Pink Banana Media & LGBTBrandVoice.com

Our LGBT Marketing Conference held at the Radisson Hotel Westside was an incredible success, thanks to the support of our key partners including OneGoodLove.com, Lesbian News, Frontiers Magazine and Echelon Magazine.  In addition, we worked closely with local LGBT chambers of commerce in the area as well, including the Long Beach LBCBN, Palm Spring's Desert Business Association and the California Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Key presenters included not only Matt Skallerud (Pink Banana Media) and Tom Roth (Community Marketing) but also Rick Lugash of Next for Small Business discussing the good, the bad and the ugly of creating good copy, Jerime Black of Barefoot Winery reviewing their successes over the years in LGBT marketing and Frank Mastronuzzi of OneGoodLove.com talking about mastering search engine optimization. Matt Skallerud presented some of the latest in social media marketing, including some new topics such as FourSquare and mobile phone technologies and

A year ago, I was telling folks that sooner rather than later, there would be several thousand social media marketers out there and that this still wouldn’t be enough to service the needs of businesses large and small seeking to tap into social media marketing as an integral part of their company’s 21 st century marketing strategy .  It’s safe to say I was right, but that was an easy one to predict.  The same phenomenon happened in the mid-90s when every company realized at some point along the way that they needed a website, only to find thousands of web designers from which to choose from.  Many call this era the “Internet’s Wild West,” where anyone who could put together some HTML code was able to charge anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars, often for the same quality of website. Where we’re at with social media marketers is being compared to that era quite often nowadays, and it comes back to me where friends and potential clients are asking me to desc

Over the past year, our company has been focused very strongly in social media marketing, helping to both  manage our clients' social marketing efforts, as well as doing a lot of education in the form of workshops, seminars and webinars, teaching clients how to do this type of marketing on their own.  A lot of emphasis has been placed on "tying all of the social media pieces together", but one area that we've not spent a lot of time on has been performance-based ads with Google and Facebook.  Until now. By default, social media marketing will work to improve a company's search engine positioning on Google, Bing and Yahoo as well. These and other search engines are incorporating more and more social media in their search results, including Facebook pages, LinkedIn groups and blogs. In addition, these search engines are incorporating Twitter and Facebook status updates as well, selecting those status updates that are shared the most (commented on, liked, retweet

Integrating your blog, photos and videos into one complete social media infrastructure As we enter into the 2nd half of 2010, social media seems to be taking on an even more pervasive and dominant slice of our attention span, and thus our lives, with Facebook leading the pack (500 million strong and counting) in where we now find out about news items first as well as our friend’s antics as displayed in photos and video.  Status updates, limited to 140 characters on Twitter and 420 characters on Facebook, have become the norm for one of the top ways we stay up to date with what’s happening nowadays, and every news media and blogger around the world is now making sure their headlines are making their way into Twitter with direct (and measurable) links back to their content. So how can your business play a role in this space?  Is your company’s marketing efforts, as they stand now, even relevant in the world of social media or does they need a change when it comes to getting the word

Based upon our successful seminar and webinar series we've been presenting on Social Network and Web 2.0 Marketing over the past few years, we've developed this 17-part Social Network Marketing HOW-TO GUIDE , walking you through each step in promoting your company using social network marketing in a careful and very detailed format. Building Your Web 2.0 Business Presence Content Tools for your Web 2.0 Business Presence How these basic social networking tools work together Managing and promoting events in social networking Facebook News Feed Messaging and direct communication tools in social networks Social network marketing and search Facebook advertising - how to Other social networks (automated ones including Plaxo and FriendFeed) Other social networks (manual) Putting Twitter To Use For Your Company Other social networks useful for content How to make your website's content maximized for social networking tools Measuring Social Network Marke

Together with David Paisley and Tom Roth of Community Marketing, we put together our first full-day conference on marketing to the gay & lesbian community in 2010.  With over 100 attendees, this first event appears to have been a success (we'll know more once we get those feedback surveys in!)... the tone was set from the very beginning with Jarrett Barrios, President of GLAAD ( www.glaad.org ), delivering the opening remarks, speaking passionately on LGBT representation in media and advertising today.  One can get a sense of the passion from his now-famous quote "I'm not yelling... I'm Cuban!" From that point forward, the conference moved into high gear, with presentations on the latest research findings done by Community Marketing and a case study presentation by Scott Seitz of SPI Marketing about Ru Paul's Drag Race.  After also hearing presentations by Richard Oceguera of NGLCC-NY ( www.NGLCC.org ) and other local representatives from OutProfessional

There is a lot of information about the LGBT and allied community as consumers, but the same cannot be said for business data. Be part of the first ever National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce LGBT Business and Enterprise Study now underway.  The results from this survey will add significant weight to our quest for equality by outlining information that can be used to influence corporate decision makers and local, state and national elected officials . This historic survey will lead to the greatest gathering of LGBT related business data ever complied. The findings will be the key to continued growth, development and understanding of the LGBT business owners and managers and will help ensure decision makers at every level have a deeper and more accurate picture of who LGBT people are and the power we wield in the broader business community. Take the survey before it closes on April 15, 2010 and be entered to win a $500 Visa gift certificate. Stand up and be counted by taking th

Gay & Lesbian Marketing Conference  April 30, 2010 Westin Times Square, New York City Community Marketing, Inc . and Pink Banana Media have announced a full-day educational and networking conference for business leaders interested in growing their LGBT market share. The Gay & Lesbian Marketing Conference follows successful regional programs held by the organizers throughout the country over the past several years. Participants from the New York City region, as well as across North America are invited to attend the conference. "In a soft economic market, the gay and lesbian segment presents an especially valid and viable opportunity for growth,” said David Paisley, the event organizer. “The Gay & Lesbian Marketing Conference offers a comprehensive research, advertising, marketing, and communications forum that will help attendees reach a broad spectrum of LGBT consumers." A One-Day Gay MBA : Whether you are a long-time LGBT market expert or new to the

Based upon our successful seminar and webinar series we've been presenting on Social Network and Web 2.0 Marketing over the past few years, we've developed this 17-part Social Network Marketing HOW-TO GUIDE , walking you through each step in promoting your company using social network marketing in a careful and very detailed format. Building Your Web 2.0 Business Presence Facebook fan page LinkedIn Group Twitter Profile Discuss the power of branding in the small square icon image Content Tools for your Web 2.0 Business Presence Blog for the written word and integrated into Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn How to choose a blog software (Wordpress, Blogspot or Tumblr) What to blog about - story to tell for your business Examples for destination marketing Commenting, labels and tags Status Updates and Twitter Discuss hash tags, @ symbols, etc. Photos added to Flickr and integrated into Facebook, Twitter and blog Video

The IGLCC invites corporations to be part of the second edition of the International Business Equality Index The International Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (IGLCC) is proud to invite all major international corporations to participate in the 2010 edition of the International Business Equality Index survey that will measure how they are performing internationally in issues related to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community. The International Business Equality Index (Index) is designed to help corporations understand how they are performing in this area relative to other companies, in specific countries around the world. It is the only diversity index that measures performance in multiple countries; and in most countries it is the only diversity index available. http://www.iglcc.org/newsletter/press-release-20100315.html

Do you want to reach gay men on one of the hottest new media platforms of 2010 the iPhone app!? We have teamed up with the #1 iPhone app reaching gay men today...  Grindr! With a reach of over 500,000 gay men worldwide (150,000 members visiting daily) and growing, Grindr has become not only the hottest new buzzword among gay men across the globe, it is also the top iPhone app in use by this desirable demographic. Set your company apart from the rest and let them see your brand associated with some of the most cutting-edge technology today! Grindr  has several advertising options as outlined below. Banner ads  - We are able to offer you banner advertising on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis of $0.25. We can link this banner ad to a website of your choice, an iPhone app, iTunes store URL, etc. To get started, we would work with you to set both a daily and a monthly budget. From this budget, we would monitor and serve your banner ads, providing you an up-to-date report as to how your ad

::  Happy New Year - Updated Branding & Company Direction  :: We wanted to take this time to wish you all success and prosperity in 2010! I think it's safe to say that most of us feel the positive excitement in the air as we enter this new decade with hope and faith that our directions for business and personal growth will know no boundaries! That said, we are excited to announce a new company launch for 2010 -  SKAL Media . SKAL Media is a culmination of all we've been developing and striving for over the past few years, and brings all of our social media marketing efforts to a focus. A lot of what we've been doing for clients has been in the form of  education and training in social media marketing , ranging from webinars and seminars to consulting for clients for 30-60 day periods to help them develop their social media marketing strategy to include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and more. We're now formalizing these efforts in the form of  full-day work