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February 2012 SearchFest Conference in Portland

December 27th, 2011

12/29/2011 Update: Attendees using the promo code MnSEARCH receive a 10% discount per the event below.

Over the years, search marketing and social media conferences have grown in both number and price. You want to make them whether it’s for learning or networking purposes, albeit hopefully for both.

There’s one in Portland, Oregon that has piqued my interest. If you’re in search, you may have heard of the February 2012 SearchFest conference by now. I don’t know yet if I’ll make it, but I hope to for at least a couple reasons.

The first reason is price. For $299 (if you register by December 31) you can’t beat it.

And…

It’s a one-day conference, but it’s one, full, packed day with trusted in-the-field presenters including:

Here’s the full agenda.

If you’re on even more of a budget, good news. Flights to Portland (from Minneapolis anyway) are currently inexpensive if you’re willing to have a layover.

Portland hotels are also reasonable, especially if you choose to stay near the airport. Why would you stay by the airport? The Max Light Rail can take you from the airport area right by the conference located at the Governor Hotel. If you have an Expedia account, check out “Flight + Hotel” options from 2/23/12 – 2/25/12. You may find a gem.

Here are a few inexpensive motels close to the Red Line and airport, all apparently includes Wifi and appear to have Expedia discounts:

Todd Mintz, David Mihm, Chris Lister, let me know if I’m incorrect in the above.

I’m a fan of mass transit, and all of this combined can probably be achieved at 1/4 of the price of other conferences.

The second reason I’m intrigued is because of the format. It looks like the presenters are mostly folks who get their hands dirty and implement what they preach.

This occurs at other conferences too, but there was a recent one that had a lot to do with big-box companies and how they sell their newer search marketing services. This is all fine and would be interested if I was in sales. However, I’ve personally seen the differences between big-box sales pitches vs. what they actually deliver.

I have a couple friends and acquaintances in PDX who will be attending this as a local event. How about you? Are you interested in making the trip to Portland? I’ve been there around five times and it’s a beautiful city.

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Posted in Search Marketing, Social Media | 6 Comments »

Localmn and Snap Communications Search and Social Seminars – Coming to You in 2012

December 20th, 2011

Jan 3 Update: We have a potential initial event venue at the Minneapolis Marriott West. We’ll also be contacting a few trusted people if case you want to side-volunteer with the return of promoting your niche local web/social business. If you receive a humble Twitter mention from us, that’s why. More on this below and the event date(s) are TBD.

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Not new news, but over the past few years local and social search has made an overdue mainstream surge for local businesses. With that said, there’s still a void. At the very basic level we see lots of this:

And not always a lot of this:

Notice the difference?

Claiming your Google Places page is just one, free, tiny example of what local companies can do to boost their visibility and it’s also arguably the first things recommended.

So, in 2012 Barb from Snap Communications and myself will be offering local search seminars in the Minneapolis-St. Paul areas for interested companies, groups and industries.

We’re not just talking about Google Places. The seminars will include both local strategies and tactics for the following:

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
  • Local Listings (Google Places, etc.)
  • Web Analytics (Google Analytics)
  • Social Aspects (Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.)
  • Online Reputation Management

We intend for these seminars to be fairly similar to the wonderful and low-cost LocalU local search format, meaning they’re more for educational purposes and less about sales pitches. We also intend to customize these seminars to audience industry.

These could be anything from attorneys to restaurant owners to specific professional groups or associations. We’re seasoned (old) and have seen it all.

Interested? Great! Just contact us per the phone number up top or at pjahn @ localmn.com.

OK, back to the good stuff.

One thing we will be doing for each seminar is pre-selecting an attendee to come on up live to fill out and claim their full Google Places profile. It’s one thing to talk about how important this is, but showing and going through the exact process and hiccups (yep, there are a few) is something we really hope resonates with attendees.

Here’s just a partial image of the Localmn Google Places page:

Regarding the seminars, we highly encourage attendees to bring a laptop and/or tablet. We want you to take notes for things you can do on your own. Smartphones are also encouraged as we’ll be having Twitter hashtags, plus we encourage attendees to take pictures of slides or anything else they see interesting.

Another thing we’ll be doing is showing real-life examples of how local companies are using social media to help boost their brands, and eventually, sales.

The half-day seminars would include our 2-ish hour seminar of local online marketing concepts you can do on your own. For the next two hours, we’re planning for us and other niche consultants to hang around to help your online presence on-the-spot. Niche consultants could provide information about:

  • Foursquare
  • Websites built on WordPress
  • Responsive web design
  • More to come

We have a few people in mind for the above niches and will be contacting them soon. With that said, if you’re a expert in a particular niche and would like to volunteer, just let us know.

There will be nominal attendance prices TBD as we plan to keep these more educational oriented and less of sales pitches. We will be giving our awesome niche volunteers subtle pitches as they would be helping out of the goodness of their own hearts.

Are you part of an industry that would like to learn more about all of the above? Just let us know.

Are you a local venue that would like us to pay you money to host these events? Just let us know. If you have free wifi and enough AC outlets or extension cords for attendees to bring their laptops to plug in, especially let us know!

We haven’t come up with a creative Twitter hashtag for these events yet. Have one for us? Again, just let us know. We’ll give you all the credit in the world.

More to come and locally yours,

Barb and Paul

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Posted in Local Search, Minnesota Business, Search Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Local Search – Take Pictures for Your Google Places Listing

December 2nd, 2011

Take the right pictures, then take more pictures. This is the overall gist of this post.

Take a look at this picture.

And this picture.

These are pictures taken from my own camera that appeared briefly in the Localmn Google Places page. Why?

If you don’t proactively include logos and pictures to your Google Places profile, Google can and will algorithmically include random pictures from your own site and/or blog.

In this case, it involved visiting my sister in Iowa City in 2009 for her son’s baptism. The day before, I stayed in Cedar Rapids and made a blog post about a running tour of the well-known flood sites from the year before.

The above pictures include a boarded-up downtown business because of the flood and one of many porta-potties on neighborhood corners for residencies who no longer had water. It’s a sad story.

Once noting these pictures in the Google Places profile, it has been updated with a Search Engine Strategies event and a search/social event presented from my sister and myself.

Others examples of Google Places pictures who could be more proactive can be found from the fabulous town of Northfield, where I made my holiday purchases. Thanks again, Northfield, I will be back.

Tips for including pictures to your Google Places Profile:

  • Compress your pictures to your best abililty
  • Try to make them close to square – 200 pixels wide to 200 pixels long

Don’t necessarily worry if your potential logo within your Places account looks compressed like this:

It may come out on Google Places looking like this:

It’s trial and error and just go with the flow. Again, take pictures, then make more pictures. More to come on how taking pictures can not just help your local presence, but your social presence as well.

Posted in Local Search | 6 Comments »