2. DIFFERENT TYPE OF CONFERENCE Live Event Tweeting and Texting Evening Tweet-ups Celebrity Keynote Speakers Great Food Round Table Breakfast Sessions Hot Seat Labs 1-on-1 Therapy Sessions
In today’s economic environment attending conference is a rare treat. That’s why I was very excited when I was approached by Marketing Profs to attend their conference as one of the panelists. Do you know what MarketingProfs is. Research-oriented organization and a publisher of free and paid resources on the topic of marketing for both B2C and B2B. Similar to eMarketer and MarketingSherpa
Unlike any other B2B related conference that I’ve attended. I am familiar with the social media type un-conference with very informal structure and networking This event was clearly focused on Interaction (lecture style sessions were kept to the minimum) Audience participation through interactive sessions, Networking - after our events tweet-ups w/ non-even audience being invited, breakfast round tables Highly focused 1-on-1 sessions w/ experts focused on the individual and his/her needs Emphasis on informal exchanges, having fun Great food, prizes, really warm atmosphere
Marketing Profs invited experts from social media, email marketing, usability to donate half day to hold 1-on-1 therapy sessions encouraged conference participants to sign up for 20 min. one-on-one therapy sessions. This was presented as a benefit to participants. These sessions were booked within the first our of the event.
Hot Seat Labs is another example of very hands-on and interactive session MarketingProfs announced before the event that they were looking for businesses willing to particpate Have their web presences critiqued in terms of SM, SEO or Web usability I participated in the social media hot seat lab with Jason Baer Very interactive, full audience participation, fun Integrating social media with your existing web presence (e.g. listing twitter feed on your corporate web pages and adding a “contact us” link on your blog to capture leads)
Interactive panels. There were very few lecture style sessions – just a handful with keynote speaker sessions Interactive sessions were limited to 25 participants. These were quickly sold out. Generating excitement in anticipation of the session There was no lecture, just Q&A from participants Participants were encouraged to answer each other questions Encouraged to live tweet during the event, Submit questions via text messaging I participated in the panel “What can social media do for your business?” We actually went 15 min. over the time limit because there was so many questions What dominated was How can I convince my management that there is value in SM How do I measure social media How can I overcome fear of negative feedback How can I integrate SM within my existing marketing campaigns What resources will I need to participate in Social Media? Is social media trully free? Asking my fellow panelists to join me again next month we will recreate the panel during the emerging media forum
Roundtable breakfast were really popular 6 Topic specific tables with experts assigned to them First come first served People encouraged to move from table to table Very informal and highly effective I sat at the Twitter table. We discussed tools, one vs. multiple twitter handles,
At the end of the day Amy Africa lead the family feud style session where event participants were asked to guess usability best practices. For example: What are the 8 elements of the perfect shopping cart (aleternate way to complete transaction aka email, tel. #) Name 5 elements that will impact your email campaign (from address, deliverability clean lists, call to action