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Women of Internet Marketing: Mary Bowling

By Julie Joyce

Welcome to the latest installment in the Women of Internet Marketing Series, featuring the (obviously) adventurous Mary Bowling from Blizzard Internet Marketing. Blizzard conducts marketing for hotels, resorts, and vacation rentals and has quite an impressive team of talent...with Mary being one of their senior SEOs and, most likely, the staff member most likely to climb Everest or dive with sharks.

Q: 2003 must have been a good year for SEO. That's when you and I both became involved in the field...ahem. What drove you to take the job at Blizzard?

A: I was bored, needed a new challenge and stumbled on the opportunity.

Q: What are your day to day responsibilities at Blizzard?

A: I specialize in Search Engine Optimization, not only optimizing client websites, but establishing best practices and processes and training others.

Q: You teach online courses, speak at conferences...where do you find the time to stay so involved?

A: I am so intrigued by SEO that I can’t help but do it.

Q: What did you do before becoming involved in SEO? Did you ever see yourself doing online marketing, or, like many others, did you simply kind of fall into it from something else?

Women of Internet Marketing: Stephanie Weingart

By Julie Joyce

Welcome to the latest installment in the Women of Internet Marketing Series! It's not even Wednesday but we're throwing caution to the wind...

This is my first interview for the series and I am incredibly honored to have spoken to the loveliest social media minx out there, my fellow SEO Chick and friend Stephanie Weingart. She's adorable, she does yoga, and she happens to be a fantastic writer (check out her blog, Frozen 2 Late) who is very clued into the latest in social media. What's not to love?

Stephanie and I first "met" online when she baited me, quite successfully, into doing an interview with her. I was a bit flabbergasted by her methods until I realized that, well, she'd achieved her goal...then I realized that this woman seriously knows what she's doing. It was nice to turn the tables on her for a bit.

Q: How did you become involved in the search industry?

A: There has always been something intriguing about this industry.  I have always been interested in social media and wanted to learn more about it when I started blogging in 2001. 

Q: How can you use social media to benefit smaller clients?

A: It is important to remember that social media is as valuable as real estate.  Big and small clients need to buy up land before somebody else comes and builds condos on their territory.   Social media is the best tool for smaller clients; it gives them a voice in a crowd they would never have reached before.

Q: Do you think it's more difficult to keep up with industry trends in social media than it was a year ago? Why or why not?

A: I don't find it difficult to keep up with industry trends in social media because it is my job to know everything that is possible in social media.  However, with so much going on and the day to day changes in social media, it would be rather hard to keep up with the trends if it was not your main agenda. It is important to try to stay on top of the social media game as best as possible though because you never know when the next Twitter is going to pop up.

Q: Tell us about a successful social media campaign that you've run…what made it work? What made it fun? How did it benefit the client?

A: At Morpheus we work with a lot of fun clients who allow us to really come up with and implement creative campaigns.  I'm very thankful for the opportunity because there are very little restrictions as far as what we can and cannot do.  The greatest campaigns I have been a part of thus far are a few blogger events, where we create opportunities for bloggers to interact with clients in special ways.  It benefits everyone because bloggers should be taken seriously (no matter how big or small) and when they get the respect they deserve, they are so grateful to the clients.

Q: How important is it to be "visible" in the industry these days?

A: Well for marketers, I think it is important to be visible but not to show off.  I see too many marketers really making fools of themselves. There is a really thin line between Social Media professional and over-exploited clown.  Clients, brands, and companies should be very visible in the industry, however they should also be active.  Just buying social media profiles and parking in spaces does not make a brand effective in social media. 

Q: How does link building fit into social media? Does PPC fit in at all with what you do? 

A: Link building and social media are best friends. Link building definitely prospers when blogger outreach is conducted.  Building the right relationships will also build the right links.  PPC is not a part of what I do, but it is all interconnected at some point.

Q: Have you used any "questionable" techniques in social media?

A: I chose to use a really holistic approach to social media tactics.  I actually maintain relationships that are built based on social media. I really dislike when I get random IM's and "random" social media type requests from people who don't really take the time to maintain a social relationship with me. I understand it is the nature of the business but I think that everyone would benefit from taking a more organic approach. The only downfall is that really putting in this type of work is time consuming but fun!

Q: What industry trend leaves you cold and why?

A: There is so much that leaves me cold.  As I said before, I am really sick of marketers who brag and exploit themselves.  I think that if you are a marketer and your work is good, you will be complimented.   Also, I am a little bit turned off by industry blogs lately.  It is getting really difficult to come up with fresh posts and it seems like people are getting really desperate and will post pictures of their babies with Danny Sullivan's head photoshopped on just for link bait.  A lot of value is being lost.

Q: What is the best part of your workday and why?

A: The best part of my workday is definitely being creative and brainstorming ideas for crazy and fun social media campaigns for my clients.  I also enjoy lunch.

Q: What advice would you give to young women trying to make a name for themselves in SEO right now?

A: My best advice for young women to try to make it is to work really hard and accomplish great things in SEO or social media first before you go out and talk a lot of nonsense.  Also, try to find other SEOs who inspire you and ask them for advice or to be their intern.  It is a constant learning process; the game never ends and we can all learn from each other.

 

..Now for the fun ones...

Write a poem about your favorite SEO Chick, who is obviously Julie Joyce. Ahem.

Before I really knew about SEO
I did my research, just so you know
I read a blog written by hot chicks
And subscribed to the feed to get my fix

But one chick stood out
She was more awesome than the rest
Her name, Jule Joyce, SEO Goddess

After learning and idolizing, I chose to reach out
Not knowing what I was doing, I gave her a shout
and blogged a funny post on my little blog

Julie was flustered, who was this little minx?!
I got her attention and she started to think
It was no time at all
She invited me in the group!

The chicks let me post and share my voice,
But I could not have done it without Julie Joyce!

Q: Which do you prefer, men in kilts or men in khakis?

A: I am not a fan of either! I like guys who have style that represents their personality.

Q: If you had to choose 5 female SEOs to do a pub crawl with, who would they be and why?

A: If I could only chose FIVE amazing SEO women to do a pub crawl with, they would be Lisa Ditlefsen, Jane Copland, Julie Joyce, Danielle Winfield, and Judith Lewis.  I would probably need more than 5 Female SEOs to party with!!!

Q: If you could take the job of any high-profile SEO, forcing him or her to work at Denny's, who would it be and why?

A: This might sound lame but I wouldn't trade my job for anyone else's.  I really enjoy all of my clients and my work and wouldn't want to ever have anyone else's work.

Q: Why does Lisa Ditlefsen always look so amazing in photos?

A: Lisa DItlesfsen emits an aura of happiness at all times.  I have never seen a bad picture of her.  When people are genuinely happy in their photos they will look great...and It doesn't hurt that she is also stunning.

Well there you have it, with only a TINY bit of arm-twisting on my part, really. Thanks to Stephanie for letting me interview her! (Like she really had a choice...)

Fun Photo Fridays: Jennifer Yuan of 1000 Times No Hangs Out at PodCamp Philly

By Li Evans

Yes, it's Saturday morning, seems my last two Fridays escaped me rather quickly!

None the less, I do have a photo this week.  Timely in the fact of our announcement about SearchCamp Philly working with PodCamp Philly to bring an affordable online marketing conference to Philly!  This week's picture is of Jennifer Yuan hanging out at PodCamp Philly last year.  Jennifer is one of the extraordinary people who help to organize PodCamp Philly, she also has her own podcast called "1,000 Times No".

If Jennifer's name sounds familiar, it should for the folks who read SMG on a regular basis.  I interviewed Jennifer for the Women of Internet Marketing series last year.

If you like this photo of Jennifer Yuan of 1000 Times No Hangs Out at PodCamp Philly, feel free to comment and favorite it on Flickr, Sphinn or Fetch this photo as that's how we'll be judging the photos at the end of the year! Check out the rest of the fun at PodCamp Philly, there's just over 40 photos in the set.

BlogHer '08: Elisa Camahort Page Interview, BlogHer CoFounder

By Li Evans

For the past view days I've been in San Francisco at BlogHer '08.  It's been a spectacular time, and it's really amazing to meet so many, intelligent, super charged up women bloggers.

Over the course of a few months I've gotten to know the founders of the BlogHer community.  These women are just spectacular.  Smart, savvy women who care about bringing knowledge and community together.  Never more apparent was that, than at the community keynote.

Elisa Camahort Page, one of the BlogHer Co-Founders, agreed to do an interview with me.  She speaks about one of the major highlights of the event being the Community Keynote, as well as the new BlogHer Reach Out Tour (this I'm really excited about!).

We'll be adding more videos throughout the week to the SMG YouTube channel, so subscribe to get the latest videos there, as well as checking back to SMG for the interviews as we post them.

Full Video Interview Transcript After the Jump....

Building Communities in Social Media

By Li Evans

Wendy Piersall started her blog as a hobby, the blog was an extension of her business, a tool to compliment it.  Within three months, Wendy’s eMom's at Home blog became its own full time job.  She had to rethink her strategy about the business.  Within 2 years Wendy had a thriving community on her hands, with thousands of readers and subscribers. How did this happen?

Conversation.

Communities thrive on it, we humans crave it.  Unless you are a hermit or a person on a religious quest that requires seclusion and not speaking, we seek out human interaction.  We want to hear other people’s thoughts, we long for interaction to know if our own thoughts are in line with common thinking or if we are out of line, or are we rebels (with or without a cause).

Communities are nothing new.  Communities bond upon a single or a few commonalities.  It was how this nation (the United States) was formed, a common bond of the wish to have freedom of religion.  Later on for immigrants coming through Ellis Island, the bond was the dream of a better life.  It is no different even with all of our gadgets, speed and technologies, we as humans still need to bond, and it is why we seek out communities online.

Wendy’s community grew and thrived because she fostered a great conversation.  She listened and she also conversed with her audience – she never spoke "at" them.  She constantly listened and she participated in the conversation, always keeping in mind “what would her audience get” from each conversation she would invoke with her blog posts.

Wendy was also wise enough to realize the conversation wasn’t just going on, on her blog.  There were other blogs out there having similar conversations that she felt helped or contributed to the conversation.  Wendy wisely not only sought them out and commented about on their blogs she included them in her own conversation as well.  By doing this,  she was eventually pulling in their audiences to participate in the conversation.

Now a little over 2 years later, realizing that what started out as her “hobby” has grown into this enormous community and her original thoughts for the blog my limit the potential for the conversations growth, Wendy reached out to her community.  Wendy asked and the community overwhelming responded and now eMoms at Home is opening to an even wider community by becoming SparkPlugging, focusing on the entrepreneurial community.  Wendy's own blog is getting renamed to Sparkplug CEO, as well.

When you recognize that a conversation is happening and you embrace it and foster it, a community can grow around that conversation.  Hard sells, preaching a message, and advertorials just don’t work, those methods do not foster and grow communities.   You really have to have a love, a passion for your conversation, you have to care about it, if it is going to even have any shot at succeeding in this new online social world. 

It’s why companies who really do care about what people think about their brands, or their products or services succeed in overwhelming ways in social media.  If you only care about selling a soda (think Sprite Sips on Facebook ), or getting people into your store (think Walmart Flogs) you likely won’t get very far since your conversation is only one way and isn’t really genuine.  However, if you are like Wendy, or BlendTec or even Lionel Menchaca from Dell, your community grows at astounding rates.

The key to building communities?  Conversation and realizing that as much as they involve speaking to someone, building communities involves a lot more listening and understanding.  So, stop and think – are you preaching or are you conversing?

I said yesterday that Mack Collier inspired me to love Blogging again.  Wendy also inspired me about communities and she made me excited about the potential of building a great community. To read about Wendy's presentation at SEG's Unleashed Conference for Small Business Marketing, check out David's take on Wendy's session.  Hop on over to SEG to get all the coverage of what happened at SEG's Unleashed Conference in Houston.

You can also find Wendy on Twitter, Mack on Twitter and even me on Twitter, too. Why not start a conversation with us?  :)

SES NYC - 3 Women Spotlighted at Search Engine Strategies

By Li Evans

As SES attendees, we've had the delight of having Marissa Meyer of Google keynote, but before that, I can't readily remember when a woman was really a spotlight at any sort of search conference.  My how things have changed!

Next week at SES New York City, not one, not two, but three women have been "spotlighted".  How's that for progress?  I think that says a lot for how this industry really respects women and is going beyond "gender lines".

The three women are Kendall Allen, Erica Schmidt and Lyndsay Menzies.  These three women are playing key roles in both the companies they work for and it's great to see them getting the spotlight shined in their direction.

So what do we know about these three great online marketers?

Kendall Allen is the Managing Director at Incognito Digital.  During the three years preceding her joining the team at Incognito Digital – Allen presided over regional Client Services operations for two Search Engine Marketing firms, first as founding executive team member at Fathom and then industry pioneer, iCrossing. It is during these years that Allen met the founding partners Gray and Hoydich of Incognito Digital, collaborating to serve the marketing needs of VOOM HDTV.

With critical periods of her career spent in the SF Bay Area and now on the East Coast in New York, Allen has consulted with, launched and staffed engagement teams against the digital marketing efforts of marketers including Ask Jeeves, SF Examiner, Chandon, Intel, Intuit, VOOM, American Express, Fairmont Hotels, McGraw-Hill and Colgate-Palmolive. Allen now has teamed with her partner, Elizabeth Bleser, to truly evolve the agency Incognito Digital and the brands it serves.

Erica Schmidt is Global Director of Search for Isobar.  Erica is primarily responsible for helping Isobar search agencies across the globe increase their revenues from search engine marketing, and she assists Isobar agencies in launching iProspect-branded search engine marketing practices. Schmidt also ensures that each agency is delivering their services according to the best practices developed at iProspect in the U.S. Prior to joining Isobar, Schmidt was client services director at iProspect, responsible for overseeing a number of client-facing search teams, and focused her attention on delivering superior strategies and proactive account management to iProspect’s clients.

A polished speaker, Schmidt has presented at various conferences around the globe, including Search Engine Strategies. She has also authored articles for industry publications, including Pharmaceutical Executive   Magazine and Direct Magazine.

Lyndsay Menzies is Managing Director of Big Mouth Media. At bigmouth since 1999, and with 100 bigmouths under her watchful eye, Lyndsay's remit can be summed up as 'Responsible for developing and keeping the happiest clients and teams in the industry', whilst growing bigmouthmedia UK into the clear leader in its field.

Lyndsay heads up the 3 UK offices, as well as the NY office. Bigmouthmedia has the highest client and staff retention in the industry, and is a 2007 FT 'Best Place to Work'. A real 'people person', Lyndsay is a pioneer in integration of search within marketing strategy, offering a no-bull, can-do attitude crucial for the success of her clients in a fast-changing medium.

I found her bio on the Big Mouth Media site really funny too (this company certainly has a sense of humor!):

Bigmouthmedia's much loved Managing Director. Complete workaholic. Once went to have her wisdom teeth taken out over lunch and went straight back to work. Finalist in "Scotland's Most Eligible", when asked what her unique fact was, Lyndsay disclosed that she once spent 12 hours in the back of a truck in Cambodia with a dead pig... like we said, she's been working very hard.

Wow, these are some really impressive resumes aren't they?  All three of these women are "take charge and get it done" and that attitude has propelled them to the top of not only their companies but this industry as well. 

I got curious as to why SES & Kevin Ryan selected to highlight not just one, but three women and asked him these questions:

Li:  Kevin, could you tell me why you have them featured?
Kevin Ryan:  They are incredibly talented people that possess thought leadership characteristics along with and “feet on the ground” knowledge.

Li:  What’s their role for this conference (SES NYC)? 
Kevin Ryan:  Women at SES take on a number of roles. From Orion panels to day one’s strategic thought leadership to our week-long tactical sessions. We have a number of nationalities represented and they represent multiple levels in the companies they represent.

Li:  Why were they chosen?
Kevin Ryan:  SES does not discriminate or select speakers on the basis of race, creed, gender, social media platform usage or socio-search engine alignment. Sincerely, the selection process was very simple; they were the most qualified candidates. 

Kudos to Kendall, Erica & Lyndsay, and thanks to Kevin Ryan for selecting to spotlight them at SES New York!

Women of Internet Marketing Series - So What's Going to Happen

By Li Evans

Before I jump into what's going to happen to the Women of Internet Marketing Series, I want to take a few moments and thank all of you who emailed, messaged and spoke to me directly.  All of your encouragement and support is very much appreciated by me.  I had been feeling very jaded, very skeptical and didn't want that to influence my decision to end the series if it had come to that.  All of you had wonderful words of encouragement, insight, support and true enlightenment for me, and for that I'll be forever thankful.

I feel at this point I need to set a few things out there to the audience so you can understand where the decision to have a survey came from.  I mentioned that I'm dealing with family issues and since some where along the line "some" were skeptical of this I'll explain. 

Specifically, my father has a tumor in his esophagus which is cancerous and needs to be removed.  For anyone who's dealt with a family member with cancer, it's a scary thing - a lot of wait and see, but also a lot of urgency.  When you deal with that, and then you get insults about a series you do - not for yourself, but to highlight other people and their accomplishments, and those insults and negative comments are mean spirited and really rather rude, it makes you want to take a step back and think.  It makes you wonder, "Is that the majority opinion?  If it is, why should I bother with all this on my plate?"

Women of Internet Marketing Series - Last Chance to Take the Survey

By Li Evans

Just an FYI, if you thought about taking the survey and haven't yet, you have until 9 p.m. EST to let your feelings known on the Women of Internet Marketing Series.  The survey is pretty simple - 3 yes/no questions and two "optional" type - if you want to add some information questions.

If you like the series, or if you don't like the series.  If you like the questions, or you want to see different questions asked.  If you think the series should remain weekly or go bi-weekly and if you have a women to suggest to be interviewed.  Now's the Time to Speak Up!

Tick... Tock. :)

Women of Internet Marketing Series - Will The Show Go On? It's All Up To You!

By Li Evans

Sometimes we all can get to a point in life where we wonder whether or not we should let a good thing end, change it to "revive" it or continue to push on.  I've found myself right in that spot with the Women of Internet Marketing Series, especially after a few rather "not so nice" comments have been thrown in this direction about it.

The last few weeks, I've also been dealing with some family issues that have taken precedent over moving on with more interviews.  Quite frankly, dealing with the issues with my family and then those comments, make me even wonder if I should continue interviewing more women each week?  Basically what it comes down too, is it worth dedicating the time into putting together each week, two interviews if I'm going to get grief/insults/sly remarks and have to deal with family issues on top of it all?

However, please keep in mind, I'm not really one to let things get me down for too long.  I don't do this article series for me, I do it to allow you the audience to meet women from our industry that you might not have gotten to know otherwise.  I like shining the light and giving credit to these hard working, successful and always very gracious women because they deserve it.

So, my audience members of Search Marketing Gurus, I leave this decision, totally up to you, right now I don't feel I could make a fair judgment call (being stressed and a bit jaded can do that to ya!).  If you would like the show to go on  or to end, please take the time to take the Women of Internet Marketing survey.  I'll leave this survey up for one week (until 9 p.m. on 1/29/08) and report the results back next Wednesday.

Women of Internet Marketing Article Series

By Li Evans

Unfortunately today I won't be posting a set of interviews.  Due to back up from the holidays work wise, some family health issues I must contend with and also research into the political series I've been doing, the Women of Internet Marketing Articles won't be back until Wednesday January 23rd.

Due to a heavy travel month in February, there will only be 2 weeks for interviews that month.

Thanks for everyone tuning in, I'll have two great interviews lined up for January 23rd!