Cameron Olthuis

I am asking you this question, seriously. So feel free to leave your answer in the comments. I’m convinced after dominating the ASP World Tour this year that Kelly Slater is the greatest athlete ever. He won a record breaking 9th World Title this year and just finished winning a record breaking 6th Pipeline Masters. I’m pretty sure he already held the record in both of those as well.

Is he a greater athlete than Tiger Woods? Michael Jordan? Lance Armstrong? I think so. There is no other athlete that has dominated his respective sport the way Kelly has.

My buddy Mat from Dream Systems Media did an awesome little Q&A with me on Social Media. He asked some really great questions, like this one…

What would be your best tips for someone brand new to social media? (how to grow in the communities etc.)

The best tip I can give anyone brand new to social media is to actually use social media. Before you jump in the pool you need to learn how to swim. Take some time to understand how certain social media sites work the way they do. Watch and learn from others marketing campaigns. Get to know how the social media crowd works, how they think, and what interests them. Expect a fair amount of trial and error before you hit a home run.

Check it out.

Common sense tip that’s always been a great motivator for me to make sure I increase traffic every single day: Hustle every new day until I beat out the metrics from the day before.

Whatever goals you’ve set for yourself, you need to wake up the next morning ready to do the hustle until you beat whatever benchmark you hit yesterday. If your goal is sales; you need to wake up tomorrow and work your ass off until you get at least one more sale than you did today. If you don’t do better than the day before, you’re business is going in the wrong direction. If your goal is traffic, wake up tomorrow with the mindset of getting just one more unique than you did today.

Everyday I wake up ready to beat yesterday’s traffic(or sales, leads, etc), whatever it takes. I like to make it a game and get in the competitive mind frame of beating myself every single day. It keeps it fun too. I like to make sure I do the necessary tasks asap that day. That way it gives me the advantage of having more time to reach my goals that day.

Whether I got 1 more page view that day or 1000- as long as I’m trending up and to the right I’m trending in the right direction.

I’m heading to Las Vegas in the morning for Webmaster World’s Pubcon Conference for the week. I’m speaking on social media on Tuesday morning, my session is about understanding the complex social media playing field. I hope that you can all come see my presentation. For the time ever, I’m actually preparing it in advance. Normally, I procrastinate and end up finishing at 3AM morning of. Needless to say this results in a presentation that isn’t as good as it could be. Not this time, I want to knock this one out of the park.

I’ll be in Vegas all week and I hope to meet everyone of you that will be there. Please come say hi to me, if you mention this post and there’s a bar nearby, rounds are on me. Looking forward to seeing you all there.

I got an email yesterday from a reader asking what my strategy is to survive the economic recession. I’ve actually been preparing for it, for awhile now. I pretty much saw this coming at least a year ago and really knew it was coming fast during late spring/early summer. The writing has been all over the wall for awhile now, sorry folks but this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. So what I am doing?

I’m saving every penny I possibly can so that I can invest into as many distressed assets as possible. There are going to be some amazing opportunities to pick up some sweet deals on web companies over the next couple years and I want to be the one picking them up. Quite frankly, there are a lot of websites run by people who don’t have clue, so when I can swoop in, pick those up and rehab them, I will.

I’m spending as little money as possible on myself right now. I stopped buying new surfboards, taking surf trips, buying new clothes, going out as much, I downsized my house, don’t drive a fancy car, etc etc etc. The only thing I want to spend money on right now is distressed websites.

So in a nutshell, that’s it. I’m not only going to survive this recession, but I’m going to come out on top, much better off then I am now. What’s your plan?

Lately, we’ve seen a lot of doom & gloom reports in regards to what will happen with online advertising during the recession we’re already in. We’re even seeing some of the more popular online media companies slash their workforces in anticipation that ad spending on the Internet will drastically decline in the near future. While I certainly think companies will be forced to watch their spending, especially in regards to advertising, it’s my prediction that more money will be coming to the Internet and here is why.

1) Save gas – More and more people will be trying to save money in every way possible. This will include saving gas by making more purchases online instead of driving around town looking for the best deals.

2) Smarter purchasing – As people start to really watch their purchasing decisions they will be comparison shopping online and doing more research on the web before they make purchases. This will also lead to more online purchases as they realize these are where the best deals are.

3) More time – Again, chalk this up under the people saving more money category. As people begin to watch their spending habits, it will mean less time & money spent doing things like going out to eat, going to movies, traveling, etc etc. These will give people more free time at home, which in turn will mean more time spent online.

4) Measureable – Companies that are cutting back on ad spending will only put their money in what they absolutely know provides results. This gives online advertising a big advantage over pretty much every other form of advertising as it’s all trackable down to the click/penny.

While these are general statements, there will certainly be some sectors that spending will drastically decrease online. I think that will be luxury goods, travel, automotive, and some financial sectors.

Although I feel that advertisers will cut back on banner ads and other rich media, I think that more advertisers will be moving to affiliate type CPA stuff and CPC, as well as other Search Marketing efforts. So, that means CPM advertising may slown down but overall I still think the state of Internet Advertising is healthy.

I’m curious, what are your thoughts?

Update: I’m not the only one who thinks advertising online will remain healthy.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of making my kids sit through several hours of the public hearing for the Trestles Toll Road. I wasn’t sure how well it would go, considering my girls are 5 & 2, and public hearings can be about as fun as a kick to the balls, but either way, I thought it would be good to expose them to the bigger picture of standing up for good causes like the one being debated.

I originally attended the Save Trestles rally partly because I was covering a story for 5ones but more importantly it’s an issue that I believe strongly in and want to support. Even though I’ve never even surfed Lower Trestles (as good as the break is, I’d rather not have to paddle over 50 people on each wave), I do think it’s generally a good idea to preserve one of the last pristine world class surf breaks in the country. There are enough roads, parking lots, houses and shopping centers elsewhere that the last thing we need to do is destroy a beautiful beach to build more. Nature’s a nice thing to enjoy and once it’s gone, it’s gone. You can’t exactly dig up the concrete and put everything back the way it was.

I was pleasantly surprised when the night came to an end and I’d realized both my daughters had actually sat through the majority of the hearing without misbehaving, even participating. They waved the signs they created, cheered when appropriate, and held their thumbs down when those in favor of the road presented their issues. And when my 5 year-old leaned over to me and said…

“Dad, these people should not build that road.”

I knew that bringing them to this event turned out to be a priceless experience for them. To quote the lyrics from one of my favorite musicians, Xavier Rudd…

“…our children keep growing up with what they know, from what we teach, and what they see…”

Politics aside… No matter where you stand on issues, I think it’s important to stand up for the ones you strongly believe in. In more ways than one, Surfing has turned me into a tree-hugging shark-hugging hippy, and by no means am I perfect. But as I listened to both sides of the argument last night, I don’t know how anyone could be in favor of the 241 Toll Road, hippy or not… It’s not even a political issue, it’s an earth issue.