Now that the ninth series of The Apprentice is upon us, it’s starting to become apparent that all of these bossy, relentlessly self-positive entrepreneurs have a few things in common. Perhaps it’s the way the BBC mess with the colour contrast to make their eyes look horrifyingly blue, or perhaps it’s the fact that they all love themselves to the point of distraction. Either way, we’ve taken a look at the eight apprentice winners so far to see what we need to be like to win The Apprentice.

Source

#5: Be from London

Being from the South might do for this one, as 7/8 winners of the show are from Southern England. All are from England, so if you’re Scottish, Irish or Welsh you can probably forget it. One winner, series two’s Michelle Dewberry, dared to be from Hull, but quickly moved to London when she realised her mistake. Being a Cockney through and through himself, Lord Sugar clearly feels more comfortable working with people whose accents he can actually understand.

Source

#4: Be willing to change your career path

Only two winners still work in the same area of business as they did before they entered The Apprentice. These are the most recent winners, the unfortunately named Ricky Martin and beloved inventor Tom Pellereau. All other candidates now work in roles that contrast highly with their previous experience, one such example being Yasmina Siadatan, who used to be a restaurateur but now runs a start-up business with James Caan. The trend seems to be that, unless you’re lucky enough to have something that the Lord of Sugar wants, you must be prepared to do something entirely different to what your experience shows you are good at. Even if that means giving up freelance Professional Wrestling, as poor Ricky had to.

Source

#3: Play the social media game

This might be a bit of a no-brainer, but winners of The Apprentice almost always have over a thousand Twitter followers. The only exception to this rule has been Yasmina, who only starting tweeting in May 2013 and has 207 followers. The winner with the most followers, no prizes for guessing, is Tom, who has 105,057. What is surprising is that Stella English, who was recently involved in a high-profile lawsuit with the Lord himself, only has 1,929 followers. It can only be assumed that her followers got so bored with the insignificance of the case that they couldn’t take it anymore and simply had to ‘unfollow’. As Tom might be said to be the most successful winner and Stella the least successful, it could be that an inability to hold onto your Twitter followers indicates and inability to hold onto your title. And by title, of course, we mean ‘overpaid lackey’. Nice one, Stella.

Source

#2: Look the part

This one starts off as simple as it appears. If you’re a man, wear suits. All of the winners wore very pricey-looking suits, with ties that weren’t boring but weren’t likely to get them confused with a Lib Dem MP or, similarly, a clown. If you’re a woman, wear dresses that are smart but could be construed as sexy if photographed correctly. High heels are a must, but don’t worry too much about hair colour, unless it’s red. Appearance gets a bit more complex when you see that only one winner, Tim Campbell, does not have a full head of hair. So if you’re balding, think about getting some of that spray-on hair. This brings us to the issue of age, which might be a bit more difficult to manipulate. All winners of The Apprentice have been between the ages of 26 and 31, giving a six year window to any Lord Sugar wannabees. The only consolation for anyone falling outside of this bracket is that the youngest candidate on the show was actually only 20 years old and the eldest was 39. So the game might not be over yet if you fall outside of the golden six year bracket.

Source

#1: Disconnect mouth from brain

Perhaps the most vital characteristic of all winners of the show is their ability to say ridiculous things at inopportune moments. Despite being completely assured that they are the best brains in the business, they have an uncanny knack for sounding like utter simpletons. One of the most adept at this is last year’s winner Ricky Martin, who came up with gems such as “I’m like a shark, right at the top of the food chain” and “By day I’m a business superstar. By night, I’m a professional wrestler”. Whilst the latter of these was obviously, and quite worryingly, true, we can’t clarify the former. Other strange insights came from Tim Campbell, who observed that “You have to earn your stripes here. So far, I’ve got half a stripe”, and Tom Pellereau, who innocently asked “where might we find a 10-inch bell in central London?”.

Source

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apprentice_%28UK_TV_series%29

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Apprentice_%28UK%29

LinkedIn Tim Campbell

LinkedIn Michelle Dewberry

LinkedIn Lee McQueen

LinkedIn Yasmina Siadatan

LinkedIn Tom Pellereau

LinkedIn Ricky Martin

https://twitter.com/inventor_tom

https://twitter.com/RickyMartin247

https://twitter.com/Stella_English

https://twitter.com/MichelleDewbs

https://twitter.com/TC_MBE

https://twitter.com/simonambrose

https://twitter.com/LeeMcQueen

https://twitter.com/yas_siadatan

Whilst browsing through lists of ‘Top 20 SEOs in the World’ and ‘Top Ten SEO Leaders’, it becomes apparent that there is something distinctly lacking here: who exactly are the sexiest people in SEO? All that seems to have been written on this vital topic are a few joke competition articles and a blog that depicted the sexy SEO man of the month- but gave up in October 2006. So, thanks to the most reliable data from LinkedIn and Twitter, here is a definitive guide to the hottest SEO men from around the world.

10: Stephan Spencer

Source.

Stephan founded NetConcepts in the 1990s, invented SEO technology GravityStream and recently published his second book, Google Power Search. If that doesn’t get your SEO motor running, he also contributes to The Huffington Post and Searchlight, as well as his own very extensive and enthusiastic blog. He speaks French, plays racquetball and enjoys stargazing at his home in Madison, Wisconsin.

SEO Rating: 7/10
Sexy Rating: 5/10
Quote: “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion – the Dalai Lama.”

9: Brett Tabke

Source.

As a rather charismatic Texan, Brett hosts professional search engine promotion discussions through his companies Pubcon and Webmaster World. Whilst smiling isn’t his strong point and he spends most of his time being very serious about web marketing, he has raised thousands of dollars for various charities in the past few years. And everyone loves a strong, silent type.

SEO Rating: 7/10
Sexy Rating: 6/10
Quote: “Justin Bieber looks alot like he just stepped off the set of “Ice Ice Baby”.”

8: Lee Odden

Source.

Lee is the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and a sought after digital marketing industry speaker. He has presented keynote speeches for pretty much every conference going and frequently travels to New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong and London. He has already been ranked in the Top 15 Social Media thought leaders, Top 10 SEO Bloggers and Top Ten Twitter Power list, so his appearance on this list should be a nice addition to his digital trophy cabinet. And look at that beard.

SEO Rating: 8/10
Sexy Rating: 7/10
Quote: “My fave desert: Creme Brûlée & Cappuccino.”

7: John Battelle

Source.

John launched Wired in the 1990s and more recently founded Federated Media Publishing. At 47, he is aging spectacularly and his 225,000 Twitter followers attest to his continuing popularity. His second book is scheduled for publication this year, after The Search became an international bestseller in 2005. He was born and still lives in California, plays the drums and enjoys mountain biking and yoga. What a combination.

SEO Rating: 9/10
Sexy Rating: 7/10
Quote: “When in doubt, get a shoe shine.”

6: Matteo Monari

Source.

Matteo is Italian, he lives in Rome and is the co-founder of BizUp internet marketing. If that isn’t enough reason for him to feature on this list, just look at that smile. He also speaks French and English, is a research student at KTH Institute of Technology and has co-authored several papers on web-based learning. And he loves Star Wars. But really it’s all about the smile.

SEO Rating: 7/10
Sexy Rating: 8/10
Quote: “You can finally buy a REAL second hand Star Destroyer.” [Tweeted 8 times.]

5: Clemént Jerusalmy

Source.

Clemént is a Senior SEO Manager at Betsson AB, Sweden, with a keen interest in snowboarding, football and competitive golf. Originally from France, he has worked on several gambling sites and is apparently a pleasure to work with. And he looks extremely good in sunglasses. Needless to say, his French heritage bumps him up to an impressive place in this line up.

SEO Rating: 7/10
Sexy Rating: 8/10
Quote: “A small detail??? baguette ain´t a small detail.”

4: Rand Fishkin

Source.

A University dropout who loves yellow shoes and wanted to be a dog when he was a child, Rand isn’t exactly the conventional heartthrob. He is the CEO of SEOmoz, currently lives in Seattle and was named on PSBJ’s 40 Under 40 list. The combination of expertly sculpted beard and effortless chic suits makes him a no brainer for our sexy SEO countdown.

SEO Rating: 9/10
Sexy Rating: 8/10
Quote: “Sometimes you just gotta play toy guitar with shoeless buskers on Portobello Road.”

3: Richard Rosenblatt

Source.

Best known as the chairman of Myspace.com, which he sold for $580 million, Richard was named as runner up to Steve Jobs in Fortune Magazine’s “50 Smartest People in Tech”. In 2006 he founded Demand Media, which runs eHow, LIVESTRONG and Cracked.com, and claims to spend 18-20 hours each day working. A 40-year-old with the hair of a 20-year-old, he lives in Pacific Palisades, California and likes to eat out at local restaurant Sugarfish. We know where our next holiday destination will be then…

SEO Rating: 9/10
Sexy Rating: 8/10
Quote: “sunday night…earnings and chardonnay? Mixing it up…with a white wine!”

2: Frederic Chanut

Source.

Frederic, a Frenchman who loves wine and the sea (swoon), is the managing director of Sydney-based firm In Marketing We Trust. He also speaks English, German and Russian, and claims to be addicted to coffee. That’s fine though. Did we mention that he’s French?

SEO Rating: 8/10
Sexy Rating: 9/10
Quote: “Fear is not to be mocked but mistaken for a floating stuffed Xmas turkey. Fear > Food Coma.”

1: Cansin Mert

Source: Cansin Mert

Cansin is head of Social Media and Digital Operations at Pure New Media and lives with his wife in Istanbul, Turkey. He focuses on building businesses from start-up and has published several articles on online marketing. And if he hasn’t been inundated with offers of modelling contracts somewhere down the line it would be completely and unimaginably shocking. With a bone structure like that, how could he not be the sexiest man in SEO?

SEO Rating: 9/10
Sexy Rating: 10/10
Quote: “The most important thing in life is not to get what you want.”

References:

https://twitter.com/InMktgWeTrust

https://twitter.com/Matteo_Monari/

http://www.toprankblog.com/lee-odden/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/fredericchanut

https://twitter.com/cansinmert

http://clementjerusalmy.com/

https://twitter.com/CJerusalmy

https://twitter.com/johnbattelle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Battelle

https://twitter.com/btabke

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/the-non-profits-brett-tabke-pubcon-contribute-to/44841/

http://www.stuntdubl.com/2013/02/05/brett-tabke/

https://twitter.com/sspencer

https://twitter.com/demandrichard

http://csqmag.com/issues/2011Q4/2011-Q4-vis-rosenblatt.html

https://twitter.com/randfish

http://www.inbound.co.uk/blog/10-little-known-facts-about-rand-fishkin-seo-king/#sthash.7A4cdhfe.dpbs

http://www.seomoz.org/team/randfish

http://www.linkedin.com/in/leeodden

https://twitter.com/leeodden

http://www.sunsetseo.com/10-seos-id-love-to-work-with/

http://www.seobook.com/top-10-seos

http://www.linkedin.com/in/cansinmert

With this month’s stats showing that Facebook now has 1.11 billion users and Twitter 500 million, it’s easy to see why an increasingly wide range of religious organisations are turning to social media to make new contacts and build their public profiles.

Obviously this one isn’t serious. Source.

Although it’s too early to say whether these networks have changed the way in which people practice religion, faith related pages and posts are now undeniably a key feature of the majority of social media sites. Here’s a quick look at how the most popular sites are becoming involved in religious activity.

Facebook

Over 43 million Facebook users are fans of at least one page that is categorised as religious, and 31% of users in the U.S list a religion in their profile. At this very basic level it’s possible to see that members of religious groups are using Facebook and are incorporating their religious beliefs into their online activity. It goes further than that though. The ‘Jesus Daily’ Facebook page, created by a North Carolina diet doctor, has over 18 million likes and frequently posts religious imagery and quotations.

Source.

Source.

Hundreds of thousands of users like these posts and at times it has had more comments than the official Justin Bieber page. Enough said.

Twitter

Several religious pages have become prolific on Twitter recently, including Huffington Post Religion (@HuffPostRelig), Twitter Religion (@twitterreligion) and Pope Francis (@Pintifex). The first two of these offer news and comments relating to a variety of faiths in a reasonably light and impartial tone. They have 110,000 and 313,000 followers respectively and are obviously branches of larger user accounts. Pope Francis has almost 2.5 million followers, which may not seem many when considering that Catholicism has 1.2 billion members worldwide, but is impressive upon seeing that he only follows 8 other users. And they’re all multi-lingual versions of himself. In total, the 9 versions of Pope Francis have over 6 million followers, which is the same as Ed Sheeran, Jessie J and Tom Hanks. And he’s only been the Pope for 2 months.

Source.

YouTube

It isn’t YouTube precisely that is the topic of discussion here, although there are of course many religious YouTube channels. It is in fact religious versions of YouTube that have come to our attention, in particular GodTube and JewTube.

Source.

Although perhaps oddly named, both of these sites have become religious media hotspots by taking videos about X Factor, cute animals and pretty much anything else and posting them alongside religious messages. GodTube also features ‘devotionals’ and ‘newsletters’ pages, on which users can post stories about their everyday lives that are religiously significant in some way. Whilst this may seem clever, JewTube has in fact been the subject of a lawsuit due to its apparent over-similarity to YouTube. The only real problem is the logo, which is almost an exact copy of YouTube’s unrecognisable trademark, except that it’s blue. Anyone mistaking the site for the original would be set straight within seconds, as JewTube as far fewer videos, ads and tabs. In short, it looks nothing like it.

Source.

Blogging

Of course religious bloggers have emerged worldwide since social media became a daily essential, but a rather specific and unexpected blogging network has recently appeared, and it’s definitely worth a look. The bloggers in question are Mormons, who you’d probably imagine to look a bit like this:

Source.

You’d be forgiven for this, especially as the teachings of this particular group state that women must cover their shoulders and legs, and modesty and chastity are prized in the community. It might be somewhat surprising then to learn that this is a fashion blogging network: a Mormon fashion blogging network. One of the main sites, dubbed ‘Clothed Much’, lists links to 66 Mormon fashion blogs and states that it is ‘a modest fashion and style blog’. This is actually very informative, letting the general public know that Mormons can actually look like this:

Source.

The majority of the blogs don’t even mention Mormons at all on their main pages, but when you click on the ‘about’ tabs many will direct you to http://mormon.org/. The Mormon religion is central to these blogs and has inspired such genius slogans as ‘Modest is Hottest’, showing how seamlessly religion and social media can be combined.

References:

http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/resource-how-many-people-use-the-top-social-media/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/technology/jesus-daily-on-facebook-nurtures-highly-active-fans.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1368025233-02VZ32VTq1stTbk0jh0DZg

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-jason-miller/social-media-and-religion_b_949686.html

https://twitter.com/twitterreligion

https://twitter.com/HuffPostRelig

https://twitter.com/Pontifex

https://www.facebook.com/JesusDaily

http://www.clothedmuch.com/p/mormon-fashion-bloggers.html

http://www.ldsliving.com/tag/Fashion

http://www.godtube.com/newsletters/

http://jewtube.com/

http://venturebeat.com/2007/09/18/religious-social-networks-on-the-rise/

http://ipost.christianpost.com/news/religious-social-networking-sites-10043/

http://mormon.org/

http://friendorfollow.com/twitter/most-followers/

Claire Stokoe shares the stage with Rand Fishkin and Will Critchlow

Speaking at Linklove 2013, Ms Stokoe can be seen sharing the stage with ‘he of Whiteboard Friday fame’.  The Linklove event concentrates on what’s now and next in the world of linkbuilding and Claire was speaking as an authority about the creation of successful infographics and relationship building for SEO benefit  - sharing a little Mediaworks magic with the wider online marketing community.

Since her Linklove debut, Claire and her advice have been popping up in lots of places, including her All About Infographics article published on the online marketing industry news site, State of Search. Claire was also kind enough to give us her personal lowdown for her ‘Linklove speaker in free infographic sex scandal’ presentation too as well as sharing the slides here.

During his own speech at the event, Rand Fishkin stressed the importance of being a proactive industry contributor when seeking SEO success and we’re exceptionally proud that Claire has and continues to be very active, both on behalf of our clients and as a Mediaworks representative at events such as this.

One of the key messages Claire shared during her talk was the need for data to create a narrative that is naturally engaging and sharable and this is something that is at the very core of the content marketing strategies we use to help us linkbuild creatively. Want to know more about creative linkbuilding and how it can help your brand online? Get in touch and we’ll be happy to help.

Joining the team we have two new copywriters who will be taking on the job of optimising client’s websites with engaging copy and writing high-quality articles and blog posts. Lee Dover joins the copywriting team from his position as motoring editor with Axonn Media in Leeds. After graduating from Sunderland University in 2010 with a Ba Hons in Journalism, he worked his way up the ranks from content writer to content editor, then into the specialised role of motoring editor.

Our second new copywriter, Maya Verber, comes to us from Northumbria University where she has been working as a region, engagement and partnerships assistant since graduating from Newcastle University last summer with a BA Hons in Philosophical Studies. While at university she angled her degree towards communications and the media and gained copywriting and editing experience with the Royal College of Nursing.

Simon Laing joins our online PR team and brings with him his fluency in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Catalan. Previous to his appointment with Mediaworks, he has worked as a translator and in international sales in various sectors including engineering and media. He has also trained and worked as a teacher of English as a foreign language, both here and in Spain.

He said: “I’m really looking forward to making the role my own and hopefully bringing something new to the company to help continue with its success.”

Specialising in Pay per Click (PPC) marketing, we have John Cave joining our SEO team to build our PPC channel and service the growing demand for our PPC services. Prior to his new position, John worked as an online marketing manager within the travel industry but has also worked across other industries such as finance, law, e-commerce and utilities demonstrating success across the board.

And last but certainly not least, we welcome Marc Russell to Mediaworks as our head of operations. Marc has spent the last seven years as programme manager for digital agency, TH_NK contributing to the growth from being a North East based agency with local clients, to a national agency with multi-national clients. Before TH_NK, Marc worked for eight years as a project manager for Nissan Europe delivering information systems across 13 major European sales markets.

Speaking about his new role, Marc said: “I have joined Mediaworks with the aim to streamline the company’s current operations, and support the company in continued growth and expansion.”

The Jessops Group was previously made-up of two sides to the business; Jessops Photo and Jessops.com but now both divisions have been bought by CEWE and Peter Jones respectively – and BOTH are reinstating their contracts with Mediaworks.

After working with the Jessops brand over the last 12 months, we’re glad that our hard work and successful campaign performance has meant Mediaworks have been re-confirmed as the SEO partner for both companies. Like a phoenix from the ashes, Jessops has risen again!

Jessops’ core camera and photography accessories range has been launched back into the online and high street retail community thanks to a joint venture between Peter Jones and Hilco. The Dragons Den investor appointed Simon Joseph as Associate Director of eCommerce at Jessops to propel the brand into further online success.

Although Jessops.com will form the main source of income for the photography retailer, Jessops are also reopening 30+ high street stores around the UK which will save up to 500 jobs.

Meanwhile, photo-finishing company CEWE who are responsible for managing photo services for the likes of Argos, WHSmith and Superdrug, have taken-over the brand of Jessops Photo. They will continue to offer the photo book service along with a number of personalised homeware and photo gift options.

Here at Mediaworks, we are really pleased to have Jessops and Jessops Photo back on board, and can’t wait to increase quality web traffic and help both brands achieve the potential of their SEO campaigns.

The general rules of creating a meme like Hadouken is that your main protagonist adopts a ‘street fighter’ pose and 1 or more individuals react to this by being thrown through the air. This is all captured on camera and Tadaaa ‘Hadouken’.

To create your Hadouken meme photo in your office you will need:

1. A camera set to -pre-capture
2. A camera tripod
3. A bunch of Volunteers
4. Basic Photoshop / Fireworks skills
5. Lighting (i.e: shooting in dark probably not the best)
6. A boss that allows you time to do this in work
7. Some smaller objects that can be thrown into the air to create an effect

You do not need an expensive camera, I shot these on an old Olympus Sp-55OUZ

Ideally it will have pre-capture or Manual settings

The camera settings i used for the SEO team shoot

Always run a tester session. We ran this 3 days before the real shoot and it made me understand when we should get the money shot and how to get it. The Gif is purely for the amusement of readers

The day of the shoot, I got the teams together and we planned the staged photos. The idea is to make it look as realistic as possible, so staging things like a door behind them propped open and paper thrown around to look as if a massive magic attack has just happened and been captured on film.

Add a lightening PNG http://s488.photobucket.com/user/KimiVengenz/media/Textures/Lightning-psd7258.png.html

Here is how it was done.. I set up the shot. Opened doors. Told guys to jump on 1,2,3 JUMP and Katherine was asked to stay very still. Pre-capture / continuous shot set on camera and started shooting from 2 of the count-down. Touching toes in jump, gets the best height and overall look.

So, next i wanted to capture the Copywriters team. The idea was to mix it with office furniture. I must admit that this was not as impressive as it does not get the movement needed to create the overall atmosphere of the Hadouken attack. the Gif is funny though!

You can over-do the lighting additions.. oohherrrr

Gif of how it is done

Then it was the Online -PR team’s turn. My first thought was to do a double Hadouken with Peter and Ping in the center.

But it quickly became apparent that a focus on one attacker was the best course of action. We used papers and the open doors on this to show movement.

Gif of how it is done, this is at normal speed.

But i still felt that it needed more, so we decided to switch angles and shoot if from the perspective of the attacker – in this case Ping.

Then of course we had to get the SEO team involved and I was of course expecting big things from these guys.

Final Fantasy special

Of course Brett the owner of Mediaworks had to get in on it with a bit of Vadering. Here is how he deals with Johnny’s 12 month review

I hope you have enjoyed our little how to create a meme session. Please add links to your own Hadouken shoots.

We all have old mobile phone cases that we have no idea what to do with. Apple keep changing the bloody size of their phones making your old case useless every few weeks. But lets face it, when you get a new phone a new case is a must have.

So… with it being April and most of the country/world is covered in snow when last year it was blazing sunshine, and many of us are wanting to kick the living crap out of anyone who says “lovely day isn’t it”.. I thought… why not take our frustrations out on old mobile phone cases? .. you know you want to.

The rules of how to get your ‘destroy a phone case suggestion’ chosen

Of course destroying something could also mean altering its use, like this case that has been turned into a camera stand http://unleashthephones.com/2010/11/28/make-your-own-cell-phone-tripod/ creative eh?

So I want your suggestions on how to destroy a mobile phone case OR alter it – and the 10 best i will do and send you the videos of their deaths or rebirths.

How to enter:

Write a short blog post -

Title – something like – Destroy your old mobile phone case

How – How you would like the case destroyed and any preference on the he type of case

Link – To this post so i will know you have posted it – http://www.mediaworks.co.uk/top-10-ways-to-destroy-your-old-mobile-phone-case-vote-now/

Choosing – I will then choose the top 10 suggestions. If you try and make it something I can actually do, then your choice will have more of a chance

Action - I will carry out your wishes and send you a video of the deed

What are you waiting for!!

As part of our charity alliance with Macmillan we held an Easter Egg Raffle on Thursday 28th April with 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes.

Treats in the 1st prize hamper included chocolate eggs, cookies, chocolate bunnies and a chick beanie baby!

The raffle donations have contributed to our Macmillan target for 2013 and our winners went home very happy.

Don’t worry, it’s not really about sex.  I am not going to cover the whole event as loads of other people have done that already, I am just going to give a very brief run through of the day at #linklove 2013 and add some takeaways stolen from other posts far more in-depth than this one.

I thought it might be interesting to see a bit of what goes on behind the scenes of Linklove; I know this is my first one and it would be far more interesting to see pictures of Rand or Wil eating breakfast or dancing with the hairdryer before the conference… but you’ve got me.

3.15: On the Train to London Town. Finished my notes (they look smart) and yes that is sellotape.

4pm: Arrived in London a bit shattered and having drank far too much tea. Nervous already as Lynsey contacted me to say that I had saved my Deck (slides) in the wrong format. Eeeek …

4.38pm: Arrived in the lobby of the beautiful Montcalm Hotel and was offered a hot towel. Lovely. I was also curious as to the bar co-joining the hotel as I had seen taxidermy animals in there from the from the taxi as I arrived, and anyone who knows me knows I like a bit of taxidermy.

4.43: After a short, what seemed like 15 mile round-trip, I arrived in my room and instantly began to test out everything: kettle, hairdryer, slower, TV, a weird smoke blowing device that was intended to convey calm.

Ooh lovely bed, but what’s this? Can we see the toilet through the wall……. ? “The mind boggles?” it’s like Amsterdam.

Ooooh free Slippers!!! – Check!

Tried to use shower and stood under giant roof shower nozzle – “Crap!”

6.15pm: Ready for speakers’ dinner, and so left to mingle and eat good food. Decided to wear a dress; something I have not done for many moons. My jeans tried to talk me out of it… but I explained the situation and we are fine now.  The meal was superb; the poor Hungarian girls I was sat with had ordered black Pudding without knowing what it was, so hilarity ensued. Lynsey and Lauren, who are the backbones of Linklove, did not stay for the meal, but instead went off to organize things for us, including leaving a thank you card and chocolates in our rooms  “hope to hell my underwear was not lying around floor ;/”

11.00PM: Back at the hotel and it took me an embarrassing 28min’s to find my room… made worse only by a very drunk man following me around like he was auditioning for the walking dead.  I kept saying “shoo, don’t follow me, I’m lost”.

 7am: Out of bed and practicing through talk in the mirror.. taking advantage of the free tea and coffee and (soya milk) in room. The fear levels made it impossible for me to enjoy breakfast.

8.48am: Arriving at Linklove

9.10am: In the Linklove conference hall ready to see Wil Reynolds – SEER Interactive speak. He was full of so much energy that it took my nerves away for a bit. I felt a surge of both pure panic and warmth… “I was ready” unfortunately I was on last.. so this was short lived.

9:00 am – Duncan does the intros

Duncan Morris – the Founder and CEO is such an unassuming and lovely man, he is the man behind the whole damn conference along with the Lynsey and Lauren who worked their buts off to keep everything running smoothly.

9.10 – 9:40am – Wil Reynolds – “Head Smackingly Simple: Post Conversion Link Building Tips”

Wil is a superb character, I think the audience was a little cold with him at first but you can’t help but get carried along with his enthusiasm and skill and he said ‘shit’ a lot

Wil’s Slideshare Deck

Wil Reynolds Takeaways -

Wil goes recommend using Littlebird

Wil advocates G+ Ripples as a great way to see the bigger influences who you need to connect with and this in turn.

Twtrland, here you can see how many retweets your tweets are getting

Wil talks through the benefits of G+ Data

CircleCount is another great tool to do just this.

Nudge by Richard Thaler – read the book

“Ask yourself, who do your link targets link out to? Wil recommends searching links through domain searches in Bing. Who are your targets? Who do they link out to? Use SEOquake to run them through Screaming Frog and you will learn about the sites people you want links from are typically linking out to.”

9.40-10.10am – Lyndon Antcliff – “How do I Get Them to Link?”:

I have known Lyndon for years and always admired his take on Linkbait and his successes, i feel at times that his talk lost a few of the audience members, but he gave some great insights into the human mind and linkbait.

Lyndon’s Slideshare Deck

Lyndon Antcliff Takeaways -

‘think like the Economist but make content like the Sun or the Daily Mail’ when it comes to your link building approach”

The primal brain loves a good headline because its about something that’s fundamental to us.

The subconscious – The bad boy of the brain. This compartment can perform 11 million processes at once. It handles your emotions and memory as well as the act of linking impulse buying. All purchases are made on an irrational basis and linking is kind of like a buy in process as well and so it has that element of irrationality.

Conscious brain – This is more subverted and in fact, most of our decisions are not conscious.

Read Alan Carr’s book on comedy for inspirational ideas about link bait.

Book recommendation from Lyndon is Robert Cialdini’s Influence: Psychology of Persuasion.

10.10-10.40am – Hannah Smith – “23,787 Ways to Build Links in 30 Minutes”

Hannah is great, she knows her stuff and she punches it down your throat in such a polite way that you are startled and happy all at once. Her talk was great with a load a superb tips to takeaway and use. The idea of asking for an image credit rather than an attribution link for infographics was inspired.

Hannah’s Slideshow Deck

Hannah Smith Takeaways -

“Stop talking like an SEO”

Do not ask for an attribution link, you want an image credit for your images.

Don’t write once and move on, become a regular contributor.

You don’t want a guest post you want a byline; yes, this does require more commitment.

Leverage your existing assets and create new assets to leverage.

Use Rapportive for finding emails in Gmail.

Use Boomerang for scheduling email reminders in Gmail.

http://www.tineye.com/ – does not handle large images though (like infographics) shame

Twitter chats: I was chatting to some lovely folks on the day Iain Bartholomew @iainbartholomew being one of them (he has done a very honest write-up of the day that is worth a read) http://www.perfectlyplausible.com/linklove-2013/

11:00-11.30am - Ian Lurie – “Enterprise Link Spam Analysis”

Ian was the techies’ sex machine; the air was palpable with excitement at this point.

Ian’s Slideshow Deck

Ian Lurie Takeaways -

Check out Google’s Prediction API if you are interested in knowing more about machine learning.

Machine learning is very real and is improving all the time

The context of your links is important and Google is very sensitive to context so consider this when cleaning up your link profile. Don’t just delete the link if the page looks spammy but the context is very relevant.

Ian introduced http://isitspam.portent.com/ as a tool that can be used to see if a link is spammy or not

11.30-12.00pm – Richard Baxter - “How to Build Agile and Actionable Link Data Reports. With APIs”

I have to admit that Richard lost me somewhat and i am sure i had seen the same talk a few times.

Richard Baxter  Takeaways -

SEO Tools for Excel to super charge your SEO analytics skills.

Find anything about APIs at Programmable Web.

Sharedcount.com have an API that gives you the number of social shares for a URL.

12:05 pm: I had a headache and had to go get a headache tablet and a massage

12:31 pm: DINNER – I ended up not actually eating anything as i was so nervous but i did host a table – this of course is not me its Duncan. I met some cool people on my table for ‘risky linkbuilding’ – and we talked about a few ideas, i actually wish we had had more time – if any of you guys are reading this, drop me a line OK

1.28pm: Red Nose Time. I have added an arrow to the people who did not wear noses, as they make me smile . Mediaworks did wear the red noses.

 1.30-2:00pm – Rand Fishkin – “How to Transform Your CEO into a Link Building, Social Sharing Machine”

Rand is a force of nature, I think he could talk about the inner workings of a Dyson vacuum cleaner cylinder head and still be sexy and that’s coming from a lesleybean. He gave some great insights into how CEO’s can use their power to promote their business and also make staff part of the culture not just making them fit into it.

Rands Slideshow Deck

Rand Fishkin  Takeaways -

SEOmoz spend $700 per month on cupcakes and $700,000 on Amazon Servers! Both are considered essential to the success of the business.

As a CEO become a marketer like these examples. Be a proactive industry contributor, do guest posts, get involved.

Empower your marketing team with development resources so they can leverage their efforts too.

CEOs amass favours, ask for links and shares by calling them in.

Embrace authenticity. People care more about why a company exists than what it produces. Wealthy people want to be hipsters now and have the latest cool thing that no one else has.

As SEOs we can encourage our client’s CEOs to use this influence and benefit the outcome we are trying to achieve.

 2:00-2:30pm - Ade Lewis – “Small Business SEO for £350 per month”

I love Ade, he was a Linklove virgin like me and I enjoyed his presentation as it was no nonsense, concentrating on affordable campaigns that work.

Ade’s Slideshow Deck

Ade Lewis Takeaways -

Identify orphaned pages and 404s then fix them. Use SEOmoz tools.

Use Buzzstream to find and manage outreach link building prospects.

Improve the site speed using Google Page Speed Tools.

Teapot have built an Link prospecting Tool to help you find linking opportunities

Check out Matt Beswick’s Guide to Outsourcing if you haven’t done it before.

Ade recommends using Text Broker for content but it takes a while to find the best writers at the best prices

2:30-3:00pm – Claire Stokoe – “Out of 5 million infographics only 1.3% will give you an orgasm in 0.3 of a millisecond”

I swore – a lot… a lot!!! but it was great and I did not need my notes. Think it took me a bit to get into it, but once up there, I felt fine. What I wanted more than anything, was not go in on the defensive ‘yes people think infographics are a bit of fad’ but I don’t and shouting that at someone will only enforce their negative approach… so I swore at them in a friendly way

Claire’s Slideshow Deck

Claire Stokoe Takeaways -

Infographics are visualisations of data, not just a collection of pretty graphics

Go to Colour Lovers for effective palettes

Use Reddit for promoting infographics

Identify outreach targets on LinkedIn and join the groups they are in

Always have at least three outreach target audiences for your infographic.

Get credibility by association.

Test your infographic before publishing

Walk the viewers through your infographic.. hold their hand through it

The header needs to tell the WHOLE story

Make them SCROLL!!!

2 more peeps worth a mention

@sarahesinfield

@mrkylemitchell (who offered me headache tablets)

3.05 pm: aaaaaaaand RELAX!!!

3.20-3.50pm - Will Critchlow – “The Future of Link Building”

Will is an intelligent and fun guy and this presentation did not disappoint, the first ‘Linklove is dead’ opening had a few people gasping. But it was a thoughtful look at how linkbuilding is changing and how to experiment, which i am all for.

Will’s Slideshow Deck

Will Critchlow Takeaways -

Link building is not dead but don’t do crappy link building because it can be harmful.

Concentrate on getting the best most relevant links and forget about manipulating opportunities for a quick win.

Check out Scott Cowley’s Ugly Infographics Pinterest Board for some great examples of what not to do.

Check out Jamie Steven’s slide deck on Technical Skills for Marketers if you need more technical oomph!

Things to do – to learn more skills -

Get together with a few colleagues from departments you don’t normally work with and debate a Harvard Business Review Case Study.

Contribute feedback to an open source project. It doesn’t have to be a very technical response, it could be pointing out a typo but do it. Use things like GitHub.

remove someone from a digital photo, you’ll learn some useful photo editing skills and it’s fun too!

film and edit some video. Use your smart phone and an app. Try to make it look good and put it on YouTube.

initiate a live usability test. In a coffee shop offer to buy a coffee for someone in return for them doing a live test on your website

Write a piece for a publication you previously bought (tip: it doesn’t have to be about marketing, it can be about motorbikes or gardening) and try to get it published.

4:00pm – Me and Wil with the @BloomSEOMonkey

 3.50-4.20pm – Q&A with the speakers from the afternoon sessions

Rand and Will Trying to figure out how i get my hair to do that.

Answer to the infographic sources question – http://www.mediaworks.co.uk/where-do-i-find-free-data-to-create-awesome-infographics/

Another top tip list for designing infpgraphics – http://www.mediaworks.co.uk/the-breaking-bad-formula-to-make-infographics-that-are-the-bomb/

4.20-4.50pm – All Speakers – “Let’s Get Real”

My joke was “don’t wear heavy wool under bright lights” ;/

One thing i should have mentioned was how to show up TOP in Reddit via paid ad’s.. this works really well, kicks the ass of FB and Twitter ad’s.. def worth a try. This is a super page by the oatmeal on how to do it.. http://www.reddit.com/ad_inq/

5:30pm – LinkLove 2013 Conference,London-AfterParty

I don’t drink so this is my slim line tonic face, pictured here with the lovely Dan Hoggan Head of SEO (it was not a flattering picture – thus the mask) at Mediaworks and Jonathan Birch who works on the Links team.

6:30pm – Train back to the North doodling – Siobhan in the office on a starbucks mug (artwork by Jonathan Birch)

6.45pm: A doodle of Rand by Dan made me confront his similarity to Wil Wheaton.

Evidence:

8:00pm – More doodling by all of us – this is Dan

11:00pm – Home to this -

Thanks to http://www.strategyinternetmarketing.co.uk/roundup-of-actionable-tips-from-distilleds-linklove-2013/ for the awesome takeaway list that i copied