Image: Natalie Martinez of NBC 5 Chicago and me after my interview about Facebook and freedom of speech. Yesterday, I made my TV debut as a spokesperson for Social Media Club [SMC] Chicago. Thanks to Natalie for tracking down Social Media Club on Facebook and leaving a message with Kristie Wells, SMC’s co-founder. Kristie sent me an email and I met up with Natalie in Greektown for an interview sparked by a local student whose Facebook activities resulted in a …

Thanks to my friend Francine McKenna who writes the terrific blog re:the auditors, for inviting me to speak at this Chicago’s Information Systems Audit and Control Association Chapter [ISACA] event.

On March 20, I’ll lead a workshop on how to use social media to build your personal brand, tap into resource full networks and add value to any company. Register for ISACA’s career development seminar.

Francine gave me perimssion to cross post the announcement.

A Special Career Program Sponsored By Chicago …

Who’s who on the Web?

Forbes recently released its fourth annual 25 top Web Celebs. To be a contender, you had to meet this criteria . . .

Each candidate was ranked in four areas: Web references as calculated by Google, traffic ranking of their home page as calculated by Alexa, TV/radio mentions and press clips compiled from Factiva, and number of followers on microblogging site Twitter. These four categories were totaled and weighted to produce a final score, then …

How do you handle negativity, privacy, branding, security on Facebook? Thanks to a reader who asked these questions about Facebook and their business. Have IRL [in real life] questions you need answered? Leave them in the comment box, text 630.207.7530 or email corywestmedia @gmail.com.

1. How do we manage negative feedback about our product/services?
Monitor comments, respond immediately online and contact personally. Most blogs give you the option of approving all comments before they go up. On Facebook, you can delete …

Back in the days when I was in sales, bc – before computers, we relied on a red bound directory to tell us who to call on. While you can get much richer and deeper information faster on the Internet, making a list of target companies focuses your efforts. And, having a set of filters lets you sift out the best matches from the millions of options out there. A site called manta.com lists over 67 million companies. Whether you …

Online you can be anyone you want to be. Not that you should, but you can.

While we would never, ever recommend our clients create even a slightly fictitious persona, some people can and do make things up every day in real life and online.

Over the weekend, I watched a rerun of this Saturday Night Live skit with Christopher Walken and Tim Meadows. Called “The Census Taker,” Walken answers questions about his life like . . . number …

Gary Vaynerchuk is coming to Chicago tonight! I’ll be there. Because it’s Gary V Day in Chicago, I’m sharing this post from October 9, 2008 with 20 tips and a video. Enjoy! And…yes, I’ll be back with a report on what it’s like to meet Gary live. Thanks and congratulations to Kally Olexa for bringing Gary to town on his Crushit! book tour.

How does DNA relate to personal branding and community building? Read this post to find out.

On twitter, Gary …

image: shutterstock.com

In about a week, I leave for my third BlogWorld and New Media Expo Conference in Las Vegas. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with friends like Artist Tara Reed from Oregon, Carlos Hernandez from San Francisco [if you'll be there, please leave a comment or tell me "I'm going to BlogWorld!" on twitter] and a complete cadre of folks I haven’t seen since the last one. Not to mention all of the Chicago folks I hang out …

What do you tell people you do when you meet them for the first time? Are you a title, a profession, an entrepreneur or something else?

On the way to a networking event, I decided to introduce myself as “The Optimizer” or someone who optimizes people, places and things. It’s fun to test out different personas like this at social networking events.

For the most part “The Optimizer” passed the test. At the end of the evening, one of my friends suggested …