Mike Rynchek will be representing Spyder Trap Online Marketing as a guest mentor at Ad Fed’s Mentorship Circle Event at 5:30pm tomorrow at Spill the Wine in downtown Minneapolis.

“We are happy to be involved with Ad Fed and are looking forward to connecting with some of the young talent in the Twin Cities.” said Rynchek, who will be discussing interactive and marketing topics with the group.

The Ad Fed Mentorship Circle program is designed to allow members to individually interact with industry mentors by meeting them in an informal group setting called a Circle Group. These Mentorship Circle Events are held four times a year and allow participants and industry professionals the chance to talk one on one and in a group discussion setting. It is a great opportunity to learn from the best and the brightest in the industry, network with professionals and learn from your peers.

The Ad Fed Mentorship Circle program does not facilitate the match between an individual mentor and a mentee, however, these events are designed to allow a mentor and potential mentee to make a connection, and possibly develop a mentor/mentee relationship outside of Ad Fed. Participants can also choose to simply attend quarterly Circle Events where mentorship will happen via group discussions.

To meet Mike at the event, and to see the other mentors attending the event, visit the Ad Fed site for more details.

Jason Douglas

Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to attend Reupations with keynote speaker Chris Brogan, and panelists Beth LaBreche from LaBreche;  Gabby Nelson from Select Comfort , Paula Prahl from Best Buy, and Brian Vanderah from Quality Bike Products.

Brogan kicked off the event with a Zulu greeting ‘Sawubona’, which translates to ‘I see you’, which means ‘I know that you’re there and I acknowledge you are another person’. His presentation was a nice mix of random thoughts, dry humor (even a Star Wars reference), and serious points.

The main takeaways from Brogan’s presentation and the panel discusion:

-There are three main parts of social media: Listening. Connecting. Publishing.

-Brogan said that we should ‘connect with the verticals that aren’t yours’. He was critical of the Minneapolis and St. Paul social media community. He cited Pittsburgh as leaders in social media everything. What the MSP group needs to do is not be so exclusive, but learn how to work together. He added ‘it’s a lot easier to go to battle with a large army.’

-Brogan called Vanilla Ice a social media prophet, citing the line ‘Stop. Collaborate, and listen!’ That gained a fair amount of laughter, but was an interesting take.

-Beth LaBreche discussed how she invited her clients to the Reputations event and even sent out copies of Brogan’s Trust Agents to out-of-state clients. One client responded very negatively to the book and said ‘they’re not ready’ for this. This was very apparent in the attendance of this event. One of my first tweets from the Spyder Trap account: ‘good crowd forming for #reputations #broganmpls. A lot of familiar faces.’ Events such as this one wasn’t necessarily for social media professionals like myself and companies like Spyder Trap. It’s the businesses who have a fear, a hesitation, or a lack of knowledge about what social media can do for a business that need to be at these events. The question: how do we get them there?

Overall, this was a very fun event. I ran into some familiar faces, and was lucky enough to talk with him for a while, and even snap a picture with him. Look for more with Brogan and Spyder Trap in the near future.

For those who  attended, following the hashtags, or watching on UStream, what were your thoughts on Brogan’s presentation and the panel discussion?

Spyder Trap Online Marketing’s own Jason Douglas will be featured on a panel during the November 2009 Marketing Mixer hosted by the Minnesota American Marketing Association (MN AMA). The topic of the Mixer will be “Secret Marketing Tools Revealed,” in which the panel of experts will discuss useful marketing tools you may not know about. It’s sure to be a good time!

Date: Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
Time: 6:30-9:00pm
Venue: Majors Sports Cafe, Bloomington

More information about the event can be found on the MN AMA Events site here.

Glenn Seaberg
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Mike Rynchek of the Minneapolis online marketing firm Spyder Trap Online Marketing, will discuss social media and its role in marketing at the Minnesota Market for Entrepreneurs Conference. The event, hosted at the Alltel Center in Mankato, MN on February 23rd, will attract hundreds of business people from the greater Minnesota area. Mike will be joined by John Arms, President of Wingnut Advertising, with whom Spyder Trap collaborates extensively.

Most recently, the two agencies’ combined social media expertise proved critical to the success of the Vote Yes movement in Minnesota. Using social media including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube, Spyder Trap Online Marketing and Wingnut Advertising engineered the first social media campaign that directly led to the passage of a constitutional amendment anywhere in the United States.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit: http://www.mnmarketplace.org

You can follow Mike on Twitter – @MikeRynchek, or Spyder Trap Online Marketing @Spyder_Trap, or Wingnut Advertising @WingnutInc.

Brad Wellman
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Spyder Trap Online Marketing is proud to announce their support for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. By teaming up with Smiths Medical, Spyder Trap Online Marketing will participate in the 2009 Walk to Cure Diabetes. The Minneapolis event will be held at the Mall of America in Bloomington on Saturday, January 24.

“The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation is the leader in research leading to a cure for type-1 diabetes in the world. It sets the global agenda for diabetes research, and is the largest charitable funder and advocate of diabetes science worldwide.

Since its founding in 1970 by parents of children with type 1 diabetes, JDRF has awarded more than $1.3 billion to diabetes research, including more than $156 million in FY2008. In FY2008, the Foundation funded more than 1,000 centers, grants in laboratories, hospitals, and industry, and fellowships in 22 countries.”

More information about the 2009 Walk to Cure Diabetes, as well as how you can register to participate or to sponsor a walker, visit their website at http://www.jdrf.org/mnnd.

Mike Rynchek
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

I would first like to thank the Midwest Direct Marketing Association for asking me to speak at their Social Media luncheon last Thursday January 15 at the Nicollet Island Inn in Minneapolis. Due to the high number of requests for the PowerPoint presentation I decided to also post it to the Spyder Trap blog. Also, below you will find pictures from the event along with a video of the presentation. You can also check out our upcoming speaking engagements in the events section of the Spyder Trap site. Finally, if you have any questions regarding Social Media or online marketing in general please do not hesitate to contact me directly at mrynchek@spydertrap.com or you can follow me on Twitter at @mikerynchek or @spyder_trap.

Download Social Media Presentation

View Midwest Direct Marketing Association Pictures

View video Social Media Presentation

Social Media Success Stories

Mike Rynchek Discussing Groundswell Theory

Mike Rynchek Midwest Direct Marketing Association Social Media Event

Mike Rynchek of Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Brad Wellman
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Spyder Trap Online Marketing is proud to announce their very own Mike Rynchek will be presenting during the Featured Speaker Series at the Midwest Direct Marketing Association next Monday January 15th at the Nicollet Island Inn.  Below is a quick summary of the event.  Be sure to register in advance and we will look forward to seeing you there.  If you have any questions feel free to contact Mike directly at mrynchek@SpyderTrap.com or follow him on Twitter at @mikerynchek.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you’re barraged with terms like “Web 2.0” and “social media”—not to mention a giant helping of alphabet soup (acronyms and abbreviations).

Relax! Mike knows how confusing the world of online marketing can be. At our January 15th Featured Speaker Series luncheon, he’ll demystify many terms and concepts that have infiltrated our marketing world.

Mike will also help you understand how a variety of organizations are achieving their objectives with the help of powerful social media tools and tactics. His company was behind the “Vote Yes Minnesota” ballot initiative that passed in November—despite the faltering economy. Mike will discuss how social media influenced the outcome.

Mike Rynchek
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Closing out the week with the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal, Spyder Trap Online Marketing was pleased to participate in an expert panel discussion.  The goal of the panel is to provide advice to growing businesses facing challenges in the area of growth management, marketing, managing cots etc and is the Business Journals version of a makeover show.  Spyder Trap Online Marketing represented the online marketing portion of the discussion providing insight and feedback in the areas of product placement, marketing strategy and online marketing tactics.  Other areas of representation in the discussion included members of the legal, Public Relations, Marketing and industry experts in the product field.

We’ve been doing it for a couple of years and it works quite well — we always have good interaction between the subject and experts (and sometime between conflicting experts who each have their own ideas on how to approach a problem) and often the subject learns something altogether new about themselves or their business. An owner who comes in looking for advice on technology may find out her real issue involved delegation and training, for example.  Mark Reilly – Managing Editor, Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal

Special thanks to the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal for allowing Spyder Trap Online Marketing to participate in the discussion.  Look for us in the July edition of the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal.

Mike Rynchek
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Today Spyder Trap Online Marketing showed its analytics side today by participating in the Evantage Consulting and Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) Web Analytics Panel. The purpose of this panel was to gauge and discuss the level of investment, usage and sophistication of web analytics across multiple industries and disciplines. The outcome is a comprehensive survey and white paper that focused on key issues surrounding the web analytics industry and how it influences not only marketing decisions but general business decisions respectively. In 2006 Evantage Consulting worked with the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) to form a web analytics usage survey in the Twin Cities marketplace. The survey was also paired with a white paper that was very well received on a national level and even made it to some of the web analytics most respected blogs and news sources.

We can all gain key insights from determining the movement of the analytics industry over time Additionally this year, we would like to expand the survey somewhat to understand the role that web analytics plays in marketing decision making, and address some of the key issues facing the industry. Our hope is that this survey will be one piece in helping to foster more of a sense of community and develop best practices amongst Twin Cities analytics practitioners. Andrew Janis – Senior Marketing Consultant at Evantage Consulting.

Spyder Trap Online Marketing would like to thank Robin Carpenter, Kate McRoberts and Andrew Janis for allowing us to be a part of this web analytics panel. We all eagerly await the results of this survey and the impact it will have in the online and offline marketing world.

Other Attendees Included:

- Mike Rynchek – Spyder Trap Online Marketing
- Josh Dahmes – Risdall Marketing Group
- Jason Douglas – Risdall Marketing Group
- Tim Carpenter – Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota
- Lisa Carlston – Marvin Windows and Doors
- Debbie Zuckerman – Think Link Solutions
- Bridgette Schwartzbauer – Independent Consultant

Josh Dahmes of Risdall Marketing Group taking a moment off of the analytics discussion to enjoy the sweet life as an online marketer.