Attending Social Media Marketing World Conference as a College Professor: Takeaways & Tips to Maximize ROI

I have been following Social Media Examiner @SMExaminer for a few years. I am a huge fan of their content. I enjoy watching their weekly Friday shows (1 P.M., ET) where I can learn the latest updates in social media marketing within a week. I also indulge in their podcast and blog articles. To say that I'm a super-fan is almost an understatement. So, the moment when I purchased my ticket to its mega social media marketing world conference, I was elated. The moment when I confirmed that I would be sharing a hotel room with a conference speaker, the experience started to feel a little surreal to me. It’s such an intense experience that attending the conference in person seemed to be the only way to fully capture the scale of the event.

I came. I snapped. I tweeted. I seflied. I hugged. And I was conquered by the immensity of the experience.

In this article, I will relay my reflections from attending the conference, from the perspective of an academic teaching public relations and social media. Specifically, I'll share two major takeaways and a few tips to maximize the ROI of attending such a mega conference.

I. A disconnect between education and practice

As a college professor, I naturally wanted to connect with professionals working in higher education. Even before the conference, I connected with quite a few folks who work in higher education via the Slack group that Social Media Examiner created for its conference attendees. Unfortunately, there weren’t that many professors attending the conference who are actually teaching social media. To me, this shows a disconnect between what’s happening in the ivory tower and what’s going on in the industry.

Luckily, I was able to connect with one college professor, Niklas Myhr @NiklasMyhr , who was a volunteer at the conference. Niklas and I actually connected over Twitter during last year’s Social Media Marketing World Conference (#SMMW16). I like to follow (maybe semi-stalk?) major conference hashtags to absorb knowledge and to network. I was following last year’s Social Media Marketing World conference hashtag and saw that Niklas tweeted that he got an opportunity to do a one-week internship at Gary Vaynerchuk's @VaynerMedia. That got me intrigued. How did it happen? I immediately reached out and connected with Niklas. It’s so nice to finally connect with him in person during this year’s conference, #SMMW17. Niklas and I had lots of good conversations about social media marketing, teaching, and higher education. He also shared with me his major takeaways from interning at @VaynerMedia. If you want to learn more about his experience, Niklas did a TedX talking reflecting on his internship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wyfF8a3FYg

(Natx Wang and me with Niklas Myhr in the background)

Aside from my encounter with Niklas, I didn’t interact with any other social media professor who teaches the subject. Interestingly, when I attend academic conferences, I experience the same disconnect. At academic conferences/gatherings, I rarely encounter people who come from the professional world. It almost feels like the two worlds co-exist in a parallel manner. But, this shouldn’t be the case. The two worlds of practice and education should be as closely integrated as possible. We need professors to step out of the ivory tower to interact with professionals to learn and network; at the same time, we need professionals from the industry to talk to professors and students to share the latest tools and necessary skill sets that they need to learn. After all, social media is a highly applied field of discipline. Students eventually need to find jobs in the field and practice social media. It’s imperative for educators to immerse themselves into the professional world to translate that experience back into the classroom to facilitate teaching and learning. I believe professors of social media or probably of any field should serve as the bridge interlinking classroom teaching with real life practice. When we are connected, our teaching is connected. When we are disconnected, our teaching is disconnected.

II. The importance of having a personal brand

Social Media Marketing world is not the first time I attended a mega conference, but it was the first that I benefited so much from attending a conference. I attributed this to a strong personal brand that I have developed for myself over the past two years (to learn how I transformed myself from a digital dinosaur to a digital native/savvy, please read my guest blog on SpinSucks here). At this year’s conference, I was able to take selfies with and give hugs to so many influencers, speakers, and friends that I have been interacting with via social media over the past two years. It’s absolutely a joy to connect with them in person. This human connection is the best part of the conference and probably a primary reason that I will come back to the conference again next year.

(With Sue Zimmerman @SueBZimmerman, the Instagram expert)

In addition, with an active online presence, you don’t have that awkward feeling when you meet someone for the first time while trying to identify common ground to talk about. In my personal experience, social media has shrunk the distance between people and brought me closer to the outside world. In most cases, I felt that I already knew these people for a long time. We connected RIGHT AWAY. There was not even handshakes but hugs and selfies. As you can see from the video here, I burst into scream with uncontrollable excitement when I met all these influencers. One fan girl moment after another. Below is a screenshot of a video I took with the one and only Brian Fanzo @iSocialFanz.

III. Four tips to maximize your ROI on attending a mega conference

• Contact speakers ahead of time via social media. As soon as I decided that I was attending #SMMW17, I checked out all the speakers and started interacting with them on social media. Of course, I didn't interact with ALL the speakers. I only selected those whose topics aligned well with my interest. I expressed my interest in meeting them in person and attending their sessions. This strategy worked really well. When I did meet them in person at the conference, they frequently referred to me as, "you are the girl who tweeted me a lot." Yes. I am. :) Even better, if you have purchased any of the speakers' books before, bring them with you to the conference and get them signed. I, unfortunately, didn't do this. But, next year, I will.

(With Mark Schaefer @markwschaefer, author of "Known")

• Stir up a Twitter storm. I was tweeting like crazy during the conference using #SMMW17. That gave me some good publicity and helped me get connected with many people. One can easily feel overwhelmed attending such a mega conference. I did feel that way. However, it is important to remember the big picture and why you are attending the conference. I want to learn and network as much as possible. I was greeting people in real life at the conference, hugging and taking selfies, Snapchatting, taking notes on a piece of paper (yes!), and Tweeting like crazy. My brain was exploding with ideas and excitement from time to time, not to mention that I slept only three hours every night during the entire conference. It's all worth it. :) I did catch up on the lost sleep upon returning home.
• Take digital business cards. I am not good at organizing business cards. Most of them ended up never being touched again after an event is over. So, this time I took an innovative approach to business cards. I asked the person hold up their name tag next to their face and sometimes I even asked them to record a short video of who they were. This strategy helped me tremendously to remember who they are.
• Ask questions during sessions. One thing I challenged myself to do was to ask a question every time that I attended a presentation. Sometimes, this did feel a little intimidating as there were sessions that had more than 100 attendees. But, I am super proud of myself for doing this. Not only did I get my questions answered, but also built a good impression on the speakers and attendees. I had quite a few people approaching me at the conference thanking me for the questions that I asked because they were dealing with similar situations.

These are some of my takeaways and tips! I definitely plan to come back to this conference again next year. Let me know what you think.

Come prepared. You won't be disappointed. See you at #SMMW18