Back in February I was asked to sit down with Mike McDonald of WebproNews to discuss the FTC’s new Internet endorsement guidelines. We also got into some of the new state “privacy laws” being passed (by Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Nevada) requiring encryption of sensitive personal data and more informative privacy policies.
I haven’t heard anything from the crew at WPN since our interview, but woke up today to a picture text message from Mat Siltala today of my face on the video homepage of WPN (see http://videos.webpronews.com/). Thanks Mat!
It appears that the production crew has added in some ancillary video and written a nice summary of our interview. Feel free to check it out – David Mink on FTC Guidelines!
Watch the video here:
David Mink, Legal
David Mink, ftc blogging guidelines, ftc endoresement guidelines
As you know, “co” is the standard abbreviation for company and .co will soon be available as a top level domain (“TLD”)! Up until now, this TLD has only been available within Colombia as the country’s ‘code’. This new TLD will provide a big traffic opportunity for business owners and search marketers as .co is a very common misspelling of .com.
Dates for registration
From April 26 to June 10 registered trademark owners will have the exclusive ability to register the new .co TLD for their registered trademark. (Needless to say, if you own a protected term you will certainly want to register it during this period!) After that protected period general public registration of .co TLD’s will begin in July.
Summary
The .co opportunity = additional traffic and brand management.
The .co risk = a cybersquatter registering your company’s trade name or marks before your do.
The goal = securing your company’s .co opportunity.
David Mink, Legal
.co, .co top level domain, new top level domains
On my 32nd birthday I had the opportunity to present an Internet marketing seminar to a group of attorneys at the Utah State Bar. Having gone to law school and passed the bar I always enjoy an opportunity to rub shoulders with other attorneys. However, I really enjoy being able to teach a bunch of experienced attorneys a thing or two.
Andrew Melchior and I spent about an hour presenting and taking Q & A. You can find the slideshare presentation here:
David Mink, Legal Resources
internet marketing for attorneys, internet marketing for law firms, internet marketing for lawyers
If you are attending Pubcon this year in Las Vegas, you should know that we will be there representing as well and I do have to say that we are getting a little bit excited, could even say giddy, about our soon approaching travels to Vegas for Pubcon. Pubcon means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but for DSM it comes down to good eats, good drinks, good friends, good business, and good times.
Along with everything else that comes with the territory, both Mat and Dave will be speaking this year. Here are the details and I suggest you don’t miss these sessions as they could change your life forever!
Wednesday Nov. 11 @ 2:55 pm
Interactive Site Reviews: Focus on Brand and Social Reputation Management
Location: Salon F
David Mink, Industry News, Matt Siltala, speaking
Las Vegas, Pubcon, speaking
I just had to take a snapshot of this picture and share it because I thought it was cool. Our very own David Mink‘s likeness is being used on the banners pitching SMX Advanced next month in Seattle. I have seen the banners for a while now, but it only hit me today that the guy in the snapshot was David! I think that’s pretty cool! This picture was taken at SMX West 2009 (which Dave and I spoke at), and I am pretty sure that another one of DSM’s crew took the picture. Greg Lindblom in fact (lostbro1 on Twitter) was the guy responsible for the picture and apparently SMX took the image off my Flickr feed. So the question is, where is the credit/link love for Greg? I guess this will have to do! Nice picture Greg! Now only if we were actually speaking at SMX advanced … haha
David Mink
dave mink, David Mink, SMX, smx advanced, smx west 2009
Last weekend I built a fancy chicken coop called a chicken ark. Sadly, many of my friends and family members were actually surprised that I could turn out this custom home. I guess they didn’t know I was a super star in my high school wood shop.
OK, so your not impressed and would like to know what SEO campaigns have to do with building chicken coops. The correlation has to do with being able to work both inside and outside of the blue prints.
David Mink, SEO
chicken coop, SEO campaigning
A few days ago I wrote a blog post about the aftermath of Twitter promotions. The premise of the article being that what happens after your original Tweet can be any body’s guess.
If you follow this blog, you know that I’m a big NBA fan and am always looking for ways to tie basketball into my posts. So, I need to give a big thanks to Mr. Charlie Villanueva for being the first NBA player to be caught Tweeting during a professional game!
Charlie plays for the Milwaukee Bucks, which is a franchise that is currently fighting for the last of 8 playoff spots in the Eastern conference. Charlie also plays for a notoriously hard-nosed coach, Mr. Scott Skiles, who is the only point guard in history to ever get into a fight with @THE_REAL_SHAQ. (Literally Skiles at 6′ 2″ and 180 lbs tried to tangle with 7′ 1″ and 325 lbs Shaq). Apparently, Skiles reamed Charlie pretty good for his lack of discretion in jumping on Twitter during a game! I guess Charlie should consider himself lucky not to have been playing for Jerry Sloan. Jerry might have kicked him off the team or a few days.
David Mink, Twitter
charlie villanueva, Twitter promotions
The other day I was sitting in a meeting with a group of friends. We were discussing Twitter and how it could be used to run promotions on the internet. This meeting included myself, Andrew, and a number of other well established business owners and marketing consultants. This discussion prompted the following blog post.
A Twitter Case Study — Picture This Scenario:
Image by Brandon Buttars
You’re hired to manage a social media campaign for a client – a family fun center with several locations. You decide to test the social media waters with Twitter. So you recommend the following:
Send out a message via the family fun center Twitter account, tweeting something like:
“TODAY ONLY (3/5/09) FREE entry to skate rink and free skate rental. Please RT.”
What Happens Next:
David Mink, Social Media, Twitter
social media disasters, Twitter campaigns, Twitter promotions
Fast forward one year from now and imagine that one of your employees has just returned from a successful business trip to Boston. Actually, the employee killed it and he is coming home with a lot of new customer names and corresponding credit card numbers!
The employee comes into the office Monday morning and reports, “Boss, I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you like first?” You opt for the good news – and he informs you that he is pretty sure that he broke the company record for sales. Now the bad news, he informs you that his laptop was stolen or lost sometime during the return trip. However, he says everything will be fine because he has all of the customer’s business cards and he is planning on calling each customer today to recover all of the lost data. Is everything “fine”?
David Mink, SMX
Massachussetts encryption law, Nevada encryption law
Thomas Schmitz
When it comes to whether you should use SEO tools you must consider both the good and the bad – like every other choice in life. Tools are good for gathering data. However, tools can be expensive, produce inherent errors, and have many limitations.
Scripts are tools that you create. Save time. Save money. Thomas recommends adapting your scripts from existing open source code.
Dave Wallace At SMX
David Wallace
Recommends having a routine that looks something like this:
1. Begin your day with email, bloglines, and Twitter. With Twitter just looks for DM’s and @replies.
2. Write your new blog posts.
3. Now do everything else. Deal with clients. Deal with business. Deal with finances. etc.
David says that he is really big on structuring his email. (Our own Andrew Melchior is a wizard with organizing email!) Develop a category structure.
David Mink, Matt Siltala, SMX
being productive
