Recently, I sat down with David Meerman Scott, the author of the bestseller The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly and the new book World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories. I’m the author of YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day, we have the same publisher, and we’re virtually neighbors.

Over the past three weeks, I’ve been to SES London 2010, OMS 2010 in San Diego, and SMX West 2010 in Santa Clara. As The Grateful Dead would say, “What a long strange trip it’s been.”

I’ve reported most of the top stories from those three events:  Read more... (738 words, 2 images, estimated 2:57 mins reading time)

• 1,500 attendees watch Avinash Kaushik, Google Analytics Evangelist, kick off SES London 2010
• Bryan Eisenberg shares 21 secrets of top converting websites at SES London 2010
• Jim Sterne tackles social media metrics at SES London 2010
• Sneak previews of Online Marketing Summit 2010 and SES San Diego

Social mom is the new soccer mom.

Nielsen Online has released new data on mobile social networking use. Women get social on their mobile phones more than men. Also, the 35-54 age set is using mobile social the most, with 25-34 coming in at a very close second.

The age thing makes sense to me. But I could have sworn that more men use social networks on mobile than women. Maybe it’s just in my area. What has been your experience? Share in the comments below.

Online Marketing Summit 2010 gets underway in San Diego this week. And Day 3 of the event features a Search Engine Strategies Forum also known as SES San Diego 2010. Here are some sneak previews.

On Day 1, the morning keynote is entiled “Social Media Heavy Weights, Weigh In.” John Battelle, CEO and Founder of Federated Media Publishing Inc., Aaron Kahlow, CEO of Online Marketing Connect, and a special “surprise guest” will share insider insights on what tactics are working, and just as importantly, what tactics are NOT working in Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter.  Read more... (1146 words, 4 images, estimated 4:35 mins reading time)

Jim Sterne, who has written six books on Internet advertising, marketing, and customer service, tackled the complex world of social media metrics in his morning keynote at SES London 2010. Sterne, who is also chairman of the Web Analytics Association and founder of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, revealed some findings from his upcoming book, which, coincidentally, is entitled “Social Media Metrics.”

According to Sterne, social media is now where the World Wide Web was in 1995. Everybody’s talking about it but best practices are far and few between.  Read more... (290 words, 3 images, estimated 1:10 mins reading time)

Can you use social media to sell a $140,000 product?

Less than two weeks ago, Piper Aircraft launched the PiperSport Light Sport Aircraft, an entry-level airplane offering features and performance normally found in more expensive, high-end aircraft. To support the launch at the Sebring U.S. Sport Aviation Expo 2010, Piper Marketing Director Jackie Carlon commissioned Michael Kolowich of DigiNovations Video Production Services and the ChannelOne Marketing Group to create:

• a PiperSport Light Sport Aircraft channel on YouTube,
• a PiperSport Light Sport Aircraft page on Facebook, and
• a PiperSport feed on Twitter.  Read more... (575 words, 2 images, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

What is social media? When Chris Shipley announced BlogOn 2004, social media meant blogging and social networking. Today, the term has expanded to also include micro-blogging, Wikis, social bookmarking, social news, photo sharing, video sharing, and more.

At SES Chicago 2009, Byron Gordon of SEO-PR interviewed Brian Boland, Manager, Performance Solutions, Facebook, about the advent of social media. Boland reviewed the social media checklist and addresses the important questions that every business must consider when using social media as a platform.  Read more... (201 words, 2 images, estimated 48 secs reading time)

Last month, “unfriend” was named Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year for 2009. This afternoon, our friends at Experian Hitwise analyzed the top 300 search terms for 2009 and Facebook was the top-searched term overall.

Now, if only I could convince my kids to friend me on Facebook. But I digress.

This is the first year that the social networking Website has been the top search term overall, accounting for 0.67 percent of all searches. In fact, four variations of the term “facebook” were among the top 25 terms, according to Hitwise.  Read more... (433 words, 2 images, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Google launched a new URL shortening service, but it has limitations. It can only be used via the Google Toolbar and Feedburner, at least for now. (More on the Toolbar and Feedburner updates in a later post.) The Google URL Shortener uses goo.gl as a root domain.

Meanwhile, Facebook is testing a URL shortening service, using FB.me as a domain. It was first noticed via Facebook’s mobile interface. The shortening can be used for pages as well – for example – fb.me/starbucks. (via Inside Facebook)  Read more... (148 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)

Video solution provider Fliqz has announced the launch of a new online video search engine optimization (SEO) tool. The tool is dubbed SearchSuccess and Fliqz says that companies who tested the product are experiencing early success.

A whopping two-thirds of the videos submitted by these early customers have reached first page Google rankings. 25% have seen the number one position.  Read more... (267 words, estimated 1:04 mins reading time)