…that I sadly had to miss this year. Ugh. I love that conference, it is one of the most amazing gatherings of talent and creativity that I have ever experienced. But don’t take my word for it, listen to Judy Martin share some of her experience:

Leadership and the Golden Rule – a memento from SoBCon | WorkLifeNation.com | Success, Serenity & Significance 24/7

The design of the social media conference included mastermind sessions that leveled the playing field. Social media masters mingled with professionals from many sectors in a gracious way – sharing their knowledge. And there was also a “give back” session, where the entire group, en masse, joined forces to create marketing projects for non-profits. Might sound pollyannish, but the current flowing through this group of people could change the world, or at least their small piece of it.

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I have a new post up at the SOBEvent blog: Concrete Steps Toward Integrated Virtual Marketing

The old cliche about marketing used to be that a business knew that part of the money and effort spent on marketing was wasted, they just didn’t know which part. A recent survey mentioned in the WSJ shows that this perception is still true in the days of Social Media:

…a separate survey of 500 U.S. small-business owners from the same sponsors found that just 22% made a profit last year from promoting their firms on social media, while 53% said they broke even. What’s more, 19% said they actually lost money due to their social-media initiatives.

Liz and Terry have extended the contest for this year’s SOBCon discounted ticket until 1 April!

A Room of Excellence to Fine Tune Your Business

Suppose you could take a weekend retreat away from the noise of the Internet …

• to focus entirely on your business
• to work with the support of a mastermind team
• to get quality time to interact with the top people in social media
• to get the best information AND time to discuss how you’ll apply it
• to work with sponsors who are doing the same thing
• in a room limited to 150 people — all focused in the same direction
• without worry because the food and the wireless are outstanding.

Imagine a weekend work retreat with these people totally invested in sharing this content.

The BlogIt EarnIt Discount Until April 1!!

Click to the SOBCon contest page to learn the details.

Every year, at about this time, I start writing about SOBcon and my annual trek to Chicago to meet and network with some of the smartest people in business. This year, Liz and Terry are having the Blog it Earn it contest again:

Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

150 People to Fine Tune Your Web Presence

Suppose you could take a weekend retreat away from the noise of the Internet …

* to focus entirely on your business
* to work with the support of a mastermind team
* to get quality time to interact with the top people in social media
* to get the best information AND time to discuss how you’ll apply it
* to work with sponsors who are doing the same thing
* in a room limited to 150 people — all focused in the same direction
* without worry because the food and the wireless are outstanding.

Imagine a weekend work retreat with these people totally invested.

Learn how to win a free SOBCon Weekend here.

There is a new post up at the SOBCon blog: “Setting Goals for Your Business Website”

This is the question you should be asking yourself every day:

How effective is your website at achieving the goals you have for your business?

If you do not know the answer, it may be because you have not set your goals properly. Do you know what the purpose of your site is? What are the benefits for you and your business?

Denise Wakeman captured a couple of short interviews at SOBCon this weekend, one of which features yours truly:

First, you’ll probably ask, “what the heck is SOBCon?” Stands for Successful Outstanding Blog Conference, the brainchild of Liz Strauss who publishes the wildly successful Successful- Blog.com. The actual name of the conference is Biz School for Bloggers and this year marked the third iteration.

My intention was to get quicky tips from many of the successful bloggers in attendance, but alas, I fell short. You’ll see I only managed 3 tips and two of them were in a dark bar at Morton’s Steak House so Stephen Smith and Michelle Vandepas are hard to see. Hope you’ll cut me some slack on these. It was a full 3 days, lots of talking, learning, photos, videos so getting interviews felt like a challenge for me. I’m just not assertive enough to break into conversations, though others have no trouble with that!

SOBCon starts this Friday! It is sure to be an exciting time, with over 100 attendees and some fantastic presenters. Our most excellent sponsors are providing some really cool items for all of the folks that will be there, as well as some virtual goodies that they would also like to share with the entire SOBCon community.

So, if you are not coming to Chicago but are interested in sharing in this sponsor love be sure to subscribe to the SOBCon newsletter so that you can get the links to these goodies. Thanks!

Subscribe to the
SOBCon09 Newsletter

My friend Robert Hruzek has a guest post at the SOBCon blog:

[Note from the Proprietor: The basis for this post comes from an – well, let’s call it an “incident”, shall we? – that happened last year at SOBCon08 in Chicago. Unlike your typical episode of Dragnet, however, names have NOT been changed to protect the innocent because – hey, let’s face it – there ARE no innocents here!]

All right y’all; I have what is (or if it ain’t then it should be) the Question Of The Ages: Is there, in fact, a “wrong” way to eat pizza?

The reason the question comes up at all is because of a little-known incident that happened at last year’s SOBCon08.

Read more –>

I have a post up at the SOBCon Blog with a fun exercise for you to do:

Can you come up with illustrative ways to describe it’s value without resorting to the lingo and buzzwords we’ve already beat to death?

One of the powerful elements of social media has been that it strips away many of the artificial trappings that have weighed down marketing and communications for decades.

We got mired in our lingo quicksand in that traditional, push communications world. We got lost talking about brand attributes and key messages and talking points and brand promises and all those terms, and we forgot what they meant. We lived and died by our contrived, scripted fallbacks, and often propped up buzzwords in place of real strategy and action. [Emphasis mine, Ed.]

Read more –>

SOBCon is a unique group of Successful and Outstanding Bloggers who work together, think together, and help each other move forward in what they do.

Every year we meet in Chicago to swap strategies and stories of what works for our blogs and our businesses on the Internet and on the ground. Every day we meet via text, telephone, and in person to work together whenever we can.

There’s only one rule: BE NICE.

This year we have some very cool benefits for all attendees:

Take Home Bags

You can add something to the attendee’s SOBCon09 Biz School for Bloggers take home bags. Bring your items with you to the conference.

This can include any swag, brochure, books, etc that you would like to distribute to attendees!

Pre-Conference Steps:

1. Register
2. Tag your Badge
3. Update SOBCon Wiki (under headline “Add Your Info Here”)

Optional Tips:

* Follow other attendees on Twitter. Twitter id’s are in the SOBCon wiki and begin with the @ sign.

* Familiarize yourself with fellow attendees basic information. In most attendees Twitter bio is their name, location, website link, and a mini-bio.

* Checkout other attendee’s websites (Most have links in their Twitter bio). You can get to know someone fairly well by visiting their website, especially if they have an ‘About’ page.

* If you begin following them on Twitter, take an opportunity to introduce yourself (you might also mention your attending SOBCon).

* Checkout the SOBCon website. Familiarize yourself with the complete SOBCon09 Biz School for Bloggers Program Schedule. Note the ‘Show the Sponsors’ Challenge on Sunday morning – sounds so fun! Familiarize yourself with the sponsors name and business beforehand.

* Learn about the presenters. They each have their area of expertise so think about in advance what you may be able to learn from them, write down specific questions in a notebook, and think about how you may be able to apply what you hear to your business or organization.

* Listen to some SOBCon Blog Talk Radio interviews. Interviews conducted by SOBCon’s Michelle Vandepas with guests:

• Chris Brogan,
• Jon Gatrell,
• GeekMommy (Lucretia Pruitt),
• Becky McCray,
• Chris Garrett,
• Richard Reeve,
• Dawud Miracle,
• Easton Ellsworth,
• Denise Wakeman,
• Chris Cree,
• David Bullock,
• Thomas Clifford,
• Liz Strauss,
• John Haydon,
• Terry Starbucker,
• Vicky Hennegan and
• Grant Griffiths.

You can subscribe via iTunes and download directly to your iPod or iPhone! (Use the BTR widget on the right side of the SOBCon BTR website, choose ‘itunes’) RSS is also available. Many thanks to our SOBCon BTR Hostess, Michelle Vandepas!

* Tell others to come, there’s still time to register! This is an essential conference for anyone who wants to learn about Social Media, blogging, and building your business presence online.