How To Make The Most of Social Media Marketing World
Oh, conferences! Conferences are really amazing and can remind us of those feelings we had at summer camp back in the day. They’re just plain fun! But, conferences can also be extremely beneficial for your career and your business – IF you are willing to do the work.
Social Media Marketing World is a BIG event with a lot of people and a lot of things happening at the same time. It can be extremely overwhelming, but if you think about it as more than just three days of your life and think about the process before, during, and after, you can really see a lot of magic happen around this conference.
If you’re looking to make the most of Social Media Marketing World, here are a few things to get on your task list:
Plan for your health: Take immune boosters a few days leading up to the event as well as every morning of the conference. Think about how many escalator rails you touch, hands you shake, and seats you sit on. You want to be on your game, so plan ahead so that you’re not fighting a cold while trying to maximize your time at a conference!
Bring snacks: While they did a great job at providing some snacks for the various ticket types, conference food is conference food. Sometimes it’s not exactly what you need to get through the day. I loaded up on trail mix, pretzels, and a few other goodies that I could easily throw in my bag.
Map out your sessions: At Social Media Marketing World, there are A LOT of sessions happening at the same time. It can be extremely overwhelming. The nice thing is that they do a great job of showcasing the speakers ahead of time, which means that you can go scope them all out and decide which sessions you want to check out. I recommend having a couple backup options in case your first pick fills up too soon!
Follow the speakers ahead of time: After you scope out who the speakers are, I recommend following the speakers on their social channels. While this takes a little bit of work, it also helps you get a feel for if you really like that speaker’s vibe and want to check out their session. It also gives you something more tangible to talk through with the speaker if you get a chance to chat with them. Doing this work helps you have context before you get to the conference! Social Media Examiner does a great job of creating a Twitter list of the speakers, which make it easy-peasy to check out the speakers beforehand.
Know your goal: If your goal is to hit up every session possible, go for it. If your goal is to meet a specific person you have followed for years, go find that person. If your goal is to meet every person attending, be prepared to be exhausted, but go for it. If your goal is to make some new quality friends, you can do that too. (That last one was mine.) Based on your goal for the conference, you will know what events you need to be at, and what you can avoid. You can’t physically do it all, but knowing what you hope to get out of the event can help you frame how you plan your days!
Slack channel: I’ll admit, there was A LOT you could consume leading up to the conference, but I do appreciate it. Social Media Marketing World had a Slack Workspace with TONS of channels based on different interests and niches. It was through joining some of these niches that I connected with a few quality groups of people. Then, AT the conference I met up with those people for the Table Talks at lunch or meet-ups for dinner. Looking back, I think the legwork for connecting in these niches before the conference allowed me to be intentional at the conference and make some really great friends!
Table Talks: I just referenced these Table Talks and it’s something that not all conferences do, but they should! At lunch, they have tables where you can eat, but they have most of the tables labeled by different niches or topics. If you are interested in that niche or topic, it’s a great way to meet other like-minded people in a smaller group setting. For those that came by themselves (which there were a lot of these kinds of people), this is a great way to get connected!
Prep your network that you’ll be gone: I stole this idea from a friend, but I put a notice in bold, red letters at the bottom of my email signature. I put this notice that I’ll be out of town soon in my signature about two weeks before I left. This gave clients and connections a chance to get their communication in before I headed out. It also gave them a heads up that the ‘out-of-office’ was going to be coming on soon and they would have slower response times.
Business Cards: Plan to have a lot of business cards. You’ll know your style of networking, but there are literally thousands of people there, so you want to make sure you have a way to connect with folks afterward. Yes, even in our digital world, business cards are still helpful! I brought business cards that I make just for events like this that have my headshot on them. This makes it a little easier to recall when and where in the conference they met you!
Connect on social media. This was a great conference to jump right on social media and connect immediately. In fact, most of my new connections from the conference didn’t give me a business card, but instead, we jumped on Facebook or Instagram and found each other. For everyone else I met, I went on each evening and connected with them on social media (usually LinkedIn). Sometimes I wait until after the conference, but I know myself too well (and I think a lot of us are like this too) that if I don’t do something right away, the odds of me following up go down dramatically.
Catch up. There’s no way to listen in on every session while you’re there, so if you have access to the recordings, the weeks following the conference are a great time to do a little catching up. I personally love turning them on while I’m driving on my mobile device. It’s similar to listening to a podcast and I can catch up on the sessions in an efficient way!
Follow Up. I kept saying that this week was just the beginning. Thanks to social media, we can have conversations and build friendships even after the conference. BUT, that requires some work! Be intentional about connecting and nurturing any new relationships you made after the conference!
Whether you’re heading to Social Media Marketing World, or one of the hundreds of other great conferences around the world each year, know that you can really do a lot more with a live event than just the hours you’re wearing the name badge. Live events and conferences can be a huge boost for your brand if you’re willing to invest the effort!