Yesterday we had some down time here at the Convention Insider as we rearranged the furniture a little in our back side offices.  Well not exactly, we merely switched out blog over to a dedicated server for the purpose of better serving your needs.  If you can tell we are running a little faster here now there is a reason.  We are now back up and running and as you can see from my last post having a blog down did not stop those from commenting as my test worked with flying colors.  The companies with listening software were indeed listening and commented.  Now we get back to regularly, okay so they are not as regular as I would like, scheduled blog postings.

Update:  Just when I thought the problems were over we have some quirks here so be patient if something is going awry on comments or the like.

Update 2:  Feel like we should be playing a theme song from Jeopardy here.

Tags: Conventions.net, Convention Insider

Now I am going out on a limb here to make the offer just that much better.  If you sign up for the Annual Premium Listing before the deadline on Friday I will feature you and your company here on Convention Insider!  Shhh, don’t tell the boss, he doesn’t have a clue that I am offering this but if you read it here and sign up for the offer, just drop me a line and I will make sure you get included on the blog as an added bonus. Okay here endeth the pitch. Tags: Conventions.net, Online Marketing, Trade Shows, Conventions, Meetings, Events

In case you have not been paying attention, we have been seeing a few blog posts here in Convention Insider from some different authors.  The authors I am speaking of are guest contributors.  These contributors as some of the top experts in their fields as it relates to convention planning, event planning and trade shows. 

They are going to be providing us with their knowledge, their tips, and information that helped them become the best of the best. I am completing their introductions but you can see their bio and pictures all soon on the guest contributors in the navigational bar at the top of the blog.  Pay attention to these writers and the information that they provide. I can assure you as a convention insider myself, the nuggets of information they provide is worth your time.

Staying with the Comic-Con thoughts this week, since they are having a 40th Anniversary Celebration, I thought I would just let everyone know that Google is helping them celebrate by changing up the Google logo a little.  They are also helping out the celebration by having some cool Google themes to choose from as stated on the Google Blog:

The themes showcase the amazingly diverse world of comics. Browse our gallery (www.google.com/comicsthemes) to choose from nostalgic comic strips like Peanuts, iconic heroes like Batman and Iron Man, or alternative comics greats like Dan Clowes, author of the graphic novel, "Ghost World." The dozens of themes represent talented artists from around the world including Rumiko Takahashi from Japan and Lewis Trondheim of France.

In addition to the Google themes, Google has also unveiled a new logo that has changed to reflect the cool super heroes of the comics.

Google had also this last week shown us a logo that was reflective of the moon with craters spelling out the Google name celebrating the Apollo 11 anniversary.  We have a Conventions.net anniversary coming up I wonder if the folks at Google will oblige us with a logo?  happy Anniversary to the people at Comic-Con.

Tags: Comic-Con, Google, San Diego, Super Heroes, Comics

Does your convention or trade show have a search engine strategy?  I have written about a number of conventions that are coming or that are scheduled and most of them I have found as a result of trade show magazines, or have alerts that come to me or emails or companies that tell us directly about their show through direct mailings and other forms.  The thing that I am curious about is the person that has no idea that you exist.  How are they finding your show?

I am actually writing a blog post on another blog that talks about why people should attend an event in their own industry and if they have a hobby or interest that they love there is probably an event or convention that they can attend.  The one thing that I want to tell them to do to find that event is to go to a convention listing or site like ours at Conventions.net or go to a search engine and find it in their listings.  So how are you listed in the search engines?  If you have no idea, now is the time to panic.  Are you a quilting convention?  Perhaps you are a hunting and outdoor convention.  How do I find you? 

Now that you have an idea of how to find you and how I might find you, what are you doing to insure that your keywords you just used are being fed to the spiders that crawl the site?  If you have no idea what I am talking about, welcome to the party.  If you do and have no idea why your site is not showing up in the Google world we live in, let us know we can give you an idea (yes we are the first result for the word "conventions") and perhaps even help you and give you a hand and a leg up on your competition.

Tags: SEM, SEO, Search, Conventions, Trade Shows, Conferences, Events, Google, MSN, Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com

I mentioned that I would be helping someone plan an event coming up this fall, and I realized that I am not well versed in a most of the behind the scenes workings of planning a convention or trade show, or even a small event or corporate retreat.  I was then wondering if there was a long list of "convention coaches" out there that can be called upon to give the little advice here and there or people that are veterans in the industry that might be able to help get more information for me on planning the event.  I quickly turned to Google as is the norm for me in any need I have from Chinese food to directions to grandmother’s house, and I found a list of some and a specific Coach that can help me I think.  So how about you?  Are you a coach or advisor? How Can I find you if I had that small question?  If I need just to figure out how to get 400 chairs delivered to a place on Saturday, who do I ask how to get that done?  I can see the "You want it when" comedic cartoons flashing in my head now.  Well, perhaps I need a Convention Superhero.

Actually, if you go to Conventions.net I am sure there is a listing or two of the superhero you are looking for in an event planner or other "coach".

Tags: Convention Assistance, Coaching, Google

Photo via eteamz.com

I just wanted to make sure and alert everyone to the fact that we are now launching our hospitality section of the web site at Conventions.net you can find all types of hospitality resources at our page dedicated to the space.  Like the convention and trade show industry we will also be bringing your many resources for your benefit related to the hospitality industry and market.  Another way that Conventions.net is being a thought leader in its ability to bring to your the resources you are looking for on the Internet.  If you would like to advertise or become a  part of the Hospitality Marketplace, please feel free to contact us at Conventions.net.  We will soon be moving the Hospitality Marketplace to its own URL and location at HospitalityMarketplace.net so please follow along with us as we grow our already large database of information.

Tags: Hospitality, Conventions.net, Hospitality Resources, Convention Resources, Hospitality Information

Are you using any forms of social media to help you with your event?  Does your show have its own Facebook group, a blog, a Twitter page?  What are you using in the new social media space to promote your trade show or convention?  Many people are now adopting the new form of online marketing, and it is helping search results, it is making it easier to communicate with attendees, conference organizers and speakers.  If you are using social media what tools seem to work best for you.  I will talk about what we have done here at Conventions.net to help attract our readership, using some of the tools available.  In order for you to keep up with your competition, you too need to adopt some of the newest and latest tools available. In the meantime, I won’t see you in the funny papers but I might just see you on Twitter.

Tags: social media, tools, trade shows, conventions, promotion

I was doing quite a bit of travel over the last 10 days, in fact, I think I have done about 5 cities in about 10 days. One of the things that seems to weighing heavily on the minds of those that are traveling is the swine flu.  I have seen many with hand sanitizer and some with masks on as they go from city to city.  This is also a concern for the trade show and convention industry.  Whenever you get people coming from all walks of life and gathering in a room, you get a much larger chance of contracting the illnesses we all seem to bring to the table.

I guess I am sort of used to the idea that I live in a virus farm like I do having four kids all with sniffling and sneezing and nose running. To illustrate I get back today for the first time after traveling and I end up in the doctor’s office with my oldest daughter and lo and behold, we now have a case of strep throat in our household.  That alone makes me want to get back on the road.  My next trip is going to be a great one and I am not really wanting to do it while being sick.  More to come on that later but I must say my request seems to have been answered with someone wanting me to go to Hawaii with them!

Be careful out there and don’t forget to wash your hands, use hand sanitizer and stay away from pigs with the flu!

Tags: swine flu, travel, conventions, trade shows, meetings, events, conferences, conventions

We have been working feverishly here to get the new blog design up and running and getting all of the widgets working and the bells and whistles working and i think we have finally reached the part where we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully the light that we are seeing is not a freight train. We will soon be back to our normal operation here providing information commentary and all things conventions and trade shows.

I myself was very busy in January attending the CES convention in Las Vegas and speaking at a conference during that show and finally attending the Affiliate Summit West in the Rio at Las Vegas. I have some stories to tell and some other things to fill in but for now let’s just say I won’t bite off more than I can chew until we get the remaining parts to the puzzle.

As you can see we also have added a feature that will allow you to advertise here on our site and I can certainly help get you on the site, or you can refer to our media kit if you are interested in being a part of this site or the mother site over at Conventions.net. In today’s uncertain economic times we offer a very affordable way to get some exposure for your company or your event, trade show conference, meeting or convention. In the meantime, Happy New Year! I am assured that we can say that for 30 days following the actual new year coming to pass according to Miss Manners.