Content is hot in any industry you look, so look no further for the best B2B content marketing advice than the Content2Conversion conference in New York.

Featuring an all-star lineup of B2B Marketing speakers including: Ardath Albee, Ann Handley, Joe Pulizzi, Michael Brenner, Rob Yoegel and senior marketing executives from Aberdeen Group, Adobe, Avaya, Compendium, Curata, Eloqua, Kapost and more means all bases will be covered.

TopRank CEO Lee Odden will be doing his part to contribute to the B2B content marketing brain trust by presenting on an integrated approach to search, social media and content. Essentially, how to optimize your inbound marketing to drive demand for products and services.

He’ll be sharing the Attract, Engage, Convert model for content marketing optimization that has been instrumental for numerous Fortune 1000 companies as clients of TopRank Online Marketing.

This is a 2 day event right on Times Square.  Here are the formal details of Lee’s presentation.  If you’re in the big Apple, you can miss this event.

April 23rd, 11:45am
Content Optimization: How to Integrate Search, Social and Inbound to Drive Demand

Join author and consultant Lee Odden as he explains how to optimize inbound marketing campaign investments for better performance. Through an Attract, Engage, and Convert framework Lee will share case studies that illustrate how leading marketers are reaping rewards from integrating content marketing, social media and SEO.

Here are the details on the entire conference agenda and registration information.

No matter where you are on the social media spectrum, this webinar will help you decide which networks are most useful for your business, and so much more.  Do you want to know the best part?  This webinar is complimentary!

Join The Social Media Revolution with TopRank CEO Lee Odden

Social Media 2013: What Sites Are Most Important to Marketers This Year
Speaker: Lee Odden

Wednesday, February 13th, 2013
2:00pm-3:00pm (EST)

This educational webinar will take some of the mystery out of social media marketing for businesses of any size.  Not only will you receive guidance into which sites are best for your brand, but how social media fits into a larger integrated online marketing program.  Additionally attendees will learn:

• After the social media shakeout in 2012, which networks still matter? Where are marketers finding ROI and how?
• How social media can bridge the gap between what consumers want and what marketers can do to solve their problems—and make money doing it!
• How to integrate social media into the overall marketing mix.
• Tips on listening on social media, and how to apply insights in a creative, rather than creepy, way in your messaging.

Social media participation is no longer an option but a necessity.  Don’t miss your chance to gain insight from some of the industries leading social media professionals, so that you too can begin squashing the competition and improving social media engagement!

The future of public relations relies heavily on interacting with individuals and companies online.  Building awareness and  brand recognition is only the first step.   What are you doing to make your news content and brand story easily found and talked about online?  In order to reach journalists, analysts, bloggers and influentials on the web, it’s essential that Public Relations and Communications professionals understand the role search and social media play with influencing information discovery, consumption and sharing.

At the annual PRSA International Conference on October 17th, TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden will provide Public Relations and Corporate Communications professionals with an exciting new roadmap to help “Optimize and Socialize” news content for better discovery through search and social media.

Odden’s presentation, “Advance Your Digital PR Skills With Social Media Optimization”,  will share compelling reasons why search and social fit within a digital PR mix as well as specific search engine optimization tips for the types of social media websites often used by PR and Media Relations professionals including: SEO for blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr and YouTube.

Key takeaways from Odden’s Social Media Optimization presentation include:

• Understand how listening/monitoring can reveal high value SEO keywords and social topics
• 4 keys to building a successful social  and SEO strategy
• How to leverage social media marketing tools to create, promote and measure optimized social content

For a preview of what Odden has in store for you be sure to catch his blog post from earlier this year on the importance of SEO and Social for Public Relations.

Event Details

PRSA 2011 International Conference

Advance Your SEO Skills With Social Media Optimization
Monday, October 17^th, 2011 - 11:30am
Plazzo Salon E

JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes
4040 Central Florida Pkwy
Orlando, FL 32837

Register to attend PSRA’s 2011 International Conference.

If you’re interested in learning more about the latest SEO and social media events be sure to subscribe to our newsroom feed.  Also be sure to follow us on twitter @toprank or become a fan of  Online Marketing Blog on Facebook for more information.

MN Blogger Conference Audience

Minnesota Blogger Conference Sept. 10, 2011 – Photos courtesy Missy Berggren and Griff Wigley

Minnesota has a substantial blogging community dedicated to writing on a wide variety of topics including politics, food, sports, fashion, technology, communication –  the list goes on.  It comes naturally for this community to come together for some collaborative learning.  TopRank Online Marketing is a leader in leveraging blog marketing as a strategic focal point for social content development and customer engagement. Our internet marketing agency works with organizations large and small to maximize their presence online and convert that presence into sales or other business outcomes.

This year Allina Healthcare hosted the annual Minnesota Blogger Conference at Allina Commons, its administrative headquarters located in Minneapolis’ Midtown Exchange.  TopRank Online Marketing sponsored the event for a second time, along with Allina Healthcare and Kare11.  Their sponsorship allowed for over 200 attendees to join the conference and luncheon at no cost.  TopRank CEO Lee Odden gave the opening keynote presentation entitled Blogs to Riches – A Journey from Blogging Luddite to Successful Business.

Lee Odden at MN Blogger Conference

Odden engaged and entertained the audience in sharing the history of how TopRank came to be and how a passion for learning and blogging led the company to international recognition.  Odden then presented five lessons learned from using a blog to grow the business over the last seven years:

1. No plan is a plan to fail
2. Adapt and thrive
3. It’s not all about you
4. Ask and recognize, repeat
5. The end is near, let’s get started

The Minneapolis audience left the presentation blogging – no surprise there. The event enjoyed many mentions on several renowned blogs and websites including:

• 2011 MN Blogger Conference: a first-rate experience
• Live From Minnesota Blogger Conference
• Hard to Sum it Up — MN Blogger Conference
• Minnesota Blogger Conference 2011 Recap

In addition to blog posts, attendees are reflecting on the presentation via Twitter.  Their Tweets showcase just how well received the conference has been:

Twitter Discussion on MN Blogger Conference

Suffice it to say, the Minnesota Blogger Conference was a success.  TopRank is grateful for the opportunity to sponsor and appreciates the local Minnesota blogging community.  Thanks to Minnesota Blogger Conference organizers Arik Hanson, Missy Berggren and their team of experts for coordinating a fantastic conference.  We’re already excited for next year’s event.

If your business is interested in Online Marketing Consulting Services, please contact TopRank (1-877-872-6628) to have a discussion. For more insights from Odden, be sure to attend an upcoming TopRank speaking engagement:

• MarketingProfs Search Marketing School Webinar Sept. 19, 2011 – Modern SEO Strategy: Adapt or Die
• PRSA International Conference Oct. 17, 2011 – Social Media Optimization Workshop
• Ragan Webinar Oct. 19, 2011 – SEO and Social Media Best Practices that Boost Your Content and News Visibility

We look forward to seeing you there!

DreamForce Cloud Computing Event on SEO

Historically, the social media aspects of selling have been controlled by marketers.  Sales people traditionally are kept out of the loop until after a new lead is generated.  In today’s business landscape, successful sales reps are taking control of emerging social technologies to bring in new leads and close deals more quickly, marking the onset of a new era in social selling.

On Aug. 31, Dreamforce ’11 will host a session on tips and techniques addressing how businesses can effectively adopt the integration of sales and social media as a new norm.

Event details:

Dreamforce ‘11
Social Sales Revolution: 7 Steps to Get Ahead
2:00 – 3:00 p.m.
Moscone Center
747 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA 94103-3118

Dreamforce is an annual event that brings leaders in cloud computing together to collaborate, connect and inspire. Attendees will be exposed to ways that the latest cloud computing can help their businesses succeed through breakout sessions, hands-on training, networking events, keynote speakers, interactive demonstrations, in-depth discussions, technical training and more.

TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden joins a panel of Salesforce.com and Radian6 professionals at Dreamforce to discuss the 7 Steps to Get Ahead in the Social Sales Revolution, a new whitepaper published by Salesforce.com. Odden will discuss how sales reps can master the art of being useful to prospects in a way that inspires new business inquiries. He’ll share practical examples of companies leveraging social channels like Facebook, Blogging and Twitter to develop a community and inspire interest in products and services.

Stay tuned to the TopRank Blog for a live blog session from Dreamforce ‘11.

The disciplines of search, social media and content marketing continue to intersect and often combine to create a powerful mix. Companies and individuals are creating competitive advantages as they adapt to shifts in technology and consumer behavior.  On Aug. 26, the monthly Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis/St. Paul (SMBMSP) will hone in on this integration.

Event details:
Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis/St. Paul
Friday, Aug. 26, 2011
8:00 – 10:00 a.m.
Cambria Suites Maple Grove
9655 Grove Circle North
Maple Grove, MN 55369

SMBMSP brings marketers, PR professionals, students, entrepreneurs, social media practitioners and enthusiasts together for a unique educational opportunity incorporating panel discussions, presentations, case studies, debates and breakout sessions.

This month’s SMBMSP featured speaker is Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing.  A veteran internet marketer, Odden has consulted for leading B2B companies.  He has frequently been cited for his search and social media marketing expertise by leading business publications including The Economist and Fortune Magazine.

Odden’s presentation will discuss how businesses have integrated Social Media, SEO and Content Marketing to increase sales and improve customer engagement. This session will provide practical examples of B2B and B2C companies overcoming the competition with an agile, customer-focused content marketing strategy that’s search engine optimized for the social web.

Stay tuned to the TopRank Blog for a live blog session from SMBMSP.

Search Engine Optimization and Social Media are no longer distinct channels. They are forever intertwined, each affecting the other in terms of how digital information is discovered, consumed and shared. The subsequent impact on reach and engagement means the integration of these channels is as relevant for Public Relations as it is for Marketing.

I was asked by Melanie Mitchell, SVP of Search Marketing at Digitas to give a presentation on holistic SEO at ad:tech San Francisco where I caught up with another amazingly smart friend, Susan Bratton. She recorded an interview with me on the Social & SEO for Public Relations topic for her popular DishyMix podcast and shared the transcript with me to repost.

Be sure to sign up for SES San Francisco mid August to see Susan give the opening keynote. In the meantime, read on for our discussion about SEO and Social Media or listen to to full interview on DishyMix:

Susan Bratton: Welcome to DishyMix. I’m your host Susan Bratton, and I’m with Lee Odden. Lee is the founder and CEO of TopRank Online Marketing. He’s a friend of mine and we’re here at ad:tech San Francisco live to hear Lee’s latest thinking about something we’ve decided to call the ying and yang of search and social. So welcome Lee.

Lee Odden: Thanks Susan. It’s great to be here.

Susan Bratton: I know it is. You love to talk with me don’t you Lee?

Lee Odden: Of course I do.

Susan Bratton: So you just, you were on a panel this morning…

Lee Odden: Yes

Susan Bratton: and that was, what was the title of that session?

Lee Odden: Modern Search Optimization.

Susan Bratton: Okay great. And really your unique market differentiation is that you have both a deep knowledge of public relations, PR strategy, online news dissemination and also search engine optimizations, and you’ve taken those two things and laid in all of the new social ramifications for online marketing. So now you have these kind of three things that are really the domain of what you do and what you like to do is take those three things and optimize them all together so that they become a greater possibility than siloing them as unique disciplines, right?

Lee Odden: Exactly. And that’s what’s happening with a lot of companies is that you have marketing for example, investing in search optimization to increase visibility of product information, customer acquisition, that kind of thing. A lot of times public relations is managing the social media effort. They don’t always talk to each other. And that’s really unfortunate because the opportunity for them to work together can really amplify the outcome of each. The other component to this, the metaphor I used in the presentation of course was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which is…

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: one of my favorite things still to eat [inaudible].

Susan Bratton: Me too.

Lee Odden: Yeah, it’s fabulous.

Susan Bratton: It’s ridiculous.

Lee Odden: Macaroni and cheese and… Anyway, so of course the peanut butter was the SEO and the jelly was the social media and what holds it all together is content in media, and because that really serves as a vehicle, you know. In terms of search, the reason search exists of course is because of all that content out there, we’ve got to organize it, make it easy to surface what’s most useful, the best answer, if you will. And social plays a really big part in terms of things like Link Acquisition. If you’ve got really great content that’s worth linking to no one will know about it unless you promote it, and one of the most effective ways to promote really great content, like yours, is to create channels of distribution or – well for example, RSS feed gets published when you make a blog post or your email newsletter goes out.

Also making it very easy for search engines to come and visit, make a copy of your stuff and then there you are in the search results. So by promoting content through social channels to your social network, for example, it gets visibility to the population that, there’s so many people empowered to publish. They’re bloggers themselves. They can make comments on blogs, and those activities can result in links back to your stuff. Links drive traffic, and you can get a latent lift in traffic by those links being recognized by search engines. So the other side of this of course is that a lot of the outcome of social interaction is content. So on the one hand, the yen maybe, it’s an SEO that’s using social networks as a way to promote their content so they can attract links and grow further an audience.

The yang might be the social media person that’s really more interested in engagement but they could actually optimize their social content to make their social network more easily discovered by people who are searching. I mean for example, I talked about a client who’s selling fabric, it’s an online fabric retailer. And the persona of target was a crafter, do it yourselfer. And so there’s people out there looking for how-to articles. They’re looking for videos or instructional information or ideas, and what a great thing to have in the search results. Not just somewhere where they can buy stuff, but where they can connect with other people. So it’s a great way to grow social network by optimizing that social content and make it easy for people to find that are looking for what the community has to offer.

Susan Bratton: Lets just assume that we’re talking about any brand that has some content. It could be that they’re a content producer, like a publisher, or it could be that they’re a consumer packaged goods company that has currated some content or created some content. If they only had an hour a week to screw around with it what’s the best thing they could do with an asset of content – and I know it’s going to be different for video than it is for written. I think there is more written content created, so lets just say it’s like a blog post or a white paper or something like that, like a piece of tangible information that’s to be read…

Lee Odden: Sure.

Susan Bratton: by someone and they had an hour a week to both – not include in the creation of it – but an hour a week to promote it in some ways. Give me the rank order of how you would tell them to spend their time. That’s a good question.

Lee Odden: Yeah.

Susan Bratton: Isn’t that a good question. I really.

Lee Odden: [Makes crowd cheering noise] That’s the crowd cheering for your question. So…

Susan Bratton: People hear the crowd cheering [inaudible] but no pressure.

Lee Odden: Well, you know, I think it’s going to be different if it’s B2B versus consumer oriented content, but lets…

Susan Bratton: All right, well lets start with consumer oriented content.

Lee Odden: Sure. Well…

Susan Bratton: ‘Cause I think B2B, I think B2B people, they know a little bit more…

Lee Odden: Yes.

Susan Bratton: about how to find their market than, you know, a bigger market of the consumer.

Lee Odden: Yes. So if it’s this content answer some questions…

Susan Bratton: Mm hmm.

Lee Odden: then I would look for people asking those questions. I might go to blogs or Twitter and perform some clever queries and identify in a more real time sense people who are actually asking questions that are answered by our content and actually make the connection. Make the recommendation. So hypothetically, I’ll go back to the fabric example of someone saying, “Hey, how do you do this thing with pillows?” I don’t know. You know, I market the stuff I…

Susan Bratton: You know nothing about pillows.

Lee Odden: Yeah. But if we’re able to be there at the right time with really useful information and it links back to our stuff and we’re actually, you know, we’re providing a service, and the timeliness of it really makes a difference. So if you can use search.twitter.com or other blog search tools or even Google Search, the real time or the update filter on the left hand side, you could probably find some places where you could be useful. And also on comments, forums, boardtracker.com is a forum search type of tool and…

Susan Bratton: Oh, okay. That’s good. I didn’t know about that.

Lee Odden: And those are ways that you can, you know, be a resource and by being a resource you’re kind of making a promise that wow, you know, you’re really well known for being a resource for X or for Y. And I think in order to do this kind of thing you should think ahead a little bit about what you want to be known for, and that messaging would then guide subsequent search, research and interaction for you to be a resource, you know what I mean?

Susan Bratton: Yes, I do.

Lee Odden: Because people could look at it and just go, “Oh yeah, that’s a great tool. I’ll go try that out,” and they’ll have no methodology behind it. They’re two or three or four weeks into it and they’re like, “Ooh. Everything thinks that we, you know, we only sell bar cloth fabric, but we sell NFL fabric dammit,” or whatever, I don’t know. But you have to think ahead about that, what’s the long-term outcome of your behavior, and not just in its ability to reach your goal, but how you’ll be seen through this type of activity.

Susan Bratton: Go back to a couple things here. I want to go a little bit deeper into this question. So you’re going to search on whatever your thing is and you’re going to go to Twitter. Lets just say you go on Twitter and you search for people talking about crafting, whatever. Lets make it something really straightforward like curtains, sewing curtains for your kids room. So you go into Twitter and you search for kids curtains or whatever, and then you see that, you know, five people have talked about it. What do you do with that information? If they’re not following you how do you respond to them or what are you doing?

Lee Odden: You can act, you can add a message to them…

Susan Bratton: Mm hmm.

Lee Odden: and just say, “Hey, I notice that you’re asking about, you know, how to do a certain thing. Well just here’s an article that might be of use to you…

Susan Bratton: Okay.

Lee Odden: “You know, we are a company that does this.” I mean you can, you know, in your bio on the Twitter account, the company or branded Twitter account or whatever you’re using. Of course it needs to be transparent what it is.

Susan Bratton: Mm hmm.

Lee Odden: I think that’s really important.

Susan Bratton: Of course.

Lee Odden: “I guess we do want your business, but, you know, here’s something that you might find useful…

Susan Bratton: Okay.

Lee Odden: “A lot of our customers have found it kind of cool, so you might check it out.”

Susan Bratton: So you add them on Twitter. Obviously we know how to comment on a blog.

Lee Odden: Right.

Susan Bratton: You said boardtracker.com, what is it like a meta search on bulletin boards?

Lee Odden: It’s a meta search on bulletin boards, yeah.

Susan Bratton: Okay.

Lee Odden: And a lot of people in the reputation management business will use that to find people talking in a certain way about their brand forums.

Susan Bratton: Okay.

Lee Odden: You can also use it as an opportunity to search for engagement opportunities.

Susan Bratton: Mm hmm. And are there other places that you would look or search to get into the conversation? What other kinds of conversations could you get into?

Lee Odden: So interestingly enough when we talked last time [inaudible] situation…

Susan Bratton: I know, it’s been a while.

Lee Odden: we talked about social media monitoring…

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: at the time. So and we talked about ironically – I don’t mean to sidestep – but we talked about wouldn’t it be great to marry social media monitoring with web analytics. Why doesn’t that exist? And ironically it kind of exists today, doesn’t it, with Radiant 6 and Web Trends and other companies. But so to answer your question, it would be through a social monitoring tool. That’s going to give you a more robust measurement or detection tool to identify conversations occurring according to particular topics. And that will give you some opportunities for engagement in this way, probably more efficiently but expensively than something like Twitter or blogsearch.google.com.

Susan Bratton: What is the Gorilla social listening tool that people use the most besides Google Alerts? Is there something that’s like…

Lee Odden: Google Alerts sucks. I mean…

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: so bad.

Susan Bratton: What…

Lee Odden: Socialmention.com…

Susan Bratton: Okay.

Lee Odden: is a free one. And Social Mention, I mean as far as those that are free. Trackur.com is really low cost, and…

Susan Bratton: That’s Andy Beal’s product.

Lee Odden: Yes that’s Andy Beal’s.

Susan Bratton: and that’s like I think $18 bucks a month.

Lee Odden: Yeah…

Susan Bratton: Mm hmm.

Lee Odden: it’s pretty low cost. He keeps adding to it, enhancing it and the price stays the same, so that’s pretty awesome.

Susan Bratton: Mm hmm.

Lee Odden: I think using Google Reader and RSS feeds on queries that occur when you’ve done a search on some type of news site like Google News or Bing can be pretty effective. A lot more effective than Google Alerts.

Susan Bratton: What is it about Google Alerts that’s so ineffective?

Lee Odden: Matching is crap. I mean, you know, I’ve had a Google Alert account for a long time like all of us have, and it can’t possibly be that no one’s talking about me anymore.

Susan Bratton: I’m talking about you.

Lee Odden: Yeah. No, the things that we monitor there are related to industry topics, keyword topics or whatever, and I just noticed the types of matching is really poor, very, very low quality. A lot of scraper…

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: content. I mean there’s always been some of that but…

Susan Bratton: Yeah, it’s gotten worse. It’s interesting isn’t it.

Lee Odden: It’s gotten worse. Yes it is. And so for whatever reason, when you subscribe to an RSS feed in Google Reader – what I mean is go to Google News or Blog Search, do a search, find the RSS icon at the bottom of the page, bring that into Google Reader, and now whenever a news item appears then you can see it in your reader. Speaking of, there’s a really creative way to, if you import that RSS feed into Twitter Feed you can automatically populate a Twitter account with news that matches a certain keyword query, which is kind of an interesting thing to do.

I do that with a Top Rank Twitter account and it posts maybe once or twice a day with that kind of news item, and then of course 90% of the rest of what happens on that Twitter account is people. But it’s a nice way to automatically add something that’s relevant because it’s a keyword filters it out into your Twitter stream.

Susan Bratton: So with your clients right now, where are you putting most of your emphasis? Thank you first of all for answering the question about if you only had an hour a week what would you do. I really think that was a very sound piece of advice. And I think it’s extremely realistic to think that we probably only have an hour a week to triage our businesses in the best way we can unless we have, you know, a large staff of people supporting us. So thank you.

Going back to this yin and yang of search and social, what is it that we should be doing intelligently and strategically to leverage the combination of the two together the way that social and search manifest on the web right now, ‘cause it’s constantly changing? So again, going back to that kind of, you know, one hour a week, where are the holes in our system from the way we used to do things to the way we should be doing them now in our approach to maximizing the combination of search and social?

Lee Odden: Well I think one of the starting points is in the planning of it, right. A lot of SEO activity starts with keyword research, and I talked about persona development, that kind of thing, in terms of consumer information needs, creating a profile for what characterizes that kind of person you’re after, what do they search for, what kind of information and in what format do they engage with that sort of thing. Developing a keyword glossary in terms of an SEO best practice is still a great idea. What is it that people are looking for indicative of the product and services you have to offer? But at the same time doing some social keyword research makes a lot of sense.

So a keyword glossary from an SEO perspective is a list of keyword phrases, how popular they are, how relevant they are, they have scores associated with them, and how competitive they are. A social keyword glossary is basically topics. In fact we don’t even use keywords, we just say Social Topic Glossary. What does that mean? What topics are people talking about relevant to our mix of products and services?

So we have these two lists and we reconcile them to see if there’s any crossover and we know those are really phrases we want to go after, not only in terms of content were creating as terms of articles, press releases or whatever can be crawled by Google Bot, but it might also be useful for social media teams that are out there tweeting and blogging and updating Facebook status updates and that sort of thing, because links that are including in Facebook updates and in tweets do count when it comes to standard SEO on Google, especially with real time results. So the text next to the link is pulled and influences how the destination of the link is perceived by Google Bot for example, or Bing.

Susan Bratton: Okay, I didn’t follow that at all. Say it again.

Lee Odden: So if I made a tweet…

Susan Bratton: Yeah?

Lee Odden: it said Minnesota Vikings Sports Fabric, Get It Here, you know, and then there’s a short URL to it, then the destination page is optimized for that, lets say. Then the text that’s included in the link, in the tweet, is sort of associated with whatever the link is pointing to.

Susan Bratton: Mm hmm.

Lee Odden: So…

Susan Bratton: It came from your social topics glossary, people looking for Minnesota Viking fabric.

Lee Odden: Right. And so the social key, the social topics or social keywords are going to influence social media teams use of language when it makes sense, right.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: So they’re not going to…

Susan Bratton: When it’s human.

Lee Odden: Yes, exactly. They’re not going to compromise being human or creative…

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: for that, but you might, it’s like seeing synonyms. I mean…

Susan Bratton: Of course.

Lee Odden: that just, that’s when you’re, you know, when you’re writing copy…

Susan Bratton: Speak the language of your customers.

Lee Odden: Exactly. So and there can be some real time opportunities. You might see something trending, you know. The Winklevoss twins might be I might say, Five Things Winklevoss Twins Can Teach Us About SEO. I would do that, but it would be taking advantage of the rising trend and queries about that particular keyword today, right. When that’s relevant to your business though, that can be very, very powerful.

Susan Bratton: So going back to this social topic glossary, what are you doing to discover these queries?

Lee Odden: Social monitoring tools. And on the cheap of course Socialmention.com is a great tool for that. When you do a query on Social Mention on the bottom left hand side it will show you a list of phrases that are most often present and comments or tweets or whatever as the query you put on the top. And you can export that as a CSV file and bring it into Excel. And that can be useful to you as you construct a social topic glossary. From a paid side, any of the major social monitoring tools. [Inaudible] 2, Radiant 6, Scout Labs, whoever, they all product keyword clouds, or maybe if you’re lucky they’ll provide it in a tabular format and allow you to export it into a CSV file. And then you can use that to guide your content, social content, creation teams with language that’s being used by your customers. You can also inform editorial decisions about writing blog…

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: posts or tweets…

Susan Bratton: Advertising your blogs, mm hmm. All right, so we were talking about again this kind of like one hour what do I need to put my attention on to make sure that I’m leveraging the way search and social interoperate now on the web. So can you recap what your first piece of advice was that you just gave me? How would you restate that?

Lee Odden: Well in the planning I would make sure that you’re doing your standard keyword research using Google’s keyword tool, Keyword Discovery or Word Tracker or something like that. But also using a social monitoring tool to identify topics of interest…

Susan Bratton: Mm hmm.

Lee Odden: topics that are relevant to your business products and service mix that people are talking about. And put that together, and then use that as a guide, as an editorial guide for social content, and of course also optimization. That way you’re using language in your social content that’s of interest from a word of mouth standpoint and it’s also something that people are searching on.

Susan Bratton: One of the things that I’ve done that’s really helped me is an Ask Survey. In my auto responder series I send out an email to my customers like four or five days into them joining a list, and I say, “I’d like to get your opinion on a few things, and if you would take this survey I’ll give you a one time 60% discount on my top three products, ‘cause I want to inscent you to talk to me.” And then I ask them all the questions with a lot of open-ended questions. I get their way that they establish their problems…

Lee Odden: Nice!

Susan Bratton: and then that’s how I drive the social topics and the keyword searches and the copywriting that I do and all those kinds of things. Do you have any ideas about how to make that even better?

Lee Odden: Well look into your web analytics data and do a search against all the keywords that have ever driven traffic and search for things like how-to or just the question mark, and you’ll see the queries that are question format that have actually driven traffic to your website. And if you start to see, “Look, you know, a lot of people are asking about this,” and, you know, if that content isn’t recent or robust on your site then that’s an opportunity to create it.

Susan Bratton: What’s your level of interest in Facebook versus Twitter right now for your customers?

Lee Odden: For our customers? You know, the retail customers were using both in most cases. For B2B customers there’s a maybe 50% or 60% of them are just using Twitter, they’re not using Facebook as much. They’re using LinkedIn and blogging more so actually.

Susan Bratton: That makes sense. And what about press releases? What’s happening with PR and press releases in the world these days?

Lee Odden: So I think of PR and public and media relations as something entirely different than press releases as a information distribution vehicle. That’s actually how I think of them now. You know, I’m bias because we’ve been working with PR Web for about four years helping them optimize their platform, and then also helping to market their business to acquire customers. So the people that are customers of PR Web have benefited with press releases now that actually have much better distribution. We track the ranking of press releases and just after the Panda update, traffic is, press release traffic has actually gone up for releases hosted on PR Web. So other services like Market Wire and PR News Wire and Business Wire and whatever are great and obviously peoples with earnings, announcements and that sort of thing have an obligation to do distributions.

But what I’m noticing, or what we’re noticing is more, especially with PR Web, ‘cause we work with them so much, is press releases written a little more in article format getting picked up by some pretty attractive syndication partners. All these wire distribution services have pretty good relationships for content syndication and distribution, and you know, some of them come into an editor of some kind and they look at that feed and they see things that they could actually repurpose as is, and we’re seeing some very – I mean it’s to the point where I went to my own folks and said, “Hey, I want you to start doing this for us ‘cause this looks really good,” and it’s just something I found, it’s a behavior that was being – and it was recommended, I found out that PR Web was recommending this to the customers, but being able to use it as, not as an article marketing thing so much…

Susan Bratton: Mm hmm.

Lee Odden: Because there’s credibility that’s been built up over the years between the wire service and those publications, those news publications that just use their stuff to create ad inventory or whatever. But there’s in some cases an intermediary, a human being that’s actually looking at those feeds and going, “Oh yeah, that’s actually good,” and they’ll put it in a place where if it was a PR firm doing this they would count it as a hit, you know. It’s not a high level hit…

Susan Bratton: You know what it reminds me of, it reminds me of those old Naps releases? Do you remember Naps?

Lee Odden: Yes.

Susan Bratton: It’s like Naps, right?

Lee Odden: Yes, yes.

Susan Bratton: It’s like you write an article and you send it out and a bunch of little, little news, little family newspapers from all over the country pick it up and they use it as content.

Lee Odden: Yes.

Susan Bratton: So that’s what you’re saying…

Lee Odden: Yes.

Susan Bratton: It’s essentially, it’s like articles authoring has merged with press release to create a new Naps?

Lee Odden: I think so.

Susan Bratton: Mm hmm.

Lee Odden: I think it’s an opportunity. It’s fairly informal right now…

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: but bottom line is if it creates value, you know, if it’s well written, it is news worthy…

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: but it’s a resource, why not use it?

Susan Bratton: Definitely. Absolutely. Yeah, that’s good. Any other things like that that you’ve discovered recently that you’ve said, “Hey, we’ve got to use this for Top Rank Marketing”? Those are the best ones.

Lee Odden: Yes. Yes, and nope.

Susan Bratton: Okay. I just thought I had to ask in case there was another one that was super simple. Awesome! Okay, so anything else on the search and social integration that you want to end our conversation with? Any words of wisdom or good advice or things that aren’t working anymore that people are still doing that are just like not effective anymore based on something that’s changed?

Lee Odden: Well I think over reliance on any one channel is something that, you know, it just, it’s not sustainable. There’s this sort of moving window of interest amongst the early adopters, right. They move from one thing to another to another to another, and people who adopt after that, markets of companies might get the misperception that, “Oh okay, yeah, Twitter’s a hot thing” and “Okay, finally I’m convinced,” and they stick to it, and that’s an eggs in one basket sort of thing.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: So they’ve got to always be looking out for signals from what’s the next thing, right. And they can get that information through social monitoring and web analytics, and through their own firsthand participation. So I think over relying on too much, on a particular social channel, is something that I see people doing and they’ll pay for it, because when the time comes for them to be involved in other applications or whatever…

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: they’re going to be behind. They could be ahead, I’ll put it that way. It’s not so much that they’re behind, but they could be a lot further ahead.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: So they need to allocate resources to testing in experimentation.

Susan Bratton: Absolutely. Plus that’s always the most fun stuff. It’s the shiny new thing. And we like shiny new things.

Lee Odden: Yeah. Yeah.

Susan Bratton: I know. We’re such nerds, huh? I do. I definitely do. All right, good. Well Lee, what I would like you to do is tell me what kind of a client is a perfect client for you, in case there’s someone listening who thinks themselves, “Oh I really like that Lee Odden. I’d like to know him more.” How can you best help a brand?

Lee Odden: You know, the companies that were really hitting a lot of homeruns often tend to be B2B companies. I mean we’re working with, just companies here in San Francisco, companies like Market Tools, McKesson, Marketto’s in San Mateo near here, and you know, we’re providing consulting to their internal SEO and social teams…

Susan Bratton: Mm hmm.

Lee Odden: about how to play nice together…

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: get rid of those silos, here’s not only information on content marketing strategy, but also operational advice, process, and training. And those are the things that have been I think most appreciated by our clients for, in terms of what we do for them. It’s not just a, you know, “Here’s our advice and away we go,” it’s, and it’s also…

Susan Bratton: But you’re powering them at a systemic level…

Lee Odden: It is because the more, the better able they are to implement our recommendations and the more successful they are, and then we can still focus on the things that they simply don’t have expertise for.

Susan Bratton: Operationalizing…

Lee Odden: Yeah.

Susan Bratton: and SEO and social and…

Lee Odden: Yes.

Susan Bratton: PR, right?

Lee Odden: Yes. Exactly.

Susan Bratton: Really those three things coming together.

Lee Odden: Yes.

Susan Bratton: And, you know, if you don’t have a big media budget that’s what you’re relying on, the three things that are essentially unpaid, you know…

Lee Odden: Mm hmm.

Susan Bratton: I’m not sure, I wouldn’t call them free, but they don’t, they don’t have as big a cost in general as media.

Lee Odden: Right.

Susan Bratton: Mm hmm.

Lee Odden: And then the cool thing is that people that do have budget for media…

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Lee Odden: can get extra value…

Susan Bratton: Definitely.

Lee Odden: using the kinds of things that we do, right, to augment and repurpose or whatever, things that they never would’ve thought of before.

Susan Bratton: I love it. Lee thank you so much. It’s really great to see you at AdTech. You look super handsome by the way. That’s a great looking outfit you’ve got on.

Lee Odden: Well thank you Susan. You’re looking pretty awesome yourself.

Susan Bratton: And it’s really great to have you back on DishyMix. I want you to come on as often as you’d like. We’d love to have you.

Lee Odden: Thanks a lot Susan.

Susan Bratton: You got to meet Lee Odden. He’s the founder and CEO of Top Rank Marketing, and a delightful human being, obviously knows what he’s doing, got tons of information and I would really recommend that you go check out his blog because he tells you what he knows. He’s a really awesome information sharer. And he has a very clear style of explaining things, in the written word especially, which is very good. So I really recommend that. All right, I’m your host, Susan Bratton. We’re here live at AdTech. I hope you enjoyed this interview with Lee Odden, and I will look forward to connecting with you next week as well. Take care and have a great day. Bye-bye.

See Susan Bratton give the opening keynote presentation at SES San Francisco August 16, 2011. 

You can find me at SES San Francisco presenting on “Content Marketing Optimization” and “The Convergence of Search, Social & Content Marketing”.  I will also be programming the Marketing Masters Search Marketing Track at ad:tech New York November 9, 2011.

John Jantsch & Lee Odden at BlogWorld New York 2011 - Photo thx to @ducttape

Blogs are perfectly suited as social media information hubs for companies or individuals that want to dominate their niche online. TopRank Online Marketing has been an active proponent and pioneer of blog marketing as the centerpiece of social content strategy for many years. We’ve been working with companies ranging from B2C retailers like J&O Fabrics to Fortune 15 company, McKesson on blogging, social media and SEO with impressive results.

At the recent BlogWorld Expo conference in New York, TopRank’s CEO Lee Odden provided attendees with a peek into that insight with a blueprint and examples of the role blogs can play in an integrated search, social media and content marketing strategy that directly influence business outcomes. As the lead writer (2,100+ posts) and editor for one of the most popular marketing blogs on the internet and consultant to numerous successful blogs for B2B brands, Odden had plenty of first hand insights to share.

Two posts written by Odden before and after the conference offer detailed summaries:

• Dominate Your Niche with Social SEO & Blogging
• Blog Marketing Strategy: 7 Steps to Social SEO Success

The presentation was well received by the New York (and international) crowd and was liveblogged or mentioned by several prominent websites including:

• 77 Aha Moments from Blogworld NYC – Justin Goldsborough, Fleishman-Hillard
• Live from BlogWorld: How to use SEO to corner a niche with your blog – Gregory J. Wright, SmartBlog on Social Media
• 8 takeaways from 4 fantastic sessions I attended at BlogWorld – Arik Hanson, Communications & Conversations
• BlogWorld & New Media Expo – Not Just About Blogs (#bweny) – Lauren Keyson, NYC Convergence
• BlogWorld New Media Expo 2011, Day 1 – Lisa Barone (the best liveblogger on the planet), Outspoken Media
• Highlights from My Trip to BlogWorld Expo NYC – Tia Peterson, BizChickBlogs
• Notes From BlogWorld Expo: Lee Odden On How To Help People Find You Online – Ilana Rabinowitz, Marketing Without A Net

Of course, blogging isn’t the only way attendees respond to a presentation. Tweets about the session reflected a favorable impression as well:

Overall, BlogWorld New York was a great event, bringing together expertise from all over the web for sharing and engagement. BWE will appear next in Los Angeles late this year. Thanks to Arik Hanson and Chuck Hemann for programming an excellent Social Media Business Summit track and of course to Rick Calvert and Dave Cynkin for a super program overall.

If you need Social SEO Consulting services, be sure to contact TopRank to have a discussion. If you’re looking for more insights from our CEO, the next speaking engagements for TopRank Online Marketing include:

• OMS Minneapolis June 7, 2011 – How to Create a Killer Social SEO Strategy
• SES Toronto – June 14, 2011 – Content Marketing Optimization
• Vocus User’s Conference – June 16, 2011 – Integrated Social SEO & Public Relations
• Intel Social Media Summit – July 1, 2011 – Social SEO & Content Marketing Strategy for the Enterprise

We hope to see you there.

In an upcoming webcast, Rand Fishkin and Lee Odden will explain why, plus share practical tips on how to boost your SEO results through blogging, online PR, and smart coordination between social media and search. We’ll look at:

• How brands are coordinating Search Optimization and Social Media efforts
• A content marketing model for implementing a coordinated Social SEO program
• Why Google & Bing’s Love Affair w/ Twitter & Facebook is Just Beginning
• What Signals Matter in a Tweet / Share
• 5 Tactics for Earning Gobs of Tweets + Shares

Improving campaign results with Search Marketing and Social Media
April 8 / 12 Noon Central – 10:00 a.m. Pacific
with Rand Fishkin, founder of SEOMoz, and Lee Odden, founder of TopRank Online Marketing
This webinar is being presented by Marketo and ClickZ.

Register today

We hope to see you there!

In the world of online marketing, search and social media are evolving at an incredible pace.

Consider:

• Twitter queries approaching 20 billion each month
• Google queries approaching nearly 90 billion each month
• Facebook topped over 200 million users this year and beats Google in weekly web traffic*
  *Hitwise

With online marketing evolving by the minute, it stands to reason that the most valuable insight will be that which can be shared in under one minute.

On Tuesday, November 16^th, TopRank® Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden, along with sixty leading marketers, will be lending exactly one minute of time to the virtual Future of Marketing Conference.  During this online event, Odden and his colleagues will have sixty seconds each to share sixty tips every marketer needs to succeed in 2011.

With his time, Odden will comment on the importance of creating campaigns that exist at the intersection of search and social media.

“Social media is hot but is by no means mutually exclusive of search,” states Odden.  “Search has expanded beyond Google and marketers must now consider other channels, such as internal Facebook search, as channels where customers are looking.”

Ultimately, the future landscape of marketing – as revealed by Odden – will be one that is shaped and changed by the dynamics of changing consumer preferences for information discovery, consumption and sharing.

“The blur of all this change is an opportunity for brands and marketers to engage an active marketing strategy that converges the disciplines of search, social media, content and online public relations,” concludes Odden.  “The future of marketing is dynamic, challenging and full of promise for companies that are brave enough to see it.”

Register for The Future of Marketing, a free virtual conference, by following the link below.

All attendees will receive access to the MP3 recording and transcription, post-event.

Event Information:
The Future of Marketing
Online Conference
November 16^th, 2010, 2pm EST
Register For This Event

Social media and content marketing have moved beyond buzz-worthy concepts to become fundamental cornerstones of leading online marketing programs.  A recent poll by Online Marketing Blog, in fact, lists ‘social network participation’ and ‘content marketing’ as two of the top five digital marketing tactics firms will focus on most heavily in 2011.

As social and content initiatives continue to permeate and define online marketing programs, from Minneapolis to Manila, TopRank® Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden will be leading the way. Next month, Odden will be instrumental in expanding social and content marketing best practices globally as he offers the opening keynote and a full day workshop at Social Media Junction 2 in Auckland, New Zealand.

TopRank® Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden

Tuesday, November 16^th 9:20am
Keynote Speech:  The Truth About Social Media ROI
Companies know that social media marketing must play a role if online marketing programs are to be successful.  But what role should social media play, how can it be most effectively implemented – and most importantly – how can success be measured?  Odden’s keynote will focus on answering these questions, in addition to providing actionable insight that attendees can use to immediately improve existing programs, including:

• Real-world examples of social media success
• Fundamental rules for customer engagement
• Models and strategies for social media measurement

Odden & Chris Brogan Present During A Social Media Super Session At PubCon

Wednesday, November 17^th
Full Day Workshop:
How to Plan & Execute Successful Social Media Content and Digital Engagement Strategies
Not sure where to start with your online content strategy?  Odden will get you up to speed quickly in the opening portion of this full day workshop.  Throughout the balance of the day, Odden will reveal fundamental best practices for implementing a successful social and content marketing program, including how to:

• Develop a social content marketing road map
• Integrate blogging strategies designed to boost engagement
• Measure ROI of social media and content marketing programs

Those not able to attend Social Media Junction 2 in Auckland, New Zealand can learn more on the business value of social media and content marketing each day by visiting Online Marketing Blog.

Event Information:
Social Media Junction 2
November 16-17th, 2010
SkyCity Convention Centre
Auckland, New Zealand
Register For This Event

Online Marketing Blog reports that six in ten marketers are spending more on content marketing than ever before.

Affording any size business the power to create its own content to boost visibility and attract sales-ready prospects creates an almost utopian online environment.  But like most utopias, this environment can harbor a dark side. Essentially, if everyone is creating online noise, how can one company make sure its noise stands out as the most resonant?

TopRank® Online Marketing CEO, Lee Odden, will be revealing the best practices that separate content marketing strategies that resonate from those that simply reverberate at SES Chicago:

Odden Contributes To Panel At SES SF

Tuesday, October 19^th 4:15pm – 5:15pm
The Secret Formula To Boost Response
Flat click-through rates and conversions falling well below expectations are troubling for any marketer.  If only there were a secret formula that could help reverse this trend…
Attend this session, moderated by Odden, to learn a three-step formula to boost your click-through and conversion rates.

Moderator:
Lee Odden

Speaker:
Bryan Eisenberg, SES Advisory Board and NYTimes Bestselling Author, bryaneisenberg.com

Odden Presents At SES New York

Wednesday, October 20^th – 3:45pm – 4:45pm
Content Marketing Optimization
“If it can be searched, it can be optimized” is a mantra upheld by today’s leading content marketers.   These same marketers know that content marketing is about more than just publishing online content.  When implemented correctly, content marketing is a powerful weapon that provides an edge against any size competitor.  So how can this weapon best be mastered and yielded to ensure it helps produce maximum ROI?  Odden will reveal the answer to this question and more during this solo presentation.

This solo presentation by TopRank CEO and SES Advisory Board Member Odden will be introduced by fellow SES Advisory Board Member and Site Logic Marketing President Matthew Bailey.

Thursday, October 21^st – 3:15pm- 4:15pm
The Trouble With Content Management Systems is…
Good content must be supported by a good content management system that is technically sound and plays friendly with search engine crawlers.  Attend this session, moderated by Odden, to learn how you can ensure your content management system is built to keep up with latest web technologies – and meet the challenge of arranging a playdate between your content and the crawlers.

Moderator:
Lee Odden

Speakers:
Eric Enge, President, Stone Temple Consulting
Stephan Spencer, Co-Author, The Art of SEO

Event Information:
SES Chicago
October 18-22, 2010
Hilton Chicago
720 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, Ill
Register For This Event

Audience at BlogWorld 2008 During a Panel with Lee Odden, Chris Brogan, Jason Falls and Brian Solis

BlogWorld brings together highly experienced bloggers, Social Media experts, and New Media moguls to share with you the latest in industry news and techniques. The conference takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, between October 14th – 16th.

Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Marketing, is presenting on two sessions:

Oct 15 – 11am:
Social Media SEO – Boost Engagement and Revenue Through Blog Content

Combining SEO best practices with Social Media marketing can amplify the reach and traffic for blogs by building a Cycle of Social Media Interaction.  Lee’s solo session will explore:

• How bloggers can leverage keyword research to develop a blog editorial calendar
• Create and promote optimized content
• How to increase exposure, fans/friends/subscribers and inbound links
• How to increase search and social media traffic
• How to mine community conversation data to further refine content strategy that continues the cycle

Oct 15 – 3pm:

The Art & Science of Recipe Writing

Creating rich content can satisfy your readers, but how can it also drive traffic to your site? Understanding how to organize and write your content so it’s useful and highly indexable on the Web is an important lesson for building your online presence. You will also learn how to inspire your reader to share your content on the Web.

300 speakers will lead more than 120 sessions throughout the three day gathering in Las Vegas providing the most comprehensive access to the top minds in the social and digital marketplace of any conference this year.  For more info on the event, check out the official press release.

Be sure you stay up-to-date with the latest online marketing events by subscribing to our newsroom RSS feed, following @TopRank on Twitter or becoming a fan of TopRank Online Marketing on Facebook.

If you weren’t one of the 300 or so digital marketers attending the SES Hong Kong conference this week, then you missed out on a great mix of search and social media content, networking and social events. Incisive Media’s Mike Grehan asked me to present at the all new SES Hong Kong conference on social media and a little bit of deliberation, I signed on.

The digital marketing scene in Hong Kong is growing rapidly even though there is a sense of conservatism when it comes to marketing. The SES Hong Kong conference showcased best practices, case studies and discussion from a mix of accomplished online marketers from the region like Adrian Toy from Bausch & Lomb, Eden Lau from Brandtology and Jonathan Liu from Moonlight Marketing.

There was a sampling of outside expertise as well including a great keynote from Avinash Kaushik of Google plus presentations from the likes of: Crispin Sheridan from SAP, Bill Hunt from Back Azimuth, Brent D. Payne from Tribune Companies, Mel Carson from Microsoft andAaron Kahlow from Online Marketing Connect.

My session was focused on Social Media Marketing and SEO (of course!) called, The Business Value of Social Media. It centered on the principles of Listening, Unlocking the Revenue Potential of Social Media and How to Measure ROI.

While TopRank Online Marketing does not operate in the Asia Pacific Region, we do help international companies penetrate North American markets via SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing services. This presentation offered a few Hong Kong based social media statistics and examples of what U.S. companies are doing in the areas of listening, generating new business and measurement.

Check it out and let me know what questions you have in the comments.

View more internet marketing presentations from TopRank Online Marketing here.

Do you wonder about the business value of social media marketing? Will you also happen to be in Hong Kong next week?  If so – you are in luck.

Search Engine Strategies, the leading search and social marketing event, will be traveling across the globe to host SES Hong Kong on September 13^th and 14^th.  Joining the event will be TopRank® Online Marketing CEO and SES Advisory Board Member Lee Odden as he contributes to the panel The Business Value of Social Media.

Odden Contributes To Panel At SES SF

Monday, August 13^th – 15:00
The Business Value of Social Media
This session’s description compares social media to a genie that has been let loose from its bottle.  For companies that are learning every wish comes with inherent dangers, this metaphor is remarkably apt.

While social media grants companies the wish to connect with more prospects and customers than ever before, it can seamlessly transform into a fire-breathing dragon that will burn you just as quickly as the competition.

During this session, Odden and his panel will reveal to attendees how to unlock the potential of social media marketing while minimizing its risks.  Attendees will learn to harness this channel’s power to achieve business objectives while avoiding the flames of social media missteps.

Joining Odden on this panel:

• Moderator: Matt McGowan, Publisher & Head of U.S., Incisive Media
• Eden Lau, Co-Founder & Managing Director of North Asia, Brandtology
• Scott McBride, Regional Business Director, 360 Digital Influence Asia Pacific, Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific

Those not able to attend SES Hong Kong can learn more on the business value of social media marketing each day by visiting Online Marketing Blog.

Event Information:
SES Hong Kong
September 13-14^th, 2010
Hyatt Regency Tsimshatsui
18 Hanoi Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
Kowloon, Hong Kong
Register For This Event

Stay up-to-date with the latest social media events by subscribing to our newsroom RSS feed, following @TopRank on Twitter or becoming a fan of Online Marketing Blog on Facebook.