Online Marketing Blog

When there’s a good story to tell, it doesn’t matter what else is going on. You have to tell it. That’s where I’m at with the intersection of search, social and content marketing.

For the past few years I’ve been giving presentations all over the world to educate marketers on the importance of an attract, engage and convert approach to content marketing. During an upcoming stretch of 30 days or so, it turns out that I’ll be giving 6 different presentations on the topic from 6 different angles.

This content marketing and optimization “6 Ways” tour starts out in San Diego next week with a presentation on how to use blogging to inspire action at the inaugural Social Media Marketing World conference.

It’s customary to share a year in review post listing the top blog entries over the previous 12 months. When you publish 5 times a week, every week, there’s no way everyone that periodically reads your blog will see the best posts.

In 2012 we had a little more of a mix of contributors from TopRank staff and a few more guest blog posts than in years post. That’s a great thing, because our agency has some of the most talented digital marketers on the web and hearing from them is important to get a flavor for our agency.

We’ve covered some impressive ground this year, writing 220+ posts, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors from search, social media and links from blogs and industry websites.

A few TopRank team members at the #OptimizeBook Minneapolis Launch

The team at TopRank Online Marketing recently took a Disc assessment which is a tool used to improve employee teamwork and communication by identifying behavioral differences and assigning a profile type to each individual.  If you’ve ever taken an assessment like the one that we did, you may find that the description of your traits and learning style are eerily accurate.

A Disc assessment is a tool used to improve employee teamwork and communication by identifying behavioral differences and learning styles within an organization.

Employees will score a little bit differently depending on company culture and industry type but on average these are the following percentages for each profile type:

• 22% Dominance – values results action and challenge

The Optimize Minneapolis Book Launch last night was a great success!  I would like to personally thank everyone in attendance for coming, interacting, and sharing your feedback about our event online.

I had an opportunity to speak with most of the people in attendance and based on their stellar feedback it sounded like the #OptimizeBook event was just what they needed. A  healthy dose of laughs, refreshments, and learning compliments of Lee Odden (@LeeOdden).

For those of you who were not able to attend we look forward to seeing you at our next Optimize event.  If you’re looking for highlights from the Optimize Minneapolis Book Launch, look no further.  Below you will find Instagram photos, snapshots, and Twitter buzz from the event.

The official Optimize Minneapolis book launch is finally upon us.  Tomorrow from 5:30pm-7:30pm over 200 of the Twin Cities top Marketers and PR professionals will gather at Aria in Minneapolis to mix, mingle, and learn a little bit about optimization from Lee Odden.

With the SEO is dead stories coming from traditional media, Google making major changes and consumer shifts towards social media consumption and sharing, the notion of what optimization is has really changed. The good news is that Optimize gives readers a roadmap and specific tactics on how to integrate the best of search, social and content into an “optimized state of mind”.  The Optimize Minneapolis book launch will give our friends in the Minneapple a taste of why some of the top marketers in the world are saying such great things about Optimize.

Over the past 2 months I’ve given book presentations in New York, the UK, Belgium and Toronto. And now, we’re finally going to have a proper book launch for Optimize in the great state of Minnesota.  Since summer is in full swing and people are already sharing that Optimize is their preferred lakeside reading material, why not combine great networking, food, drink and a little info-tainment with a beach themed book launch party?

TopRank Online Marketing along with Vocus, Digital People, MIMA, Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis/St. Paul, PRSA Minnesota, Minnesota AMA, IABC Minnesota and the Minnesota Blogger Conference are sponsoring a little get together on July 25th at Aria Jeune Lune in Minneapolis.  With that kind of sponsorship and promotional firepower, this will be one heck of an event.

SES New York kicks off on Tuesday March 20, 2012, and I for one cannot wait.  Along with TopRank CEO Lee Odden who is speaking at the event, myself as well as one of our rockstar Account Managers Brian Larson will be attending and live blogging many of the scheduled sessions.

Based on the speaker lineup this years conference is sure to be filled with stories, tips, and tactics that any online marketer can put to good use.  This post is a combination of the sessions Brian and I  plan on attending as well as a little bit about our take on the Big Apple.  Hope to see you all there!

Ashley Zeckman: #SESNY Session Highlights

Tuesday March 20, 2012
Business Optimization in a Digital Age
Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google

21 Social Media Marketing Trends for 2012

Curious to find out what 2012 could have in store for online marketers?  This presentation from DreamGrow shares 21 predictions on what 2012 could look like.

Highlights include:

• Social CRM making inroads
• Social media influencing more sales
• Social commerce on mobile devices

Facebook IPO and Most Popular Social Sites:

For the past 3 plus years, TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog has been hosted by Minneapolis based website hosting provider, VISI.  When our past host shut us down without warning for getting too much traffic, VISI and Online Marketing Blog connected and worked out a sponsorship. VISI is the only company with an ongoing “ad” on this blog.

Uptime for Online Marketing Blog has been amazing since we moved to VISI and customer service has been exceptional. With web site hosting, the ideal situation is to forget about them, to not even know they are there because things are working so smoothly.

But when situations arise, and a site goes down, you remember pretty quickly who your hosting company is. VISI was good about working with us when we had a major problem earlier this year and get the right equipment to meet our needs. As our traffic has increased, there hasn’t been a blip of downtime.

Online Marketing Blog has been toying around with a new blog header and thought it would be best to get your opinion on which design we should choose.

In the upper left corner of this post there are 5 different headers to check out, each with it’s own name. Click on each one and the header will change – see what you think.

Once you decide which one you like best, please vote below!

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We’ll let voting run until Friday this week and then we’ll update the blog design with the most popular header. All thanks to you

After a much deserved blogging vacation last week, I thought I’d start this final week of 2009 with wishes of appreciation for the readers of TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog and the fantastic team of writers we have. It was 6 years ago today, that TopRank started an agency blog as a way to publicly save and comment on industry news.

We’ve been through and observed many, many changes in the internet marketing industry over the past 6 years. Of course, Online Marketing Blog isn’t the only internet and SEO focused blog celebrating a 6 year birthday this year. There are several others listed here including a few that are still very active: Search Engine Roundtable, Search Engine Journal and SEO Book.

There are many ways for company marketers to advance their knowledge in the digital marketing and PR space. A big part of TopRank’s consulting services are to provide clients with education so they can better implement recommendations and promote the advantages of SEO, Social Media and Optimized PR in house. We’re also active participants towards industry education on these topics through speaking at conferences.

September is the calm before the storm of speaking events for TopRank but October and November are packed with opportunities to learn strategy, hear case studies and understand specific tactics for implementation on the topics of Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing and Online Public Relations. Here are our upcoming events. We hope to see you there:

Oct 5, 2009 – MIMA Summit, Hilton Minneapolis