Last week, I pulled out all the analogies in the book (hey, there’s another one!) to describe search and social marketing at the SIM Partners SIMposium at the (too legit) Wit Hotel in Chicago.

Below is my presentation and below that is my (too legit) rap…

Yesterday, I presented at the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition with Sachin Gadhvi, director of search and mobile marketing at TicketsNow. The topic we addressed was “How to Turn Dynamic Inventory, Seasonality, and Promotions into an SEM Advantage” and the answer was easy… via automation. Although, as we discussed, you still need a healthy dose of human strategy and intervention because the machine needs to be properly calibrated to your business needs and goals. Methinks the rap I threw down at the end of the session could’ve used some intervention as well, particularly by way of offering any other closing line than “yeah-yeah-ee.” See below for deck and video.

2 days ago, at the Search Insider Summit, I tackled the heady topic of the perfect search engine and, after 45 minutes on stage with Alan Osetek, Jason Lehmbeck, and Vural Cifci, we made a good deal of progress but could not reach consensus on what would make the perfect search engine. At the end of the day, it appears one man’s perfection is another man’s defecation.  Now we know what life is like for the engineers in Mountain View! Here’s the vid and, below that, the deck…

I’ve gotten some feedback from people that they expected my book to provide more specific tips for creating and managing search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns. (Including one person who posted a 1-star Amazon review saying he “felt tricked by the title” and to whom I’ve offered a full refund.)

Indeed, I did not set out to write an SEM 101 book. There are plenty of search engine marketing 101 resources out there.

Instead, I wrote a book that dissects Google’s success and shows how others can implement Google’s business and marketing strategies . Along the way, I drop tidbits about pay-per-click (PPC) search and SEO tactics, such as Chapter 7 in which I cover SEO Ranking Factors.

At the end of the day, though, my book is a narrative. It’s not a how-to manual. It has some practical exercises and best practices for readers to put the concepts I discuss into play for their organizations, but it’s meant to tell a story and get the mind thinking.

In other words, as Jason McDonald observed in his 4-star Amazon review, I wrote both a “forest” and a “trees” book.

Nonetheless, I realize that there’s strong demand for introductory SEM material and I’m in a good position to deliver it having been in the space for over 10 years working with some of the biggest SEM spenders and savviest search marketers around.

So, in this week’s MediaPost Search Insider column, I laid out 20 tips for search marketing newbies. And I’ll be sharing 20 more SEMy Lessons in 2 weeks. True to form, I tapped the wisdom of crowds (chapter 2) to come up with the list. And, truer to form, there’s plenty of pun-derful (ad)word play.

Below is the presentation I gave today at the Online Marketing Sumit (OMS) in Chicago.

In it, I use my patent-pending “Heat-o-Meter” to describe the hotness of various companies, channels, and trends in digital marketing, including:

Companies: Facebook, Groupon, Apple, Google, LinkedIn,  Twitter, Microsoft, Yahoo

Channels: Social, Mobile, Local, Video, Search, Display

Trends: Automation, Integration, Attribution

The deck has 70 slides packed with stats and the last section has some Kenshoo case studies for context on how advertisers are capitalizing on these hot trends. So warm up your fingers are start clicking!

As is becoming habit, I rapped the Q&A portion but only had time for one topic. No video has surfaced (yet) so here’s an audio clip from Brent Payne aka the Bald SEO.

Today I kicked off Day 2 of the Social Media Optimization Conference (SMOC) with a keynote presentation and, of course, a rap.

I had originally intended to introduce the acronym SAM (Social Advertising Marketing) but switched to SMA (Social Media Advertising) to keep in line with the theme of SMO (Social Media Optimization). While SAM certainly has a better ring to it, SMA seemed a better contextual fit.

Speaking of context, seeing as how SMOC was in San Francisco, I likened social media to marketing “without a net” and drew upon the Grateful Dead as my influence for the improvisational rap that followed my presentation.

Here are the slides I ripped through. Below that is a video of the last 5 minutes of the keynote and a 90 second social media rap. And after that is the rapping Q&A session in which I coined the new buzzword “dinterest” (digital interest) after not being able to think of anything that rhymed with interest. Could’ve used some “Help on the Way…”

Today I participated in a session at ad:tech San Francisco called, “Connecting the Dots with Paid Search” moderated by “Marketing Pastor” Melanie Mitchell.

My presentation focused on a new approach to search engine marketing that can not only help improve performance within the SEM channel but across other channels as well. The idea is focusing on the people behind the keywords to get a sense of their true value to your business. It’s not rocket science. It’s people science.

Here’s my deck:

As a leading provider of digital marketing software used to direct over $15 billion USD in online sales, my company, Kenshoo, has access to a treasure trove of data. As a way to help marketers benchmark their online advertising efforts, we’ve begun aggregating and analyzing performance data across our retail customer base, which includes 5 of the top 10 global retailers per Forbes and 5 of the top 10 U.S. retailers per NRF.

Earlier this month, we released some of this research in the Kenshoo 2010 Online Retail Holiday Shopping Report. Beyond helping online marketers see how their campaigns measured up to the Kenshoo U.S. Retail Index, this report provides a great look into key consumer online shopping trends.

In all, we assessed over 3 billion total search advertising impressions, 60 million clicks and 3 million online sales transactions for the period beginning 21 days prior to Thanksgiving and ending the weekend after New Year’s Day in 2009 and 2010.

Here are the key findings:

Here are the major trends we identified:

And here is 1 of the 23 pretty charts including in the report that you can cut and paste into your next presentation (with proper attribution, of course):

The full report is available for download here and also includes 7 actionable implications for marketers and 5 predictions for search marketing and online advertising in 2011. Spoiler alert: it’s going to be a Googley year!

Over the past week, I’ve been busy “Future-Proofing.” Below are links and lists from bylines I’ve written sharing my expectations for the coming year. We’ll see how things shake out but the one thing I’m certain of is that 2011′s gonna be Googley!

Ten Search Marketing Hot Spots To Watch In 2011
1. Local
2. Social ads
3. The social graph
4. Mobile
5. Attribution
7. Display
8. Video
9. Search
10. Apps

10 Crazy 2011 SEM Predictions
1. Facebook will create its own search engine
2. Apple will create its own search engine
3. Groupon will create its own search engine
4. EBay will create its own search engine
5. Google will fall below 60% U.S. search query market share
6. Google will buy TiVo
8. Comcast will buy Yahoo
9. Adobe will buy AOL
10. You will buy my book

Image Source: iStockPhoto (actually paid for)

Today I kicked off my role as MC of the MediaPost Search Insider Summit with an intro to the theme of “All Roads Lead Through Search” and an interpretation of 2Pac’s California Love with my man Rob McEvily (who also created the poster above) working the beatbox. Skip to about 10 minutes in if you just want the rap and see below for the lyrics…

Update: Check out Day 2 with the Fresh Prince of Deer Valley!

I’d like to welcome everybody to SIS,
This show is unstoppable, you know it’s the best.

The sessions will be hot and we’ve got skiing galore,
Be sure to pack your vest before you head out the door.

We’ve got all search geeks in this room, where the search geeks be?
The search geeks that never leave the spreadsheets empty.

And these geeks, they run the marketing machines.
Spend a lot of coin on Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

I’ve been in the game for 10 years so I’m old school,
Ever since Sergey and Larry were countin’ links fool.

Now it’s 2010 and we’re way past beta,
It’s like we unlocked the Fort Knox of data.

It’s all good from the conference to the slopes,
If you ain’t meetin’ others, you ain’t makin’ the most.

So throw your hands up if you feel the same way.
Welcome to SIS. The show starts today!

SIS, no doubt about it.
SIS, knows how to party.
In the city…. city of Park.
In the city…city of Park.
Keep on searchin’, keep on searchin’, yeah!