Last week was a week I’m not likely to forget that easily. It was special because I was very busy with a training session and there was an afternoon about Social Marketing for non-profit organisations which I organized (and spoke at) for the DDMA. But there was something else last week which was fun: I made my debut in both a national newspaper (the Algemeen Dagblad) and on National television!

It started on Tuesday when a reporter from the AD called me to ask about a website which had what they said was a revolutionary idea in Holland. When you tweeted from the website you would get a 5 euro discount voucher. Now this is nothing new in other countries, but the Netherlands has to get used to this.

The question was how new this really was and whether or not this was something which people would actually like. After all, you are sending a commercial out to your friends. The article appeared in the newspaper on Wednesday:

(click to enlarge)

That same day I got a call from Editie NL, a Dutch show who wanted to know more about this. After a talk they asked me if I would be willing to appear on camera. Off course I did .  A cameraman and reporter came by my house on Friday to record several things. This was broadcasted on Friday evening.

The item was all about “Social Whispers” or in a better sentence: using Social Media to advertise, giving away free stuff to those tweeting about your product.

We talked for almost half an hour, in the end only a very very short part (seconds!!) of that was aired. This is nothing strange, that always happens, but it is a shame that not more was aired because I think I said some pretty sensible things. But it does make sense. For the item they wanted three different views. The things I said could have overlapped with what somebody else also stated so they took this part.

I was asked a lot more than what you see here (somewhere in the middle of the item), but in this part I was specifically speaking as the Social Marketing Ambassador of the Dutch DMA. We are working on a code there to regulate this.

It may be short, but I’ve made my debut on TV. And I can get used to this . I’ve placed the item on YouTube and embedded below. I hope it stays there, I’m not sure why they don’t allow embedding of the item from their website. The item is in Dutch, but I’ve subtitled it as well as I could. I hope it can stay online (not sure why they don’t offer embeds themselves). Tip: if you want to read the subtitles put it on full screen, I’m still struggling with Camtasia…

ps. What is it with journalists by the way? Both the newspaper and the TV got things wrong: I am a Social MARKETING ambassador, not media. Plus, the DMA is not a marketing agency, but an Association….

From Bas van den Beld Bas van den Beld: Speaker, Trainer, Moderator and writer

Last week I got a message, if I was willing to talk to a reporter from the Czech newspaper the Prague Post. Eh Prague…? Czech..? That is not really my area, I live in the Netherlands. I did speak in Prague a few months ago, maybe that is why?

It turned out to be a short interview about the ‘dispute’ which is going in Czech between the Czech leading search engine, Seznam, and Google. You have to know that Czech is one of the few countries world wide where Google is NOT the dominant force. In Czech Seznam is the biggest. An Internet search company, Toplist, however gave out some numbers indicating that Google had surpassed Seznam. Seznam disagreed.

The newspaper wanted to talk to me about the dispute but also about local search engines in general. I do a lot of writing about European search, both on State of Search as on Searchengineland. Therefore they came to me. That was fun! I was interviewed next to friend and organizer of the SES Conferences Mike Grehan.

See an extract of the article below. The entire article you can read here. I wrote a bigger article on the matter on State of Search to describe what is going on in Czech.

From Bas van den Beld Bas van den Beld: Speaker, Trainer, Moderator and writer

I was fortunate to be invited twice to speak at the International Search Summit in London. This conference, organized by Webcertain, the company of Andy Atkins Kruger, is a small conference, but one which is very nice, partly because its not that big. You really get good information from different international speakers and you can really learn something there. At the last one in London I (with some others) was shortly asked about the conference. An opinion I was happy to give, you can find it below in the video. This is one conference I will come back if they ask me. And then off course I hope to see you there .

From Bas van den Beld Bas van den Beld: Speaker, Trainer, Moderator and writer

A couple of weeks ago I spoke at the B2B Marketing Forum on the changes we are seeing with the SERPS and how we should act on it. The subject was all about the future, where are the search engines going. After that session I got interviewed by a Dutch people search engine, 123 people. You can find the interview below. They also wrote out the entire interview here. The interview is in Dutch so if you want to understand it and are not Dutch, here’s te version which is translated using Google Translate (which has its usual quality so you are warned…).

From Bas van den Beld Bas van den Beld: Speaker, Trainer, Moderator and writer

At Search Engine Strategies I shortly met up again with Murray Newlands, a not only very smart guy and good affiliate marketing and social media blogger, but also a very nice guy. He did a ‘one minute interview’ with me, sort of like a pitch. He asked me what I was doing blogging-wise. Here’s my answer:

Thanks Murray!

From Bas van den Beld Bas van den Beld: Speaker, Trainer, Moderator and writer