Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
Posted on March 13, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton
What I’m doing SXSW 2010 – 1 panel and the Future15 session. Details
Just in case you didn’t know I’m attending SXSW Interactive 2010 this year and I’m lucky enough to participating in 2 session.
The first session is today called the Community Innovation Summit sponsored by @paypal
This panel is the first Community Innovation Summit of leaders of Developer Networks. It is a lively discussion about fostering innovation in online communities. This panel is sponsored by PayPal.
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Dave Mcclure 500 Hats Dave McClure likes to hang out with entrepreneurs, and occasionally help or invest in their startups if they let him. Dave has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over twenty years, and has worked with companies such as PayPal, Mint, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Twilio, Simply Hired, O’Reilly Media, Intel, & Microsoft. Many years ago he used to do real work like coding or marketing or running conferences, but these days he mostly does useless stuff like sending lots of email, blogging, and hanging out on Facebook and Twitter. Dave also likes to play ultimate frisbee when his knees don’t hurt. |
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Wayne Sutton Fragment/TriOut Think of me as the social media lead car on the Autobahn of the Internet. For more than four years, I’ve provided counsel to business leaders ranging from founders of small start-ups and representatives of non-profit organizations to CEOs of large and small corporations. For some, understanding the social media landscape is difficult. I help industry leaders maneuver through the lanes in the ever-changing Internet environment. |
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Evan Cohen foursquare Evan Cohen is General Manager at foursquare, where he is responsible for building operational, marketing and business development capability. Prior to foursquare, Evan worked at Bebo in London, where he managed strategy and operations. Evan’s first immersion into the internet industry was in 1996, when he joined Jupiter Research as an analyst specializing in consumer market forecasting and internet usage behavior. |
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Dave Peck LSF Interactive Dave Peck is the Social Media Strategist for LSF Interactive. Active in new media & online communities since 2004, he is one the early adopters of virtual worlds where he created the online persona of Britney Mason. As the Britney character he quickly built online buzz and became a featured user by such sites as: Twitter, MySpace,PodShow, Utterz, Blip.tv, and PodcastReady among many others. He has helped build online communities for such companies such as UC Berkeley, Stella McCartney, and Wells Fargo. Dave has worked as a Social Media Strategist on projects for The Grammys, The Ozzy Osbourne Auction, George Lynch and NPR. The TV networks CNBC and Current tv have profiled him for his social media work as well as online community building. In the past few years he has: been a founding member of the Association For Downloadable Media, Founding Member of the Social Media Club Editorial Board, A Featured Blogger by Sony and a contributor to the book : Marketing In The Social Media Era. When he is not speaking at events like 140 The Twitter Conference, Community 2.0 and Netroots Nation. Most he is spending time with his wife and 5 children. Recently he has joined LSF Interactive as their Social Media Strategist. |
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Naveed Anwar PayPal Inc/X Developer Network Naveed is the Sr. Director of PayPal Developer Network. He has more than 15 years of experience in identity, authentication, safety, and security products, making him the perfect person to lead PayPal’s application developer community in mobile and web based payment systems. Naveed spent the last 12 years at AOL leading many businesses including, most recently, AOL’s developer network. Some highlights as head of AOL’s developer network include: building a network of more than 3 million+ AOL developers; managing a developer network that supports a dozen AOL businesses with total annual revenues of $4 billion; and assisting developers to build 20,000+ developer applications. Naveed is also passionately active in local and international non-profits focused on education including his own family foundation called the Anwar Foundation which helps underprivileged communities around the world. |
Video blogging isn’t new but the technology has changed. More videos are being uploaded and watched daily online, increasing the chance that your video may be lost in the real-time web. We’ll discuss new technologies to use video to tell your story, capture an audience and build online communities.
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Wayne Sutton Fragment/TriOut Think of me as the social media lead car on the Autobahn of the Internet. For more than four years, I’ve provided counsel to business leaders ranging from founders of small start-ups and representatives of non-profit organizations to CEOs of large and small corporations. For some, understanding the social media landscape is difficult. I help industry leaders maneuver through the lanes in the ever-changing Internet environment. |
If you’re at SXSW please stop by and I’m going to try to live stream one ore both sessions here: http://socialwayne.com/sxsw2010/
Posted on March 9, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton
My photo of Steve Jobs at the Oscars 28,000 views later, a media/blog frenzy & my side of the story.
As many of you know Sunday I had the opportunity to be a guest blogger on the Red Carpet Bleachers at the Oscars thanks to Kodak’s marketing team Tom and Jennifer @KodakCB. Before attending the event I knew I would probably see celebrities such as Tyler Perry or Steve Carell.
But little did I know I would see Mr. Steve Jobs himself walking the red carpet. Yes, the CEO of Apple walked right in front of me with a guest trying to go unnoticed on the red carpet and he almost pulled it off too. I was using one of the Kodak’s cameras to zoom in and I saw what looked liked the back of his head. Then it hit me, OMG that’s Steve Jobs! Immediately I started screaming trying to get his attention and he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye with an aww you spotted me look. Also there was security guard behind him who had a similar smirk on his face who looked at me with a yes, that’s Steve Jobs look on his face.
So before I knew it, while everyone else was yelling at Quentin Tarantino and Lenny Kravitz who was right behind Mr. Jobs I was screaming, “it’s Steve Jobs!” When I say, I was screaming, Steve Jobs I mean literally screaming. Two other red carpet friends who I just met earlier on Sunday both gave me a look and one of them said. “Why are you screaming about Steve Jobs when Quentin Tarantino is standing right there? ”
My first answer was, you know he’s the CEO of Apple right. They’re response was, yes and somewhere between seeing and screaming “It’s Steve Jobs” I snapped a far off photo of him on the red carpet with my iPhone. Then realizing that the picture may be too far off I tried to take a close up picture of Mr. Jobs with one of the Kodak cameras but it was too late. Steve Jobs vanished on the red carpet sneaking past main stream media and all of the entertainment reporters unnoticed. So I emailed the picture to my posterous site which crossed posted here on SocialWayne.com but tweeted the Posterous link.
Daniel & Carrie from the bleachers.
From there after calming down and thinking, wow I just saw Steve Jobs in real life, I was still trying to convince my red carpet bleachers friends how big of a deal it was that we just saw Steve Jobs. They brushed it off and everyone continued to take photos of other celebrities walking the red carpet. After a few minutes I checked my Twitter stream and saw that @TUAW had retweeted me, then the story was on CNet.com in which they called Apple’s PR to confirm that Steve Jobs attended the Oscars. Next I received an email from Peter Kafka senior editor of AllthingsD.com asking if he could use my photo and if I had any more information to add to the story he was working on. Soon after that, I received a few tweets that the photo was on Mashable and Apple had released a new iPad commercial during the Oscars. The rest is what you can say is history from retweets, to more blog post to even being listed on Techmeme as a source. I’ve been trying to get on Techmeme for years!
I’m not going to go into why Steve Jobs was at the Oscars or about the iPad but even if it was for a brief second, I can say I saw Steve Jobs in real life at the Oscars and I owe it all to Kodak. Thanks Tom and Jennifer @KodakCB.
As for the media/blog frenzy here are a few of the blog post about Steve Jobs walking on the red carpet for the Oscars 2010.
- Cnet: Steve Jobs spotted at the Oscars; iPad ad runs
- CnnMoney.com: Steve Jobs’ big night at the Oscars
- All Things Digital: “OMG It’s Steve Jobs! I’m the Only One Yelling at Him!”
- Huffingtonpost.com: Steve Jobs’ Oscar Cameo: PICTURES Of Tux-Wearing Apple CEO On The Red Carpet
- Venture Beat: Steve Jobs attends Academy Awards, Apple runs iPad commercial during the Oscars
- Good Morning Silicon Valley: Jobs and iPad make Oscar cameos
- theappleblog.com: Apple at the Oscars
- Mashable: First iPad Commercial Airs During the Oscars [VIDEO]
- Steve Jobs spotted at the Oscars; iPad ad runs
- Thanks to Pixar, Steve Jobs Makes an Appearance at 2010 Oscars
- The Oscars Featuring Steve Jobs and iPad Commercials
- Market Recap: Nasdaq Composite Rises to a New 52-Week High
- Steve Jobs Takes iPad Promotion to the Oscars
- Apple’s iPad invasion: First stop, Hollywood
- Steve Jobs hits the Oscars
As for the photo that started it all, here it is with one more blurry head shot of Mr. Steve Jobs.
If you had a chance to interview Steve Jobs what would you ask him?
Posted on March 5, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton
Join us Saturday for a Pre-Oscars Tweetup / #SquareUP at the @HiltonUniversal #kodakredcarpet
It’s my first visit to California and I’m looking forward to meeting friends who I have chatted virtually and new friends as well.
Join us this Saturday from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. at the Atrium Lounge at the Hilton Los Angeles/Universal City to celebrate the 2010 Oscars. This year, Kodak will be sending some of our nation’s top bloggers to report live from the Red Carpet.
Then we’ll head over to City Walk for a great night out!
You can RSVP below or go here: http://preoscarstweetup.eventbrite.com/
A big thanks to @HiltonUniversal for hosting, and we hope to see you there!
Posted on February 23, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton
I’m going to the Oscars Red Carpet with Kodak
Posted on February 15, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton
Upcoming events in the Triangle: tweetups, launch party, camps, clubs, Ignite & more
If you didn’t know, OurHashtag sends out a bi-weekly email newseletter of upcoming technology events in the Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, NC). We call our events newsletter and site Social Carolina, http://socialcarolina.org. You can subscribe to our Social Carolina events newsletter and submit events on the site. Here’s a highlight of some of the upcoming events we featured in last weeks email newsletter.
| Upcoming First Quarter Events |
The NC Comedy Arts Festival
The NC Comedy Arts Festival is the largest comedy festival in the Southern U.S. featuring improv, standup comedy, sketch comedy and film & video.
Dates: February 11-14, 16-21, 25-27
More info: http://www.nccomedyarts.com
NC Comedy Arts Festival Tweetup
Date: Thursday February 18, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
More info: http://nccomedy.eventbrite.com
TriOut Launch Party – Sponsored by the Research Triangle Park
Date: Wednesday, February 17, 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM (ET)
Location: The Research Triangle Park
RSVP: http://trioutlaunchparty.eventbrite.com
NC jQuery & JavaScript Camp: Winter 2010
Date: Saturday, February 20, 2010 10:00 AM – 4:00PM
Location: Durham Arts Council
RSVP: http://ncjquerycamp2.eventbrite.com
February Triangle Social Media Club
SXSW Preview
Date: Thursday, February 25, 7:00 PM
Location: Bandwidth – http://bandwidth.com
RSVP: http://smctrianglefeb10.eventbrite.com
Triangle FreezeUp! FreezerBurns Live! @DQ
Date: Monday, March 01, 2010 7:00 PM – 10:00
Location: DQ Grill & Chill
RSVP: http://freezeup.eventbrite.com
Ignite Raleigh 2
Date: March 3, 2010
Location: Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh, NC
Now taking submissions for presentations at: http://voting.igniteraleigh.com
RSVP: http://igniteraleigh2.eventbrite.com
TedxTriangleNC
Date: March 6, 2010.
Location: RTP Headquarters
More information: http://www.tedxtrianglenc.com
Date: March 8, 2010.
Location: Six Plates Wine Bar
More information: http://www.fizzleddurham.com
Be sure to check out the full caleneder of weekly events and more at http://socialcarolina.org.
Posted on February 9, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton
Announcing Team North Carolina for Chevrolet Social Media Road Trip to SXSW #ChevySXSW
Can you say road trip! That’s right folks, Chevrolet looking to take advantage of social media by having teams from eight cities blog and participate in 50 challenges on the way to Austin, TX for SXSW. The cites included are San Diego, Detroit, Lansing, Chicago, Atlanta, South Florida, North Carolina and New York. I’ll be joining NC team North Carolina which includes:
Jason Keath @jakrose
Nicole D’Alonzo @nikisnotes
Ryan Boyles @theRab. 
Wayne Sutton @WayneSutton 
Here’s more information about Chevrolet’s SXSW Road Trip Challenge via GM’s FastLane Blog: http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2010/02/chevrolets_sxsw_road_trip_challenge.html
Here’s how it works: starting today and running through February 28th, we’re asking you to submit your ideas to @chevrolet on Twitter, or to facebook.com/Chevrolet, of the challenges you’d like to see the eight teams complete on their trip. We’re selecting 10 tasks from each of five different categories: Charity (ex: stop at an animal shelter and walk the dogs), Collection (ex: collect a sample of water from a famous body of water near you), Physical Challenge (ex: climb a rock wall, or stuff your trunk full of balloons), Interaction (ex: meet up w/one of your followers and give them a test drive, or get a group of people to sing a famous song, flash-mob style), and Digital Image (ex: take a photo of a cactus or rock that looks uncannily like one of your team members). We’ll take our favorite 45 ideas that come in to @chevrolet or to the teams involved, and make them required missions for the teams on the road trip. (We’re going to pick one challenge for each category ourselves; hey, it’s our promotion, so we get to pick at least one, right?) On March 8, when the teams are starting to head off to Austin, we’ll reveal the 50 missions – and then you get to follow along and see how they’re doing!
Over the next few weeks here on (FastLane/Chevy’s Facebook page), we’ll be profiling each of the eight teams competing in this road trip challenge so you can get to know the contestants a little better. Since the teams are going to be collecting ideas for challenges from their fans and followers as well, you’re going to want to keep a close eye on them on Twitter in the next few weeks to get a sense of the kinds of things they’re coming up with. Here are the eight teams and their captains’ Twitter IDs:
Jason Keath is our team captain and we’re excited about the opportunity to work with Chevrolet @chevrolet / Christopher Barger @cbarger and to the other teams good luck but team North Carolina will win!
Posted on February 4, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton
Help Haiti and get a social media workshop for your company
Originally posted by David B. Thomas on conversations and connections – social media at SAS
Photo by United Nations Development Programme / CC BY 2.0
Recently Mitch Joel and Joseph Jaffe promised to auction off keynote addresses for Haiti relief, with their services going to the highest bidder. This idea inspired me to do something similar here in the Triangle. As with all human endeavors involving more than one person, it took some time to organize, but we’ve got the participants lined up, so let’s get this started.
We will plan and present a half-day social media workshop to the Triangle-area company that makes the highest donation to Red Cross Haiti relief, with a reserve of $1000. The workshop will be held onsite at your company and tailored to your needs. I’ve lined up a solid group of social media professionals to make this a truly valuable event:
Wayne Sutton, nationally known blogger at http://socialwayne.com and social media/community strategist for Twine Interactive,
Jeff Cohen, a social media consultant and practitioner and one of the principles of SocialMediaB2B.com, one of the most active and useful sites for social media for business,
Mur Lafferty, award-winning podcasting author, writer, blogger, and speaker, co-author of Tricks of the Podcasting Masters, host of I Should Be Writing, the Tor.com Story podcast, and several fiction podcasts,
Brian McDonald, marketing director at Zencos, blogger at http://squarejawmedia.com and Social Media VP of the Triangle chapter of the American Marketing Association,
Ryan Boyles, community manager at IBM, focused on connecting with customers and partners with social media and nurturing brand advocates with engagement inside and outside the company firewall,
David B. Thomas (me), social media manager at SAS, responsible for directing SAS’ social media strategy and the practical aspects of integrating social media into the company’s operations globally.
Ready to start the bidding? We’ll do it by email. Send your bids, starting at $1000, to trianglebenefit@gmail.com. We’ll keep the bidding open until 5:00 p.m. ET on Friday, Feb. 19. The workshop will go to the company that promises by email before the deadline to make the highest donation over $1000 to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief and Development Fund. Once you’ve been notified that you’ve won the bid, you’ll be asked to provide proof of your donation before we plan the event.
A few common-sense rules: This auction is open to companies and organizations in the Triangle area of North Carolina (Raleigh, Cary, Durham, Chapel Hill and environs). We will present the workshop at the donor company’s Triangle location or a Triangle site of your choosing. The winning donor company is responsible for providing the location and facilities. Any expenses related to the facility and the event, and any required materials, as well as any refreshments you want to provide, are the responsibility of the winning donor. In other words, we’re not bringing the coffee or pads and pencils or any of that stuff, and it would be great if you could supply a projector. Any tax implications of this donation are solely the responsibility of the donor company.
We’ll work with you to find a mutually-agreeable time for the workshop before June 1, 2010.
If you know a company that would be interested, please help us by forwarding this, and sharing it with your networks.
Please note: I’m involved in this and promoting it on my blog, but this is not an official SAS-sponsored event. All of the folks involved in this event are participating on their own and not as official representatives of their respective companies.
Posted on January 4, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton
Social Fresh Nashville, a social media conference for marketers is next week.
Flickr photo by Jason Keath
Social Fresh Nashville is just one week away on January 11, 2010 and I’m excited to be one of speakers for the first Social Fresh social media conference of 2010.
“ Social Fresh is a one day social media conference targeting professional marketers and focusing on case study heavy content. Jason Keath founded the Social Fresh series of conferences in early 2009. Keath saw a need in the secondary markets for conferences targeting an audience who works in marketing, advertising, PR, SEO or web development for Fortune 1000 companies or government. Social Fresh uses case studies of big ideas, success stories, and ROI of social media from a corporate and branding perspective. ” via Techdrawl
Some of the other speakers include:
- Amber Naslund of Radian6
- Paula Berg of Southwest Airlines
- Kipp Bodnar of Howard Merrell & Partners
- Bert Dumars of Rubbermaid
- Lisa Hoffman of Duke Energy
- Jason Falls of SocialMediaExplorer.com
- Zena Weist of Embarq
- Jeff Cohen of SocialMediaB2B.com
- Nick Ayres of Home Depot
- Jason Kintzler of PitchEngine.com
- Matt Browne of Lending Tree
- Dan Zarrella of Hubspot
- Geno Church of Brains on Fire
- Tessa Horehled of THINK Interactive
- Brian Simpson of Roger Smith Hotel
- Greg Cangialosi & DJ Waldow of Blue Sky Factory
- and more!
I will be participating on the Twitter and Facebook Success panel along with
 Shashi Bellamkonda @shashib Social Media Swami Network Solutions |
 Gavin Baker @gavinbaker Social Media Manager Ruby Tuesday |
 Arie Ball @arie_ball VP Talent Acquisition Sodexo |
Nick Ayres
@nickjayres
New Media +
Content Manager
The Home Depot
If you have any questions or topics you would like for us to discuss during the session, feel free to leave them on the Social Fresh Ning site for the panel here: http://socialfresh.ning.com/forum/topics/questions-real-twitter-and.
You can register for Social Fresh Nashville at http://socialfresh.com/nashville. Hurry because the first social fresh conference in Charlotte, NC sold out.
Posted on November 5, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
What were your top Tech Conferences of 2009?
So last night while at the Internet Summit pre-party I was chatting with Simon Cole @simonjcole, Meg Crawford @Postgrad and Tessa Horehled @tessa about what drives attendees for tech / social media conferences and what are the top conferences that people should attend in 2010. Most people would say it’s the content or the speakers that drive attendees, for me it’s networking.
As we start looking at budgets for next year people are already starting to plan what conferences they should attend in 2010. While talking last night we were listing conferences that were valuable to us such as SXSW and BlogWorld (of course) but then after that the list is wide open. I would also add my conference (The Social Media Business Forum ( http://socialmediabusinessforum.com ) #shamelessplug :).
With that being said, what were your top Tech Conferences of 2009 and why?
Posted on November 3, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
Call it a Tweetup & they will come? Wrong! Social media event marketing 101
Photo Credit: Abbyladybug
Wrong!
You know the saying, “build it and they will come” well, we all know how that works out and now it seems there’s a new saying, call your meetup a Tweetup and they will come. Just like the first saying, businesses and people need plan accordingly and don’t expect by calling your event a Tweetup that the Twitter community will embrace your meetup and show up tweeting about your product or services.
What’s a Tweetup?
Oh, if you’re wondering what a Tweetup is, according to urbandictionary.com a Tweetup is A group of friends on Twitter (social network) that are planning to meet up, that’s it, that’s all. But with the success of Twitter in the news, TVs shows and being used by music artist and other celebrities Twitter has now caught the eyes of brands to host Tweetups as a way to reach various communities to market their services offline and locally to potential buyers. Tweetups can consist of two people and can be held anywhere from coffee shops to businesses to parks. There are sites now that focus on Tweetups such as: http://tweetups.com
Tweetup Photo by Jeff Cohen
Past Tweetup Success
You may be asking why am I posting about this now, well, in the past few weeks I have been approached by a few national brands, local malls stores and individuals about hosting a tweetup. It seems that people have started to notice the success we have had with Triangle Tweetups ( http://triangletweetup.org ) in North Carolina. Some of our past Triangle Tweetup numbers have been 150, 250 to 180 attendees with our recent partnership with the North Carolina State Fair to host a Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup at the State Fair. What’s unique about those Tweetups except for the @NCStateFair tweetup is they were not directly linked to another event/conference. There were just planned well and organized to bring the community together to learn and network with the common interest being Twitter.
Brands, Businesses and Tweetups
As I stated earlier, brands / businesses are now hosting tweetups to reach out to various communities offline to market their product and services. There’s nothing wrong with that but I would like caution companies looking to host Tweetups because it’s the new “cool” thing to do without any research. Especially if you’re trying to host a Tweetup in a different location where you may not have a local connection or network reach. But even then I would do a lot of market/Twitter research to see how the local community uses twitter and with various Twitter tools available it’s easy to find users by location now. Also look at how locations view your brand before you host a Tweetup. The last thing you want is to have a tweetup and all the attendees are showing up to complain about your product or service.
Social media event marketing 101
So you still want to plan a Tweetup? If you’re an individual and just want to meet for coffee, lunch or just to catch-up with local tweeple, have at it and enjoy. I think I’m meeting a few friends at a coffee shop in Raleigh for a #busybeetweetup in a few weeks myself. But if you’re a company and you want to host a Tweetup to announce your grand opening or your new product / service or to show that you “get social media” I would start with the following before I decided to host a Tweetup:
1. Use a custom twitter location search or Twitter Grader to find local Twitter users and build a relationship with them.
2. Plan at least 30 to 60 days ahead to market your event.
3. Join other location based social networks such as Whrrl, brightkite, foursquare, gowalla, and Tri-Out (NC only) and connect with the community there.
4. Find the right loaction with wifi and good parking.
5. Use a Tweetup planning sites like: http://twtvite.com or http://tweetvite.com
6. Sponsor existing Tweetups held by the community that can serve as the same purpose as hosting a tweetup
7. Ask yourself the following: Why does my company want to plan a Tweetup
What is my goal for planning a Tweetup and how are we going to measure the success of the Tweetup
No guarantees
With that being said you could simply hire companies or experienced individuals to plan Tweetups for your organization and talking with these individuals you may find out that a Tweetup may not be something you should invest your time or money into at the moment just because it’s the cool thing to do. Yes, hire someone because even though Twitter is free but peoples time, network and expereince is not. Still there are no guarantees, even after you have done your market research and planned accordingly that after the doors open and tweeple arrive that you will convert a tweetup attendee to a new customer.
My experience?
I’m co-organizer of the Triangle Tweetup in Raleigh, NC ( http://triangletweetup.org ) and partner of OurHashtag where we plan community events using social media. I planned the first tweetup in North Carolina with 5 people in December of 2007 and have planned tweetups up to 250 attendees in 2009. I have also co-organized first time tweetups in Atlanta, GA, Charlotte, Raleigh Wilmington & Durham, NC & Harlem, NY.
If you would like to plan a Tweetup or use social media to plan an event email us at contact@OurhHastag.com.
Posted on November 2, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
The ROI for attending Social Media Conferences. Defining your goals.
This is part 2 of my post “Why we planned a Social Media Conference in NC?” post. As I stated in the previous post it seems that everyone is planning some sort of social media conference, meetup, forum, workshop, bootcamp or webinar. Just like any marketing or social media campaign before you start you must do at least two things, one define your goal of attending and two, do your research before you attend. As the space has become crowded, for any person or business owner you need to make sure your employees take part in valuable conversations where they can learn to increase their knowledge to make they are a valuable asset to your company. As these events become more popular you really need to make sure you look at agenda from the conference organizers, the type of sponsors they are attracting and the speakers. Don’t just look at any conference with big names or what some people call the “rock stars” of social media and assume the conference is going to be awesome.
A lot of the time people set unrealistic goals when attending conferences, they go with an expectation of being wowed by speakers and they will hear some grounding breaking secret that is going to tell them how to send a tweet and make a million dollars like Dell and that’s just not the case. But sometimes the over hype of attending a social media conference is to be blamed on conference organizers as they try to make the event sound awesome. Either way you should do your research and set realistic goals before you attend any conference.
Speaking of goals and getting to the ROI for attending a social media conference topic, as I mentioned defining your goals before you attend is key. While attending conferences most of the time your number one goal is simply to learn. I would say your second goal is to network for possible business leads or deals that could be profitable for you. For some, the goal for attending conferences is just a way to get out of the office and have a good time. That’s another story. One goal that I try to obtain while attending social media conferences is to create content while I’m there or afterwards via blogging therefore it becomes a resource not only for me but for my blog readers. Read a few post from David B. Thomas of SAS as an example
Now that you have your goals defined, then you measure the outcome by the following:
- Did you learn anything new?
- Did you build new relationships with possible partners?
- Did you create any new content before or after?
- Are you able to teach others about what you learned?
- Did you connect with someone new who you might be able to refer to someone else?
- Did you do more listening or talking?
- How many business cards did you pass out and obtain?
- If you’re planning a conference did you connect with a potential sponsor?
- Did you find answers to your questions you had before you left?
These are a few ways I look at the ROI of attending not just social media conferences but any meetup or event.
Do you have any success stories from attending a social media conference? If so, please share in the comments.
Posted on October 30, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
One week later: Why we planned a Social Media Conference in NC? #SMBF Thank you!
Photo via: toprankonlinemarketing on Flickr
It has been a busy year for me in the terms of speaking and traveling to attend various conferences accross the United States. It started in January where I was on a panel at a conference called Chicks who Click in Boulder, CO where I met @GeorgeGsmithjr & @GeekMommy. Then I attended the Future of Web Apps in Miami, FL., next came PubCon Austin where I was on a panel with Chris Brogan, Reem Abeidoh and Lee Odden. Then I was able to speak at SXSW on a panel with Angela Benton. After that I stayed local for a while, working on the Triangle Social Media Club Chapter and attending one day conferences, such as (ConvergeSC) in South Carolina and (New Media Atlanta). Somewhere in between those two conferences I was on a panel at Jason Keath’s Social Fresh conference and after that Ted Murphy asked if I could moderate a panel at IZEAFest. Recentlly I was humbled to be able to speak at Blog World Expo with Robert Scoble, Amber Cadabra of Radian6 and Patrick O’Keefe aka @iFroggy. You can see a full list of my 2009 speaking events here: http:/FriendWayne.com
Photo credit: (cc) Cameron Gawley – www.buzzshift.com
To say it has been a busy year is an understatement, all while launching a company called “OurHashtag” and planning local events in the Triangle (Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, NC ). But last week my partners and I, along with the help of a great team of volunteers planned the Social Media Business Forum in Durham, NC at North Carolina Central University. The conference goal was to bring in national and local speakers together with businesses, marketing agencies and individuals who were looking to have conversations about using social media in their work environment. Basically to discuss “how social media is changing the way businesses communicate”. Personally another goal of the Social Media Business Forum was to bring the experiences I’ve collected while traveling to various conferences to the Triangle. Also I wanted bring in some of the industry leaders in social media marketing, Twitter, marketing, video and blogging to the area so others can learn from people who I consider my peers.
Another reason why we planned the conference is because if you look at your Facebook inbox, gmail and Twitter stream, I’m sure you see a tone of “social media” bootcamps, workshops and meetups from all types of individuals. Everyone from beginners, to copy cats, to other experienced individuals are planning events to share their knowledge on how to use social media. While there is nothing wrong with that, as Brogan would say, “you have to feed the babies” or something like that, my only caution is take a step back look at what your needs are, look at the agenda, speakers, “teachers”, your budget and other attendees to make sure you get the best ROI (return on your investment) while spending time at various “social media” events. Evaluating the ROI of attending meetups / conferences is a blog post by itself that I’ll touch on next week.
But back to the post title, why did we plan a Social Media Conference in North Carolina? Why not? Social media is about sharing, relationships, community, information, business and people; North Carolina has some of the smartest people in the technology / social web living right here in the Triangle and we wanted to bring some of them together and let everyone know it. So to all the speakers, sponsors, volunteers, my partners and attendees Thanks for making the Social Media Business Forum a success and we’ll see you next year.
Also read: Jeffrey L. Cohen Talks About the Social Media Business Forum
Posted on October 20, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton
11 first time IRL encouters at BlogWorld Expo 2009 #bwe09
If you have been reading any of my recent blog post or following my tweets, then I’m sure you know that I attended BlogWorld Expo 2009. This was my first time attending and being that it was the largest expo yet, it seems like I picked a good time attend. While I enjoyed seeing and hanging with virtual friends at BlogWorld who I may have met once or twice in real-life, I was excited to met 11 other colleges for the first time offline. Here’s my list of first time in real-life encounters at Blog World Expo.
1. Chris Pirillo – @chrisPirillo – http://chris.pirillo.com
2. Cali Lewis @calilewis – http://www.geekbrief.tv
3. Ben Parr @BenParr - http://benparr.com
4. Drew Olanoff – @Drew - http://www.drewolanoff.com
5. Darren Rowse aka @ProBlogger – http://www.problogger.net
6. Kosso – @kosso – http://phreadz.com
7. Qiana Markham – @crimpshoes – http://www.beingqianamarkham.com
8. Calvin Lee – @mayhemstudios – http://mayhemstudios.com/blog
9. Giannii – @giannii – http://giannii.com/whats-your-story-g
10. Mona Nomura – @Mona – http://pixelbits.wordpress.com/about
11. Scott Monty – @ScottMonty – http://scottmonty.com
It was great meeting everyone and for others who I met for the first time it was nice to meet you too. Lets keep in touch.
If you attended Blog World Expo 2009, who did you meet for the first time in real-life and what are your thoughts on Blog World Expo 2009?
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Business development/marketing strategist for TriOut. Take a look around this site. I have some of informative post for you to enjoy. Leave me a comment if you read one that educates or inspires you. I can be reached via voicemail at 919-809-7328 or email at info at socialwayne dot com.
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