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Now, more than ever, marketing companies and consultants need to get competitive for client dollars and what better way than advancing your knowledge and your network?

There are many options for companies and agencies to train digital marketing teams and to keep tenured employees up to date including conferences such as: this week’s WebmasterWorld Pubcon, Search Engine Strategies, Search Marketing Expo, numerous regional and niche events and an increasing number of web based offerings including SEMPO Institute and the DMA Search Engine Marketing Certification program. I would be remiss not to mention the upcoming “Social Media Smarts” workshop in NYC covering all aspects of social media marketing including a strategy exercise and tips on building a business case for a social media effort in your organization.

Attending conferences is not cheap when you factor the increasing price of travel and hotels as well as pre/post and conference training fees, meals and taxi. Attendees and their companies are paying $2500 - $5000 per person per conference as well as the cost of time away from the office performing billable work. It’s easy to see why webinars are on the increase and why those who are fortunate to attend these events need to get the most out of them.

The most important thing that conference attendees can do to get the most out of their time at events is to set goals. Managers sending individuals to conferences should be clear about expectations. Company staff should be sure to talk with others within the organization or team that have attended the same or similar events to gain their insight.

Depending on the purpose for attending a conference, goals may vary. Here are some common goals based on the various reasons for attending any kind of marketing conference:

• Knowledge - How many sessions will you attend and how will you capture the information? Notes, photos, video (where allowed) When meeting new people, discuss the sessions with them. Compare notes with other attendees, it’s a great way to network and to get other opinions. Before the conference, make a grid or a plan for which specific sessions you’ll be attending. Often times, there is not much time between sessions and the difference between getting a good seat and standing room only can be a matter of minutes.

• Networking - How many qualified prospects, marketing partners, vendors to outsource to and job candidates will you meeting? Each day, tally them up and plan how you will follow up.

• Content - how will you leverage your conference experience to create new content for your company blog, articles, or process documentation? Set goals for how many you’ll create each day. The content you capture and create can supply a company blog with numerous posts and show clients, staff and prospective clients that you are on top of what’s happening in the industry. At TopRank, our staff are required to publish at least 3 blog posts for each day of conference attended. Set goals for how many blog posts, articles or other types of content will be created each day of the conference. It doesn’t have to be all text, you can take photos of people, and presentation slides. Take videos where allowed.

• Knowledge transfer - How will you pass on the information youâ’ve acquired to the rest of the team? At TopRank Online Marketing, our staff take the highlights and any specific tactics of use and create presentations which they share with the rest of the TopRank team. Knowing you will be required to present the information you are gaining with the team back at the office helps focus on takeaways and practical interpretations of the new information.

• Socialize - Where there’s a conference, there’s a party. After hours events are exceptional opportunities for conference attendees to relax, network and share information. Make no mistake, post session networking can be an art form. Make a point to relax and have fun, but be clear about objectives and make a goal of attending a dinner each night of the event if possible. Some dinners are a tradition amongst long time friends, some are sponsored by vendors and some are at hoc events that occur as a result of like minded individuals wanting to continue the day’s discussion.

As you can see, there are many more opportunities to get value from marketing conference participation than keeping up to date with an industry. Pre conference goal setting and planning, well defined processes as well as follow up and post event knowledge sharing can all multiple the value organizations realize by sending employees to educational events.

Not all organizations are positioned to take full advantage of these insights, but through simple analysis, it can become clear pretty quickly how much is being left on the table or to competitors who are sending the same numbers of people and incurring the same costs.

Understand the conference offerings, set goals and make the time to pre-plan conference involvement. Leverage content creation, networking, recruiting, competitive intelligence as well as prospecting opportunities and industry conferences can move pretty quickly from an expense with an uncertain effect to an investment with multiples of return.

Sponsored By: PRSA International Detroit 10/25-28 Preconference Workshop: Search Engine Optimization for News

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You know those stripe ads that are turning up on a lot of blogs these days? They don’ take up much space, but they catch your attention. At least, they do for me.

Anyhow, those Stripe Ads are available as a WordPress plugin from MaxBlogPress.

You can get a free version of the plugin, but it has a link on the right that reads “Powered by MaxBlogPress.” You can see an example of this stripe ad at The Real Tim Jones site.

I learned about these ads while sitting on a panel with Tim at BlogWorld Expo, as he talked about using them to monetize his site (thanks Tim).

I’ve got the paid version of the Stripe Ad plugin running on my blog and I’m rotating some different messages to see how it does.

I like this option for subtly running some affiliate links a whole lot more than banners all over the place.

One word of warning, though. I tried it on FeedFront.com, which uses a paid Revolution theme, and the stripe ad totally whacked out the tables in the theme.

I’m sure there is a tweak there, but try the free version to check compatibility before upgrading.

Gary Vaynerchuk, star of Wine Library TV and Director of Operations at Wine Library in Springfield, NJ, is going to be the keynote speaker at Affiliate Summit West 2009.

The conference is taking place January 11-13, 2009 in Las Vegas.

See a sample of Gary Vaynerchuk speaking at the recent Web 2.0 Expo in New York.

Register for Affiliate Summit West 2009.

I’ve been using the Flip Ultra camera for about a year to shoot home video and video blogs, and while it’s quick and easy to use, I think it’s time to retire it.

Recently, I got the Canon VIXIA HV30 MiniDV High Definition Camcorder, so I can record video in HD.

It’s a great camera for longer videos, like family events, conferences, etc when I want some top notch quality.

I am also using the Casio Exilim EX-Z1200 12MP Digital Camera for snapshots and shooting bits of video.

When I was at the BlogWorld Expo conference last week, I wanted to take pictures and video. Since I didn’t feel like carrying the Casio and the Flip, I just stuck the Casio in my pocket.

And I got to wondering what problem the Flip solves for me. My Casio digital camera is about the same size, and takes better video than the Flip. Plus, it takes nice pictures.

Not to mention that the Flip has inferior sound to the other two cameras when recording video.

Granted, the Flip is cheaper than the other two, and easier to use, but if you’re concerned with quality for your video, you might want to retire your Flip, too.

I ran into Warren Whitlock at BlogWorld Expo last weekend. We’re actually old friends, but havent had opportunity for a good sit-down since the Publishing Profits Seminar in Chicago a few years ago (4 or 5 years, depending on which one of us you ask).

It was a great opportunity to catch up a bit, and I was also interested in talking to him about his upcoming book release. He happened to be toting a box when I ran into him, and I whipped out my pocket video camera and convinced him to give us a sneak peek…

Twitter Revolution is coming out on October 15th. If you havent already, you’ll want to download the free version from TwitterHandbook.com. Once you’ve had an opportunity to read the Twitter Handbook, you can pre-order your copy of Twitter Revolution on Amazon.com:

Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Online

Expect a full review - I have a signed pre-release copy I look forward to discussing this one once everyone has had a chance to get their copy of Twitter Revolution in mid-October!

Best,