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On 30th of July 2015 you’ll find me at Surf Cabana speaking at Tribe of Zero’s Power of Branding event here in Seattle.

I’ll be speaking on Personal Branding Strategy and how to stand up and stand out in your niche.

Looks like a great line up of speakers and at just over $100 a ticket I think it’s a bargain.

Register here: http://tribeofzero.com/events/thepowerofbranding

And get $30 off the price of a ticket using my exclusive code: MEL307

Hope to see you there at the end of the month!

Online conferences seem to be all the rage right now and I’ve been asked to present a 15 minute talk on Personal Branding for the Outreach Marketing Virtual Summit which will air all day on Tuesday 28th April 2015.

Given I just have 15 minutes, we titled the talk a Personal Branding Crash Course with the blurb: 

This session will cover: What is personal branding? How can having a compelling personal brand help you and your company? What strategies and tactics do you need to understand in order to leave a lasting impression about you and your business? 

You  should check out the extensive list of other presentations to as there are loads that you might be interested in!

The event has been organized by the very chirpy and delightful Kristen Matthews from blogger/influencer outreach software company Group High.

I’ve not been familiar with their product, so they’ve done a good job using an event like this to raise awareness of their toolset  with influencers in their target market and I will be checking it out soon.

In other news  >>  we’ve launched a brand spanking new newsletter that will bring regular updates on digital marketing, PR and personal branding right to your inbox, so hope you sign up soon to The Delightful Times!

I’m delighted to have been featured in this Fast Company article:

What It’s Like to Get a Personal Brand Makeover by Personal Brand Consultants

The reporter, Chris Gayomali, contacted me and asked for some tips on improving his digital footprint on his quest to be seen more seriously as a business journalist.

Take a peek and see what he had to say about the whole experience!

I obviously couldn’t get enough of Utah last time around, so I’m going back with the fabulous Melanie Reed from Bing Ads to speak at the next SLC SEM event next Wednesday 18th February.

I’ll be representing Majestic.com and talking about the latest and greatest the platform has to offer, and Melanie will be speaking about how to maximize your investment on Bing Ads.

So if you’re local to Salt Lake City and want to get the low down from two SEO and PPC powerhouses you can register here!

Thanks to the awesome SLCSEM crew for having us.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Just had this video created to complement Delightful’s Personal Branding Services and we love it.

It was created by a guy on Elance.com who we were introduced to at an “explainer video” workshop at WeWork Seattle.

Take a peek and let me know what you think!

If you can’t see the video, just click here: Personal Branding Video

I spent some time chatting with with Andy Beal when we both spoke at Digital East in DC a few weeks ago.

Andy is CEO and Founder of Trackur and I’ve known him for many years on the digital marketing and search conference circuit.

In this Delightful Conversation we talk about how Andy got into online reputation management and dig deeper into how CEOs and their PR handlers should be approaching personal branding in a digital age rife with social media and real-time feedback.

Take a look and let us know what you think.

I’ve also posted this video on the Delightful Blog where you read more insight into online reputation management and personal branding for businesses and executives.

Thanks for watching!

We had a great time at Digital East last week and were able to make new friends and catch up with old ones too.

OK, so he’s not old, but we’ve been following Michael King – @iPullRank – for a number of years now and grabbed him before he boarded a plane to San Diego to speak at Distilled’s #SearchLove conference to talk about Majestic, how he uses it for SEO and relationship building, and discuss the situation with link building now in 2014 given Google and Bing have been clamping down on dodgy practices.

In this interview, Michael guides us through some link building tips using Majestic, what he recommends marketers focus on when starting their link building efforts and how anyone new to SEO should think about how links fit into their overall marketing strategy.

Enjoy!

Our beautiful daughter – Elizabeth Josephine – was born today – 13th March 2014 – in Seattle, weighing in at 8 lbs and 8 oz.

Ashley was totally amazing and Elizabeth is now feeding delightfully and about to have a long nap!

We can’t wait for baby Elizabeth to meet her thrilled big sister Maggie!

Now for some sleep……..

This not my real desk. Far too tidy!

In my usual New Year resolution mode, I decided early in January to try and improve my workspace at home in an attempt to increase productivity. I’ve heard about treadmill desks from a number of articles (including this one by Danny Sullivan) and decided to delve a little deeper.

Much research later, I decided to stick with just the standing desk.

Why?

I live in Madrona, which is a very pretty part of Seattle, and felt I really should be getting out more. I now make a point of going for a 30 minute walk around the neighborhood pretty much every day.

I decided to buy the Varidesk, not just because of price (it’s just $300), but because all the reviews that I had read said that the design was a really solid and easy to operate.

The Pro version, which is really just a bigger version of the regular one, showed up as promised a few days after ordering. It took very little trouble to get it on my home desk, and it worked perfectly within about 10 minutes of arranging my monitor and various peripherals in a nice and tidy fashion.

You can download an app by Varidesk which pops up now and again telling you when to sit down and stand up based on your preferences, but I now find I don’t really use it because I’m pretty much standing most of the day.

Like others who have “seen the light”, I do find that I focus on completing tasks a lot better and I’m convinced standing for five-odd hours a day has contributed, along with a dry January and fitness regime, to me losing 10 pounds this year so far.

The good thing for Varidesk is now anyone who sees my work setup has said they’d want one! I really think they are well-placed to sell a hell of a lot of these things, especially given they are so much cheaper and easier to install than the competition.

So what are you waiting for? Ready to stand up for a living and reap the rewards? Sitting could be lethal!

In November, I gave the keynote speech at a gathering of financial advisors in the UK.

The brief was to inspire the assembled into thinking more creatively about how to use digital to get their clients to save and invest more.

I was very honest and told them it’d taken me until my 40’s to actually take some advice on my financial future. Sure I had a few pensions I’d been paying into during my time at Microsoft and before, but I’d never taken the time to understand life insurance or really figure out what I needed to do in order to retire at 60 as I’m kidding myself I’d like to.

During the question and answer session after my speech I was asked what I’d do if I was marketing financial services, so I said I’d tell some stories through video and online that actually resonated with the target audience of twenty-something’s instead of trotting out boring forecasts of how little I was going to have to spend in 25 years time.

Enter www.FeedThePig.org who recently created The Chase ad that I just spotted on TV this weekend and others like this, just as brilliant, spot called The Game.

The website is excellent with sections with helpful advice on budgeting, goal setting, spending and taxes.

It uses simple and easy language to understand the issues and provides accessible solutions to get you on the right track.

There’s even a site dedicated to Tweens!

Created by the American Institute of CPAs and the Advertising Council here in the US, I think it is a fantastic campaign and something I’d wished I’d had access to all those years ago when I were but a wee lad!