Trainer, Speaker, Coach
This morning I talked at A4U Expo London. I talked for an hour about how to use Social Marketing to get the most out of Universal Search. By using the different channels, both online and offline you will get more out of Universal Search you would have ever imagined.
Here’s the presentation:
The video I showed in the presentation is the following (sheet 14), which actually tells the crux of the story:
I’m in Prague at the moment. That is one place I haven’t spoken before. I’m here to speak at the Domainfest conference. They asked me to keynote and talk about the evolving search industry. Domainers are people who buy domains, park them and then try to sell them for a huge amount of money. And from what I’m hearing, there is a lot of money spent in the domains.
The conference itself is organized remarkably well. We are in one of the most expensive hotels in Prague. And they have put me in a very impressive suite:
It is going to be interesting to see how they will react to my presentation tomorrow (Wednesday). They are to say the least not very keen on Google. And in my presentation there is a lot of Google… We’ll see. I will keep you posted!
I have some news to share with you. Starting this week you will see a new job function appear on my Linkedin profile, my e-mail footers, my presentations and my other social media outings: that of the Social Marketing Ambassador for the DDMA, the Dutch Dialogue Marketing Association. Its a function which I will be doing two days a week in the coming period.
As the Social Marketing Ambassador I will be trying to close the gap which exists between the early adopters in the industry and those looking to ‘do something’ with social marketing. I see there still is a lot of misunderstanding about the topic and the DDMA is giving me opportunity to inform people about this way of working, from a independent place.
So why me? This function actually is made for me I think. I have always been independent and can stay independent as an ‘ambassador’. On top of that I have always been somebody who builds bridges and connects people. In this role I can do that and collect and spread the knowledge which is present with all the experts in the field.
About 2 weeks ago I spent almost the entire work week somewhere ‘up north’ in the UK. To be more specific, I was in Ripon, above Leeds. It is a stunning place which has everything a former history-student loves: there is a cathedral (really!) which has “secret passages” and was built on top of a small chapel, there is a really great country side, there is someone who blows a horn at the four corners of the obelisk in the Market place every night at 9PM to tell the town everything is safe. And lets not forget the houses which look like you walked onto the set of a movie which plays in the 16th or 17th century. Last but not least there is a really nice restaurant, called the Old Deanery, where you are not just getting great food, you really get the feeling you are getting an inside in the every-day life of Ripon. The owners are very open and hospitable and drinks after diner have never been so pleasant.
So why this free review? Well because I liked it off course! When in Ripon I had a very good week and I want to share that with you. But I wanted to share a little bit more. I was in Ripon, not for a holiday, but with a purpose. I was visiting one of my SEO-friends, Dave Naylor and his wife Becky and his company Bronco. It wasn’t just a pleasure trip, me and Dave have been working hard in the week on stuff which will be announced soon. The trip however is worth mentioning for several reasons, next to the great town of Ripon.
The search industry sometimes is just like high school. You have the geeks/ nerds, you have the popular girls and guys (who in this industry very well can be geeks ;- ) ) and you have those who want to be friends with the popular guys and girls. This makes that sometimes people get a wrong view on how people actually are. If you are a ‘rockstar’ you might live like a rockstar.
It sometimes even gets worse when you are not in the industry. Then people tend to think SEOs are lazy and they don’t have to work hard, because all they do is ‘trick’ the search engines.
Off course all of this is wrong and most of us know that, at least I hope they do. But the week with Dave made me realize that sometimes we just need to say it out loud: SEOs are just people, who work hard for their money.
When talking to Dave in that week he asked me what I thought of the way he lived and how I looked at it. I told him I liked the way of life and I liked his company a lot. It reminded me of the first company I worked in when I first started to work in the Internet. Its a very informal company which has a flat organization. Dave is one of the guys who sits with the guys.
And that was one of the things which really came forward that week: the “rockstar” Dave Naylor is “just” one of the guys at his office. The smartest guy at his office, yes, but as a person, just one of the guys. If you’ve met Dave at conferences you will know he’s always in for a bit of laughter and fun. I saw the every-day life of an SEO in Ripon UK, and apart from that rural village, its not much different than how he is when you meet him at conferences. He’s having a lot of fun at the office.
So it occurred to me it had to be said: there are many wrong views on SEO and SEOs as a person. Sometimes its good to see that an SEO is just another hard working person in a rural town : ). The search market has ‘rockstars’ but ‘rockstars’ are people too.
Well enough with the ‘sermon’. In Ripon I had a lot of fun and through this post I wanted to thank Becky and Dave again for their incredible hospitality. Thanks guys! It was fun, we had great food, drinks, laughter and we even went to see a Leeds United football game. I will always be an Ajax-fan first and foremost, but Leeds United sure will be on my ‘to follow’ list.
Last but not least, have you ever seen Dave Naylor sing? Here’s your chance:
PS, I almost forgot to mention I met “Bob the campervan“, who fits in great with the historic town 😉
It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated this blog. There’s a reason for that (next to my two week holiday in Spain) but I’ll inform you on that soon, when there is more news to actually give out 🙂
In the meanwhile, I’m spending more and more time looking at videos online. Why? Because there is so much great content out there! Have you for example ever looked at Youtube.com/edu? Lots of content from which you can learn very much there!
When I was in high school I actually wanted to become a journalist. Because there were not enough places in the School for Journalism I ended up studying history and ending up in a totally different place (though I feel like sometimes I did get into Journalism). As we all know Journalism is having a hard time these days. Especially those working with newspapers. Where is that going? On YouTube I found this talk between Jay Rosen and Clay Shirky on what’s happening in journalism. They talk at the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Its a very interesting series to watch over the weekend!
* Highly sought-after professional keynote speaker, trainer and strategist
* Awarded European Search Personality 2015
* More than 15 years of web experience
* Award winning consultant, trainer and professional speaker
* Founder of State of Digital
* Longer bio here
