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Fun Photo Fridays: Wendy Piersall at SEG's Unleashed Fiesta Party

By Li Evans

I'm just back from a great time at Blog Potomac that happened in Washington D.C. and haven't even gotten those pictures downloaded from my camera yet, so for this week's photo I decided to pull a really fun one from the Fiesta Party at SEG's Unleashed, Small Business Marketing Conference.

This week's photo is of Wendy Piersall.  Wendy was a speaker at the event and the CEO of Sparkplugging.  If you don't read Wendy's blog, you should.  It's full of light hearted, fun and awesome information.  I got Wendy in a fun moment of laughter, she's even favorited this photo in her own flicker account. :)

If you like this photo of Wendy Piersall at SEG's Unleashed Fiesta Party, 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 Search Engine Guide's Unleasehed Small Business Marketing Conference, there's over 190 photos to view.

Fun Photo Fridays: SEO Rapper Chuck Lewis Performs the "PageRank" at Unleashed

By Li Evans

Well I'm a day late today, with posting our Friday photo, but I think waiting for this post might be well worth it.  Not only do I have a fun photo, but I have a fun video too!

The folks who ran Search Engine Guide's Unleashed Small Business Marketing Conference treated the conference goers to a live performance on the night before the conference started.  Chuck "SEO Rapper" Lewis of PopLabs entertained the crowd with his newest rap entitled "Code Design".  Chuck also showed us a few of his own dance moves, which I captured here.  In this photo, Chuck's demonstrating the "Page Rank".

If you like this photo of SEO Rapper Chuck Lewis Performs the "PageRank" at Unleashed, feel free to comment and favorite it as that's how we'll be judging the photos at the end of the year! Check out the rest of the fun at Unleashed Small Business Marketing Conference, there's almost 200 photos total!

So I also promised a video!  I shot this video of Chuck's live performance at Unleashed.  If you are interested in seeing his other videos check out Chuck Lewis' m0serious YouTube Channel, he's got all his SEO Raps out there.  Hope you enjoy!

Fun Photo Fridays: Unleashed Fiesta of Fun with Rachel & Wayne!

By Li Evans

At the beginning of this week, Search Engine Guide held their first ever marketing conference for small businesses (Unleashed Small Business Marketing Conference) in Houston, TX and wow was it awesome!  Kudos to Jennifer, Robert, Rachel and Vicki for putting on such a wonderful event!   If you haven't read the coverage of Unleashed, hop on over to SEG and check it out.

There was a lot of learning to be had at Unleashed as well as fun, including a networking event, silent auction and birthday cake for Jennifer & myself (thanks again!) the first night.  On Monday evening a really fun Fiesta was held that was sponsored by Search Influence (thanks guys!) and everyone there had a blast.  That's where I was able to snap this week's fun photo of Rachel Phillips of Search Engine Guide and Wayne Small of SBSfaq.

If you like this photo of Unleashed Fiesta of Fun with Rachel & Wayne, feel free to comment and favorite it as that's how we'll be judging the photos at the end of the year! Check out the rest of the fun at Unleashed Small Business Marketing Conference, there's almost 200 photos total!  Keep an eye out, we'll be back next week with Fun Photo Fridays.

Blogging for Business - Mack Collier at Unleashed Small Business Marketing Conference

By Li Evans

Mack Collier, who writes the Viral Garden blog, presented at Search Engine Guide's Unleashed conference in Houston yesterday April 21, 2008.  I came away from his presentation with a renewed outlook on blogging.  It's refreshing to hear a perspective about blogging that is so totally removed from the Search Marketing Industry, so totally refreshing and I'm very glad Jennifer Laycock brought Mack in to present this session.

In our world of links and ranking, as search marketers we see blogs as another "tool" to make a website pop.  It's another way to dominate the rankings for keywords whether they be general keywords or long tail keywords.  We all stop to worry about how many Sphinns a blog post got, or how many links the blog post generated or how fast the blog post you wrote got to the top of Digg.

That, my friends and fellow colleagues, is how search marketers think about blogging and also social media.  That's not how the rest of the world thinks about blogging and social media, and we are in a minority (believe it or not).

What Mack really drove home to me, and made me re-open my eyes to, is that blogging is about the community, and the conversation that community is having with you, about you and without you.  If you are only in it to get links, it's probably not a good reason to be blogging.  If you are only in it to get rankings, then again, it's not a good reason to be blogging.  If you are in it to have a conversation around your product, service, brand or something you love - then you should be blogging.

Mack gave a great presentation that highlighted everything from Dell's Linoel Menchaca to Stormhoek and their use of blogging.  Even how a marketing executive from Universal took 30 minutes out of his day to talk to a blogger and how that exposure helped promote his movie.  Not once did Mack focus on how many links these blog posts brought in - it was totally focused on the community.

To read more about Mack's presentation and the rest of the sessions at Unleashed visit Search Engine Guide.  As always if you like to see photo coverage, check out the Unleashed Small Business Marketing Photos on Flickr.