4 Ways to Rock a Blogging Conference

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If you’re in the influencer world, you know that a blogging conference is a great way to get connected – whether it be with brands or other influencers. Maybe you’ve never been to one but you want to and now you’re ready to take the plunge. Don’t worry – everyone starts out a newbie and can go on to conquer a conference!

Conferences can be intimidating, especially if you’re going alone. Then there are so many, it’s easy to wonder how to choose the right one. Some of my favorites are Mom 2.0 Summit, the Women in Travel Summit, ShiftCon and Blogalicious. Ultimately, you’ll want to go to a conference with a theme and sponsors that would fit in naturally with your blog content.

If you’re new to the game, here are four ways to make the most of any conference!

 

  1. Network, network, and oh yeah, network!

Conferences are less about what you know and more about who you get to know. Of course, you’ll want to learn a lot at sessions – but do take advantage of the ample opportunity to network! We don’t have to tell you that influencer marketing is all about collaboration. Sure, you run your channels, and you’ve built your brand, but you don’t become a success all on your own. You have to grow your audience and content, and who better to learn from than other influencers?

Influencers have told us before: “It’s a competitive market.” Instead of thinking that way, look at them as people who are trying to be great and maybe you each have what the other needs to get there. Sharing is caring! We love meeting and working with different influencers, and conferences are a great place to get that face-to-face time.

We have a Facebook group for all of the influencers in our network, Everywhere Society. It’s a place where all of our influencers can connect with each other and foster those relationships. Conferences allow you to do that in real life. Don’t shield yourself from making a new #BloggerBestie because they could be competition – they need you as much as you need them.

 

  1. Pack the right things

The most obvious things in the (influencer conference) world are most likely what you will forget to pack. Grab the suitcase, add these things, and when you’re done you can take your “ready to go” selfie!

  • Business cards: First and foremost, bring them! It’s the tangible connection between you and everyone you meet. Not bringing business cards signals that you’re not prepared or that you aren’t that serious about your blog.
  • At least one backup charger: Unless you have some new, magical phone with an endless battery, you’ll need it. Every sponsor has a photo opp, and the rest of the day you’ll be on social media and snapping pics with your new #BloggerBesties – all of those will suck the life right out of your phone.
  • Notebook: We can’t stress this enough, even in 2017, you’ll want to write things down in a non-digital format. You’re going into session after session, and you’re meeting people and brands that can propel your brand forward in between them. Trust us, you’ll have a lot of notes to look back on because it’s truly too much to remember

 

  1. Have a plan and know it!

From the moment you buy your tickets, don’t be surprised if you get an email at least once a day. Don’t disregard them as spam and delete them, but read them and form a game plan. Conferences pack as much as they can into a very short time frame. You’ll want to do it all and meet everyone, but be strategic and focus your time where it’s going to be the most beneficial to you. Know the brands that you’d like to work with and have your pitch ready. Make them want to reach out to you once they’re back in the office! But make sure you grab their cards so you can follow-up.

 

  1. Engage

Every conference has a hashtag. Not only are other influencers using it but so are brands. Make yourself known before you ever even get your badge at check-in and join the conversation early on. Want to take your engagement up a notch? Be a conference ambassador. We love taking members of Everywhere Society to conferences with us – either as brand ambassadors or agency reps. Our #BloggerBestie Ady of Verbal Gold recently went to Women in Travel Summit to represent society and encourage all these phenomenal travel bloggers to join our network. This was a major value add for us as we’ve recently taken on some major travel brands. Leticia Barr attended Mom 2.0 Summit with us as a brand ambassador for our client Domain.Me. This is an awesome way to gain a sponsorship to a conference and build a relationship with a brand.

 

The only thing left to do is decide which conference is in your future. Here’s a list of some conferences we’re considering attending this fall. Will we see you there?

How to build an effective social media strategy

How to Build an Effective Social Media Strategy

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One of the most common questions we get after mentioning that we work in social media marketing is, “So, you get to be on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter all day?” There’s a huge misconception that our jobs aren’t valid or strategic. To that notion I say: bah humbug. Social media strategy is critical to succeed as a brand – both online and offline – by connecting all of your overarching marketing initiatives.

To have a successful social media presence, you’ve got to do more than just post messages that seem important or interesting to you. We actually had a client who gave their whole department access to their Facebook page. Over a dozen people were posting all about their different campaigns and initiatives without rhyme or reason. Their VP of Marketing said the page looked like a “dog’s breakfast,” and he was right! Everything was just thrown in there without thinking about how the content related to their overarching marketing and social media goals, let alone without regard for Facebook’s algorithm. We came in and showed them the key factors to a purposeful and effective social media strategy. I’ll share the CliffsNotes with you here!

  1. Goals: What Are You Working Toward? – Building a social media strategy should start with figuring out what your goals are. Are you looking to increase sales, awareness, or site traffic? Different goals determine the different types of posts you put out there and the platforms you’re on. For instance, if you’re a B2B company that’s selling something rather utilitarian to upper-management-type folks, you should likely be focusing on LinkedIn. However, if you’re a consumer products division wanting to increase awareness and sales amongst millennials, Instagram or Snapchat is the place to be!
  2. Voice: Preach to the Choir – Social media is all about having a human voice. Consumers want to feel connected to the company, and a well-developed voice can help accomplish that and build loyalty. If your writing is mechanical or boring, no one will want to engage with you. Thus, we like to have brands define their persona. If your brand was a person and your copywriters had to embody and write like them, who would that be? A beverage company we worked with had a target audience of millennials. They chose Jennifer Lawrence as the persona for their social media voice because she’s irreverent and fun. A healthcare client chose Angelina Jolie because their practice was focused on beauty, health, and doing good in the world. Sometimes the social media voice of a brand is inspired by a hybrid of people. It could even emulate the CEO, as long as said CEO sounds human and personable, of course.
  3. 80/20: Learn to Weigh Priorities – No one wants to follow a page that is purely promotional. Think about it: who wants to subject themselves to more ads than necessary? People follow brands that give them something extra. Whether it’s a behind-the-scenes look at the company or education on the industry (what we like to call “thought leadership”), you’ve got to give your customer more than a sales message. We employ the 80/20 rule in our social media strategy builds– 80% of content is non-promotional, with 20% marketing/sales messages peppered in. Why? If your non-promotional content is engaging and appealing, it’ll make people more interested in your brand!
  4. Content Verticals: The Pillars of Strategy – So, remember when I said a “dog’s breakfast”? That’s what you get when you don’t build content verticals. In other words, you need to identify the types of content that you’ll be posting – without violating the 80/20 rule. For example, if you’re a fun food brand, your content verticals may be recipes, corny food jokes, food porn images, innovative industry/CPG news, food holidays (yes – every day is devoted to some kind of food. My favorite is National Ice Cream Day!), and then product placements.
  5. Quality Content: Werk It – This concept truly embodies the notion of “It’s more than just posting on Facebook.” Quality content necessitates writing that is on-brand and engaging, beautiful imagery that one would like even if they weren’t fans of your brand, and tactics that represent social media best practices, like appropriate usage of hashtags and tagging. You have no idea how many brands under-utilize or misinterpret best practices! The more relevant and creative the content is, the more people will like/comment on it, and the more potential consumers it will reach.
  6. Monitoring and Response: Being Everywhere – Over 40% of customers complaining on social media expect a response within an hour (Convince and Convert, 2015). For social inquiries that go unanswered by a brand, there’s a 15% churn rate in existing customers (Clarabridge, 2016). That’s why it’s critical to find the right monitoring tools and create an appropriate response process as a part of your social media strategy. On top of that, planning how to respond to a plethora of different inquiries ahead of time is critical to immediately answering questions, providing transparency, and not having to route responses through your PR and legal teams – which will definitely put you over that hour-long response timeframe. If you need some more tips on this, check out one of my previous blog posts, 5 Tips for Reputation Management.
  7. Tools: Make Your Life Easier – There are plenty of tools that can make your life easier on social. For instance, platforms like Hootsuite or Buffer, among others, allow you to schedule your social messages ahead of time, leaving you stress-free to complete other tasks in the day. There are also analytical tools both built into the social channels (think Facebook Insights or Twitter Analytics) or provided through third-party software that allow you to analyze your posts and figure out if the strategy you’ve devised is working. By doing A/B testing and comparing results from these resources, you can fine-tune your strategy over time to get the most return on your investment.

At Everywhere Agency, we combine all of these critical success factors and more into a strategic social media playbook that guides teams in their content creation and community management. Still feel like you have more to learn when it comes to conquering the beast of social media? Reach out to us, and we’ll find a way to help.