Check it out... last month I was interviewed on the Cigar Alliance podcast by owner Chris Trotter. The interview was published just yesterday on his website, and features lots of chit-chat in regards to one of my long-time favorite hobbies - cigar smoking. The interview did slightly move into a work-related discussion towards the end of the conversation (not that it was planned or anything), and I was able to plug my design and marketing services as well as offer up a few freebies to his audience - many of which are cigar bloggers and other individuals that run cigar podcasts.

A huge "thanks" goes out to Chris for inviting me to be apart of his show. It certainly is nice to partake in things that are of interest and not necessarily work-related. I also want to thank him for sending me a 5 pack cigar sampler courtesy of his own personal humidor. I've already tried the Java by Drew Estate and am absolutely in love with it... a great cigar at a decent price.

A Gurka, 2 CAO Golds, a Java by Drew Estate, and a Padron Anniversary

For those of you whom have an interest in cigar smoking or want to catch my interview on the Cigar Alliance podcast, download podcast episode #10 (FREE). In fact... if you happen to be someone who has a somewhat serious interest in cigar smoking (n00b or veteran), I'd highly recommend subscribing to Chris' podcast and listening to each of his past episodes. The Cigar Alliance podcast is a great source for information, and Chris does an absolute superb job of presenting his thoughts in a fun, relaxing, and easy-to-understand format.

This should make for a good laugh.

The following is an email marketing campaign that was forwarded on to me from my good friend Gene Carbonell who just so happens to run an online store over at My Health Management.com. Gene and I are always talking SEM, and so when he received this email, he immediately forwarded it on to me... and I of course immediately began laughing.

Move over Sam's Choice Cola and Sam's Choice Drinking Water... there's a brand new product offering hitting the shelves. Introducing Sam's Choice Pay Per Click services:

That's right... America's "favorite" retail chain is offering online advertising packages starting at the low, low rate of $100 per month.

If you're like me, and you're sitting there, reading this, and thinking to yourself WTF?... my only logical guess as to why the Wal-Mart / Sam's Club organization has decided to step into Internet marketing is because they've either A) lost their damn minds or they're B) getting tired of running the mom-and-pop stores of the country out of business and are now looking to bring their fight elsewhere.

Whatever the reason is for Wal-Mart offering PPC services... I can't help but smirk a little. What do you think?

I know that I promised an in in-depth recap of the Search Engine Strategies conference that I attended last week, but my plans have sort of changed a little bit. I've already written and published a review over on the Search Marketing Gurus, another blog that I participate on, and instead of coming up with second post altogether, I figured that I would just direct you all to the one.

If you're interested at all in knowing my thoughts on the conference, as well as some of the highlights and disappoints of the show... be sure to check out my Conference Recap: SES Chicago 2007 post on the Search Marketing Gurus Blog.

The following are some of the photos I took during the conference.

Brian Eisenberg of Future Now

The Orion Panel

Don Shultz, Professor at Northwestern University

Seth Godin, Author and Speaker

Google Booth

Ask.com Booth

The "Organic Listings Forum" Panel

The "Are Paid Links Evil" Panel

Webmaster Radio Booth

David Wallace of SearchRank

Oh, and if you also attended the conference, be sure to drop me a line. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Today's post is a guest-post from one of my industry buds Taylor Pratt of LunaMetrics. Taylor was fortunate enough to attend the sunny, warm setting of PubCon last week in Las Vegas, while I was in the Windy City battling a small snow storm. Lucky guy! In the post to follow, Taylor has provided a recap of last week's PubCon conference, and has highlighted his favorite sessions, the biggest take-a-ways, and a few of the areas that need improvement.

For additional information on Taylor Pratt, I encourage you all to check out his brand-spanking new blog Gonzo SEO (launched yesterday).

I'm finally home after attending an amazing conference. I've only been to three conferences in my young career, but this year's Pubcon was the best. Not only was there a lot to learn, but the people I met were awesome. It's amazing what a few drinks can do!

Instead of going session by session, I thought I'd wrap up Pubcon 2007 a different way. If you want even more detail about the sessions, head over to the Bruce Clay blog or Search Engine Roundtable to read great right-ups by Lisa and Tamar.

TOP 5 SESSIONS

Social Media 101: the Playing Field. If having an all star panel wasn't enough, I have to give Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz credit: he gave an awesome presentation. Rand, one of the most entertaining speakers, outlined 20 places to get live links in the social media world, 20 domains with strong profile rankings (for reputation management), and 12 unique sites to promote your social media content. At Rand's request, I can't publish them. Sorry guys and gals.

Michael Gray, aka Graywolf, gave great tips on writing content for Social Media. I had the pleasure of hearing Graywolf speak on many panels, and he has a gift for social media content. Some of his great tips, included:

• Write short, easy to read, scannable content
• Include eye-catching images above the fold
• Use a calendar and current events when creating linkbait

Site Reviews with Rae Hoffman and Dixon Jones. I have had the pleasure of attending multiple site reviews with these two, and each of them have been fantastic. Although Rae is often wrongly accused of being to harsh, I think they provide great analysis and fantastic advice for all in the audience. I work on a lot of audits for clients, and it was great to see how these two could perform a well thought out one in only five minutes.

Site Reviews: Focus on Social Media. This site review had a social media all star panel. We were able to pick the brains of Tamar Weinberg, Todd Malicoat, Brent Csutoras, Rebecca Kelley, and Michael Gray. They reviewed many difficult sites to create link bait for, and were able to create multiple great ideas for each of them. They also shared a number of great tips as well:

• They talked to us about their favorite link baiting hooks, and gave a tip or two on how to be successful with them (i.e. provide a unique solution when using the attack hook to reinforce your argument).
• Don't overlook the social media site mixx.com
• When using a video to promote social media, keeping the length of the video under a minute works best. However, if you need to go longer, make sure the first 30 seconds are amazing.

Startup Costs: Getting in the Video Game. This was a very informative session, especially for me because I'm working hard at getting into the online video world (you should too.) The entire panel for this session was great, but one presentation really stood out: Robin Liss of camcorderinfo.com told us everything we needed to know about entering the video world. From tips on which equipment is best, to the most important dos and don'ts, her presentation rocked! Best tips:

• Remember: half of the video is audio! Don't overlook the power of having good sound.
• The most important accessory is the tripod - no one likes a shaky video.
• If you plan on editing your video, tape and HDV cameras are the best to use (instead of hard drive and DVD camcorders).

Search and Blogging Reporters Forum. What made this panel so interesting was that it was pretty much an open floor. You could ask this panel of industry experts just about anything. The panel included Rand Fishkin, Michael McDonald, Lee Odden, and Andy Beal. I asked the panel whether or not it was a good idea to allow comments on a new blog. In my opinion it can hurt your creditability to see 0 comments on every post. Rand said that he has done this before, and it isn't a bad idea. Build up an audience and then turn them on. Alternatively, he said you could get some friends to make sure they comment regularly on the blog to start up the conversation.

BIGGEST COMPLAINTS ABOUT PUBCON

As great as Pubcon was, there were still some improvements that could be made:

• Lack of Wifi. For the first two days of the conference there was very limited connectivity. It wasn't until the last day of sessions that we were able to have a connection in every room.
• No water in the morning. The breakfast selection was nice, but after being at the Pub all night: I need to hydrate!!
• Lack of time in between sessions. At most we would have 5 minutes to get to the next session. This left very little time for restroom breaks, to find a place with internet, and to socialize between sessions.
• A small exhibit hall. Brett said it was one of the largest he has ever had, but...I've seen bigger. (That's what she said!)

The biggest issue of any conference is the lack of public parties for everyone to get together. While I didn't get to attend the Microsoft private party or anything like that, I felt there were still a lot of opportunities to socialize with other people. SEOmoz setup a Werewolf game for everyone to play following the public Google party. Once a few of us turned it into a drinking game, it was even more fun (I'm the guy in the Google hat)!

(Photo courtesy of dk of Purposeinc.)

Another favorite event of mine was the first annual SEO Texas Holdem Tournament (somehow I think you would have really enjoyed this too, Karl). This was an awesome night, filled with about 90 entrants and free drinks - after a $200 buy in (some of which went to charity). I ended up finishing in 10th place, 1 place out of the money. It was a great opportunity to network and take advantage of being in Las Vegas.

(Photo courtesy of dk of Purposeinc.)

The best advice I can give anyone who attends a conference: remember, there are many people in this industry who are extremely knowledgeable - and you probably haven't heard of them. In other words, don't hesitate to talk to someone just because they aren't a guru. There are a number of great people in this industry who you haven't even heard of.

Overall, I really enjoyed the conference and meeting a bunch of new people. Thanks Karl for letting me post a recap on your blog, it is one of my favorites!

What's a meatball sundae you ask? Well, besides being the brand-spanking new book offering from bestselling marketing author Seth Godin, it's also an analogy in which Seth uses to describe instances of when "boring" companies and brands use newly available and popular marketing strategies and tools to push their products and services.

For a better explanation... here's an excerpt from the new book:

'Gotta get me some of that New Marketing. Bring me blogs, e-mail, YouTube videos, MySpace pages, Google AdWords... I don't care, as long as it's shiny and new.'

Wait. According to bestselling author Seth Godin, all these tactics are like the toppings at an ice cream parlor. If you start with ice cream, adding cherries and hot fudge and whipped cream will make it taste great. But if you start with a bowl of meatballs... yuck!

As traditional marketing fades away, the new tools seem irresistible. But they don't work as well for boring brands ("meatballs") that might still be profitable but don't attract word of mouth, such as Cheerios, Ford trucks, Barbie dolls, or Budweiser. When Anheuser-Busch spends $40 million on an online network called BudTV, that's a meatball sundae. It leads to no new Bud drinkers, just a bad case of indigestion.

Meatball Sundae, for anyone who's interested, will be released a little later this month... I believe December 27th to be exact. However, as an attendee of last week's Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago, I was lucky enough to have received an advanced copy of the book... in addition to sitting front row during Seth's Keynote presentation Tuesday morning.

Anyone who's read this blog for awhile now can tell you that I'm a huge Seth Godin fan. Thus far, I've read 7 of his books / ebooks, and have even reviewed 5 of them right here on the Klog. One of the biggest reasons why I find his writing so enjoyable is that he uses the absolute strangest analogies to convey his point or message. Take for instance "The Red Fez", "Purple Cow", "The Big Moo", and now "Meatball Sundae". While each of these is the title to one of his books, they are also analogies to describe specific issues with businesses and their marketing strategies.

I want to send a "thanks" out to both Seth and SES for the complimentary copy of "Meatball Sundae". I'll add it to my already overwhelming list of books to read and review.