Hello from Ventura Technology Development Center on the filming set of the Social Media Simplified Web 2.0 Master Class in Ventura, CA!

Social Media Simplified Presenters Mari Smith, Deborah Micek, Linda Taylor, Denise Wakeman, Simon Leung And Nancy Marmolejo

Even though I only had one hour of sleep that I snuck in during my 6am flight from San Jose to Ontario, I was too excited to be tired as my partner Andy Huang and I then made a 2-hour commute to Ventura to take part in Social Media Simplified filming.

As a late addition to the Social Media Simplified team of talented presenters, I was extremely stoked to accept the invitation to join the ranks of Linda Taylor, Deborah Micek (AKA CoachDeb), Mari Smith, Denise Wakeman (one half of the BlogSquad team with Patsi Krakoff) and Nancy Marmolejo to speak on Google Optimization through Social Media.

Throughout the day, we learned a ton of great information about marketing with social media, utilizing Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and CoachDeb’s own Blog i360 system as a blogging platform.

During my time on stage, I was excited not only to share some of the social media tools, widgets, plugins and strategies that I personally use for my own blog to maximize the quality and quantity of traffic coming into my website, but also to have some fun and share some laughs with the great audience, as well.

In fact, we had so much fun that most of the attendees at Social Media Simplified felt that my presentation was more entertaining than it was informative! (Haha… just kidding…)

All joking aside, I’m confident that every one in attendance had a good time and hopefully, have already begun implementing some of the effective social media marketing strategies shared on the Social Media Simplified stage.

Towards the end of the shooting, all the presenters got together on stage to organize an expert panel, where we conducted live critiques of attendees’ blogs and answered questions from the audience.

After the Social Media Simplified event was over, we brought the party over to our VIP dinner at a nearby French restaurant, where we had the opportunity to network more with one another.

Before leaving town the following evening, I spent the day hanging out with CoachDeb, Andy Huang and James Lee, taking advantage of some of the best dim sum in town, as well as organizing our own “working party,” complete with sake and snacks!

Overall, I had a ton of fun and made a bunch of new connections at Social Media Simplified, so I am definitely glad I was able to make it out to Southern California for the one day event before returning to Singapore next week for The SMART Seminar.

If you weren’t able to attend Social Media Simplified, the entire event has been recorded and the DVD set will be made available within the next week, so stay tuned for more information about how you can get your hands on the amazing social marketing content so you don’t miss out!

In the meantime, you can keep up with posts, comments and photos from the Social Media Simplified presenters, attendees and fans on the #SMSV Twitter stream.

Last night, I was a special guest on Successfool.tv, a live streaming show hosted by my very good friend, Alejandro Reyes.

For those of you who don’t know Alejandro Reyes, he was my right hand guy for a while as my lead apprentice, later on became my Operations Manager and Relationship Specialist, and now a business partner and respected colleague.

I won’t go into all the details about how we met and everything because we actually tell the story on the show, which was streamed live as a chatroom packed with active viewers watched on and interacted with what was going on in the show.

The first video has a quick introduction by Alejandro Reyes, then chaos ensues for a while as we battle with technology to try to get our first ever split screen interview going.

It was a miserable failure, but we included the outtakes here for your viewing pleasure haha

The second video picks up after we decided to use a Skype call instead, and contains most of the content in regards to relationship building and how to maximize social media to leverage networking and credibility.

Enjoy the videos, and please let us know what you think by commenting on this post

Successfool.tv: Alejandro Reyes Interviews Simon Leung Pt One

 Successfool.tv: Alejandro Reyes Interviews Simon Leung Pt Two

If you haven’t had the chance to catch the video Alejandro Reyes and I did from LAX a few months back on social media, you can watch it in its entirety below as well.

 Social Media Secrets At LAX

Hello from Room 1170 of the Drury Plaza Hotel at Pat O’Bryan’s UnSeminar 5 in San Antonio, Texas!

It’s great to return to San Antonio since my very first Internet Marketing seminar in May of 2006, as well as my first speaking engagement three months later in August, also happened right here in San Antonio.

But this time, it was a much more exciting experience…

In front of a jam packed room, I had the honor of sharing the stage with Dr. Joe Vitale, Craig Perrine, Bill Hibbler, Ben Mack, Donna Fox, Eric Farewell, Scott Lewis, Tony Laidig, Erica Douglass, and of course, Pat O’Bryan himself.

As with most seminars, the live networking at UnSeminar 5 was amazing, especially with the killer line-up of speakers and motivated attendees.

However, you know that time has definitely changed when the power of Web 2.0 not only brought on an additional 150 viewers from all around the world through live streaming…

But Twitter (one of the most popular Web 2.0 social marketing tools available today for networking) was also responsible for selling 1/3 of the tickets to the event, as well as booking several of the speakers!

Plus, throughout the weekend, we continued to network both online and offline, getting more and more people to sign up for Web 2.0 profiles like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and more.

UnSeminar 5 was probably one of the most interactive Internet Marketing conferences I’ve been a part of that encouraged so many people to take action, whether or not they were live at the actual event.

I personally had a lot of fun not only at the conference itself, but the most invaluable experiences of all was the opportunity to hang out with speakers and attendees alike for lunch, dinner and throughout the evenings at the Riverwalk, Alamo and some of the more happening downtown areas.

Now, because my camera is broken (boo) and I haven’t gotten a replacement yet, I’m now at the mercy of my friends who did take photos to send them to me.

But while we wait for them, here are a few TwitPics (photo service for Twitter) that my friends and I took on our phones and posted online throughout the weekend…

Stage View Of The UnSeminar 5 Audience

Persian Dinner With Dr. Joe Vitale, Pat O’Bryan, Betsy O’Bryan, Donna Fox, Heather Duease And Eric Farewell

Mexican Dinner With Marlon Sanders, Ben Mack, Donna Fox, Bill Hibbler, Craig Perrine, Scott Lewis, Eric Farewell And Erica Douglass

Texas BBQ With Eric Farewell, Donna Fox And Erica Douglass

Remember The Alamo, Y’all!

Special thanks to my friends for making this a weekend to remember: Donna Fox, Eric Farewell, Ben Mack, James Wedmore, Heather Duease, Marlon Sanders, Erica Douglass, Pat O’Bryan, Scott Lewis, Joe Vitale, Craig Perrine, Bill Hibbler and Tony Laidig.

I’m sure I’ll be seeing you guys around, especially if you’re interested in attending some of my future events in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

But if you don’t want to wait that long or travel that far (depending on where you’re located), you can catch me at my final U.S. workshop this year on August 8th and 9th in Long Island, NY, when Howie Schwartz, Ross Goldberg and I host the Three Sides Of Traffic Workshop.