2010 Internet Marketing Olympics Dream Team

: Podium in the stadium from Crestock Creative Photos

Well, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada ends today so I decided to try to come up with a “dream team” of Internet Marketing Olympians in several categories. The “events” are: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Email Marketing, Search Engine Marketing (including SEO/SEM/PPC), Social Marketing, Web Analytics, and I’ve even included an event for Vendors.

Affiliate Marketing

Geno Prussakov
Jen Goode
Melanie Seery
Missy Ward
Scott Jangro
Shawn Collins
Stephanie Lichtenstein
Trisha Lyn Fawver

Blogging

Aneta Hall
CB Whittemore
Coree Silvera
Dawn Westerberg
Debra Ellis
DJ Francis
Heather in BC
Lee Odden

Email Marketing

Blue Sky Factory – Greg Cangialosi, DJ Waldow, and Chris Penn
Chad White
Loren Baker
Michael Katz
Scott Hardigree
Stephanie Miller

Search Engine Marketing

Adam Sherk
Brent Payne
Chris Burns
David Szetela
Rand Fishkin
Wil Reynolds

Social Media

Jay Baer
Jim Kukral
Mack Collier
Mari Smith
Paul Chaney
Renee Lemley
Scott Stratten

Web Analytics

Avinash Kaushik
Coremetrics (including but not limited to: John Squire, Boaz Ronkin, Susan Barnett, and Jason Mraz)

Vendors

Hubspot – Dharmesh Shah, Mike Volpe, Rebecca Corliss, and Ellie Mirman
Ion Interactive
Lyris
Marketing Profs – Ann Handley, Shelley Ryan, and Beth Harte
More Visibility
Radian 6 – Amber Naslund and Teresa Basich
The Duffy Agency – Kevin Duffy and Sean Duffy

I know I missed a lot of people/companies/organizations that should be on my 2010 Internet Marketing Olympic Dream Team – please post a comment and let me know who they are below. Thanks!

Top 12 Twitter Chats by Day – What are your Favorites?

In addition to being a “webinar connoisseur” I stay on top of best practices and new industry developments by attending Twitter chats. A Twitter chat is a conversation on Twitter that is held on a certain day/time and contains a specific hashtag so that people can follow along. Word of mouth about the chat spreads when followers of the people attending the chats see the hashtag and join the conversation as well. If you see a chat that interests you, set up a Twitter search or use a program like TweetDeck, Seesmic, or WhatTheHashtag to follow along.

Many marketing, public relations, and social media industry leaders spend time each week participating in these chats. You can often find Beth Harte from Marketing Profs, Mack Collier from The Viral Garden, Sarah Evans from PRSarahEvans.com, Valeria Maltoni from Conversation Agent, and many others on Twitter chats. It’s an easy way to learn from your peers, experts in the field, and basically anyone who is interested about a certain topic.

My Top 12 Twitter Chats By Day

Here are the 12 Twitter chats that I try to attend as often as my schedule allows (all times Eastern). Please note that there are several that overlap on Tuesday and Wednesday night – you’ll either have to multi-task and view all of them at once or pick the topic that looks most interesting that evening.

Monday

8P-11P #JournChat (chat with public relations professionals, bloggers, journalists)

Tuesday

12N-1P #SocialMedia (social media for business) This chat is designated by a specific #SM?? hashtag – each week increments by 1 see HashtagSocialMedia for more details.
8P-9P #SMBiz (small business networking)
8P-9P #PR20Chat (the latest in public relations)
9P-10P #EventProfs (social media and events)

Wednesday

11A-12N #BrandChat (personal branding)
1P-2:30P #SMChat (social media and communities)
8P-9P #IMCChat (Integrated Marketing Communications conversations)
8P-9P #SmallBizChat (small business tips & advice, especially new small businesses)

Thursday

4P-5P #MrktChat (travel and tourism marketing – lots of ski resorts represented here)

Friday

12N-1P #KaizenBlog (using Kaizen techniques for continuous improvement in social media)

Saturday

Take a break – it’s the weekend for crying out loud! (If you’re really bored, you can review the chats that you multi-tasked on Wednesday night…)

Sunday

9-10P #BlogChat (how to make your blog better)

Do you attend any of these chats? Which ones do you find the most interesting? Do you know of a great Twitter chat that I have missed? I’m always looking for new conversations to join, so please leave a comment below and let me know!

MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer = THE Best Marketing Conference. Ever.

I want to make sure that readers are aware that I won the pass to this conference during the MarketingProfs’ Digital Marketing Mixer Sneak Peek. This in no way impacted my conference review below. Please see the Disclosures and Policies page for more information.

Last week, I attended the MarketingProfs’ Digital Marketing Mixer in Chicago. After 20+ years in the advertising/marketing business, I’m a bit jaded when it comes to conferences, but the speaker list looked good and it would give me a chance to meet “in person” many of the people that I had only met “virtually” via Twitter, email, etc., so I went. I generally consider conferences worthwhile if I get one or two takeaways from the whole conference. That was not the case at the MarketingProfs’ Digital Marketing Mixer. Instead, I got 3-5 things from EACH SESSION that I was ready to implement immediately!

My goal for the next MPDM is a good pic with all my Tweeps! I will be elaborating on the individual things I learned and how they’re being used in future posts, but I thought you might be interested in what some other people have to say about this event:

Jay Baer summed the event up with 33 Hot Social Media and Digital Marketing Tips (and 8 Killer Quotes).
I made Aneta Hall’s list of Best Social Media #mpdm Tweets (twice, but once was a RT).
I didn’t make Michael Damphousse’s Top 20 Tweets from #mpdm, but there were many great people who did.
Sean Duffy flew in from Sweden to attend! You can see how much he enjoyed the event in his response to the question, Are MarketingProfs Digital Mixers really worth the time and expense?
Mack Collier blogged daily and posted a Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer: Recap.
Debra Ellis presented on combining Direct Marketing and Social Media and posted some great Twitter eTips about #mpdm.
Sonny Gill blogged about the community panel.
Alexandros Poulos provided BtoB insightsin his post.
David B. Thomas live-blogged several of the MarketingProfs sessions, including “How Big Brands Engage in Real Time Conversations with Consumers”, “Integrating Social Media Into Your Marketing Strategy”, “Business Blogging Tips and Case Studies” and “30 Ideas from the Digital Marketing Mixer You Can Implement Tomorrow”.
Matt Grant live-blogged several sessions.
Teresa Basich posted her insights on the MPDM aftermath.
Matt Cheuvront wrote about the MPDM theme of social media being an investment.
DJ Francis posted the only picture of me facing the camera and smiling in his blog post, The MarketingProfs Digital Mixer is Over, But the Work is Just Beginning, although I’m partially blocked by a blurry guy.
Jessica at Switch also posted Tips from the Digital Marketing Mixer in the Switch blog.
Check out Eric Hoffman’s Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer 2.0 post if you’re looking for downloadable Word doc notes of both days!
Michael Brito wrote an article called, Lessons Learned from the MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer 2009 on his blog.

I’m sure I’ve missed a few blog posts, if you’ll take the time to tell me about them, I’ll be sure to add them!