Judy Grundstrom at the Just JudyJudyJudy blog yesterday announced the Twin Cities Top Ten Titans In Social Media 2009 , chosen by a distinguished group of judges . It's a very interesting list. The winners come from a variety of backgrounds, including politics ( Dusty Trice ), broadcast media ( Jason Matheson and Alexis Thompson of FM 107.1, Jason DeRusha of WCCO TV), the arts ( Kate Iverson ), corporate marketing ( Kelly Groehler of Best Buy), and PR agencies ( Blois Olson and David Erickson from Tunheim, the brilliant Jennifer Kane , and, um... me ), among others. You can find details of the top five and 6-10 winners on Judy's blog. It's quite an honor to be named to this list, and it helped me pick up a bunch of cool new local Twitter friends (I still don't like the term "followers," sounds too Kool-Aid-drinking cultish) like Aimee Cheek , Allison Janney , Tara Olson and Morsekode . Judy also discussed some of the winners on the December 9 Jason ...

As I recently passed 400 posts on this blog, here is a look back at the 10 most popular items here of all time. The list has changed considerably since the last look back after 300 posts . #10: Best of 2007: Website Design , February 4, 2008 Reviews of articles and tools on website design, including a couple of pieces from the brilliant and frequently cited Stoney deGeyter . Not sure exactly why this one remain so popular, but here it is at #10. #9: How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy , March 4, 2009 A summary of research from MarketingSherpa , Eloqua's Steve Woods , and green marketer Lorna Li on how marketers should approach social media strategically. As the old saying from the financial world goes, no one plans to fail—but many people fail to plan. #8: Web 2.0 Social Tagging Sites, Part 4: B2B Traffic Building , May 15, 2007 Original research on the quantitative impact of social bookmarking on b2b site traffic. Much has changed since then, and social media is now a...

There's been a lot of activity since the B2B Marketing Zone (BMZ) officially launched two weeks ago. Traffic continues to grow and the number of featured bloggers has doubled. Awareness has been expanded through posts from prominent b2b bloggers like  Ardath Albee and Cece Salomon-Lee . Also this morning, Rebel Brown (who's got one of the best blogger names anywhere) posted an informative interview with me and Tony Karre r, the technical and creative guru behind the site and the underlying Browse My Stuff technology platform. Her post provides more details about the purpose, goals and future plans for the BMZ site. If you're looking for one place to find all of the best b2b marketing and PR content—filtered, aggregated and neatly packaged—or you'd like to contribute content, check out the B2B Marketing Zone . ***** Contact Mike Bannan: mike@digitalrdm.com

A new B2B marketing community site, B2B Marketing Zone officially launched today. Conceptually the site is a bit like Social Media Today and other targeted content portals, though it's the first (that I'm aware of at least) focused specifically on providing information for B2B marketers. Hosted by community organizer (I mean that in a good way) Tony Karre r using his Browse My Stuff technology, B2B Marketing Zone features content from rockstar B2B bloggers like Brian Carroll , Paul Dunay and Newt Barrett . Additional bloggers meeting the high standards for the community will be added over time. The home page displays the latest and most popular content, with the ability to drill down into specific topic areas such as social media, email marketing, analytics and YouTube. The site is designed to make it easy for visitors to navigate to specific content, and drives traffic for member bloggers. With this launch, B2B Marketing Zone joins a small but growing number of sites...

The news about unemployment just keeps getting uglier as the jobless rate recently reached its highest level in 16 years. If you are one of the people behind these numbers, my best wishes and prayers are with you. Been there, done that, and it's not something I'd wish on anyone (well, almost anyone, but...). Seriously, it's stressful and frustrating, and for all who now find themselves involuntarily seeking new career opportunities, I hope your search is as quick and productive as possible. Here are a few resources that may help. Social media guru Chris Brogan has written a free ebook on Using the Social Web to Find Work that, in Chris' words, "takes you from the specifics of using LinkedIn to your benefit, into some ideas on how to grow and nurture your social networks ahead of a need for them." This is a great resource to check out even if you're not out of work (yet). The Marketing, Advertising and Sales Career Opportunities center on WebMarketC...

I had the honor of having a guest post on how to avoid bad SEO consultants published on YOUmoz last week. Based on my own experience, and citing the work of lots of smart SEO experts, the post provides advice on how to spot SEO spammers and scammers, as well as how to find an effective, reputable firm to provide SEO services. The final post looks a bit link-heavy as it was edited down quite a bit. Still, overall, I think the edits made by the SEOmoz team improved the post (I tend to get a bit wordy sometimes). The post didn't generate quite as much traffic to this blog as I thought it would. I'm not sure if that was because: SEOmoz doesn't get as much traffic as one would expect; SEOmoz readers don't often click on links within posts; or my post just wasn't interesting (but I got all thumbs-up and generally positive comments, so don't think this is the case). Regardless, it was an honor and I hope you have a chance to check out the post . ***** ...

On the occasion of the 300th post on the WebMarketCentral blog, and to see how things have changed since the first 100 posts , here are the 10 most popular posts of all time so far. #10: The 8 Layers of a B2B Web Marketing Plan , October 8, 2008 The most recent post to make this list presents B2B marketing as a series of concentric layers, with SEO at the core then moving outward from highly measurable online direct response tactics to broader brand advertising. #9: Best of 2007: Articles and Blog Posts on SEO (Part 1) , January 28, 2008 Summaries of and links to a dozen outstanding articles on SEO from some of the top pros like Lee Odden , Jon Rognerud and Danny Sullivan . Also, I think, the first time on this blog I made the case that SEO is far from dead. #8: Web 2.0 Social Tagging Sites, Part 7: The Best , June 26, 2007 "Based on two months of testing across a half-dozen B2B websites and blogs, these Web 2.0 social bookmarking sites produced the best results, in terms of driv...

Jon Miller at marketing automation vendor Marketo , just posted his interview with me, B2B Marketing Thought Leadership: Tom Pick . I'm a bit too modest to be totally comfortable with a title like that, but I appreciate the compliment nonetheless. So, if you'd like to read my blathering on about marketing innovation, blogging, social bookmarking, SEO, SMO, SEM, b2b lead generation, lead management and B2B marketing and PR in general (which maybe you do, since you're here after all), check out Jon's interview .

It's been three years since the launch of this blog, and it still gets less traffic than the Huffington Compost (sigh). Maybe I should set my goals a bit more modestly? Oh well, at least I write my own stuff. Anyway, taking a look back at the first three years of the WMC blog, here are the ten most popular posts as chosen by you, my elite (in the good sense!) and loyal readers. It's an interesting mix of old and new, tactical and strategic, original and derivative. 10. Best of 2007: Blog Posts on Social Media Marketing , January 18, 2008—A wrap-up of some of the best blog posts of 2007 on social networking and social media marketing strategies and tactics. 9. Web 2.0 Social Tagging Sites, Part 1: Alexa Rankings , April 29, 2007—the Alexa rankings for 42 popular Web 2.0 social bookmarking sites, with Alexa's lack of precision and measurement shortcomings duly noted. 8. Best of 2007: SEO Analysis Tools , January 9, 2008—the very first post in the "Best of 2007" se...

Three new how-to guides recently added to WebMarketCentral offer valuable guidance to email marketing practitioners. Since I don't know everything (as if that wasn't obvious!), these have been authored by some veteran professionals in the field: Dan Forootan, president, and Neil Anuskiewicz, sales director at hosted email marketing platform provider StreamSend . Selecting an Email Service Provider (ESP) provides a list of the top 10 criteria to consider when choosing a hosted email marketing platform for your organization. Key considerations include deliverability, reporting, list management and split testing capabilities. Price makes the list—at number 10. Email Marketing Best Practices offers five tips to maintain high deliverability rates and avoid being perceived as a spammer. These include techniques for proper list building and maintenance, message design, list segmentation and complaint handling. Finally, Using Google Analytics to Track Email Campaigns shows you how t...

Sell your soul on eBay. Buy trash at Target. "404 Error" pages that are actually entertaining. A bedtime story about search engines. A rap about link building. What's going on here? It's the final—and best—installment of WebMarketCentral's Best of 2007 series. Here are some of the most humorous, creative, and just plain odd, yet strangely relevant to interactive marketing, blog posts and articles from 2007. I hope you have as much fun reading these as I had writing about them! A Bedtime Story (or The Future of Search) by Alt Search Engines The delightful story of a grandfather and his amazingly-tuned-in-to-search grandson talking about the "future" of search engines, when they will be able to show a virtually unlimited number of results on a single page ( NoFoodHere ), display search results as two-dimensional maps ( KartOO ), search within a tag cloud ( Quintura ), and do other cool things. Hitchhikers Guide to Linkless SEO by SEOish How to improve yo...

WebMarketCentral, the portal site with resources for interactive marketing professionals, continues to expand with the recent addition of marketing, sales and CRM-focused webcasts and videos powered by Insight24. This is the place to see the latest expert rich media presentations from sources like Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies ; the Business Intelligence Network; HubSpot; Microsoft; Entellium; and SalesRoundup. It's a one-stop page for marketing-focused intelligence from market leaders. A valuable resource for sales and marketing practitioners, the new webcasts and videos page is likely to join the web's most comprehensive marketing events calendar , directory of advertising and marketing trade publications , and Marketing, Advertising and Sales Career Opportunities as one of the most-visited pages on the site. Looking for engaging content from leading sales and marketing experts? Check out the new Webcasts and Videos page on WebMarketCentral. ***** techno...