Story by: Cliff Boodoosingh     Date: Fri, August 1st, 2008          ... more from Cliff

Social Media Marketing: "It's sexy, hot, exciting"

HostingCon 2008. Chitown was hot, super-sticky and full of exciting, riveting and spirited discussions on hosting-even hosting related components.

The Marketing track on Monday morning showed that even the hosters want to jump in to social media big time. Why not..."it's sexy, hot and exciting," according to Brett Tabke, moderator of the session on Monday morning.

Tabke noted that even in conferences featuring the search engine thought leaders (MSN, Yahoo, Google, Ask.com), that social media segments were far better attended because of marketing interest at the moment.

Hartland Ross, eBridge President, cautioned hosting companies about the time component required to achieve ROI, noting that it entails constant effort on a regular basis. Ben Fisher, VP of TechPad Agency, took a similar stance but advocated use of word of mouth among customers that were pleased with your product or service offering as a cost-effective basis to pursue this strategy. That makes sense because your raving fans will tell their friends on blogs or forums or whatever social media they choose.

Amy Armitage, Business Development Director of Lunar Pages , said that hosts should try contests on blogs or forums. Her company has enjoyed success on similar contests, noting that if downloadable components are included it could spell some traffic bonanaza.

The mere fact that this was one of the better attended sessions, shows that the marketing task is still one of the most difficult on the Web host's plate. Tabke showed that keyword wise that Web hosting and hosting services were among the touhgest sectors to compete in after Legal, Pharma, Gambling and B2B Marketing.

Story by: Cliff Boodoosingh     Date: Mon, June 23rd, 2008          ... more from Cliff

Five things I enjoyed at SES Toronto

Search Engine Strategies is always a must attend to gain insights and pick up new techniques in the Internet marketing realm. That's a given. But there are a few "lighter" things worth pointing out from the 2008 Toronto sessions on June 17th & 18th:

1.Fredrick Marckini's keynote had all the right ingredients sprinkled in: fun, silliness, and a well-constructed factual account of where search marketing is heading. Kudos.

2. Seth Godin's Book Meatball Sundae (2007) was in the loot bag...free!

3. Mederators who aren't scared or overly paranoid about to poke fun or state an opinion. So Kevin Ryan said that some bloggers should get out of their parent's basement and get some real life experience before posting things they know little about...yeah that makes sense. I get that he wasn't speaking about all bloggers, others didn't.

4.Thinking about the well-being of the attendees right up to the music that was being piped in during the breaks. Good call to dump the repetitive Green Day tracks (they were fine the first two times) and inject some feel-good happy reggae a la Eddy Grant. FYI: In April 2008 Eddy announced his first UK tour in more than 20 years.

5. Attendees speaking up when the panelists weren't delivering on the topics--you've got to get your money's worth, folks.

Again it was a solid program by SES (http://www.searchenginestrategies.com) and we look forward to 2009's conference.

Story by: Cliff Boodoosingh     Date: Tue, April 22nd, 2008          ... more from Cliff

Keep Green Marketing Down to Earth

Spending sixty bucks to fill the gas tank was my first head shaking experience of the morning. Thankfully, we split that bill in three, my car-pooling friends and I. And thus, my first Earth Day friendly gesture was in the history books.

Perhaps I should have biked in, or rather used "alternative green transportation" to follow suit with some of the marketing hype companies have been dishing out leading up to this Earth Day. Yes, there are companies still making false claims and misleading statements according to marketing firm TerraChoice, which evaluated more than 1,000 products on the market.

Is it any wonder consumers are skeptical of Green promises or even the catch phrase 'environmentally friendly'? In fact, a study from Cone and the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship (cited in USA Today) found only 47% of adults trust companies to tell them the truth in environmental marketing.

That's hardly fair to the companies that actually believe in the Green theme for the whole 365 days of the year and those that continue to make strides and work hard to help the environment. Is it?

Fortunately, consumers are more conscious this year: surveys show that we are more concerned about our environment than a year ago (Yankelovich poll of 2,763 consumers) and this translates into more awareness of sound Green practices. Companies are also being vigilant and there are watchdog groups springing up to keep an eye on the Green washing. Maybe we can celebrate this Earth Day with an eco-friendly drink of 360 Vodka (www.vodka360.com)--and keep our 'Green' state of mind. Just a thought.