Snappy title eh? Here are a few others I was considering: "Fall Into Search & Social Media Smarts at SES Chicago", "Leaf the Competition Behind at SES Chicago", "No Cold Ideas at SES Chicago", "Remember December SES Chicago?". You get the idea. As a long time attendee, speaker and media sponsor, here's the good news and more good news about the upcoming Midwest Search and Social Media Marketing conference held in the windy city. First ,

When you think of geotagging, or checking in, what do you think of? Probably GPS, FourSquare, Facebook Places or letting a photo site like Flickr know where a photo was taken. But it can also be done for blog posts. Geotagging in blog posts is still relatively new, but it well on its way. WordPress.com already supports geotagging on profiles and posts so that you can let others know where you are posting from.

Kipp Bodnar of HubSpot This post is one of a series of liveblogs from the 2010 MIMA Summit. B2B social media can be surprisingly successful with a specific focus on lead generation. If social media is to be taken seriously for B2B by marketing decision makers, it needs to maintain a focus on business objectives and driving sales vs. "fluff". B2B companies are actually in a much better position to use social media as a marketing channel than B2C companies.

This post is one of a series of liveblogs from the 2010 MIMA Summit. Web Analytics is an excellent way to ensure your marketing efforts are not in vain. However, looking at Analytics without understanding user behavior may leave you treading water instead of creating a wake your competitors will fear. One way to take your methods of measurement to the next level is to combine Analytics with User Experience )UX( information.

Marketers like formulas and what better metaphor for successful online marketing with blogs than a recipe? At the upcoming BlogWorldExpo conference in Las Vegas, I'll be giving my recipe for success using Social Media and SEO in two ways: First , I'll be doing a solo presentation on Social Media SEO , giving bloggers a tested methodology for making the most of their content and social networks.

With every online marketing channel and discipline, there must be tools to make the task of marketing more efficient and effective. Social Media Marketing is no different. Over the past 6-9 months, I've been researching and reviewing a variety of social media management tools that help with everything from source network connections to campaign & social content management to monitoring & measurement.

Read this post, share it on the social web and you could win a free pass to the 2010 MIMA Summit. Details below. The 2010 MIMA Summit will feature keynote speaker Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV and author of Crush It! )review(. Once I heard @Garyvee was speaking in Minnesota I hoped to do a pre-event interview, but it didn't work out. Two years ago, Geoff Livingston introduced me to Gary at Blog World Expo and to be honest, I wasn't familiar with who he was.

B2B Marketing offers a variety of choices for reaching customers wherever they are in the buying cycle. Make no mistake, buyer behaviors towards information discovery, consumption and sharing online have been significantly affected by changes in social technology. At a conference I recently spoke at, an attendee made a statement that social media only works for consumer marketing. The reality many marketers forget, is that B2B buyers are people too.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and on the social web, that flattery goes one step further, often in the form of a mash-up. Google has launched a variety of services to much fanfare by the media and yawns from the masses )Google Wave, Buzz(. However, the recent implementation of Google Instant has resulted in a number of "instant" implementations on other types of search. Twitter has tempted us with the promise of real-time,

Even though a company sees the value of social media, it doesn't mean the organization or its members are ready for it. Have you started something you really weren't ready for? Sometimes it works out and other times it doesn't. In order for companies to realize the maximum benefit from social media marketing, there must be a certain level of understanding about the nature of online communities, social media sharing web sites and applications.

With the growing momentum of content marketing, a lot of companies get hung up on making investments in quality articles, white papers, videos and other media only to find they're not getting much traction. I've heard it time and time again at conferences in discussions with brand marketers where they've invested in creating great content and digital assets but are frustrated at the lack of reach. Over the past 6 1/2 years of blogging, followed by contributing articles,

While in Hong Kong I thought it might be interesting to start doing videos that offer tips against an interesting backdrop. There are so many amazing conversations and topics discussed at the events I travel to, why not combine that somehow? Watch this Content Marketing Optimization video to learn the simple, yet highly effective, method of incorporating search and social media keywords to guide content marketing optimization efforts.

I've been connected via the social web with Brent Payne for several years and we finally met in person at SES Hong Kong. Working for the Tribune companies as Director of Search Engine Optimization, Brent has been able to make a significant impact on news web sites like the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times. In this interview,

The opening keynote presentation at SES Hong Kong featured none other than Avinash Kaushik , co-Founder of Market Motive Inc and the Analytics Evangelist for Google. In this video interview, Avinash talks about the value of communicating analytics information in more meaningful ways. He gives examples of metaphors he's used to present important analytics information that helps others better understand the meaning and implications of the data.

Note from Lee : This guest post comes to us from Andy Beal , CEO of social media monitoring tool Trackur and coauthor of Radically Transparent: Monitoring & Managing Reputations Online . Andy and I have known each other for many years and in fact, Andy was the first "famous" SEO blogger I had the opportunity to meet in person. He was gracious, helpful and very smart then and continues those traits today.

Next week I'll get to experience two firsts: A visit to Hong Kong for the first time and speaking at an all new Search Engine Strategies conference for Asia. SES Hong Kong includes a great mix of expertise and leadership on all things search and social media. The opening keynote on day 1 features Avinash Kaushik, Author, Blogger, Analytics Evangelist at Google and day 2 will feature Tianfang Feng, Chief Consultant, Search Engine Marketing at Baidu.

Yesterday Google implemented their new search experience, Google Instant and the SEO and Tech blogs lit up like a Christmas tree. It's nice to see something get these folks excited for a change. While the notion of instant search isn't new, Yahoo had it in 2005 , Google commands the vast majority of search engine market share so such a major, public change to the Google interface warrants attention. Essentially,

Note from Lee: This guest post comes to us from Frank Strong, the director of Public Relations at Vocus & PRWeb , a client of TopRank Online Marketing . When The Karate Kid was released in 1984, social media had yet to be conceived. Even so, we can still learn a great deal from the way a character like Mr. Miyagi simplified what might otherwise be considered complex challenges. He was a master, a student,

Spotlight on Search Interview: Mel Carson Microsoft Advertising If you attend Search Marketing industry conferences, you've no doubt run into the ever optimistic and charming Mel Carson from Microsoft. When I was last in London, Mel connected me with an excellent Fish n Chips that the pubs around Trafalgar Square couldn't get close to. Mel is active as an advocate of Microsoft Advertising ,

TopRank Online Marketing is proud to be a founding sponsor of the first Minnesota Blogger Conference . Tickets for this event "sold out" within a few hours and there are over 100 people on the waiting list. Thanks to conference founders Melissa Berggren, Arik Hanson, Suzi Magill and Katie Schutrop, it's already one hot event. The date is Saturday, Sept 11 )the day I fly to Hong Kong( and the location is at CoCo MSP in Saint Paul .