#SMUM is the word!
Did you miss it?
Yesterday premiered Milwaukee’s Social Media conference which I am honored to have been apart of it.
Take the area’s local best and brightest social media marketers, toss in expert agencies and media developers with a mix of eager companies, organizations and small business owners and we made the best networking event in town.
The event presented and organized by Trivera Interactive at the Italian Community Center was the first of its kind in Milwaukee. With over 350 attendees from Wisconsin and Illinois based businesses the event featured interactive learning and strategies to incorporate and excel one’s business endeavors. The key of the presentations can be summed up with a series of simple questions:
- How to get involved social media? (We used Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Myspace)
- How to become successful with social media? (We used strategies and tools ranging from How to search to how to post using Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Tweed and more.)
- How to make money? (What to do and how to do it, sorry this one stays a secret – but you can come to the next event to find out).
Here is the Event! Warning: Some effort and planning was involved!
Opening:
- Tom Snyder – Social Media: Fun and Games or Powerful Business Tools – CEO of Trivera Interactive
Break Out Sessions:
- Todd Sattersten – Blogging your way to success
- Chris Remington & Katie Fleming – Using social media to impact your position in the search Engines
- Christina Steder – How Web 2.0 changes your Traditional Marketing Strategy
- Jamie Shields, Brigette Breitenbach & Andrei Slobstov – Your Social Media Program: Insource or Outsource?
Panel Discussion:
- Panelists: Sue Marks, Joe Woelfle, Scott Baitinger, & Chris Allen – Using Social Media to Create Success for Your Small Business
- Monitored by: Augie Ray
Afternoon Break Outs:
- Chris Remington & Katie Fleming – Repeat of Using Social Media to Impact Your Position in the Search Engines
- Phil Gerbyshak – Execute a TWitter Business in 30 minutes a Day
- Sara Meaney – Find and Fuel Fans with Facebook
- Katie Felten – Leverage with LinkedIn
Closing Keynote Speaker
- Jay Seinfeld – How to Get your Customers to Brag about You with Social Media – CEO of blinds.com
Sponsors Included: Trivera Interactive, Time Warner Cable, Southwest Airlines, Best Buy, Biz Times Media, C2, Smart Interactive Media, First Priority Printing, Hello Goat Designs, Bigh Shoes Network, Identify-yourself, and The PMG Store – Thanks Sponsors!
How about the work?
So what goes into an event like this? What does one worry about, and what is the outcome?
The Short? Money, Time, Effort, the Sleep you had hoped for – resulting in something everyone can enjoy and want to repeat.
My part was small, make sure the technical details work – fix them if they don’t.
Out of excitement, fear, and a gnarly stomach I didn’t sleep a wink the night before.
Getting Started:
Arriving at the Italian Community Center at 5am enabled a quick run through making sure that everything (from a technical standpoint) was rolling.
The mics worked, the projectors & computers were out, sound checked passed, the Print Media was distributed to the 350+ seats and getting a private network was underway dedicated for the live #smum hashtag twitter feed. Take a few pictures here and there and call it a day!
What could go wrong? At an event like this, anything could, thankfully nothing unforeseen had gone a rye. Too bad right?
My concern remained connectivity, bandwidth and power, unfortunately the ICC didn’t come close to expectations in this one area (5Mbps/1Mbps) – it’s not really their fault. Their beautifully decorated rooms provided all the convinces for a wedding or ceremony, however only contained only 1.5Mbps/.3 of bandwidth. (Note: Next time bandwidth aggregation will take place with better hardware) I questioned before hand: “Would it be enough?” (This time around, not a chance) Time for Panic!
Would an internet event without a solid source of internet connectivity remain a concern for you?
As the users filled the main conference room two hours later they also filled up the available leases of the ICC’s two available routers. It is what it is. An announcement was soon made to encourage users to utilize their 3G networks and that was that!
If “that” was the pitfall of the day, then the day would still be awesome! Quick coverage by Biztimes saying: “Southeastern Wisconsin business people make it happen“! Awesome right? Yes, yes, they are one of the previously listed sponsors.
The presentations commenced and everything was sunshine and kittens.
Our first introductory speaker was Tom Snyder in the topic: Social Media – Fun and Games or Powerful Business Tool assessing the business aspects of social media summing his performance to these keys words:
“Successfully utilizing social media is like a mullet – all business in the front and a party in the back. Schedule your time and utilize the morning for real business and use the evening (after 5pm) for dialogue for relationship building.” – awesome advice.
Managing your interactions is different than an email. The goal is to create a dialogue based on “humanistic characteristics and interest” like your love of dogs and building a sound base from there. I have never effectively been able to start off a business meeting with “Alpo or Pedigree” but social mediums provide the stage for just that. Different persona’s are useful for different goals, be sure to keep things clean and professional and polite if you can – avoid political and religious views unless that is your specialty.
Unfortunately, I do not see my great aunt (Sister Mary Evelyn Jegen) Twittering any time soon about her seminars: Justice and Peace have Embraced
*Side Note: The Mullet quote was a hit! His materials and others are available online at: http://socialmediamilwaukee.com/recap.php
How about the Second #SMUM event?
It will happen, but when? That has yet to be determined.
Being our first event we have learned so many new ways to improve the user experience and also target what people are really after all using Social Media.
What to Look forward to?:
- More People – We oversold our 350 seats and hit almost 400 people – 600 people sounds like a conservative goal. Do you know someone who is interested in social media?
- More bandwidth, more power – Yes everyone will be online! Hopefully, Time Warner will continue to be a sponsor and work with providing additional bandwidth. Powering your mobile devices and your laptops will be met as well.
- Different Presentations – new speakers and repeat break out sessions – Choosing between two awesome break-out events can be challenging.
- Download-able Materials – instead of trying to write and keep-up with speakers – download their presentation and make notes – or just enjoy and absorb.
For your wireless guru’s and hardware network junkies – I am thinking of WAN aggregation with distributed Enterprise Access Points.
WAN Aggregation Options: consuming 3 Wan Lines for aggregation – DSL(from ICC), Cable (From TW), & Sprint via CDMA USB
- Yvatta – open source router
- Peplink Max Wave – http://www.pepwave.com/products/max-mobile-router/
- Edimax ER 1088 – http://www.edimax.us/html/english/products/ER-1088.htm
Access Points:
- Forti Wifi 50B – http://review.zdnet.com/product/networking-and-wi-fi/fortinet-fortiwifi-50b-security-appliance/32463109 If you have other suggestions, questions, or feedback I would love to hear!