SMX Interview About Using SMM for ORM

While at SMX East in NYC earlier this month, Neil Rodriguez caught up with me and did a quick interview to discuss my presentation from the Social Media for Reputation Management panel.

Here is the interview:

You have to admit, Neil has probably some of the best interview introduction around.

October 19, 2009 | Filed Under Conferences, SMX | 2 Comments

SEOktoberfest 2009… PROST!

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SEOktoberfest really blew me away this year… and that is saying something considering I spoke there last year as well.

Maybe it was because the sessions were a little more organized and we were all able to really learn some interesting new things, maybe it was that I had so many of my closest friends around, maybe it was the spa relax day thrown in between the two days learning, speaking, and drinking, or maybe it was the tents filled with beer, food, friends, and singing German playmates who hung around us day and night…

Whatever it was… it was amazing.

I was especially impressed by Robert ‘Rsnake’ Hansen, founder of SecTheory and probably one of the nicest, yet scariest, hackers I have ever met.

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Owner of Ha.ckers.org and author of the infamous Slowloris, Rsnake gave a presentation that blew everyone in attendance away… and made most people really nervous of what he was capable of.

Here is a little snippet of his Bio:

Mr. Hansen authors content on O’Reilly and co-authored “XSS Exploits” by Syngress publishing. He sits on the NIST.gov Software Assurance Metrics and Tool Evaluation group focusing on web application security scanners and the Web Application Security Scanners Evaluation Criteria (WASC-WASSEC) group. He also has briefed the DoD at the Pentagon and speaks at SourceBoston, Secure360, GFIRST/US-CERT, CSI, Toorcon, APWG, ISSA, TRISC, World OWASP/WASC conferences, SANS, Microsoft’s Bluehat, Blackhat, DefCon, SecTor, Networld+Interop, and has been the keynote speaker at the New York Cyber Security Conference, NITES and OWASP Appsec Asia. Mr. Hansen is a member of Infragard, Austin Chamber of Commerce, West Austin Rotary, WASC, IACSP, APWG, he is the Industry Liaison for the Austin ISSA and contributed to the OWASP 2.0 guide.

The conference is always great for networking, learning, and experiencing Oktoberfest like a local VIP. So when the tickets go on sale for next years SEOktoberfest, I would highly recommend you snatch one up.

Thanks to Marcus and Philip, for putting on a flawless event as usual, thanks to Anna and the other girls for keeping everyone company, and thanks to all the experts and attendees for sharing tricks and making the conference a success.

Philip and Anna are also opening a new club, may have just opened, in the heart of Munich called Vice. I got to see the designs and it looks really amazing. So if your in Munich, make sure you go by club Vice.

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Check out all the pictures from the event here – SEOktoberfest 2009 Photos

October 12, 2009 | Filed Under Conferences, Social Media | Leave a Comment

ThinkTank – San Diego 2009 Recap

September 16th was the start of two things for me; ThinkTank and about 21 days of non-stop travel. The traveling part has been exhausting and not ideal, but ThinkTank on the other hand, was very productive and a lot of fun.

ThinkTank is an invite only search marketing conference, put on by DK from Purpose Inc. It is meant to provide a small group of attendees face to face time with some of the best internet marketers in the business. Instead of the traditional presentation format, ThinkTank has smaller round table discussions, each led by an experienced expert in at least one main aspect of internet marketing being used today.

To attend the event, everyone must sign an NDA and promise not to discuss any of the information they learned, so I can’t really get into anything discussed at the conference. I will say that I learned quite a bit and really enjoyed the Social Media Marketing round table that Chris Winfield and I lead.

As a huge MMA fan, one of the biggest highlights of ThinkTank for me was getting me meet Sean and Robert Drysdale of Drysdale Ju-Jitsu Gym in Las Vegas. Robert Drysdale is recognized internationally as one of the top Ju-Jistu blackbelts competing today. He has competed and won against some of the best of the best, including winning the last open weight Abudabi tournament in 2007.

Robert and his team were really cool and he offered anyone at the event the opportunity to learn a little jujitsu and roll with him (compete). Needless to say, I got a kick out of watching all the guys try to beat Robert, especially Andy Lui, who was the only one to get Robert to tap.

All in all, the event was a lot of fun and I would definitely recommend it for anyone who is invited to the conference in the future.

Check out some photos from ThinkTank here – ThinkTank Pictures

http://www.robertdrysdale.net/

October 10, 2009 | Filed Under Conferences, Social Media | 2 Comments

Social Media for Reputation Management at SMX East 2009

We all know reputation management is important, but it still remains something most of us think about only as an afterthought.

It is some Thursday afternoon and you head over to Google to search for your name or brand and the next thing you know someone is saying some pretty nasty things about you, and ranking right there for everyone to see.

Even if it is not something negative, it could just be that some affiliate site is out ranking you for your own brand or name without your permission.

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Whatever the case may be, anger and panic set in, and the first thing you want to do is anything in the world you can do to get it removed from the search engines.

So whats first? How do you go about defending against a reputation management issue? How do you properly prepare for these issues in the first place?

Come by the Social Media, Search & Reputation Management panel on October 7th at SMX East in NYC, and have some of the best Reputation Management and Social Media experts in the business give you all the information you need to help defend and survive your next reputation nightmare.

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Speakers include:

Brent Csutoras, Social Media Consultant, Brent Csutoras, Inc
Rhea Drysdale, COO & Co-Founder, Outspoken Media
Jordan Kasteler, Co-Founder, Search & Social
Chris Silver Smith, Director of Optimization Strategies, KeyRelevance
Marty Weintraub, President, aimClear