• Stop Talking About Social and Do It. Business models have not kept pace with the “social era” and this series covers 360 degrees of how social affects all aspects of business – a perspective the resonates with  the Optimize approach to online marketing – Yes and Know
• Matt Cutts: Google To Target Overly SEO’ed Sites Within Weeks. The question is, what does an “over-optimized” page look like to Google? – Search Engine Roundtable
• The Time For Content Marketing Is Now.  Nice to see more SEOs jumping on the content marketing bandwagon – Distilled
• Think fast: Is that tweet true or false? How we use credibility cues to make decisions – Interesting assessment of what constitutes credibility within the Twitter expereience.  Nieman Journalism Lab
• The Psychology of Link Building. The human aspects of link building (including a PPT) which are not unlike what media relations professionals have been practicing in the PR world for  years –  State of Search
• Publisher Strategy and the Image Explosion: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Luminate. An image is worth a thousand words and then some. The consumer movement towards a more visual online culture means opportunity for brands and marketers to give the people what they want – ChasNote
• Selling the C-Level: 7 Content Marketing Myths Debunked. The Godfather of modern content marketing, Joe Pulizzi, busts common objections executives have towards content marketing – Content Marketing Institute
• Using Sociology To Effect Change Within Your Brand’s Social Media Efforts. A social strategist within a company does not scale. Businesses need to become social from within and that means culture and organizational change  - Social Business News
• 12 Top Community Managers Share Their Tips for Better Engagement. Great mix of advice from brand community managers on how growing communities online – Mashable
• Visual Liveblogging of SXSW. A great way to view the insights and perspectives provided from a number of selected sessions during SXSW with drawings by @ImageThink- Ogilvy Notes

It has been a pleasure not having any speaking gigs during the month of January, while I’ve been finishing off Optimize, but it’s only a delay of the inevitable. Feb  - March are quite busy. Here’s the rundown of Online Marketing conferences I’ll be speaking at in the coming months:

2/7 OMS – San Diego - 1:30pm
Optimize This: Integrating Social, SEO & Content
Where: Hilton San Diego Bayfront

Learn the principles and best practices of optimizing content and social media participation for better marketing performance

2/9 SES Accelerator – San Diego - 10:15am
The Convergence of Search, Social and Content Marketing
Where: Hilton San Diego Bayfront

The Google Panda update just made great content critical. Social media is grabbing all the headlines. Search gets more powerful every year. But how do they all play together? How do you increase your odds of being found both in search and social media? How will you consistently create content your a will enjoy? Join this panel as they provide case studies and walk you through a step-by-step approach that any organization can follow to grow their business online.

2/14 Small Business Success Summit – 1:15pm Pacific
Small Business Blogging Panel: Mike Stelzner, Brian Clark, Joe Pulizzi
Where: Online

Want to know how to create a blog that provides ongoing streams of traffic and fuels the growth of your business? During this session, the founders of four top blogs will share how they’ve built multimillion-dollar empires by producing regular and valuable content for their blogs. You’ll discover how they started, what to avoid, and how they use their blogs to drive sales. You’ll also have an opportunity to ask your questions live to our panel.

2/21 SES London - 3:30pm
Site Redesign? Don’t Forget SEO Migration!
Where: The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Broad Sanctuary, London

Companies often implement new content management systems and website redesigns without consideration of the effect on their search engine visibility. Numerous websites have suffered dramatic drops in search engine traffic due to an insufficient SEO migration plan or no plan at all. This session will provide website owners with best practices on mitigating negative SEO effects of a website redesign, new content management system implementation or aggregation of multiple websites. If your business is planning on making website changes that will affect content, URLs or templates, this is a must attend session.

3/22 SES New York - 2:25pm
Content Marketing Optimization
Where: Hilton New York

The core of any search or social media marketing program centers on content. Digital assets, rich media, web pages, MS Office and PDF docs as well as content created and shared by consumers all offer opportunities for optimization. If it can be searched, it can be optimized! Online marketing is increasingly competitive and brand marketers world-wide are seeking real advantages that will improve the efficiency and impact of their Social Media and SEO efforts. This session provides unique insight into content based optimization strategies and processes as well as tactics for sourcing, creation and promotion of optimized content on the social web.

Lee Odden at Content Marketing World in 2011

“A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation. If you see them, show them this information.”

It’s nice to see YouTube has a sense of humor.

BTW, the video I was trying to access was one I shot in Hong Kong about “Content Marketing Optimization Tip: Cycle of Social Media & SEO from @TopRank”

Skydiving with the Army Golden Knights

Yesterday I had the chance of a lifetime: To go skydiving for the first time in my life. Not only would I have the opportunity to do jump out of a perfectly good airplane, but I’d get to do it with the best of the best when it comes to skydiving: The Army Golden Knights.

2 1/2 Miles Up & Skydiving with Army Golden Knights

The backstory to this skydiving experience is that I was asked by Greg Swan from Weber Shandwick (who does PR for the Army) if I’d like to go skydiving as part of a pre-conference event outside of Dallas Texas.  After looking deciding there was an interesting social media SEO story to tell and feeling somewhat of a connection to the military because of my previous active duty service in the Army many years ago, I decided to do it.

Here’s a quick video interview in the hangar before getting on the plane:

Here are my last words before the jump. I love you mom!

Video of my actual jump 2 1/2 miles above Dallas with the U.S. Army Golden Knights

Here’s a video with my Army story:

View from the 23rd floor balcony in Soho of uptown and downtown Manhattan in New York.

On the second day of our trip, we slept in a little, having stayed up a bit late after a late dinner. After getting coffee and water, we walked approximately 14 blocks to Central Park and then walked across the park to the (other side) to meet another New Yorker friend of mine, Rebecca, at a restaurant near Lincoln Center that she had picked for us.

We had a very nice lunch and Rebecca made some additional recommendations for things we hadn’t thought of. After lunch Dominic and I went back into Central park, walking by a pond seeing the Hans Christen Anderson and Alice in Wonderland statues.

It was strikingly hot but we continued to walk up the park noticing various musicians playing for tips along the way.

We were looking for the Central Park Zoo but were not paying much attention. Dominic picked up a few sticks which he proceeded to use to “play” an empty water bottle located in his messenger bag.

The heat was intense, so we decided to take a break from it by entering the Metropolitan Museum ??? MET. There was a Superheroes exhibit, although, we were not sure exactly what that would be. Dominic put his sticks in his bag, worried they might not let him have them. They didn’t notice the sticks when the bag was inspected.

The AC in the museum was a welcome relief to the sweltering heat outside. We checked out some Greek artifacts and then a Medieval exhibit before finding the Superheroes exhibit. It was a combination of movie props from Spiderman, Batman and Iron Man plus fashion designer interpretations of various Superhero themes in clothing designs.

After the MET, we wandered outside where the sun dropped enough to be blocked by many of the taller buildings. It was still very hot and humid though and by the time we finally made our way to the Central Park Zoo (which just closed) it had taken it’s toll on Dom. we rested for a while and then made our way back to the hotel.

I’ve been to the big apple about 10 times for work, but never for play. This is Dominic’s first trip to the city.

Day One:

After getting in so late, we slept in a little bit but managed to get going and over to Grand Central Station which was on the same block as our hotel, the Grand Hyatt. Grand Central has been in so many movies I we had to check it out. I liked the Grand Central Market and Dom liked the constellations in the ceiling.

After Grand Central, we walked over to Bryant Park a few blocks away to meet Matt M. for lunch. I know Matt through the conferences I speak at and thought it would be good for Dom to meet a few New Yorker friends of mine while we were here. As a native New Yorker, Matt provided a number of great suggestions for things to do.

After lunch we headed over to Times Square where we got on one of the touristy City Sights buses. For a first time look at New York, sitting on the top of one of these double decker buses is a quick way to see some of the city. We got off at the Empire State Building and bought express tickets for the 102nd floor. That was nice not having to wait in line, although the ticket line was about 20 min. Not bad.

The view from the 86th floor is great because you’re outside but it’s packed with people. The view from the very top at floor 102 is pretty cool because few people pay the extra $15 but it’s in a room with windows that are smudged and marked up so photos are not so great.

We got on the City Sights bus for a while going through Soho and Greenwich Village finally getting off in China Town. I had been there before, but it seemed so different this time. We walked around a bit looking for Little Italy and decided not to have a late lunch there in favor of a walk back to our hotel on 42nd street, about 40 blocks.

On the way, we passed by Union Square where a number of chess games were going on. We watched one where they used a timer and it was pretty intense at the end. I’d not seen that kind of play before and as a chess fan, Dominic followed right along.

In Grammercy we came upon a Lowes Theater and decided to take a break and see “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”. Armed with popcorn and nachos, we watched with different perspectives. I’d seen all of the Indiana Jones movies previous and this one was pretty much a repeat with a modified story angle. Dominic might have seen one other Indiana Jones movie and thought it was fantastic. I’m glad he had fun.

Nachos and a movie were followed by a strong urge to walk the calories off. Fortunate for us, we had 20 blocks to go to our hotel. It was dark and a nice way to see part of the city. We ended up at the Grand Hyatt around 10:30 pm and decided to catch a late dinner at one of the hotel restaurants, “The Commodore Grill” which was a gross disappointment. They took my order and Dominic’s then claimed he didn’t order anything. When we “re-ordered” his grilled cheese, it took 25 minutes. They didn’t charge for the grilled cheese, which was sub-par by the Dominator’s standards, but it was lame all the same.

A spot of TV and we were soon asleep. That concluded day one of the Dominator Birthday trip to New York. For Day Two, we planned some time in Central Park, the zoo, lunch with another New Yorker friend and possibly some time in a museum and FAO Schwartz.

I have 3 meetings during this time, but they are lunch so it should not be too much.

Dom will be shooting photos and some video for posting to his blog and Flickr account. It should be a great experience.