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TopRank Online Marketing and the Direct Marketing Association have just announced a partnership to develop and deliver a series of educational workshops on social media marketing entitled, “Social Media Smarts: Introduction to the Social Web, Tools and Tactics.”

With marketers facing tighter budgets in the coming months, social media marketing offers new opportunities for companies to engage customers, improve brand awareness and increase sales with budgets that are more recession friendly than many traditional marketing efforts.

Leading the workshop will be Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Marketing, who will introduce participants to the marketing opportunities with social media through best and worst practices examples. As you can see from the photo in this post, I’m much taller than Lee.

But, according to George Markham Director, Education Services at Direct Marketing Association, “Lee is a well rounded digital marketer uniquely qualified with over ten years experience as an internet marketing consultant and a background in corporate training.” Markham adds, “As a consultant working on the front lines of social media marketing for companies large and small, Lee brings first-hand knowledge and real-world examples to teach attendees how to develop a successful social media strategy.”

But I’m still taller.

The Social Media Smarts workshop will provide attendees with insight into blogging and blog marketing, social networks, microblogging, social news and bookmarking, video sharing, image and audio sharing, wikis and social media analytics.

Rounding out the workshop is a social media strategy exercise that will empower attendees to create their own social media strategy and develop a framework for building a business case within their organizations.

Lee is quoted in a press release as saying, “As a high demand digital marketing and PR agency, we’re seeing tremendous benefits from educating in-house marketing staff on the finer points of social media marketing.” He adds, “Offering both good and bad social media marketing examples along with strategy, tools, tactics and analytics can really empower companies to succeed.”

Now, I’ve served on panels with Lee. I know Lee. And that’s exactly the way Lee talks.

The first of the Social Media Smarts workshop series will be conducted in New York, December 4th and 5th, at the Microtek training facility in lower Manhattan. If you are in the nieghborhood, drop by and heckle Lee.

And remember: I’m taller. Actually, I was standing on my toes for this photo. Lee’s actually pretty tall, too.

Citysearch appears to be going for the jugular with its newly rebuilt site. While many sites add a little social here and a little mobile there, Citysearch is going for the three hottest trends all at once: Social, Local, Mobile.

“We rebuilt the Citysearch platform to give our users what they asked for — a new site that drills down to the hyper-local level with content for specific neighborhoods,” said Jay Herratti, CEO of Citysearch. “We also expanded our social and community tools by integrating Facebook Connect deeply into our site experience. Now users will be able to see their Facebook friends on Citysearch and share reviews and recommendations.”

This is a completely smart strategy as the economy gets tighter. Expect to see these trends grow even hotter despite the Wall Street-Capitol Hill drama.

I can see all sorts of possibilities. People are relocating or working in a different part of town. The ability to check out new local restaurants, entertainment venues, etc via their mobile and connect with people socially will be powerful.

Here’s what Citysearch is saying the new experience will be like:

– More local — Citysearch is expanding its local coverage from 140 local city guides to over 75,000 cities and neighborhoods nationwide. New geo- targeted search technology provides a truly local experience to users, allowing them to target businesses according to zip code. Citysearch also restores balance to local business coverage by providing content from three distinct voices: users, editors and merchants.

– More social — With Facebook Connect, users can log into Citysearch using their Facebook account, allowing them to discover new local businesses and share reviews with their friends online and providing a personal view of their neighborhood and favorite local spots. New social features also enable users to create profiles, more easily review businesses and infuse their opinions and unique local content into their social graph. Connectivity to more major social networks will follow in the coming months.

– More mobile — Mobile by Citysearch puts reviewing into the palm of the consumer’s hand. Key features include an interface tailored to each individual mobile device — optimizing content layout and keystrokes required to surface search results — on-the-go reviews, and mobile menus.

– More intuitive — The new interface offers a streamlined registration process, easy review writing interface, new search refinement and navigation tools. Other new features include a follow-along map with integrated content that moves as the user scrolls down the page, making it easier for users to see everything they need in one place.

What do you think of the update? Let us know in the comments.

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In the same way JFK benefitted from the emerging medium of television, Barack Obama was helped into the White House by the increasing popularity of social media. In today’s building brand equity column, “President 2.0,” Erik Qualman explains that his appeal to younger audiences, and need to get exposure in a primary race against an established opponent led Obama to develop his online strategy. Businesses can learn from his campaign.

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Microsoft has struck a deal with Sun Microsystems to have the MSN toolbar downloaded with Java Runtime Environment (JRE). The agreement will give Internet Explorer users in the United States the option of downloading the toolbar when they download JRE. The toolbar offers access to Live Search features, the MSN network, Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger.

“This agreement with Sun Microsystems is another important milestone in our strategy to secure broad-scale distribution for our search offering, enabling millions more people to experience the benefits of Live Search,” said Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the Online Audience Business at Microsoft. “With the vast array of Java software-based Web applications that are downloaded every month, this deal will expose Live Search to millions more Internet users and drive increased volume for our search advertisers.”

Earlier this year, Microsoft reached a deal with HP to have the toolbar shipped on 2009 PCs.

Related Reading:
Live Search to Be Integrated with Blackberry Browser and Maps
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Internet link love proves more powerful than old-school politics in the 2008 election, thanks in part to a visionary social networking election strategy. In today’s link building column, “Obama’s Link Strategy Fuels Election Victory,” Sage Lewis looks at what we can learn about online marketing from studying presidential politics.

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Sometimes, a company’s marketing efforts can have an unintentional impact from a link building perspective. Such is the case with this fantasy sports community site focused on building communities in Facebook and other social media environments. In today’s Web analytics and ROI column, “Social Media Link Building: From Fantasy to Reality,” Eric Enge shares the successful strategy of Citizen Sports Network.

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Digital advertising company MIVA has released an update of their toolbar, enabling customizable features. MIVA is also launching a customizable homepage and a widget site, ALOT Buttons, for their customers.

The ALOT brand launched in the last quarter of 2007 with the theme “Make the Internet Easy.” ALOT products aggregate proprietary content and third party content across vertically themed toolbars and homepages.

“We believe that growth of the ALOT brand to date is due largely to our vertical product strategy and believe that today’s launch is a natural progression that will enable us to further build on this success,” commented Peter Corrao, President and Chief Executive Officer, MIVA. “With our new personalized products, users can continue to install vertical toolbars and homepages optimized for their specific interests, but can now also personalize their products by adding widgets from our expanding widget library.”

Related Reading:
MIVA Unveils Plans for New Online Advertising Platform
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To achieve SERP nirvana, your search engine optimization and paid search efforts must have the same goal. In today’s Search Marketing Crossfire column, “Is Your SEM Truly Looking at Search Holistically?,” Chris Boggs and Frank Watson offer five important questions to make sure your potential search vendors view search holistically when updating ongoing strategy and planning considerations.

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Rushing into a search engine optimization initiative without properly planning your SEO strategy is setting yourself up for failure. In today’s natural search column, “What You Need to Know Before Committing to SEO,” Mark Jackson explains that to enjoy the fruits that SEO can provide your site, you need to be well organized and develop a plan.

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