A couple of weeks ago, almost 5,000 marketers from around the world gathered in sunny San Diego for Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Marketing World, including US!
Between Todd and I, we attended workshops and sessions run by John Jantsch, Mike Kim, Greg Hickman, Chris Dayley, Michael Stelzner, Brian Fanzo, Derral Eves, Guy Kawasaki, Luria Petrucci, Amy Landino, Gina Dietrich, Brian Solis, Molly Pittman, Mikael Yang, Andrew Yaroshevsky, Linda Lee, Mari Smith, Jay Baer, Amy Porterfield, Sue B. Zimmerman, Jo Saunders, Jon Loomer, Ben Beck, Dan Gingiss, Melanie Deziel and Pat Flynn with plans to view more of the sessions this week when the session recordings are made available. Phew, right?!
The catch-cry of this conference was loud and clear; it’s time to humanise (or, humanize since we were in the US ?) your brand’s content and start putting the ‘social’ back into ‘social media’.
Amy Porterfield taught us to get clear on our WHY, and Brian Solis discussed our capacity as individual users and businesses to make social media a better place for us all.
Guy Kawasaki’s controversial session, Achieving Social Media Success by Defying Conventional Wisdom was standout. #strategyporn
Mari Smith talked about how Instagram is Facebook’s new Facebook. And while we’re on the topic of Facebook? Because let’s face it we’re alllll talking about Facebook RN, they’ve revealed some pretty major changes recently and if you’re looking for a sign that Facebook is in support of businesses using their platform? Messenger’s Head of Strategic Partnerships Linda Lee appeared on stage at Social Media Marketing World alongside two reps from some of the biggest players in the chatbot game; Mikael Yang from ManyChat and Andrew Yaroshevsky from Chatfuel. Facebook’s made and will continue to make changes on their platform that we believe will benefit the end user’s experience – that’s a good thing! Looks like Facebook’s got our backs guys, they just want to tame the beast.
So, you want to hear our big 5 takeaways from #SMMW18?
- Humanise your content and get social on social.
- Podcasting and vlogging: you can do it and it isn’t too late, but you need a good strategy to stand out.
- Live video: keep showing up and offer value. Know yo’ worth!
- Quit the comparison game; it’s not about the size of your audience, it’s about the quality of their interactions. Which brings us to…
- Meaningful interactions… there it is, you knew it was coming! Time to return to the days of building relationships, one-by-one.
We’ve traveled to Southern California and attended this conference for the last three years for so many reasons; to keep up with social media marketing trends and best practices, to network and honestly? To get out of regular routine, shake up our creative thinking and keep it FRESH.
