Two weeks from today (that’d be March 18th for our friends without counting skills) our very own Rhea Drysdale will be speaking on the topic of online reputation management at the March SEMNE meeting up in Hartford, CT. We invite you all to come watch her in action and learn a little about the topic and how to protect the sanctity of your brand in the eyes of the search engines and your customers.
Rhea would never tell you this herself (oddly, but she’s far more modest than Rae or myself), but she’s really, really smart. Like crazy smart. Especially in the realm of ORM. Here’s a bit of trivia for you: Rhea was the reason I only had a few hours to throw up a splash page for Outspoken Media once the Wall Street Journal ran its article A Makeover for Your Google Results (featuring Rhea) and outed the company a week early. Yeah, we weren’t even live or done yet. Thanks a lot, Rhea! But I’ve forgiven her for that. Mostly.
So, what exactly will Rhea will speaking about on March 18?
I have lovingly ripped the description off the SEMNE site:
Before prospective customers do business with you, they often search online to check your reputation. How are you to monitor what’s being said about you? Most important, how do you respond and sculpt results? There are many strategies for creating and solidifying a reputation. In this presentation we’ll take a look at the growing number of companies and products that offer online reputation management services and how you can use them in a timely and cost-effective manner. We’ll also look at do-it-yourself techniques for those in-house marketers and business owners with modest budgets.
Other details:
When: Wednesday, March 18, 2009; from 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Where: Hartford Marriott Downtown, Hartford, CT
Cost: Free for SEMNE members, $49 for non-members.
I’ll also be attending the event, both to cheer on Rhea and to network with other regional SEOs. Here’s a tip, if you ever have a chance to attend smaller events like this, take it. These small gatherings are a huge source of connections and knowledge transfer, especially for people just starting out. There’s literally no better way to get your foot in the door than by showing up and interacting with folks who do what you do, very close to where you do it.
Just ask Hunter Satterwhite. He attended his first SEMNE event a few months back, impressed some important folks and ended up at SMX West helping out the event crew and networking with this industry’s A-listers. Now his mug is all over my Twitter stream and it just won’t go away. Not bad. Not bad at all, Hunter. ;)
If you’re within a car drive away from Hartford, drop by and check out Rhea’s presentation. You’ll come away with some great takeaways on online reputation management, the chance to network with some smart people and you can even say hello to me, too.
We hope to see you guys there!
