the information, attendees interaction and speakers seem to get better.  A cool aspect of Denver was having attendee’s coming from afar to get their local search goods from New Mexico, Arizona, Nebraska and even Japan.

I’m not that surprised though when you consider the expertise, the content covered and the ridiculously low cost to attend a Local U event. Any past attendee will rave on the value.

Search Engines & SEO
I presented on the general workings of search engines and what a business can do to be more visible online, both to search engines and consumers.  Finding fun and real ways to show how a small business can approach their website, develop compelling content and prove their credibility online is a favorite for me.

Local Just Keeps Getting Better
The evolution and growth of local search continues at a rapid pace and Local U’s packed room of attendees were rabid for all of the great tips, ideas and strategies to win at local. Maps, SEO, directories, social media and even QR codes were discussed.

Great Presenters Willing To Share
At every event, I keep hearing comments and reading Twitter comments (#localu) on the quality of the presenters and the ease of access to them. Local U is an intimate setting that encourages interaction and conversation.  All of the speakers are willing to talk at length before and after the event, allowing for further questions and discussion.

From left to right: Mike Blumenthal, me, David Mihm, Matt McGee & Mary Bowling.

Get It From The Source
All of the Local University presenters offer great local, search, marketing and social media content on their blogs.  If you haven’t visited them before, I recommend doing so:

• Mike Blumenthal – Understanding Google Maps & Local Search
• David Mihm – Mihmorandum
• Matt McGee – Small Business Search Marketing
• Mary Bowling – seOverflow blog

Finally, if you’re new to exploring local search and helping your business online, start with GetListed.org to verify your local search listings are claimed.

The event was rock solid and I enjoyed sessions on web analytics, content strategy, online community building, mobile and more.   I didn’t poll the hundreds in attendance, but heard many comments on the quality of this years event.  Outside of the sessions, time spent with other presenters Jeff Sauer, Aaron Landry, Chris Silver Smith and Nathan Eide made for great discussions and fun.

Small Business SEO
The MIMA Summit seems to carry a bigger agency type feel for the programs and attendees, but a few sessions catered to the small business.  I spoke on Small Business  SEO On A Shoestring and had a great time presenting and fielding questions. My slides are below.

A big thanks to the MIMA board for inviting me to present and all of the volunteers that made the 2010 event so great.

BTW – My first preso slide contains my ALL TIME favorite shoes as a kid, ’89 Air Jordans.

MIMA Summit 2010 – September 27th & 28th
The Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association’s annual Summit is an event to be reckoned with.  I’m excited to be presenting a session on Small Business SEO On A Shoestring Tuesday morning.

I’m humbled to be part of a speaking line-up that includes Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Silver Smith, Jeff Sauer and some other talented Internet minds I enjoy and learn from often.

Local University Denver – October 21st
You won’t find a better small business Internet marketing seminar for the money than GetListed.org’s Local U series. The same as the  Minneapolis Local U event earlier this year, I’ll be heading the session on Intro to Search Engines.  Covering local search from many angles as well as social media and SEO, this event is the best in pure information and best practices.

Don’t miss out on speakers David Mihm, Ed Reese, Mike Blumenthal, Mary Bowling and Matt McGee.  Sign-up and use promo code five2010 to get $40 off the ticket, it’s just $89 for the 1/2 day session!  Go ahead and sign-up.

This week I had the opportunity to speak on search engine optimization at a conference put on by the Immunization Action Coalition out in Philadelphia.  The conference is called the Social Media Summit and focuses on helping the medical and health community bring awareness to vaccinations, immunizations and health using social media and Internet marketing.

My role was sitting down with many of the various organizations attending and conducting a review of their website and search engine optimization efforts.  In my hour sessions I focused on SEO best practices, establishing trust online and offered action items for their websites to improve their websites visibility to Google, Bing & Yahoo.

It was a fun challenge to work with medical and health organizations both large and small and discuss websites ranging from 15 pages to 50,000 pages and the  efforts needed to optimize content and spread their message online.  From building links to maximizing your meta page title, we covered a lot of ground.

Organizations I worked with over the 2 days included:

• American Academy of Family Physicians
• ECBT – Vaccinate Your Baby
• National Association of School Nurses
• Autism Science Foundation
• National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners
• National Network of Immunization Nurses and Associates

The conference also engaged some other social media professionals to launch a social campaign right from the conference for Real Guys Immunize.  A very cool idea for a conference.

The best news is that I didn’t have to get any shots to take part in this conference, but I did learn some valuable information on vaccines and children.  My thanks to all of the great attendees I met, the Immunization Action Coalition and Eventive Meetings.

Two packed sessions of Minnesota business owners, marketers, web designers and more soaked up an incredible amount of Internet marketing knowledge from leading experts as well as staff from Google and Bing.  GetListed.org’s Local University delivered as promised with solid education, best practices, approach, tools and more that anyone can implement at some level for marketing online.

Personally, in helping bring the Local U event to the Twin Cities it was satisfying to hear so many of the positive comments following each session and read all of the tweets.  Below are just a few Twitter comments from the day:

This is one workshop that is only out to educate it’s attendees, not sell.

Thank you to all involved, local sponsors Deluxe & ReliaCloud, the attendees, speakers, promotional partners and friends that help me pull this together.

The amount of valuable local search and online marketing information that was shared is awesome.  Smart people that enjoy sharing their vast knowledge is what Local U is all about.  How great is that?  I’m proud to have been part of this great group and event.

Here are a few photos from the event ….

Learn more on GetListed.org and the Local University series, who’s next stop is Cleveland, Ohio in June.

Who is this conference for?

This has been a big question I get when talking about the event.  I thought I would offer a small summary of what I feel every level of business owner, marketer or SEO can get from this great opportunity.

Entry Level - If you are a business owner, running a business or a small business marketer you may very well get the most out of Local University.  A solid amount of the information and sessions are gear toward baseline education, do-it-yourself tips and giving you a clear understanding of how things work and how you can benefit.  Confusion on Internet marketing will be replaced by clarity.

Intermediate Level- Where some of the information covered might be a good refresher, you’ll still get some new angles and information.  There is no doubt that the local search expertise presenting will give you more insight into this exploding area of the web and business.  The Q & A sessions will also give you access to ask questions in some areas that might be of specific interest to you.

Expert Level- Here is a great chance to support the industry you work in.  The chance to learn may still exist within the local search presentations, but the chance to network with other great Internet marketing minds as well as business owners and other local marketers is fantastic.

This 4 hour workshop will cover fantastic information on search engine optimization, local search , social media and more.  It’s a jam packed line-up that can benefit all levels of Internet marketers.

• Register now and use the code five2010 to get $40 off, dropping your cost to just $89 for this event.

Thank you to the local sponsors helping make this event possible, Deluxe and ReliaCloud.

April’s TCTHH event was sponsored by Five Technology and I presented on Mobile Web Design basics.  Lisa Foote, founder of MixMobi also presented on mobile marketing and their great service.

Here is my slide deck from my presentation:

The night was full of great Twin Cities professionals connecting with new people, sharing ideas, laughs, winning some gift cards and eating some awesome food from the Shorewood.

I want to say thanks everyone who came out last night, thanks to TCTHH founder Jeff Nolan, the Shorewood (client), Aaron Darling and numerous others for their support.  There are too many to name, but you know who you are.

Here are a few photos from the night, starting off with a few people enjoying their Twitter-tini’s!

Paul Jahn also posted a great photo set to his Flickr account.