Join Internet Marketing Expert Laureen Hudson  in an ongoing series for those looking to bring traffic to their sites, get their name out, enhance their online presence, and understand the goings-on in cyberspace. 

A Guided Tour to Online Communities
What’s the internet?  What are online communities? Why do we care?

Fundamental human behavior does not change over time; we are the same human beings, with the same basic needs, that we have always been. We want to come together, to share human experience. But because we’re scattered, isolated, and no longer in supportive extended-family groups, the Internet has become our tribe.

In this session, Laureen Hudson will cover the basics, and give you a firm grounding in the realities of the internet; what it is, what it isn’t, where it came from, where it’s going, and the needs it serves. She’ll then move on to online communities, explain why they exist, some of the controversies with them and advantages to them. We’ll take a tour around the major offerings such as Blogs, Internet Groups (yahoo, google, etc.), Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tribe, Discussion Forums , and discuss why you might or might not want to participate - all with an eye towards advocacy and building your business base.

We have completed our live presentations of this introductory session.  It will be available as an archived recording and/or an e-book in the Fall of 2008.  Stay tuned.

Creating An Online Presence
What is identity? What is reputation? How do you use them in creating your presence?

Now that you know what online communities are, let’s explore the fundamentals of social networking. It’s not enough to just have accounts everywhere; you need to have a voice that is unique to you, that gives value to your readers. The way you present yourself online can serve as a sterling reference or as a shocking warning, depending on how you do it.  Let go beyond old school marketing and give some real thought to how you want to represent yourself, using your voice and authenticity as currency.  

Once you have your identity set up, the next step is audience.  Setting up a profile isn’t enough - you need to engage commitment and participation.  Who needs to hear what you have to say? How can you make sure they’re hearing you?  In this session, Laureen will demonstrate how this is all connected, how to identify yourself online, and how to build an audience through traffic, feed readers, trackback etiquette, search, signature files and blog carnivals.

Sunday, August 3 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific / 8:00 p.m. Eastern
Monday, August 18 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00 p.m. Eastern
Friday, August 22 at 12:00 p.m. Pacific / 3:00 p.m. Eastern

Create Your Blog
Social Networking sites like Facebook are the parking lots in the driver’s ed of online communities. Once you’ve figured out how to operate there, you’re ready to start venturing out on your own, and you do that by blogging. In this session, we’ll talk about blogging platforms (e.g., Blogger, wordpress, typepad) pros, cons and tips, what belongs in the right and left columns, how to write a good post (length, voice, referencing), and how to track “good” once you get there (through Google Analytics, Feedburner, etc.). This session will leave plenty of time for Q&A, so come with your questions!

Sunday, September 7 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific / 8:00 p.m. Eastern
Friday, September 19 at 12:00 p.m. Pacific / 3:00 p.m. Eastern
Monday, September 22 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00 p.m. Eastern

Search!
One of the most misunderstood aspects of the internet, search functionality is far from constant; it’s an ever-changing panoply of theory, algorithm, and magic. But rather than spend our time brushing up on our applied mathematics skills, instead we’ll learn some terminology and use that to explore the really meaty bits of search, including SEO, metatagging, and web gardening. We’ll use a case study to explore how all this really works, and then finish with an examination of strategies for following your own growth in the search rankings.

At the end of this session, you’ll understand how search engines work , web gardening, mighty metatagging, pinging services, search engine optimization, how to keep up with this stuff and more.  A case study will be featured on Dr. Amy, and how we shoot ourselves in the collective feet by visiting and commenting on her website.

Sunday, October 5 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific / 8:00 p.m. Eastern
Friday, October 24 at 12:00 p.m. Pacific / 3:00 p.m. Eastern
Monday, October 27 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00 p.m. Eastern

REGISTER NOW! SPACE IS LIMITED!

Cost: $35 per session

Each session will be 60 minutes in length