Who is Social Dude?

Hi, my name is Ben Fisher and I am a social media marketing maven! Here is a llttle about me, who I am, what I know (or at least I think I do :P ) and where I am going..

I started back in the early days of the Internet, in the late 80′s I ran a BBS in Mt. Laurel NJ, nothing spectacular but we had about 100 users and it was a neat community.

In 1993 I founded a small computer consulting and networking company in Flagstaff, AZ (Such a beautiful place to live! ) and ran a portal know as Virtual Flagstaff under my company name Virtual Internet Business Services. We built a portal for Flagstaff, AZ and a community grew very quickly from that, after it was online for a short while we were getting traffic numbers ranging at 30K uniques per month! Amazing for that day and age.

I designed a website for a local company ( http://www.aaacredit.com/ ) after they had seen my website (ugh built in notepad no less! ) and after a short while the website was a raging sucess. Welp the 100 or so clients I had with my computer company all of a sudden all wanted sites too..what is a young entrapenuer to do?

My business turned into a web deisgn, consulting, marketing, SEO, advertising, portal making, hosting company..blah blah blah over night. Fun times! Learned alot and had great successes. I knew nothing about these topics really, but had to figure them out, so I did, and wow was that fun! I can still remember the days of looking at Altavista and having all 10 spots for the keywords b and b , bed and breakfast, flagstaff, AZ all being my clients.

After the year 2000, I took a break and went back to portal design and marketing, selling advertising into the web hosting industry and heavily focused on SEO and SEM.

Being around search since the 90′s gave our company a nice edge in the web hosting market, gaining top 3 rankings for great converting, high tonnage keywords like website hosting, cheap hosting, cheap web hosting, web hosting etc.. which still hold to this day within our network of sites from the company I am President (co-founder) TechPad Agency.

Search has always been a passion of mine, White-Hat, using natural techniques to gain links, do 5 – 10 concurrent marketing/SEO experiments at any given time. I have been researching and experimenting with Social Marketing for about a year or so now and really love the results that are to be reaped. It really feels like the net is getting back to the way business used to be done, via referrals! More about that later in my blog ;)

Who do I work with? Anyone who is honest, ethical and passionate about what they do. You can often see myself and coworkers attending events like, PubCon, HostingCon, SES, ISPCon ( geeze lots of Con’s for us Pro’s ), we also exhibit and speak as well. PubCon in Vegas is always a blast!

In 2011 I decided to take a break from my businesses and took up a post as Director of Marketing for cPanel Inc., The largest ( and coolest ) web hosting automation control panel in the web hosting industry. While at cPanel I helped guide many transformations, from a new logo design, to conceptualization of a partner welcome kit and helped guide marketing strategies for all aspects of marketing. The most fun had was the creation of games using QR codes and product based contest for tradeshows.

I had to leave cPanel since my wife had fallen ill and she really needed me at home.

In my personal life I am an avid online and console gamer (I got a Xbox360 and PS3 on their launch days ) as well as a dedicated martal artist currently taking Kung Fu in Phoenix AZ. In addition I play some bass and guitar as a hobby..ok I am really bad, but hey it is fun! I am married and have a daughter, now a granddaughter too! They are the loves of my life :)

Great thanks got out to my business partner (since the 90′s) , Dan White,  and our dedicated wonderful co-worker John Laster and everyone else who works with us!

Businesses I am involved In: ( As of 5/16/2011 )

  • Gorilla Networks ( Gaming Sites: XBLAFans.com ,InvolvedFans.com, XBOXKinectFans.com, PSNFans.com, WindowsPhoneFans.com )
  • Hosting News ( TheHostingNews.com, ServerSchool.com, GawkWire.com )

Sites I currently Run:

iPhone Mobile Apps I have Produced:

Personal projects:

Twit Me: @techpadagency and @thesocialdude
My LinkedIN Video Game Journalists Group http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/109711
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/benfishertechpad

Core Specialties:
Brand development, Strategy, Web Hosting,  SEO, Video Games, PR/Marketing, SEM, Social Media, Business Development, Training, Consulting,Biz Dev, Product Marketing, Creative Services, iPhone Production, Creating Deals/Rain Maker..wearer of many hats..and chief gamer in charge.

Places I have spoken:

  • Web Host Boot Camp Dec 2009 – PR, Twitter and Analytics
  • PubCon Nov 2009 -Experts on PR and Twitter – I was honored to speak with Sean Jackson ( Ecordia) , Lisa Buyer (The Buyer Group)  and Adam Singer (TopRank)
  • Web Host Boot Camp June 2009 -
  • HostingCon July 2008 – Online Offline Marketing, Branding, SEO, Social Media in Web Hosting – TechPad coordinated this panel of experts and I was joined by Derek Vaughan, Amy Armitage, Aaron Phillips, David Dunlap and Hartland Ross. Proudly moderated by Brett Tabke
  • HostingCon July 2007 – A Modern SEO / SEM Clinic – Hosted by myself and Neil Patel

Accomplishments I am proud of: (in no particular oder )

  • Sold TheHostingNews.com in March of 2010 and still retained ownership as well as work on the company day to day.
  • Created and Sold www.websitehostdirectory.com and www.cheaphostingdirectory.com to iNet Interactive.
  • Co-Founded TechPad Agency – SEO, Consulting, Branding, PR, Social Media and Online Advertising to Web Hosting and Technology related companies since 2004
  • Co-Founded TechPad Productions – Producers of Mobile Apps
  • Involved in the creation of ServerMania, a board game that is played like Monopoly. Winner of the 2007 Gold Davey Awards – In the print and collateral arena.
  • Produced (3) iPhone Apps, iNetMania (New and Noteworthy on iTunes for 5 Weeks)  ,  iMEvil ( Rave reviews from MacWorld and CNET) and Hosting News
  • Working with Screen Actors Guild, Hanson Interactive and David Sobolov on iPhone Apps.
  • Consulting for some of the worlds largest Web Hosting companies ( most of which have been aquired ) including; Affinity Internet, Aplus.Net, iPower Web, Superb Internet, GoDaddy, HostMySite and technology companies Nextiva (VOIP) and Seagate.
  • Working together with Affiliate Master Marketers like ShoeMoney and Travis Ketchum
  • imSMB.com ( Web Hosting and Websites for Small Businesses ) – Helped grow the business from 30 clients to 3000 in less than 3 months.

For my Google Profile ..click..