As I was putting together the Scared Clear Zima Meme Contest I forgot one very important group of people, the people already going to Scary SEO. How could I forget you guys! How irresponsible of me, so I am amending the contest to include a prize for those of you who are already going to Scary SEO (but please be sure to specify when you drop your link that you don't want to be eligible for the other prizes). I am going to give you a $50 bar tab + pay your way into the IMCharity Party. So you can party like a rock star and help a good cause! So anyone going to Scary SEO make sure you don't forget to enter the Scared Clear Zima Meme Contest. Also we are looking for things to raffle off at the Scary SEO IMCharity Party so if you or your company would like to provide a prize please drop me or Dave Snyder an @ reply or dm on twitter.com (yes I nofollowed that link because twitter refuses to follow my links =P)
Contest Introduction Brought To You By Brian Carter
If you haven't heard, Martin Bowling loves Zima. He loves it so much (or so people say), that Google Suggest has permanently associated his name with Zima- they're officially related now.
Martin Bowling Loves Zima is a meme (a viral idea) that was started by Andy Beal and his wife, and has been embraced and fueled by search industry personalities such as Rob @SEOcracy, Sheila @govisithawaii, Todd Friesen, Brian Carter, Todd Mintz, Joshua Sciarrino, Dana Lookadoo, Danny Sullivan, Rand Fishkin, and others.
Now Martin is announcing the Martin Bowling Loves Zima Meme Contest... it's the contest that asks "Who can create the best whatever (video, blog post, tweet series, captioned picture, avatar, twitter background, the sky is the limit - want a great example check out ZimaFan on Twitter) about the Martin Bowling Loves Zima meme?"
The prizes are awesome, the judges are cool, and the contest is going to get a LOT of attention.
Here's what you have to do by October 3rd, 2008
- Create your thing
- Put it on the internet, and you don't EVEN have to link to the contest blog post, that's right this isn't a ploy to steal your link juice :)
- Tweet about your entry with a link & Leave a comment here with your entry (just incase as we all know that twitter is sometimes teh suck)
- Rinse & Repeat, cause you can enter as many times as you'd like!
Then you wait for our judges' decision anxiously while chomping on your nails, knowing the outcome could change your entire life forever!
The second half of this post brought to you by your regularly scheduled host Martin Bowling
And now on to the good stuff, how is this going to get my ass to ScarySEO? Well here is how these are the fabulous prizes:
1st place
Win a trip to ScarySEO, (includes conference registration and Two Nights Stay at the awesome Hilton Deerfield Beach Hotel - Sorry Folks Airfare not included, unless someone would want to sponsor it :wink: )
$50 bar tab provide by yours truly, and no drinks will not be limited to Zima only :)
And one of these awesome Zima t-shirts
2nd Place
So you don't get the free ride to the awesome ScarySEO mini-con, but we still want to hook you up with some SEO knowledge so
SEOmoz SEO Training DVD’s over 7 hours of SEO knowledge from Rand & Crew
One of those awesome Zima t-shirts pictured above.
3rd place
3 month subscription to Online Reputation Management Monitoring Tool - Trackur.com subscription, so you can make sure you don't have your own Zima Meme disaster :)
Zima t-shirt
*Honorable mentions to receive random Zima treasures
**Contest will be judged by the following panel of Zima experts: Andy Beal, GoVisitHawaii, Jane Copland, Todd Friesen, Dave Snyder, Brian Carter.
If you need more details about the awesomeness of ScarySEO go check out this great post by Eric Lander (who is also speaking at ScarySEO) and if you don't win or don't enter don't forget you still have time to go register for ScarySEO.
I am a big fan of the DoFollow movement and therefore have made all comments on this blog DoFollow. So as long as you are making relevant related comments you can get a nice juicy (ok well maybe not that juicy but a link none the less) link. Hope that everyone continues to enjoy the blog and hopefully someone will find it useful.
As 2008 approaches, I decided I better start taking some of my own advice and do some real online reputation management because if you google martin bowling I am no where to be found on the first page :(
So I have decided I am going to actively change that. We have been doing some small scale SEO,SEM,SMM & other Internet Marketing for clients around our area; but we are starting to branch out into some niche's that are providing us clients that are national and international. So if I am going to help those people manage their brand and online reputation, I better do it myself.
So this blog is going to start out as a step by step of how I am planning on have zero results to dominating the Vanity SERPs for Martin Bowling.
This is an exercise that I am sure many have gone through and this is something that is long over due; so that's why I am getting it out of the way first thing in 2008.
Part of my plan for better managing my online reputation and personal brand is to become a more active part of the Internet Marketing Community. I have long been a lurker on many of my favorite sites; but now I intend on becoming an active member that fully participates.
Hopefully my little experiment will provide some with a good intro to brand management and to others hopefully it will offer some comic relief :).
I want to wish everyone a happy new year and let you know that you will see a far more active martin bowling in the new year.