Public Speaking Archive

Searching For Santa at SES Chicago 2009 & Finding Bing

A very Greg Jarboe looking Santa, quizzes the searcherati at Search Engine Strategies in Chicago about what they want for Christmas.

Jim Sterne, Matt McGowan, Motoko Hunt, David Szetela, Dave Naylor, Anne Kennedy, Bryan Eisenberg and Li Evans all feature.

Bill Hunt gets the festive link lovage though – watch till the end to see why!

😉

Wish I’d gone now!!!

A Change of Focus….

I’ve been doing search for 9 years. Except for 10 months in 2001 when I was a display advertising traffic manager for BTLooksmart, search engine marketing has been what I do.

From “Submit-a-Site” and BidSmart to managing blue chips at 24/7 and being part of the team that launched Microsoft adCenter in the UK, the keyword has been “search” and I’ve loved every minute of it.

But more recently I’ve been focused on the social media aspect of what our Microsoft Advertising Community team does. We were originally set up in 2006 to help and support advertisers as they signed up to adCenter. We were also on the frontline at events for answering questions about the platform and dealing with all the suggestions on how we might improve.

As the months have gone on, the way we’ve done business – via blogs and forums – has become more and more important. Social Media Marketing is now almost a given where 3 years ago it was seen as a luxury or nice-to-have.

Last October, when our team moved under Mark Young in Global Trade Marketing, he asked why were only doing this kind of work for adCenter? Why not work towards helping our other audiences in research, mobile and display have a direct feedback mechanism to the product & marketing teams that build the tools they use every day?

So in June we launched the Microsoft Advertising Community site! It’s a vibrant hub of social activity in the forums but also on the different blogs and this is where my “role tweak” comes in!

My area of focus is now the Microsoft Advertising Blog – this is where we’ve already on-boarded Young-bean Song and the Institute guys, we’re also talking about in-game advertising, mobile advertising and display.

This will grow, as will our social media foray. We now have @MSAdvertising @adCenterBlog and @adCenterRep and our Facebook Page cranking out tips, tricks and announcements and I’ll be looking to build our following globally to help continue our support of an industry we’re so passionate about.

So it’s not huge news, it’s not a new job, it’s just a change of direction for me from search and PPC to other forms of digital that need the same love, the same explanation/education, the same feedback and evangelism channels that we’ve been giving to adCenter for the past 3 years.

We’re also going great guns on events too – Cannes Lions and Advertising Week were very exciting and successful for our team with tens of thousands of interactions with our Tweets, posts, photos and videos, so it’s not like I’m chained to my desk either!

And it’s also not like I’m not keeping my hand in with search either. With all advertising becoming digital in the next 5 to 10 years, having an understanding of all marketing in the mix is crucial for anyone’s success in this space so Bing it on!!!

Any feedback, and ideas then shoot them through. I’m always listening!

Yusuf Mehdi at IAB MIXX Video at Advertising Week 2009

Well we’re having a blast over here in New York, working hard – 18 hour days – and playing hard for the rest of the time!

Feel very privileged to have been in the front row at Yusuf’s speech which I wrote about on Monday and there’s been a tremendous reception for my post on Ashton Kutcher’s keynote conversation yesterday.

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Today we’re announcing LookingGlass and doing a ton more Tweeting and Blogging.

But check out the demo Yusuf does in this video. If you don’t have 40 minutes for the whole thing then just fast forward to the Bing demo at about 10.30 and that jaw dropping virtual reality stuff at 21 minutes!

AdWeek New York 2009 in Videos Photos & Twitter

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Really pleased with this combined effort from our design/marketing/community teams at Microsoft Advertising.

image We’ve just launched this Advertising Week 2009 social media hub which includes a Twitter feed of everything being talked about in relation to the event and videos of interviews we’ve done before and we’ll be doing during our time there. 

image There’s a photo stream and including a very cool DeepZoom plug-in on the home page!

I’ll be in New York for the week blogging and Tweeting, so hope to catch up with a lot of you there!

If you can’t make it I hope you’ll drop by this site now and again…

TNOOZ – New Internet Service from Kevin May

Many of you in the travel space will know Kevin from his time as editor at www.Travolution.co.uk

I’ve been fortunate to have presented with the guy in Tenerife a couple of years ago, and like his style.

Well now his much anticipated venture has started emerging as I just got an invite to his new brand’s Facebook Page

Described as “a new, dynamic, global media brand for the travel industry” – they have a new site – www.Tnooz.com – where you can sign up for updates as no doubt he puts the finishing touches to the offering.

Intriguing to say the least!

Could “nooz” be related to “news”, given Kevin’s background as a journalist? 🙂

Going to Advertising Week 2009 in New York

Update: You can now catch up on all the news and coverage from AdWeek on our social media hub where you’ll find videos, photos, Tweets and blog posts following all the action: Advertising Week 2009

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If you follow our Microsoft Advertising Blog you know we’re going to be sponsoring Advertising Week in New York 21-25th of September. IAB MIXX and OMMA are going on at the same time!!

From a social media point of view, we’ll be building on our success at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival and have put together a madcap plan for running around the 5 or 6 venues in NY with our team, blogging, Tweeting and interviewing people on video to really try and bring the conference to life for those of you who can’t make it!

It’s great that Microsoft recognise the power of social media and invest in teams like ours to go and do this sort of thing.

More next week on what we’re doing as we unveil a very cool resource!

PPC Rockstars Interview with David Szetela

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Got interviewed last week by Mr PPC Fabulous David Szetela from ClixMarketing

During the show we discuss:

· The evolution of the Microsoft Advertising Community Team

· The Yahoo! deal?!

· Microsoft adCenter as the one-stop-shop for advertisers

· Microsoft Media Network

· Search and Display ROI Uplift Research

· Microsoft Advertising Intelligence

· Atlas Search

· adCenter Desktop

· adCenter ROI – “2 times to 5 times better than on Google and Yahoo!” says David!

· SES San Jose!

· Microsoft Advertising on Social Media

Check out the interview here: Microsoft Advertising Interview with Mel Carson

Not Going to SES San Jose 2009 :-(

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Ok so it’s all my fault!

When setting our wedding date Ashley and I didn’t check the conference calendar and so didn’t spot that Search Engine Strategies San Jose falls this year from 10th to the 14th August!

What were we thinking?!

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It was only after paying the deposit on the caterers and the DJ, after friends had booked their exorbitant and non-refundable air fares from London, and after securing a super deal on an All American Mobile BBQ that we realised our gargantuan error.

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Our wedding date is set for 15th August and as much as I tried to shoehorn a trip to California into our pre-wedding itinerary, herself was having none of it!

I tried to explain that SearchBash is a very sober affair and that I would make a Wednesday morning flight back to Seattle but to no avail………

It seems some things must take precedence over one of the happiest conferences of our lives.

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I sincerely hope that you enjoy the week, that Mike Grehan & Kevin Ryan behave themselves 🙂 and that the keynote speeches are much better than my best men’s are going to be!

Do say hi to all my Microsoft colleagues who’ll be there in force, and get a 20% discount by checking out this post on Microsoft Advertising Community!

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P.S. Can you believe she won’t let me TwitPic her coming down the aisle?!!!

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