I’m currently on the plane flying home from Social Fresh East held in Tampa on April 18, 19. This is my first conference since being hired on as the Director of Client Services at Ephricon. It’s my first conference I’ve attended as an “agency guy” instead of a “consultant” or “entrepreneur”.
Jason Keath always puts on an incredible conference. I’ve worked with him quite a bit the last few years and it always amazes me how skilled he is as a content curator. He chooses great content for his blog. But his social media conferences are downright amazing. He pulls together incredibly smart people who are fantastically skilled presenters.
This year, my work with the event was mostly behind the scenes. Primarily, I had the pleasure of catching several of the speakers and interviewing them as soon as their presentations were over. This included Chris Brogan, and the key social media managers for Jet Blue and ESPN. I tried to come up with good behind-the-scenes questions for each of them.
It was very enjoyable and interesting. I’m hoping Jason shares the videos online soon. If you want to watch them, just sign up for the Social Fresh email newsletter to find out when they are available.
So, what did I learn from Social Fresh this year?
The title of this post was the teaser. Here’s the explanation… (more…)
For those of you that have attended my classes or attended my meetups, you know I’ve been a little “under the radar” lately. So here’s an update:
For the past two years, I’ve been working a lot with Social Fresh and for a few clients. I’ve also reopened the Hippo Internet Marketing classes on Search Engine Optimization, Google AdWords, Blogging, and other topics.
But last month I moved my office from Huntersville to Mooresville. It’s a closer location from home and a little cheaper. But more importantly, it’s setup to do video better.
So to test it out, I’m re-launching Hippo Academy. My Academy is an online portal for learning Internet marketing topics. But it also includes 4 hours of one-on-one consulting from me personally. We can talk about and work on whatever you like.
I have not opened the doors in over 16 months, so if this is something you think you’d find interesting, visit www.Hippo-Academy.com now, before I close it again.
Every now and then I get asked about the networking events that are available in Charlotte for business professionals and marketers. It’s been 3 years since my last list. So I jumped on Twitter today and pulled a list together in about an hour, thanks to many helpful and friendly Twitterers in Charlotte.
If you are in the greater Charlotte NC area and spend much time online, you probably at some point will hear about Social Media Charlotte. Known online by the hashtag #SMCLT, this is a group that was started many years ago by Jason Keath (Social Media Speaker and Consultant and business partner of mine). For several years now, they have moved from just one person organizing it to a group of board members.
This morning, the new board of directors held their first event of the year. The events are named Social Media Breakfasts and this year started with a discussion of the new networks, platforms, and strategies. The discussion focused mostly around Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+. I did not agree with everything that was said, but I did agree with most. But that’s not important.
Most of my students, clients, and colleagues already know the benefits of advertising on Google. There are some real industry standards that have been developed that work really well on Google AdWords.
But few do Facebook advertising. Why?
I think I know why you don’t do it. It’s probably why I do so little of it.
You know how many people are on Facebook, right? You know you only pay per click, right? You also probably know that most new opportunities are cheaper at first, right?
I may be killing it soon. Before I do, I’d like your thoughts.
First, here’s the history of the meetup…
The first one was the 2011 Internet Marketing Forecast with Brandon Uttley on January 20, 2011. Since then, we’ve had some really good ones, including the 2012 forecast, an interview with weatherman Brad Panovich, and most recently, a great report on Google Plus by Mark Traphagan. I even got the smartest black hat marketer I’ve ever heard of to come speak to us! (more…)
For a while now, I’ve been very excited about teaching Google AdWords later this week on Thu January 26 and Fri January 17. It’s my first classroom training in over a year and this has always been THE CLASS that people have benefited the most from.
But over the weekend, this particular class just got better.
See, we have several students registered already. I recognized some of the names. One or two are new to AdWords. No problem.
But several others have been using Google AdWords for a while now. And I just know that they will have some advanced questions. For example, they are going to want to learn more and perhaps have some very specific questions on QUALITY SCORE and RETARGETING.
In a few weeks, Brandon Uttley and I will be presenting our Annual 2012 Internet Marketing Forecast. I hope you’ll attend. We have a blast doing this and it is always interesting (and entertaining).
In preparing for it, I’ve thought long and hard about what has worked in 2011. I’m also thinking a lot about what’s working now and what will come soon.
I’ll talk more about it at the free event. But as a sneak preview, the new advertising opportunities that Facebook presents, connected with (more…)
As most of you know, I do some work for Social Fresh. Because of that, I get some great opportunities that I’m happy to pass on to my readers. This is one of those moments.
Just this morning, Jason Keath (president of Social Fresh) and I finally finished a major project. For the first time, we took an entire conference including some awesome speakers and topics and made it available online.
I’m currently on the plane flying home from Social Fresh East held in Tampa on April 18, 19. This is my first conference since being hired on as the Director of Client Services at Ephricon. It’s my first conference I’ve attended as an “agency guy” instead of a “consultant” or “entrepreneur”.
