UpLift Live conference updates

As we're now less than 2 weeks away from UpLift Live, the UK's first LinkedIn-focused conference, here's an update from our recent work to prepare for the event.

LaunchPad Zoom calls

You may have attended some of our pre-conference "LaunchPad" Zoom calls, for attendees to get to know each other ahead of the big day.

We planned to run 4 of these calls but they've been popular enough that we're fitting in an extra one at 1pm UK time on Wednesday 13 March 2024. Stay tuned for the Zoom link if you have an in-person ticket.

There's no agenda – it's just a bit of fun to see the faces you're going to meet on the day of the conference. In fact, you might meet them before then, because …

Pre-party

We've organised a pre-event party at The Cosy Club on Bennetts Hill in Birmingham, on 20 March 2024, the night before UpLift Live.

This will be for in-person ticket-holders only, and starts at 7pm. It's a fab venue that's also been used to host the popular SMM Meetup event over the past couple of years.

I'm having dinner with the conference speakers just before the pre-party, so I expect most if not all of them to be around for some of the rest of the evening – a perfect chance for you to say hi.

I've never liked the "them and us" vibe you get at some conferences, so here we're all going to be together and mix as equals.

I put out a LinkedIn poll in mid February to ask how many people would be coming to the pre-party, and that got 76 yeses. I'm sure many attendees will have missed the poll so I expect even more people to be there on the evening. (If you've got a ticket, you'll get one free drink, too.)

Attendees

The original vision when we started to plan this conference in the middle of 2023 was that we would focus on creating an in-person event. We've currently issued almost 200 tickets to the event, almost all of which are for the in-person experience on Thursday 21 March 2024 in Birmingham, UK.

Everyone with a ticket will be able to watch high-quality recordings, which will be fully captioned and transcribed.

The replays will also be available to people with an on-demand ticket. We've decided not to livestream the talks on the day, just to be sure that we don't have any technical issues that might detract from the experience.

We'll do our best to get the polished replays available to all ticket-holders as soon after the event as possible.

Agenda

We've published our agenda for the day on the UpLift Live website at uplift-live.com but I'll repeat it here. If you need to check anything, please do look at the website in the first instance, just in case we need to make any late changes:

The conference will start at 9.30am and finish at 5.00pm, with networking until 7.00pm.? This is a single-track conference where each speaker will take to the stage individually throughout the day, followed by a group Q&A featuring all speakers together.?

• Registration: 8.45am–9.30am
• Intro: 9.30am–9.45am
• Louise Brogan : 9.45am–10.15am Maximise the impact of your LinkedIn company page
• Nigel Cliffe 10.20am–10.50am Advanced ways to search LinkedIn both on and off platform, including tips for Sales Navigator
• Break: 10.50am–11.20am
• Mark Williams : 11.20am–11.50am How to do good research through “ethical stalking” on LinkedIn
• John Espirian : 11.55am–12.25pm How to be influential and memorable on LinkedIn
• Lunch: 12.25pm–1.25pm
• Gillian Whitney : 1.25pm–1.55pm Livestream tips for creating live videos on LinkedIn
• Kevin D. Turner : 2.00pm–2.30pm Advanced tips on LinkedIn best practice, including a look at new LinkedIn features for 2024
• Break: 2.30pm–3.00pm
• TIINA JARVET : 3.00pm–3.30pm Best practice advice for discoverability on LinkedIn, with a look at the platform from the recruiter’s point of view
• Richard van der Blom : 3.35pm–4.05pm How to improve your social selling by understanding the algorithms and your data on LinkedIn
• Expert Q&A: 4.10pm–5.00pm All speakers onstage to finish the day by answering questions from the audience – your chance to quiz the best of the best!
• Close and networking: 5.00pm–7.00pm

All of the talks are going to focus on sharing expert insight about best practice for using various parts of LinkedIn. That means we're not going to do any cringey selling from the stage!?

Everyone taking the stage has previously been featured in my Friday Shout posts, and they're all good people as well as being highly knowledgeable about their subject matter.

For what it's worth, the speakers have a combined 126 years of experience on the LinkedIn platform. I'm certain that each will have something of interest for you to take away from the conference and apply in the way you show up on LinkedIn.

Lunch and refreshments

We thought carefully about this one and have created a healthy menu that includes plenty of vegan and gluten-free options.

We'll also have tea and coffee (along with dairy-free options for the drinks) during the day, plus some pastries and fruit.

Bonus stuff

There will be a couple of fun extras on the day (I couldn't put my name to a boring conference!), plus I'm going to start rolling out a new benefit for new and existing Espresso+ members who have a yearly subscription to our community of small business owners.

Thanks

I didn't know how much effort it would be to put on a conference, but I'm really thankful to be supported by my co-organisers, Jeremy Freeman and Gus Bhandal .

The three of us make up the Mission Control team, but it doesn't stop there, because we will be having help on the day from a small group of very kind volunteers.

We also shouldn't forget that the event has sponsors whose support has meant that we can keep ticket prices as low as possible for this inaugural conference. Our principal sponsors are Flamingo Marketing Strategies Ltd , Milico and DOHR Ltd , and XRAI Glass are our captioning and auto translation partner.

Big thanks to everyone who's been in our corner. It's finally close to the big day and we can't wait to see you all in person!

Get your ticket

Get involved with the UK's first independently run event of its type, all about LinkedIn best practice. We've got 8 of the world's best LinkedIn specialists onstage, and there will only ever be one first conference. Be there by grabbing a ticket at uplift-live.com

Prices go up by ￡100 on Thursday 14 March 2024!

See you in Birmingham very soon ??????

PS. Here's a shot of my practice run of my talk via my TV …

Listen to Mark Williams 's review of the conference in this two-part episode of the Informed by Mark Williams on Spotify.

PART ONE

PART TWO