6 Great Conferences to Attend Before the End of 2012
Posted on 15. May, 2012 by Amy Schmittauer in Blog, BlogWorld, content marketing world, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Amy Schmittauer is the Founder & Face of Savvy Sexy Social. She is a “social media frenzy” working in social relations consulting, blogging, and, of course, vlogging about life on her YouTube channel. Connect with her on Twitter.
If there’s anything I’ve learned throughout this crazy ride of working in digital marketing, it’s that reading all the blog posts ever written, staying up-to-date on all the latest news, and watching all the how-to YouTube videos you can find is still not enough. There’s no doubt that all the information you need to learn about the Wild West world of social media is available online. But do you really “get it”? How do you bring all of those tangents of information in to one great feeling of understanding?
Just like with anything else, it’s when the conversation is taken offline that things come full circle. And when it comes to getting educated on how you can grow your business and attract positive (while properly handling negative) attention through social media, there’s nothing quite like the experience of an in-person conference with the brilliant minds of digital unloading all of their tips to attendees. Not to mention the killer networking. Oh the people you’ll meet and the connections you’ll make. It’s unlike any tweet you’ll ever receive.
This list is of some of the best conferences still to come in 2012 that are offering amazing speakers in the business and social media marketing industries. Whether you want to help your own business succeed or contribute to your work at a larger corporation, there is a gathering here that you will find well worth your dime and time.
Ohio Growth Summit
May 24, 2012, Columbus, Ohio
Who knew Columbus would be such a hot spot this year for great business and marketing advice? Ohio Growth Summit is held by the Ohio Small Business Development Center at Columbus State Community College and I’m really excited not only for this great extension of the great work they do for my hometown, but also because I have the opportunity to work with them for this year’s event. With past speakers including Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, Nick Warnock, Carrie Wilkerson, and of course, Jay Baer just last year along with co-author Amber Naslund, this intimate, small business-focused, development and marketing conference is definitely a contender with all the bigger events across the country. This May, Gini Dietrich of Spin Sucks will be the main keynote, along with a morning session with Paul Evans of Impact Living. More information, including what to expect from workshop sessions, are available on the OGS website.
BlogWorld Expo East
June 5-7, 2012, New York, NY
BlogWorld Expo quotes itself as “the first and only industry-wide, trade show and media event for all new media”. With all the content and amazing speakers they consistently have to offer every year, it’s so true. As a matter of fact, it was only last year that BWE introduced an Eastern version of the conference. With great demand for the top-notch minds in blogging, social, and multimedia, they decided to double up their yearly conference to serve a larger audience of businesses and content creators. Excited to see Jay’s name listed as a speaker for the event in June, along with more (blogger) household names like Robert Scoble, Scott Stratten, Peter Shankman, Chris Garrett, Jason Falls, and many more. Learn more on the BlogWorld Expo website.
Small Giants International Summit
June 28-July 1, 2012, San Francisco, CA
Another pretty new but very successful event is the Small Giants International Summit. The first conference kicked off last year in Konstanz, Germany. Started by SmallGiants.org, this Summit brings together the most excited and passionate of the small business world. A great opportunity to network with like-minded professionals and address some of the hard-hitting issues that are presented with running a business. Being able to work out those ideas with others, especially owners who conduct business in different countries is great for improving upon problem-solving skills and network growth. The 2012 event is in the U.S. this year, in San Francisco, and the keynote speaker is Chip Conley. To learn more about Small Giants International Summit, check out the conference page.
Explore Minneapolis
August 16-17, 2012, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Social Media Explorer founder Jason Falls is holding another great Explore event, this time in the Twin Cities. Jay Baer joins the event to help businesses “push the thinking” for a more prominent online presence and goal-driven social marketing plan. Additional speakers include Kipp Bodnar of Hubspot, Jeff Rohrs of ExactTarget, Neil Patel of Kissmetrics, Nichole Kelly of Full Frontal ROI, and more. Stay tuned to the website for the full agenda to come and watch the #GoToExplore Twitter hashtag before, during, and after the events to see what attendees in other cities are saying.
Content Marketing World
September 4-6, 2012, Columbus, Ohio
Content Marketing World kicked off it’s first event last year in Cleveland with more than 600 marketing professionals in attendance, and it’s already set the bar as one of the best events to network with those in content marketing. Jay was a speaker last year, participating in a few different sessions, along with many great names in the industry. Speakers slated for this September (this time in my hometown of Columbus) include Sam Sebastian from Google, Inc., Mitch Joel from Six Pixels of Separation, and Marcus Sheridan of The Sales Lion. To see the rest of the impressive lineup for September’s event, visit the Content Marketing World website, and for a limited time, use the code CONVINCECONVERT at checkout to save $100 on your ticket! (expires 5/31)
Social Fresh Conference
September 27-28, 2012, San Diego, CA
Social Fresh Conference was started by the popular social media for business blog, Social Fresh. Obviously the focus of this event is helping businesses conduct an effective online presence for both brand awareness and customer service. Therefore, a lot of different types attend this event including social media thought leaders, marketers, and business owners. This conference is known to be one that is extremely popular with its attendees, especially in regards to networking. There’s a lot of opportunity to learn from not only their great speaker lineup, but from other talented attendees about what they’re applying to their online marketing that’s been successful for them. Learn more about the next event coming up in San Diego on the Social Fresh website.
Do you have any events to add to the list? Leave a comment below!
About the Amy Schmittauer:
Amy is the Founder & Face of Savvy Sexy Social. She is a “social media frenzy” working in social relations consulting, blogging, and, of course, vlogging about life on her YouTube channel. Connect with her on Twitter.
6 Great Conferences to Attend Before the End of 2012 is a post from: Convince and Convert Blog: Social Media Strategy and Social Media Consulting
Activation, Comfort, and Other Secrets of Online Community Management
Posted on 08. Feb, 2012 by Jay Baer in Blog, BlogWorld, community management, interviews, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media books
Video production by my friends at Candidio. Fast, inexpensive, great service.
(Abbreviated transcript below. Please watch video for entire interview. Somehow, my side of the video got cut out, so it’s only audio for me!)
Jay: Welcome everybody to Convince & Convert. It is Jay Baer joined today by a very special guest, my friend who is the Director of Community and all things fabulous at BlogWorld and also the author of Online Community Management For Dummies
Deb: I am terrific, Jay. How are you?
Jay: I am marvelous. I love your festive red background for videos.
Deb: Thank you. This is my dining room. We’re renovating. So everywhere I was sitting today, I’m like, “Oh, I don’t want people to see that. Oh, I don’t want people to see that.” So I came in my dining room where it was just a red backdrop.
Jay: It looks great. You should use it. I really like it. It pops as they say.
Deb: Well, my husband is Chinese, and red is a very lucky color.
Jay: Well, I loved the book. I thought it was really, really fantastic. I recommended it to several clients already. It really is a treasure trove of advice and best practices around community management. How was it writing it?
Deb: It was fun writing it. It’s the stuff I’ve always wanted to write, and it’s the stuff I talk about when I speak at conferences and I blog about. And it was actually a hard sell for Wiley. They weren’t sure people would want to buy a book about community management. But it sort of wrote itself. It was the easiest thing I ever wrote, I have to say. It was so simple to write.
Jay: Wow. That’s a ringing endorsement. Easiest thing you ever wrote. That’ll work.
Deb: Well, it’s second nature I think, to me. I don’t know if that sounds kind of silly, but it just all came so quickly.
Jay: You can tell when you read it that you actually have done this and that you’re speaking, in many cases, from a place where you have experienced these scenarios. That’s one of the things I really liked about it is that it walks you through a lot of “Hey, if this happens, do this thing, and if this other thing happens, do this thing.” It’s not just theory of community management. It’s very tactical, very practical and something that I think people will keep on the shelf and pull down and say, “Let me flip to that section. I remember Deb said something smart about that.”
Deb: I hope so.
Jay: One of the things that I see all the time, and you do as well I’m sure, now that many companies have come around to the belief that they should have a community, there isn’t a lot of community activation, or perhaps not as much as there should be. You talked about that a little bit in the book. How can we get people to do stuff as opposed to just click one button and join?
Deb: It’s hard, because we don’t want to spam people, and we don’t want to say, “Will you please comment on my blog, dammit?” I think we’ve all had those frustrating moments where nobody answers our calls to action. So I think we have to make it entertaining. We have to make it enjoyable. We can’t always be a commercial for our product. You have to make life a conversation and draw the community in. If they feel as if they have a say in the brands and that they’re a living, breathing part of the community, they’ll participate more, and they’ll advocate for you.
Jay: What we see now is, as companies get more serious about this kind of work, an increasing usage of content calendars and community calendars and things that have more of a plan around how to do this. Do you think that kind of work is the enemy of true community, or can they coexist?
Deb: Yes and no. I do have some things that I do on a regular basis. For example, the first Monday of every month is brag your blog day on the BlogWorld Facebook page, because I don’t want to forget. If I don’t schedule a certain day for things, I forget. I will say I’ve never scheduled a tweet in my life. I don’t believe they’re engaging. I have scheduled blog feeds on Twitter, but I don’t schedule tweets, because you can’t have a conversation. You can’t schedule community. So, I think there are times when you can create an editorial calendar and plan out a course of action. But as far as scheduling engagement, I just don’t see it happening.
Jay: I like that quote, “You can’t schedule community.” That’s good. Consider that stolen.
So many times now, it seems that Facebook in particular has become the de facto community platform. How do you feel about that?
Deb: I have mixed feelings. First of all, Facebook is where the people are. The majority of Americans or even globally, the people who we want to reach are on Facebook. So it makes sense that we put a lot of our effort into Facebook. Most of my friends and neighbors don’t want anything to do with Twitter or Google+ or Pinterest or any of the other social networks, so it makes sense that we’re on Facebook. But I really do wish that I had the same engagement levels on the other social networks. Twitter has turned into such a disappointment for me, because it used to be the best place to go for conversation. Now, it’s sporadic unless we have our weekly Twitter chats, and it’s sort of like a link farm. So, I will put half my efforts, I would say, for the day into Facebook to grow that community, because that’s where we have to be, and that’s where most of our community are, but I won’t give up on the others as well.
Jay: One of the things that you said in the book was trying to steer your community away from negativity, which I thought was a really commendable point to make, because we see, certainly in the social media space, there are blogs out there that seem to use negativity as their oxygen. I try not to fall into that trap myself, but they’re out there. What’s your take on it?
Deb: I think that negativity begets negativity. So, if you have a space that makes people feel uncomfortable, it’s going to be like the earth after the apocalypse. Only the cockroaches are going to be there. People who thrive on negativity are going to stick around, but the people who want an intelligent conversation where they’re not always being accused of something or being called a loser, they’re going to move on. So I have no problem with disagreement as long as it’s respectful disagreement. I know that I’m not right all the time, most of the time. But you can tell me why without telling me to go make a sandwich.
Jay: So, can we disagree without being disagreeable?
Deb: Exactly.
Jay: One of the things that I loved about the book was your section on the welcome plan, which I think gets overlooked so often in communities. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a blog or Facebook. That first time that person peeks their head out is when you really have to give them succor and comfort and make sure that they stick around. Can you talk a little a bit about that welcome plan and how you think it should be done?
Deb: Sure. I compare it on my community to the high school dance. So nobody ever wants to be the first one up to dance. So maybe the chaperone will sort of start encouraging people to get up and dance. They might introduce a couple or get up to dance herself, although we would laugh at any chaperone who did that.
Jay: I was just thinking about that. I’m like, yeah, that would really get the party started, when the chaperones are dancing.
Deb: But somebody has to get the party started, and that’s where the community manager or moderator comes in. This probably works mostly for forums or blogs, because they have an area for this, but a welcome folder with frequently asked questions, a place to introduce yourself, and just a place to ask questions make people feel at ease. Then maybe the community manager can help to get that person, make them feel comfortable around the community, introduce them to people, and just bring them into the conversation. I honestly believe that it’s in a community manager’s best interest to know as much about her members or his members as possible, because then they can draw them into the conversation and know their areas of interest.
Jay: One of the things that you’ve always done really well is the combination online/offline community. Your community doesn’t really exist unless it exists at some point in three dimensions. Can you elaborate on that a little bit and how you can make your community work in the real world?
Deb: I think that it’s fine and dandy for you and I to tweet a lot and talk on Facebook now and then. But what do we really know about each other besides what we share? You don’t really know a person, I think, until you meet them online. When you know people, you trust them.
Jay: And that’s one of the great things about BlogWorld. It allows those kinds of interactions and conversations to take place and why it’s an event that most of the people in the social media and blogging industry would never dream of missing.
Deb: It’s the first conference I ever attended actually.
Jay: Wow. I want to see if anybody else who is watching this video, the first time they ever went to a conference ended up being the community manager for that conference. That would be some sort of a crazy . . .
Deb: Years later, too. That was in 2007. I was hired in 2010.
Jay: Wow. I didn’t know. That is a crazy tale. How about that? Good for you.
I am a big fan of this book, Online Community Management For Dummies
Jay: Deb, thank you as always for all that you do and for writing the book and for spending a little time here at Convince & Convert.
Deb: Thank you so much for having me, Jay.
BlogWorld LA: Optimize & Socialize For Better Business Blogging
Posted on 24. Oct, 2011 by Lee Odden in Blog, Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, BlogWorld, business blogging, Marketing PR Conferences, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
After a successful Blog World Expo New York, I’m very much looking forward to BlogWorld Los Angeles in just under 2 weeks. Judging from the conference agenda, there’s an impressive roster (275+) of experts, pundits and long time bloggers presenting on just about every relevant topic you can think of.
Blogging has been cited as one of the most effective forms of social media marketing for achieving top visibility in search and on the social web and corporate investment in social media is growing significantly. This is as true for agencies like TopRank Online Marketing as it is for any business with a good story to tell. We’ve promoted blogs as the centerpiece of a hub and spoke model that has been adopted by many other agencies and corporate marketers.
While there are numerous success stories and sources of best practices, most companies handle their business blog in a way that disappoints. Even those corporate blogs that do manage to implement a customer-centric editorial plan, neglect to leverage key discovery and engagement channels like content optimization for search engines and social media optimization.
On November 5th, I’ll be giving a presentation to help business bloggers solve that problem and more, with “Optimize & Socialize for Better Business Blogging“. This presentation will identify key principles and specific tactics that I’ve learned over the past 8 years of blogging here and for other sites, plus working with numerous client blog consulting projects. The session will provide hard won insights into leveraging SEO and Social Media as key tools for blog content planning, creation and promotion from the editor of the only 3 time #1 ranked Content Marketing Blog (Junta 42), #2 Social Media Blog (Social Media Examiner), top marketing blog (Advertising Age).
Key takeaways for the session include:
1. Plan your way into an infinite number of compelling and relevant content ideas that boost search traffic & engage readers
2. Create campaigns that incorporate blog content with other marketing tactics for extended search & social visibility
3. Promote blog content that inspires social sharing, link building and search traffic
In each area I’ll break it down into:
Blog Content Ideas & Planning
- Key Problems: Running out of ideas, Lack of effective ideas, Difficulty in sourcing contributors
- Solutions: Tapping into front line staff, community and the competition using a feedback loop that will boost effectiveness and motivate others to join in.
Blog Content Creation
- Key Problems: Corporate narcism, inconsistent publishing and quality as well as content that does not result in the desired outcomes.
- Solutions: Audience empathy and guidelines for content strategy that result in content that inspires action and sharing.
Blog Content Promotion
- Key Problems: Great blog content with low subscriber counts and poor engagement.
- Solutions: A process to integrate blog content distribution and syndication as well as engagement that will leave readers waiting to see what will come next.
As I’m prone to do, I’ll pack as much actionable information as possible into the session and provide a copy of the PPT deck to attendees. I hope to see you there!
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
BlogWorld LA: Optimize & Socialize For Better Business Blogging | http://www.toprankblog.com
BlogWorld NY: @JasonFalls No BS Guide to Advertising & PR for Bloggers
Posted on 25. May, 2011 by Lee Odden in Blog, blog advertising, blogger relations, BlogWorld, BWENY, Marketing PR Conferences, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
While initially sitting in a SEO session, I quickly switched once I saw that Jason Falls was presenting. Jason is one of those speakers that gives great advice and he’s funny.
The lowdown on this session: How bloggers can better understand the world of advertising, marketing and PR to avoid common mistakes. How can we learn from the crappy behavior of the bloggers before us.
There’s a low cost of entry to become a blogger. Basically, all you need is a pulse and an internet connection. But, just because you’re a blogger, doesn’t mean you’re a diva. When you start to evolve as a blogger is when you attract an audience. You’re still not a rockstar, but you’ll be making progress when people are paying attention to you and engaging. For perspective, many advertisers require a minimum of 100k pageviews per month. If your blog isn’t at that level, you’re still building.
Blogger eg0 = trouble. Getting some attention and audience is an accomplishment but it’s not a reason to be a dick. Jason statistic: 15-20% of people in a given vertical think they’re god’s gift to blogging.
The conflict comes for the vast majority of bloggers who are not marketing bloggers or have marketing expertise. They don’t understand how the world of marketing and advertising works.
Soliciting money is advertising sales. (Paid Media) Any time you solicit money from an organization for space or exposure on your blog, that’s advertising. FTC requires disclosure of any kind of advertorial or ads. When you take money for publishing editorial content, you will degrade some trust with your audience – but not lose it.
The discussion you have with securing advertising on your blog might be with a media buyer, or with a larger organization, a media agency. This includes ads for media as well as advertorial.
Public relations is earned media. PR agencies or staff within companies may pitch stories to bloggers. There are PR software companies like Vocus, Cision and My Media Info that will aggregate contact information for influential bloggers within particular verticals. PR can be an information resource and go between with a brand that you want to write about. PR doesn’t buy advertising (or they shouldn’t).
Blogger Horror Story 1: After being pitched, a blogger responded demanding that instead of the blogger writing about the brand, that the brand should advertise on his blog. While the blog was topically relevant, it didn’t have anywhere near the audience that the brand’s media buyers would consider.
Blogger Horror Story 2: Jason pitched a blogger about a brand he represented and the blogger responded saying that to have a conversation, she’d charge a consulting fee. Basically, this blogger responded to PR pitches with a consulting pitch.
The situation where bloggers have built up a certain size of audience and consider themselves a diva is where blogging douchebags came from.
Blogger Horror Story 3: Fortune 25 company, big brand, wide array of products. Identified 15 bloggers and pitched them to go to an industry conference – all expenses paid (airfare, hotel and conference). While at the event, the brand wanted to show the bloggers their products.
A week before the event, one of the bloggers left a message saying they’ve decided to turn the trip into a family vacation and requested more airline tickets. Then the blogger threatened that if the brand didn’t do this, there would be editorial repercussions on her blog.
Jason says there’s a high concentration of this type of blogger in the gaming and the mommy blogger groups.
The problem with this minority of bloggers is that brands end up not wanting to deal with bloggers at all.
As you build an audience and gain reputation, it’s important that there’s a difference between being a proud person and being a jackass. There’s an attitude of entitilement plus ignorance about how advertising and public relations works.
Trust: Your audience trust you less if you’re paid for creating brand content. There’s a perceived bias.
Respect: Mutual between bloggers and the brands that communicate with them. Loss of respect means loss of relationship and the benefits that come with that.
Reality: Jason shows a series of graphs that represent mainstream media reach compared to blogs – blogs barely show up, let alone compete. (There were no sources cited in these graphs and that was very disappointing, especially from a professional like Jason)
Bloggers have a place in the advertising and media world online, but in the majority of cases, do not come close to having the same reach or clout as mainstream media. Many bloggers that gain a certain size of audience and degree of influence start to overestimate their authority and impact, plus many don’t understand how relations between advertising and advertisers, media/publishers and public relations work.
What Bloggers and Brands need to consider:
- Ethics and impact of pay for play – disclosure
- Think of bloggers as journalists
- The effect of advertising and PR on your audience
- There’s no right way, only a right way for you
Opportunities for bloggers:
- Make PR be helpful. When you get an irrelevant pitch, offer PR feedback.
- If you want advertising, ask for the media buyer, not the PR person.
- When discussing advertising opportunity with a brand, make a compelling argument with facts from a third party on your audience and community.
- Partner with other blogs.
Opportunities for brands:
- Understand the power of niche
- Make all outreach relevant. This is a huge problem and persists across many verticals.
- Know & respect bloggers have differences. Some bloggers are not PR friendly, so don’t pitch them.
- Have a plan for when you get requests for advertising
Check out Jason’s community online: ExploringSocialMedia.com
Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
BlogWorld NY: @JasonFalls No BS Guide to Advertising & PR for Bloggers | http://www.toprankblog.com
Are We Marketing in a Mobile World
Posted on 24. May, 2011 by John Jantsch in Blog, BlogWorld, mobile, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Are We Marketing in a Mobile World
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Today I’m presenting at BlogWorld Expo in New York (#BWENY) on the topic of mobile marketing with Navin Ganeshan of Network Solutions. (I’ll share my notes on the talk tomorrow.)
Joshua Kaufman via Flickr
But here’s the thing – there’s really no such thing as mobile marketing. For that last few years I’ve been saying the same thing about social media marketing – really no such thing.
Marketing is marketing and job #1 for marketers the last few years has been adapting their marketing in a world that’s embraced social behavior.
I wrote my annual predictions for the year column for OPENForum and predicted that this year mobile would finally land – okay, not much of a stretch on predictions, but we are squarely in it and small business folks need to jump on board – but here’s the deal, here’s how to start thinking about it so that it makes sense.
There’s really no such thing as mobile marketing, it’s simply a matter of adapting your marketing to a world that’s gone mobile.
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