The past week presenting at the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference was amazing. I had a great time sharing insights related to influencer marketing, educator personal branding, and participate on a panel with some fellow colleagues in academia.
I remember reading all about this conference for the past few years, but never had a chance to attend the conference. After talking with my good friend Chris Strub, he introduced me to Perry Drake, who is the founder of the conference and a great professor at UMSL. I immediately applied to speak and got in!
There are so many great highlights from the experience I feel educators, as well as students, need to take away here. This is an industry conference, but it is one that truly brings forth the community and engagement aspect of what it means to be working in social and digital media. Plus, for an industry conference, it is extremely affordable!
Here are some major takeaways I had from the conference.
Level of access was tremendous. I was super impressed to be able to get hands on experience as well as face time with some of the best professionals in industry. In fact, I had a chance to sit in on a Facebook Blueprint session just for academics, where I had a chance to chat with the team from Facebook what we are doing in education, especially in the #SMprofs community.
We have never had this level of access at any of the other industry related conferences I’ve been to. This was tremendous! Thank you so much Perry for this level of access!
Meeting fellow colleagues in the business. Loved the fact I was able to connect with some amazing professionals, like Trevor from Stukent (they are amazing!!!) and Jennifer and her team from the National Institute of Social Media in person. We had a chance to brainstorm ideas, talk about the #SMprofs community, and plan for next steps on how we can continue making an impact on the field. Very exciting!
Getting to meet and hear new perspectives at the conference was also refreshing.I walked away from this conference hearing new stories, experiencing different perspectives, and formats. We had keynotes, but then also exclusive sessions where we had a chance to have some great Q+A about different topics like personal branding and LinkedIn Live.
I loved the insights Chris Strub shared when it came to his talk on LinkedIn Live (he’s one of the first to get this feature from LinkedIn!). Also – I got a chance to see the film Chris and his friend Ross Woods created based on the trip Chris took a few years ago titled “50 states, 100 days” the film.
Y’ALL – the tears were definitely there. It is one thing to talk about the impact Chris made on his trip across the USA with nonprofits – but it’s a whole other thing seeing it.
Fellow educators who teach or research in nonprofit PR or social media – this film is a must see! Make sure to reach out to Chris to see if you can bring him to your campus and share his story with your students. It’s a must see!
Seeing the impact of your work in person. We sometimes forget the things we are doing for the field and be able to chat with others about it. I saw this in person when I was at the conference, meeting professionals and fellow educators who came to my talks to thank me for sharing resources, advocating for #SMprofs, and creating a community where we can all share these ideas.
This is what it is all about – helping each other! It was good to be able to see this in person and be able to help others in the process.
Slowing down and the power of offline relationships. You may think this is funny to say when you are talking about a social and digital media conference. T
his was the message I heard throughout the conference was taking time to produce quality work, slowing down the pace a little bit, finding balance in our work, and emphasizing the importance of having strong relationships and face time offline. It seems the continued policy of not just having online connections is key, but making sure 1) they are consistent offline, and 2) you spend the time to take a step back from technology to focus on what is real. I think this is definitely important to consider here.
Adding some personal touch. Everything was covered from all parts for this conference. We had constant communication from the MDMC team across the board. We knew what we needed to do each day and the deadlines for the conference. But – the speaker gift was truly amazing.
This was a personalized t-shirt (with your Twitter handle on the back!), a photo of you presenting (yes – they got us pictures of us presenting at the event!) with a thank you letter from Perry and his team. This is next level! I’ve never had this for a talk – this really adds a special touch to the overall experience. Thank you, Perry!
Summary
Overall, I loved attending and presenting at the MDMC conference.
I had a chance to chat with Perry exclusively after the academic panel I did for our #SMprofs community, and I definitely encourage my fellow colleagues and students to consider attending this conference and submitting to speak next year. You will not find a more collaborative, supportive and worthwhile event in the industry.
Thank you so much Perry for creating such a community and event were we can all come together to discuss the latest trends, issues, and opportunities in digital and social media marketing.
This is the must go to event for not just industry professionals, but one educators and students will benefit in such a great way! Make sure to follow the MDMC accounts on FB and Twitter to stay tuned on news for the upcoming event (dates have already been set for April 2020!)
See you in 2020 for #MDMC20!
Have a great day!
Best Wishes,
