Cup of Joe: I am Awesome, and This is How I Remind Myself

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So we all know how incredibly awesome I am, right? Well, even though it’s painfully obvious to me and you, I still like to remind myself from time to time. I do this by re-reading my favorite tweets, taking really good pictures of myself at my new favorite social media site, and sometimes late at night, I call my cell phone and leave a message on my voicemail just so I can listen to how awesome I sound!

Honestly, I could do all of those things over and over again all day long! But, my favorite way to pump up my ego, is to do something to make the world a better place. You see, when you volunteer your time and energy to helping others out, you feel great inside because you have helped out some poor schmuck that is nowhere near as cool as you, but maybe they might be one day, because you stepped-in to help! Now, I know what your thinking: Hey, Joe, you should volunteer your time because it’s the right thing to do, not because you want a shallow ego boost! Geez, you sound like my mother! Calm down! Honestly, does it really matter why I want to volunteer? People need help no matter what, right?

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As internet marketers we are in a unique position to help make the world a better place this holiday season. The internet and social media are literally the new gateways of information in our quickly evolving world. As internet marketing vanguards we have incredible power to shape the dialogue. And we can use this power to help make the world a better place. Here are some ideas on how you can get started right now to help make the world a better place.

Organize an Online Fund Raising Campaign

As marketers it is our job to create wealth! Why not volunteer some of your marketing skills to help a nonprofit raise funds on the internet. How do you do that? Well, first start by picking a non-profit that you have a genuine desire to help. This is because many non-profits are approached by strangers all the time and sometimes their staff becomes guarded. However if you can show them that you have a genuine desire to help, they will be more open to letting you speak on their behalf. Develop a simple landing page that can collect donations. This landing page should briefly articulate the non-profit’s mission and ideals. Then write a small donations plea. Use your skills in social media and word of mouth to drive traffic to the page. Record the progress of the campaign with tools like ChipIn. There are other ways to run your campaign so get creative and have fun. But, make sure to clear all plans with the non-profit first!

Offer Your Services “Pro Bono”

Many non profits will already have someone in place to handle fund raising so it may be hard running a campaign along side another volunteer that has worked with them longer. If this is the case, you can always offer other services that they may need more. For example you might be able to get them started on twitter or facebook, or maybe they need some help editing their web site. These are all things that you might do for your clients that you could do pro bono for a non profit.

Teach Someone a New Skill

If you are having a hard time finding an organization to work with, you can always teach a new skill to an individual. As “web workers” most of us have some pretty unique skill sets. You might be able to teach HTML to someone that wants to get into web development. Or you might teach how to use software like Adobe Photoshop to someone interested in design. Or you could use your skills as a copywriter to help teach better writing.

These are just a few ideas of how you can start using your marketing skills to help make the world a better place. And don’t forget, the holiday season isn’t the only time for a shallow ego boost, you can volunteer any time through out the year!

Twitter Conferences Are In

As part of the Internet marketing industry have you done the conference circuit? Have you been to SES, SMX (put cardinal direction here), Adtech, PubCon etc, etc? On a yearly basis how many of these trips can you justify or get away with? Well, with shrinking budgets everywhere now you have to add the new spate of Twitter conferences to your hit list of things you absolutely have to do to get out of the office learn more about the industry.

TechCrunch tells us of the growing list of conferences that are starting to sprout up as a result of the use of (or confusion around the use of) Twitter for business purposes.

It looks like the trend of Twitter conferences is growing, with more events popping up around the country. As we’ve said in the past and will continue to say, there are tremendous opportunities for businesses, brands, non-profits and individuals to use Twitter as a tool for customer support, fund raising, brand management, advertising, job search and much more.

I have not attended one but I can imagine they must be pretty quiet because everyone is likely to be talking to everyone but those right in front of them. I gotta tell ya that when someone tweets that they are talking to someone I wonder if they are even listening to them or concentrating on their 140 characters of brilliance they are allowing the rest of their audience to ingest.

Of course, if you attended the 140 Character Conference in New York in June the venue itself (which was literally underground) forced Twitterheads to actually listen to others since there was practically no connectivity for the attendees.

Twitter is so fascinating in that it appears that so many folks are finding ways to monetize the service without the service monetizing itself. At least with Google (which face it, is why most of these conferences exist in the first place) makes money and knows that these conferences will only help it make more.

So if you are tired of the usual shows and you need more opportunities to ‘network’ then think about these:

• TWTRCN 09 DC- for non profits and government types. October 22 in Washington, DC.
• 140 Twitter Conference / LA – Endorsed by Biz Stone. Need we say more? September in Los Angeles (for those who didn’t get the LA part of the title).
• 140 Characters Twitter Conference – Jeff Pulver’s deal goes west coast on October 27th in Los Angeles.
• Cool Twitter Conferences- Apparently this is a traveling road show that has stops scheduled in Boston and San Francisco.

So don’t miss your chance to blow off work get out and learn more about Twitter and the future of communications. Hotel bars in the areas of these meetings can’t wait to serve you!

Google Gives Presentation On Search Engine Optimization

The Google Grants Blog posted that they have given a presentation in their D.C. office on search engine optimization. The presentation was to help educate a group of “issue campaign managers” on the principles of seo.
Galen Panger from the Google for Non-Profits team posted the 31 slides they presented to this group. [...]

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