As many of you know, I’m a active user of Google Alerts.  I have alerts set for keywords, customers, competitors, industry associations, etc.

My way of keeping up on the latest news without having to search for it.

Pin Alerts works very similar:

1. Register for an account  Click Here
2. Enter a website URL that you’re interested in tracking.
3. Confirm your email address.
4. PinAlerts regularly checks to see if there are new pins on Pinterest from your domain.
5. When there are new results, PinAlerts notifies you via email.

The reason I keep posting new Pinterest Tools when I find them is, Industrial Companies are embracing Pinterest.

Check out the new Empowering Pumps Pinterest page.

If you missed my last Pinerest Tool recommendation click here.

Building on the principles of his best-selling book “The Mirror Test“,  Jeff will discuss his new book “Running the Gauntlet” – taking you on a step-by-step journey down the road of positive change and teaching you how to take control of positive change within your company.

At this luncheon, learn how to:

• Develop a “takeover” mentality to execute the right changes
• Summon the vision and courage to drive and sustain the changes
• Sharpen your mental and emotional focus for a lasting strategic change

Change is already happening all around you. The most dangerous move in business is the failure to make a move at all.

Wednesday, May 16,  11:30am – 1:00pm
Omni Westside
13210 Katy Freeway (at Eldridge Parkway)

Hear what Jeff himself has to say about this event and register online at www.bmahouston.com/mayluncheon.

I have seen Jeff live a number of times and every time I hear him, I take away something to implement.  You will not want to miss this event.

If you have no idea what Pinned means or have never been on the hot social media site Pinterest, please check out our previous Pinterest blog posts.

Help with Pinterest

Pinterest for Business

Now for the new Pinterest for Business Tool:

Type in http://pinterest.com/source/domainname.com (replace domain name.com with your domain name and extension)

Below are some  examples:

http://pinterest.com/source/blackanddecker.com

http://www.pinterest.com/source/cat.com

If you get a 404 error it means your company does not have any pins.  If the page opens, it will show you just how many pins your company has.

When you have time check out some of the popular brands like Starbucks, Coca Cola, GAP, and  some industrial brands like 3M, Boeing and others.

If you know of any additional Pinterest Tools, please mention them in the blog comments below.

Here are some of the highlights from my week at OTC 2012.

It was a true pleasure hearing about the history of OTC from C.A. Richards and Chuck Richards of  C.A. Richards and Associates at the MTS OTC Event held at the Museum of Natural Science. The all time attendance record was 108,161 set in 1982.  Just two years later the oil industry saw some very tough times and there were actually no exhibits at that OTC, just papers and presentations.  The attendance for that year was around 2,500 attendees.

On Day 4 of OTC 2012, I spent time in the outside exhibits and the new OTC Pavilion.  I spoke with some of the exhibitors and found out a lot of them were first time exhibitors at OTC.  Some thought they would never get into OTC but found out with all the additional space, they actually had a chance. With the addition of the outside pavilion OTC 2012 had the largest amount of exhibit space with 641,350 square feet.

As my OTC Day 3 Blog mentioned, it was Go Big or Go Home for the exhibits.  I could not get over the size of the booths this year.  It truly shows that the offshore oil industry is busy.

Touch Screen technology - Quality Connector Systems, a website client of Upstream Marketing had a unique touch screen in their booth to request product brochure information.  The Touch Screen technology was offered by 2020 Exhibits their trade show booth provider.  Easy to use technology with some great tracking analytics.

I found 4 local Houston companies who on their current website are advertising for past OTC event participation.  I ask you, if you visited a company’s website and on the home page they had Visit us at OTC 2010, what first comes to your mind?

Are they still in business?

What’s up with this company?  If their event info is this dated, can I trust their product info.

Dated website, Dated Company… (your visitor just hit the back button and moved to the next company listed in their Google search for your product line)

Make sure you keep your event list up-to-date.

OTC 2013 will be held May 6 – 9, 2013.

It has been a long time since I have seen exhibit booths the size of this year’s exhibits.  All the major players are here and their presence is BIG.

Most of the major equipment makers have the actual equipment in their booths and we are not talking outside booths.  The main exhibit hall which is called Reliant Center is where you can see these large exhibits.

Here are just of the few companies with large exhibits:

GE Oil & Gas

FMC

Cameron

Stewart & Stevenson

CAT

Oil States

NOV

Haskel

Tesco

Halliburton

Schlumberger

Dragon/Tiger

Brazil – large country display promoting Brazil companies.

All of the booths are packed with people and the one’s that are 2 story look like they have client meetings going on upstairs. The Oil & Gas Industry is strong!

If you make it out to the show, make sure you visit the Spotlight on Technology Showcase.  Some great award winning technology.  The sessions being held on the 2nd floor of Reliant Center are excellent.  I attended one on Deep Water Construction Equipment – a vision for the future. 

I have also seen some of the smaller exhibitors sitting down in their booth with their head down reading email on their smartphone as I walk by.  As my good friend and trades show training veteran Hiett Ives with Show Dynamics would say “It does not matter the size of your booth, what matters is the quality of leads you come away with.”   Always give a good impression when someone is walking down the isle and sees your booth.  Then ask the right questions to qualify your prospect.

OTC 2012 Day Three – Live from the floor of OTC is correct.  With the easy to use content management system that the Upstream Marketing website is programmed in, I can blog and make updates to this website from anywhere there is an internet connection.  I’m actually writing this blog post from the Internet Cafe on the second floor of Reliant Center.

OTC 2012 Day One

Registration

Registration can be a little crazy so here are some tips to help:

Registration areas are located in Reliant Center and Reliant Arena

Lobby B (Pre-Registered / Self Registration / Guest Cards

Lobby E (Pre-Registered / Self Registration / Guest Cards

Lobby D (all registrations)  Exhibitor Registration is located in Lobby D.

Arena (all registrations)

If you have registered in advance, you can proceed to Pre-Registered kiosks.

Registration Onsite – go to the self registration Kiosks.  Here you can process your own registration with a credit card.

OTC Show Guide

276 pages this year.

FYI, pages 152-276 are the list of exhibitors with contact and company information.

There is also a fold out show floor map available.

On your mobile phone you can access http://m.myiwf.com/otc/ or online at http://online.myiwf.com/otc2012/Index.aspx

Outside Booths

Reliant Center and Reliant Arena are two of the more popular destinations.  Don’t forget about the Outside Booths.

Many of your Outside Booths have the actual products in their tents.  This is a great way to see the products first hand.

At Upstream Marketing, we normally see most products in photos, text or video.  I personally make the outside booths a stop for me, so I can see first hand what the products actually look like.

For more information on Day One,  visit The Official OTC 2012 Show Daily Newspaper published by World Oil.

See you for OTC 2012 Day Two.

The Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) is held annually at Reliant Center in Houston. Each year, OTC attracts more than 70,000 attendees and 2,000 exhibiting companies representing more than 110 countries.

Upstream Marketing has a number of clients that are exhibitors at OTC 2012. Below are few of our clients and their OTC 2012 Booth Number.

Stewart & Stevenson – Booth 3141

Hawk Industries – Booth 3505

Quality Connector Systems – Booth 7565

Whitefield Plastics – Booth 1963

Containerhouse – Booth 4233

Kepner Plastic – Booth 3106

Shea Writing & Training Solutions – Booth 4211

PSRG – Booth 5406

Custom Safety Products – Booth 4409

Norrisseal – Booth 2141

LHR Services – Booth 3405

ATCOM – Booth 4565

We wish all of our clients a very successful OTC 2012.

The Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) is held annually at Reliant Center in Houston. Each year, OTC attracts more than 70,000 attendees and 2,000 exhibiting companies representing more than 110 countries.

Below are some tools to help you make the most of this year’s OTC.

OTC 2012 Resources

Website

App for Smartphone

OTC 2012 Official Schedule of Events

Registration

Exhibitor List

Networking Events for OTC 2012

Now comes the part everyone is emailing and calling me about.  OTC 2012 Open Networking Events.  Below are list of different networking events.  Please remember that a lot of these events require you to RSVP.

You are welcome to post OTC 2012 Networking events you know of in the comments section of this blog and I will keep the list of Events updated throughout OTC 2012.

Thursday, April 26th

AMA Houston and supporting organizations OTC Marketing Kick Off Party

Where:  Courtyard on St. James – 1885 St. James

When: 5:30pm – 8:30pm

One of the largest pre-OTC events.

RSVP to Tad Grow – Tad@branditmarketing.org

SUT Houston Pre-OTC Mixer

Society for Underwater Technology

Where:  Vintropolis – 10001 Westheimer Road

When: 5:00pm – 8:00pm

Excellent Association for those involved in Underwater Technology

RSVP

Wednesday, May 2nd

The Oil & Gas Magazine OTC Party

Where:  Mo’s – 1801 Post Oak

When:  6pm

LinkedIn Events Listing for this event

Thursday, May 3rd

Energy People Connect Post OTC Mixer

Where:  The Remington at St. Regis Hotel – 1919 Briar Oaks Lane

When: 5:30pm

Energy People Connect – to become a member of Energy People Connect

Again, this a list of events that Upstream Marketing has received information on.  If you know of an OTC 2012 Networking Event, please feel free to list the event information in the comments section of this blog.

Have a successful OTC and remember to support the supporting OTC Organizations

Upstream Marketing is proud to be a Marine Technology Society (MTS) Member.

We are simply living in a world where everything is controlled by technology and social media. Social media sites are all the rage, and have been for quite some time. They are good for networking, catching up with old friends and even promoting your business. Yes, you can use social media sites such as Pinterest to promote your business.

Pinterest was launched in 2010, but it’s now one of the fastest growing social media site. Pinterest has roughly 11 million users per week. so it would be a great place to promote your business. Pinterest, like Facebook, Twitter and Linked has a mobile application so Pinterest users can access the site whenever and wherever they want.

Using Pinterest for business is very simple, the people who use the site will simply pin a button on their board. If they’ve pinned your button on their board then other people they are connected with, will be able to see it. It’s kind of like word of mouth advertising, but a lot faster and better.

Pinterest  is very simple to use, the interface is very easy to understand.  If you have not done, so please read our first blog post in the Pinerest series called Help with Pinerest

Pinterest is mainly used to connect multiple people to things they all find interesting. Very neat, easy concept for promoting businesses on as well.

If you have a pin, and your business is very popular among a lot of people then they add it to their boards. Or people who don’t know exactly what type of services you offer will be interested in finding out more about your business. It’s a great way to reach a lot of potential clients and recurring clientele.

Perhaps the most powerful business Pinterest tool is the ability to post images of your company’s products or services on your Pinterest board and link them back to your website.  How many of you currently have a product catalog?  Think of it as a social product catalog.

Pinterest is a good tool to drive buyers to some websites.  Retailers are experiencing increases in web traffic from Pinterest and sales resulting from those visits have increased.

Here is a list of some of top brands on Pinterest.  Some you probably never heard of.

The Perfect Palette

Real Simple Magazine

HGTV

Whole Foods

If you are wondering what The Perfect Pallet is The Perfect Palette, a wedding blog that explores “the color palette possibilities for your wedding” and serves as a resource for other wedding ideas.

Next in our Pinterest Blog Series will be the Top 4 Tips on Using Pinterest for Business.

Thank you to Fort Bend Toyota for the Internet access to write this blog post.

If you are wondering what indexed is and why this is important, before your website can rank well on Google, Yahoo, Bing and most search engines, your pages must be indexed in the search engines.  This means your site is present in the search engines.

Here are some simple steps to find out the number of Indexed Web Pages for your domain in Google.

1. Visit Google and in the search box, type in the following information.   site:yourdomain.com  (use your own domain address in place of yourdomain.com)  So if I was doing an index search for UpstreamMarketing,net I would type in site:upstreammarketing.net

2. Note how many pages returned.  The total at the top is the total number of pages indexed for your domain name.

The higher number of indexed pages, the more value your website has in the eyes of the search engines.   Remember content is king!