I have a lot of catchup to do but check out my main men and ladies over at XBLAFans.com for some awesome updates on the XB LA titles we had hands on with at E3 2012.

Abide!

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Now a little backstory for you. I was introduced to the HasOffers affiliate marketing management platform in 2010 by Jeremy Schoemaker ( a.k.a ShoeMoney ) and Gillian Muessig from SEOMoz.

I started using the HasOffers platform in December of 2010 simply because it came with a shinning recommendation from Jeremy. With imSMB we were using iDevAffiliate and after seeing what could be done with HasOffers ( Thank you Jeremy for the screencast ) we switched over immediately.

I can truly say that without HasOffers we would never have been able to manage our affiliate program ( or Shoe’s volume, man he knows how to drive sales ). More important than the ability to handle a massive number of affiliate transactions, we were able to track each sale down with ninja like efficiency.

Now, where were we? Oh yea, so after a brisk walk from my hotel room near the space needle and arriving at the Venom bar ( HasOffers Loft ) I met Patrick, who gave a great tour of the OfferPlex. The office space is really open, and the lunch room is well… flat out awesome. Xbox 360 ( with Kinect ), couches, a pool table, some foosball and flat panels everywhere you look. A breeding ground for creativity.

Here are some of the people I had a chance to have meaningful conversations with (in no particular order )

• Travis Ketchum – (Young, Bright, Honest and someone to watch ) MyBiggive.com and GroupRound
• Brandon Na -( Humble Internet Marketer ) – Seattle Organic SEO
• John Chow – Nuff said ( seriously a nice guy, very genuine )
• Adrianna O’ Dell – from Social Cloud
• Dude, sorry I forget your name – but cool website – DrHeckle.com
• Eric Ogden – Outer Escape

*If we met and I misplaced your biz card – please email me.

So, What do John Chow, Travis Ketchum and HasOffers Have in Common?

Jeremy Schoemaker is the answer, if I had never met Neil Patel who introduced me to Jeremy quite a few years ago; I would not have had the pleasure of meeting these people. So big round of applause and a thank you go out to Shoe!

So till the next post all I have to say is at the HasOffers office’s “the Xbox 360 just really ties that lunch room together man”.

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This year has been crazy, insane, relieving and well, did I mention crazy!

This post is about time, mindshare and partners.

We all have tons of ideas in our heads and it is almost as if anyone who grew up in the 80′s has a horrid case of ADD….huh?  SQUIRREL..

There is always that little shiny idea that we want to pick up and just  run with. As a business owner you only have so much time in the day and really you can only surround yourself with so many good people before you start to find your life is just managing partners.

I started this year with 6 businesses and now I am down to 4. The thing I have learned is that you discover your core talent, passion and stick to it. Find partners that can work autonomously and are really good at what they do. That great new earth shattering, life altering, groundbreaking idea may be hard to resist pursuing ( especially in this new bubble ).

But if you have a good team of partners, ones that can ground you, float that shiny idea by them…if the idea is a good idea then one of your businesses should be able to execute on it. If not, keep focusing on your core…never be afraid to pass the idea onto someone who can make it a reality.

What so you do to keep yourself focused?

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It has been a while since I posted here so I figured I would let you in on a cool too put out by my friend Shoe.

When doing searches for SEO experts its hard not to come across Jeremy Schoemaker, aka ShoeMoney.

But guess what?  Jeremy does not consider himself a SEO at all.

Fact is Jeremy he hates the association with SEO’s because most of them are like “snake oil salesman”, as he puts it.

Even with that people constantly look to Jeremy for SEO advice because even though he does not consider himself a SEO he still dominates  the search engines for many extremely competitive niches.

Ready for a shocker?  Jeremy just released a new service called FreeSeoReport.com.  But after I checked out the service you can see that its everything that Jeremy has always preached about SEO.

You can check it out here ==> http://www.freeseoreport.com

The service takes your domain and keywords and then compares it with the top 10 sites in 6 different search engines and then makes suggestions on what you can do to your site to improve its ranking.

This service just turned the SEO industry on its head.  No more guessing what works and what does not.  No more theories from “guru’s” on what the new secret to ranking is.

Pure quantified suggestions on what you need to improve your sites ranking.  Period.

==> http://www.freeseoreport.com

The site is only a week old and has over 10,000 users and ran over 30,000 reports.  Its gone super viral as you can imagine.
Oh yea did I mention its free ?

Check it out now
==> http://www.freeseoreport.com
Talk soon,

Ben

**While I can tell you I do like this service and have used it since launch, you must know that if you buy a subscription I am compensated**

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Even though my blog name is Social Dude, I do not have a ton of time to blog (phone connected to ear lol ) so I am going to keep this short and sweet.

I have attended and had the honor of speaking at PubCon for quite a few years. (This year was about Social Media Metrics ) But, I have always gone to Vegas ( so cannot resists Vegas sometimes ). This was my first PubCon in Texas and all I can say is WOW with a capital W-O-W.  I knew quite a few of the people at PubCon from passing conversations, but never really had the luxury of sitting down with everyone and having really meaningful conversations. Not just about Social, Search or Internet Marketing but really meaningful conversations that can truly impact the world around us. I came away from PubCon Dallas 2010 with a renewed sense of giving back to the community and realized that while we are in the digital, social or whatever age, business is still getting done the way it was for us all in the 90′s. Meeting, talking, networking and helping others solve a problem.

I would like to give props to everyone I met at PubCon Dallas (in no particular order)
PS. If we did meet at PC and we did not exchange information  feel free to hit me up on LinkedIn or FaceBook!

• Brett Tabke – Do I really need to say
• Jeff Randall – Webmaster man with a camera!!!
• Jennifer Kushell ( YSN.com – all I can say is a wonderful person )
• Ricci Neer ( RockStar )
• Gillian ( SEO MOM – The Best)
• Evan Fishkin ( Portent – games man…E3! )
• Joe Morin – Mr PubCon ( Networking at it’s finest, and ouch shots! )
• Jessica Bowman ( SEO In House )
• Noelle Li ( Direct to home appliances )
• Aaron Kronis ( - Wpromote – Dude we need to powow on that domain )
• Chris Goward (Wider Funnel )
• Mike Chapman – ( Apogee Campaigns )
• Taylor Pratt ( Mr  Raven)
• Sally Dishong ( LinkShare )
• Alan K’necht ( Analytics Maestro )
• Matt Mikulla ( Raven)
• Joe Laratro ( Tandem Interactive )
• Janet Driscoll ( SearchMojo)
• Roger Montti ( Martini Buster)
• Jay Hall ( ExecSearches)
• Steve Boymel ( Farlex )
• Dixon Jones ( Majestic SEO )
• Krista Neher ( BootCampDigital )
• Keith Wall ( nice.com )
• Carolyn Shelby ( CSHEL)
• Matt Mikulla ( Raven)
• Ted Ulle (Converseon – Information Architecture Man )
• Hong Vo ( You rock Hong, WPromote)
• Frank Bauer ( Web Tuning Garage )
• Dustin Radin ( Delray Credit )
• Tony Wright ( WrightIMC )
• Misty Wuori (UBL)
• Doyal ( UBL)

As a final note, I WILL for sure be heading to PubCon Las Vegas 2010 and here are a few reasons why you should too.

1. Networking
2. Great People
3. Informative Sessions that are well thought out and entertaining too
4. Learn (even if you think you are an expert)
5. Did I mention Networking?
6. Well, it is Vegas after all

Post here if you are heading to PubCon Vegas 2010!

Who did you meet at PubCon that had an impact on your life?

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I want to thank Jon for making a super sweet presentation and Joe for all his time and effort. Last but certainly not least, I want to thank George Wright (Formerlly of BlendTec) for taking the time to share with us some of the known and unknown results of the BlendTec campaign.

George is no longer employed with BlendTec (although does continue to speak on their behalf), he recently took a position to work with a young company. Traeger Pellet Grills.  that has no brand awareness and makes high end BBQ grills. In Georges words “It will turn your backyard BBQ into “Competition Quality” the first time you use it. I can see the campaign now “Will it BURN — NOPE”

Original Post full credits goto Search-mojo.com , mirroring this post due to virus warning on the page

The next panel I attended was entitled “Social Media Metrics” featuring Ben Fisher (a serial entrepreneur) who currently works for imSMB.com (I am small business.), Jon Collins from eyeblaster, and Joe Teixeira of MoreVisibility.

Ben Fisher started the panel presentation by discussing ROI and social media metrics. Everyone seems to want to understand how a tweet or fan page post translates to in ROI. How else can you show success to your boss?

Jon Collins then discussed the Pepsi Refresh campaign and how marketers can tap into the phenomenon of social media. Jon mentioned that the Obama campagin was able to tap into a perfect storm of social media and desire for change, leading to 68% of millennials voting for Obama. So Pepsi also wanted to speak to the same age group, creating Pepsi awareness, reestablishing themselves as the “youthful challenger” brand, and tap into the social media phenomenon. First they wanted to listen to consumers and then tap into the right message, using social media to reach millennials. Tactically, they aligned all of the right social media channels, keeping the message the same across channels like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. They repurposed videos into all of those channels as well. The campaign led to 6 million visits to the Pepsi Refresh fan page and over 600k+ fans. It also led to over 700 video submissions for the contest and during the campaign, it was the number one YouTube page.

Because creative wears out after about six impressions, now Pepsi has a new campaign with Refresh to fund change through a contest for funding.

Ben then discussed the BlendTec story. 80% of the blenders they sold were all commercial grade, 20% were sold to consumers. They wanted to expand their consumer market, but their blenders for consumers start at $800! How could BlendTec attract more consumers at that price for a blender?

They blended things for fun at BlendTec in the “distruction room” and took some video and put it up on YouTube. The cost? Only $50. They started getting 100 million views for the videos, giving them instant brand awareness in under 30 days. They estimate that the first video earned them $100,000 in revenue.

But ironically, they started getting sponsorships too. Nike, Ford and other companies came to BlendTec to ask them to blend their products and create videos as well!

Ben finished by discussing a tool called SwixApp, which allows you to tie in campaigns to Google Analytics and capture sales data, follower growth, etc. in one place.

*NOTE Another resource I reccomended looking at is a guy named TobyTurner.com ( Genius viral videos that convert into subscriptions)

Finally Joe discussed how you can track some of your social media. He suggested the “daisy chain” technique:

1.Copy the original URL.
2.Search for “Tool: URL Builder” in Google to find a tool to help you build the special Google Analytics parameters on the link. Here’s one you can use that I like: http://www.anilbatra.com/digitalmarketing/twitter-google-analytics-url-builder.asp
3.Use your url shortener to shorten the link.
4.That’s it!
When you tag your links, you can view them in Google Analytics like any page information from your site.

Brett Tabke then filled in for a last minute cancellation, discussing how Pubcon used social media to drive Pubcon attendance. He said that they had spend $65k in PPC over four years, but had 0 tracked sales over that time! What they found was that they could not sell a conference based on PPC — it relies on word of mouth and recommendations. They also had used $75k towards email marketing and other tactics in 2008, with moderate success.

Then in 2009, they spend $0 on marketing and ads — focused only on Twitter and Retweets. The attendance was up 30% even in a down year! That also meant their overall income was up 40%, even in a recession! Brett has 26,000 followers and his combined followers have over 22M followers! That’s immense reach.

Brett mentioned “tweet poaching”, where people add an original tweeter to the end of the tweet using “(via @janetdmiler)” instead of the traditional “RT @janetdmiller”. What happens is that over time, the via version drops the via from the end as a tweet gets retweeted a lot, making it look like someone else authored the original tweet.

He emphasized that timing is key to get retweeted. Feel free to tweet it again if you need to! The highest tweet day is Wed. and highest RT day is Mon. and Wed. The highest RT time is 2:15-3:30 p.m. ET. Brett encouraged everyone to troll the friends of competition. Put RT buttons everywhere. Retweet your friends and ask for retweets. He mentioned that Klout is like PageRank for Twitter.

Original Post full credits goto Search-mojo.com , mirroring this post due to virus warning on the page

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ok, so quite simply put, a friend of mine has this service. You get some free text link placement on on content / targeted blogs/sites. They give you 25 free to start and if you do not stay (on as a paid member) you keep those links FOREVER.*insert resounding deep voice here*

If you do stay with the service they give you more links for every month you stay. The links can be in the footer of chosen sites, Sidebars, in content (contextual) or write an article and then submit that article to be posted on sites you choose (with up to 3 links or videos)

All in all I have had fun playing with it.

Sign up below for your free 21 day test drive and get 25 free links.

For a limited Time only: Use the code SOCIALDUDE to redeem 50 FREE Link Credits

Advertiser Account Registration

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Google Buzz has already shown me results.

Last year I had the pleasure of meeting Ricci Neer at PubCon Las Vegas. The neat way we met was actually via Twitter. I was sitting in my hotel room getting ready for the day, I was speaking about Twitter PR and Analytics. As I was getting ready I was surfing the #PubCon twitter feed. I saw a twitter post from Ricci asking if anyone happened to have a extra tripod, she needed it for that afternoon.

Now, I had never met Ricci before, but she had a decent follower base, quite a few of whom I already knew. So being the helpful dude that I am, I tweeted her and long story short Ricci ended up with a Tripod and a few months later we are doing some really cool business things together.

So what does any of this have to do with Google Buzz?

This weekend I was doing some research on connecting sites to Google buzz and this dude, out of no where totally slams my site and logo.

So what is a guy (like me) to do about this?

Well Micah, being the dude he is, offered to take a spin at the logo. I took him up on his offer and wala, the socialdude.com now has a shiny new logo and favicon. (Did I mention I am not a graphic designer at all….)

So to all that are looking for graphics or front end design work, I would highly recommend talking to Micah!

And to quote my new friend “Looks like Google Buzz is turning out to be something worthwhile, eh?”

Follow Micha on Google

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Earlier today I posted about some tips for using Google Buzz. After some extensive testing of the theories below I have come to a final conclusion.

Most of the thoughts on how to “claim” a website as yours on your Google profile are just dead wrong.  It is actually much easier than it sounds and actually falls in line with what Google REALLY wants to know about you as a webmaster. What sites do YOU OWN as a webmaster. By allowing Google to know the sites you own you are also telling Google what sites they should in a sense ignore when it comes to interlinking.

Back to the fact at hand. I tested all the theories below (excluding the fore re-crawl, since the service was down) and none worked very well or in a timely manner. The I recalled a Buzzlet I had seen in passing today.

Add your websites to Google WebMaster Tools and they will show in your Google profile and on the “Connected Sites” Buzz page immediately.

So I went into the Google Webmaster tools and verified a bunch of sites I regularly maintain as well as some clients sites and then a few that I never maintain so I could establish a baseline in case there was a time lapse in re-crawl.

To my surprise and delight, all the sites that I verified showed as options on my profile and on Google Buzz immediately.

Note:  There was one drawback to this test. All my followers were instantly spammed by Google Buzz with recent posts from every site I connected, even the hello world post from a new WordPress install.

Buzzlet Opinions:

Force a re-crawl of your sites too from @bradfitz https://sgapi-recrawl.appspot.com/

“Go there and force-recrawl any “me” links you’ve just added to the site(s) you want connected to your Buzz. ”

David J. MacKay - If you’re a WordPress blogger, after you’ve added a custom link to your blog on your Google Profile, you can easily add the required XFN markup by simply adding a new link to your blogroll.
The new link must point to your Google Profile URL and in the Link Relationship section check ‘another web address of mine’ so that the link contains the rel=”me” attribute

Bruce Wagner - Another (simpler) option: Use ping.fm It’s the only sensible way to post to 3 (or 80) networks at once. Even by email or sms. Connect Gtalk to ping.fm then connect Gralk to Buzz. Now ping.fm posts to twitter AND buzz instantly! …not to mention Facebook and 50 other sites too.
*Just hooked this up on my WordPress site: Using the WPing.FM plugin, works perfectly (Just make sure in options to select Post to Ping.FM on new post only.

David J. MacKay - If you’re a WordPress blogger, after you’ve added a custom link to your blog on your Google Profile, you can easily add the required XFN markup by simply adding a new link to your blogroll.
The new link must point to your Google Profile URL and in the Link Relationship section check ‘another web address of mine’ so that the link contains the rel=”me” attribute.

Have you connected your sites and was this guide helpful?

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Yet Another Google Buzz Guide

Social Media folks and Gmail users alike are all getting addicted to Google Buzz like it is crack (so like, who owns gcrack.com . I have seen quite a few really good “Buzzlets” and guides about Google Buzz. So here is yet another one. Enjoy and please feel free to Buzz me ( http://google.socialdude.com )

How do I Link My WebSites, Twitter, FriendFeed etc.. Accounts to Post to Google Buzz?

The first thing you need to do is bi-directionally link your personal account to each other. For instance, Add a link from your Blog with the “rel=me” yo our Google Profile and then in your Google Profile add a link to your Blog. When adding a link to your Google Profile tick the “This is a profile page about me” checkbox.

Google has an official, albeit technical, guide on how to connect external sites to Google Buzz.

The Dude has tested connecting sites to your Google profile and found out the fast way to make it happen.

Update From other Buzzers:

Force a re-crawl of your sites too from @bradfitz https://sgapi-recrawl.appspot.com/
“Go there and force-recrawl any “me” links you’ve just added to the site(s) you want connected to your Buzz. “

David J. MacKay – If you’re a WordPress blogger, after you’ve added a custom link to your blog on your Google Profile, you can easily add the required XFN markup by simply adding a new link to your blogroll.
The new link must point to your Google Profile URL and in the Link Relationship section check ‘another web address of mine’ so that the link contains the rel=”me” attribute

Bruce Wagner – Another (simpler) option: Use ping.fm It’s the only sensible way to post to 3 (or 80) networks at once. Even by email or sms. Connect Gtalk to ping.fm then connect Gralk to Buzz. Now ping.fm posts to twitter AND buzz instantly! …not to mention Facebook and 50 other sites too.
*Just hooked this up on my WordPress site: Using the WPing.FM plugin, works perfectly (Just make sure in options to select Post to Ping.FM on new post only.

David J. MacKay – If you’re a WordPress blogger, after you’ve added a custom link to your blog on your Google Profile, you can easily add the required XFN markup by simply adding a new link to your blogroll.
The new link must point to your Google Profile URL and in the Link Relationship section check ‘another web address of mine’ so that the link contains the rel=”me” attribute.

How to Verify your buzz account?

1. You must go to Google’s Knol site and sign in. (http://knol.google.com)
2. Then go to your profile settings.
3. Click on the “Name Verification” tab
4. Then choose to verify by phone or via credit card

Buzz This

How do I send an update to Google Buzz via Email?

After you have enabled Google Buzz send an email to buzz@gmail.com to post to Buzz. The neat part here is you can attach images as well. *Try it from your mobile phone.
Has anyone tried excel files etc. or video?

How Do I disable Google Buzz?

How Can I NOT get Google Buzz updates in my Gmail InBox?

The first day Buzz came out I was posting a ton. The I noticed that my Gmail disk space quote went from 30% to 98%!

If you want to be able to us Buzz, but not get updates in your inbox, (thereby using up your precious free space)  create a Gmail filter that makes Buzz updates skip the inbox automatically. In Gmail, click on the “Create a filter” link, and in the “Has the words:” field enter label:buzz. Click Next Step (and ignore Gmail’s warning about filtering labels), then choose “Skip the inbox” as the filter action, and save. Now by following those instructions you are still saving your buzz conversations, I setup a similar filter and instead move them straight to trash.

How do I import Twitter Follower to Google Buzz?

Try this beta service ( http://tw2buzz.com ) , it is a bit slow as of this writing, but it will help you locate, from your list of “who you are following”. The service allows you to see who on your following list has an associated Google Buzz account.

How do I add a Google Buzz Button to My Site?

As of yet I have not seen a WordPress plugin that will integrate a buzz button on a post. But here is a handy piece of code that I discovered.

Buzz This

**UPDATE** I found a WordPress Plugin to do this: http://www.clickonf5.org/google-buzz-button-wordpress (Zip Link)

What tips have you seen that are useful about Google Buzz?

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