Social Media

Pay to Speak at Your Social Media Conference? Are You Drunk?

Take a minute to imagine getting a new client.

You?ve worked hard to get to that stage, and now you?re ready to sign the contract.

Then the new client stops you in your tracks with these words:

OK, I?m ready to have you do your thing for me. But you?ll need to pay me first.

You look at them, surprised, wondering if you heard them right.

So you ask the obvious excuse me, and receive this reply:

You?ll have to pay me first. If you want to work for me, you?ll need to pay me. If you don?t want to work for me, that?s fine?I have options where you can pay me for the honor of me asking you instead.

You shake your head incredulously and wonder when your expertise became whittled down to you having to pay to do the thing you were invited to do in the first place.

Crazy, right?

Not according to the organizers at the Social Shake-Up Show, one of many social media conferences being held in Atlanta later this year.

Speaker or Sponsor?

I received an email from one of the event?s organizers, asking me if I was interested in speaking.

Or at least, I thought I did.

Turns out, it wasn?t quite that simple.

Here?s the body of the email:

Are you interested in speaking at the 2017 Social Shake-Up Show on May 22-24 in Atlanta?
500+ decision-makers will be in attendance, so it?s the perfect platform to discuss your latest product or to display thought leadership in front of a forward-thinking social media community.
Standing at the podium and delivering a powerful message in front of your peers validates the countless hours that you and your team put in at the office.
Our agenda is filling up quickly and I thought you might be interested in taking one of the remaining spots.
These open speaking spots are reserved for Social Shake-Up sponsors, so email me directly if you?d like pricing details.
Along with the speaking opportunity, you?ll receive all the benefits of being a Social Shake-Up sponsor.
If you?re interested, please contact me as soon as possible, as rates for our speaking spots increase after Jan. 20.

Let?s Break that Down, Shall We?

The introductory paragraph is nice enough.

It tells me about the event, and that 500+ decision-makers will be in attendance.

Although, in fairness, my five-year-old daughter and six-year-old son make decisions every day.

Like how much mud to roll in and how many times they can fit poop into a sentence at dinner time, so maybe that?s not such a selling point after all.

Then it goes on to sell me on presenting myself as a *cough* ?thought leader? to these important people.

So far, so good.

The second paragraph is where it gets fun/confusing/painful, depending on your point-of-view.

Standing at a Podium

To recognize all the hard work I?ve put in, honing my craft, building my expertise, and keeping me and my team in the office while our children are growing up and our lives are disappearing around us, I get to STAND AT A PODIUM!!!!!

See how excited I was by this revelation?

I had to use all caps to get the gravity of that offer in full.

A PODIUM. A REAL-LIFE PODIUM!!!!

Well call me Shirley and pour me a double!

Never mind the gratitude of clients, peers, or bosses for any successful project or undertaking?a podium is where it?s at!!!

After that bombshell, I could hardly wait to see what more this event could possibly offer me.

I mean, a frickin? podium!!!

Sponsor the Event

Onto paragraph three?.

Wait, what?s this?

You want me to sponsor your event, and that will let me get to the podium?

Can?t I just bring my own podium?

No?

Dammit!!!

So?to be clear?one of the organizing/sponsorship team for the event invites me to speak, but not as a speaker.

Instead, it?s as a sponsor, and by sponsoring the event I?ll get to be a ?speaker? (albeit at a podium)?

My Reply

Well, of course, I had to reply?

Hi,
So, just to clarify?you want me to speak at your event but I have to pay to do so?
On top of, undoubtedly, paying my own expenses for hotel and flight?
And the ?benefit? of this is I get to ?stand at a podium??
Is the podium a time machine, like the Doc?s DeLorean?
Because then I could see value in your proposal.
Or is it like that podium from the original Police Academy, because that looked like a rewarding podium!
Perhaps you meant possum?
I?m a firm believer that possums make for great photo opps, so I could see the benefit there. Though I think you might have meant ?stand beside a possum,? as opposed to at.
Anyhoo? Please advise if any of these scenarios are true.
Otherwise, I?ll have to decline before I have a laughter-inflicted hernia due to the ridiculousness of your ?proposal?.
Yours in eagerness (especially about the DeLorean!),
Someone Who Places More Value on Time, Expertise and Knowledge Than a Pay-to-Play Podium Slot

Or, in the immortal words of Mary Poppins:

Why do you always complicate things that are really quite simple?

You Say Exposure, I Say Tell My Kids Why They?re Hungry

There?s a commonly-held belief that exposure is a wonderful way to avoid paying for expertise.

This can usually be seen in two forms:

Write for something such as?The Huffington Post and be rewarded with thousands of eyeballs and impressions, thereby driving traffic back to your own blog.
Speak at an event (after paying for your own travel and accommodation costs) to get in front of peers and potential clients.

Or, you can go the Social Shake-Up route and make people pay to be a sponsor in lieu of giving them a speaking slot.

The first two are crappy enough.

The Huffington Post was bought for $315 million in 2011, and brought in $146 million in ad revenue in 2014.

Yet their business model is to get the majority of its writers to produce content for free, in exchange for eyeballs on their content.

Events?especially social media conferences?charge upwards of a few hundred dollars to attend, to almost $2,000, and beyond.

They have a bunch of sponsors, and they generally have anywhere from a few hundred one-day attendees to several thousand during?the course of two to three days.

And yet, they?ll only pay the ?top-tier? speakers.

But then you have the Social Shake-Up approach.

There are many reasons it?s wrong, and?to me, at least?unethical.

It?s Totally Wrong

But here are the core ones:

Speaking for exposure does not pay the bills. While the event organizers no doubt make money or get paid, as do some of the speakers (you have to assume), the rest are out in the cold, paying almost a thousand bucks for a flight, a few hundred bucks for a hotel, and then food and drinks on top. This, despite tickets for the event range from $700 to $1,800, and are non-refundable to boot. All for the promise of getting in front of ?decision-makers.?

Advertising on your site that ??speakers are carefully vetted and will deliver on the promise to share the strategies and tactics that have truly shaken up the ecosystem.? How carefully vetted can they be when they?ve paid to appear? It immediately devalues the promise of earth-shattering learnings.

Speaking of paying, every speaker who?does that now becomes a sponsor. Which allows the event to sell more sponsorships with the pitch, ?Sponsorships are filling up quickly.? Sorry, no, they?re not?they?re being filled up by people sold what is essentially an empty promise.

Now, don?t get me wrong.

Some Social Media Conferences DO Get it Right

There are some fantastic social media conferences that not only deliver value but treat their speakers with the respect they deserve and pay them for their time and expertise.

These are the ones you should support, and the ones I don?t mind attending.

The other ones?

The ones that are essentially saying, ?Hey, come stand in a room and get 15-20 minutes to talk to people who will probably never give you work no matter how awesome you think your talk is??

I?m going to keep my money from these guys.

Instead, I?m going to invest it in the work I know I get respected and paid for, and spend it on the family I do that work for.

And you can shove that up your stupid podium.

A version of this first appeared on Spin Sucks.

My Social Media Story: The Facebook Penis That Launched a New Life

This is a part of a special series looking at how social media has impacted the lives of its users. This week, the story comes from Jacqui Malpass.

It isn?t every day that you get new opportunities. Sometimes they come in strange ways. Ways that you least expect, but none the less life changing.

In May 2014, I opened my then husband?s computer to find myself staring at his penis. A rare site.

The penis and the conversation, plus a variety of let?s call them interesting images and conversations with many other women, left nothing to the imagination.

Six weeks later, I was travelling with my two dogs to Spain to a house that needed more than a lick of paint to get it ship shape.

With my Internet upgraded and my precious laptop on a makeshift desk, I began to change the way I did business.

Living on a mountain in a tiny village, where the nearest town is full of retirees and Spaniards made it a bit tough to get out and network!

That?s all changed and I belong to a great female networking organisation that I help run locally.

It?s been a quite a year.

I am divorced, had time to reflect, worked on my house, created several online courses and experimented with different ways of working. Recently,?I started my personal brand (from the inside out) detox.

The detox includes looking after me (daily meditation, yoga, eating even better than I already do), websites updated, rebranding and an imminent book launch. I start editing my 6^th non-fiction book ? Leading the Eveolution ready for October.

I have plans in place for my first children?s book ? The Puppy With No Name. My circle of friends is growing online as well as locally, and life is good.

Who knew that such a small thing could have such a big impact?

About the author: Jacqui Malpass works as a personal brand strategist, book coach and is the author of five (almost six) non-fiction books. She has a dream to inspire 1 million people to write in some way.

She lives with three beautiful dogs, all of whom were abandoned and who give the best love a girl could ask for. You can read more from Jacqui at JacquiMalpass.com, and follow her on Twitter @jacquimalpass.

My Social Media Story: Cheryl Keyworth

This is a part of a special series looking at how social media has impacted the lives of its users. This week, the story comes from Cheryl Keyworth.

Social media is social.? That’s the whole purpose of it.? Sure we get into the networking and sharing out information.? Many use social media to blast out their promotions and basically be in our face about their business.

I feel our presence on social media is to build our personal brand, presence and interest.? We are the social in social media.? Each person has a personality and that’s what we want to know about.

Building an audience of like minded people who know, like and trust us is done by engaging and sharing opinions, posts, and thoughts.? Learning about each other and developing friendships.

Our Changing Worlds

My efforts on social media have evolved and changed over time.? I’ve learned a vast amount of information from fellow engagers and people who have both reached out to me and I to them.

The most exciting part of social media is being recognized for unique content that provokes an emotional response.

It doesn’t matter whether that response is positive, agreeable, or presents another point of view – it’s engagement and often gives us the ability to see another side of things.

I’ve met some of the most interesting and wonderful people on the various platforms I engage upon.? Some of the most helpful and altruistic beings that have encouraged and supported me in what I do.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Social media is where deep relationships are formed and a lifetime of friendships develop.” quote=”Social media is where deep relationships are formed and a lifetime of friendships develop.”]

Without mentioning names as there really are just too many amazing friends I’ve met on social media that have made my life totally enriched and exciting.

I look forward to their content, their opinions, and their ability to offer up their hearts and knowledge to those of us who listen.

A Circle of Friendship

Not only do I seek engagers who will know, like and trust me…but I see that this works in my favor as well by enlarging my circle of close friends, like-minded acquaintances who soon become good friends, and learning from some of the best in the industry.

Without social media, our world would be small and difficult to grow into better people.? Social media has given us numerous ways to become more knowledgeable and helpful to others.

And it’s not all about you or me.? It’s about what we can do to help other people grow, reach their dreams, continue on their journey and we encourage each other to be all we can be.

For me, social media is a lot bigger than just a platform to share out our personal opportunities.? It’s the place where people learn and grow together.

It’s the place where we expand our horizons.?

Simply put, it’s the place where deep relationships are formed and a lifetime of friendships develop.

About the author:?Cheryl Keyworth is a long-time blogger on Mainlywords, content creator for private clients, and network marketer working full time online since 2007. You can find her on Twitter @Mainlywords.

Why We Shouldn’t Confuse Real Time Marketing with Data Driven Marketing

When I was a teen, back in the 80’s – yes, I’m old – there was this bakery just off my local high street.

It was a family-owned bakery, and had a mix of fancies, pastries, bread and sweets (candy, in North America). While the goods being sold were a great mix, and kept the bakery successful, it was what the owner did to keep it that way that interested me (and probably instilled the first concept of marketing to my subconscious).

If there was a sports match on, he’d make small cakes in both team colours. Nothing new there. Except when a team took the lead, he’d quickly put little sad faces on the cakes of the losing team, and sell those at a discount to cheer the losers up.

It didn’t hurt that the bakery was two doors down from a pub, and he’d send his help into the bar to sell the new cakes, with the challenge to make the other team wear the sad faces.

When the game finished, he’d invariably give the remaining cakes away to the losers, and he’d have baked a bigger cake in the shape of the winning team’s mascot for them to eat for free when leaving the bar (for afternoon games).

This is just one example of some of the cool things he’d do on the fly. Royal weddings? Check. Huge charity events like Live Aid? Check.

For every major event, as well as local sporting ones, he and his bakers would be on the ball, making something essentially on the fly to take advantage of the occasion. Sound familiar?

Real-Time Marketing or Old School Initiative?

In February 2013, the lights went out at the Super Bowl. Oreo Cookie famously took advantage of it with a quick creative that they posted on Twitter.

As you can see from the image, it received almost 16,000 retweets, and was favourited 6,400 times. It received praise from various publications, and was used by many social media consultants as the dawn of real-time marketing.

Except, it wasn’t really real-time.

While there’s no doubt it was a masterful stroke of quick thinking and marketing on the day, it was more than just that. The Oreo team and their social media agency had been strategizing for the previous 18 months on how to effectively use the medium, in order to celebrate the brand’s 100th birthday.

Cue the power outage, cue the result of being ready to act and the ensuing praise.

Yet as deserving as Oreo and their team was of the praise, it wasn’t the start of real-time marketing, despite the best efforts of those consultants trying to capitalize on the new darling phrase and charge clients more for the benefit.

Real-Time Marketing, Before Social Media

The funny thing with social media is it often makes marketers – or at least, digital marketers – forget there was ever a time before 2006, when the words “social media” and “marketing” were beginning to be used together more.

Yet for those purporting real-time marketing as the latest new child in the social media-led school of business firsts, they might want to look a little bit further back.

Over at the evergage blog, Rob Carpenter shares his thoughts on where real-time marketing first became more visible, based on search terms and traffic spikes on Google Trends.

The blue line relates to “real time marketing” while the red line relates to “web personalization”, or the ability to personalize your business website based on traffic, demographic, cultural offers, seasonal specials and more.

As digital marketing via e-commerce and landing pages was growing (personalization), so was the need to be able to quickly put together offers that would initiate your desired call to action (CTA). This speed to create was the same as today’s real-time marketing, except today we have better tools to do it with.

As the blue line shows, there was a huge initial spike back in 2005, then a steady rise since 2007 (as social media filtered its way to the mass market).

Real-Time or Data Driven Marketing?

You only need to look at the clamour by brands to offer the coolest celebration of the Royal birth of Prince William and Duchess Kate’s baby to see how big the “business of real-time marketing” has become.

Yet the problem with real-time marketing – or at least, the version brands are trying to emulate but often failing at – is it’s too fast for its own good, and is simply trying to take advantage of a major news story without thinking through how that brand fits.

The beauty of the original Oreo tweet at the Super Bowl is it had been planned meticulously. Perhaps not the tweet itself, but certainly the message, the way it appeals to Oreo?aficionados, and the execution.

Because it was based on data the brand knew about its audience.

And this is where the real value of real-time marketing comes into play, and has been used for as long as the first business owner thought on their feet on ways to beat their competition, and bring customers to their store versus a competitor’s.

It’s exactly the point David Meerman Scott makes in his book, Real-Time Marketing and PR, published in 2010. In both the book and on his blog, Scott shares examples of the best types of real-time marketing that don’t hype themselves by using the phrase.

Just look at how the airlines adapt to ensure there are rarely empty flights, and how they can change pricing on the fly to sell unsold seats. Or look at the way Amazon has redefined the customer experience to ensure every visit is optimized to offer products and services that truly interest the visitor.

This isn’t the result of some buzzword – instead, it’s taking years of data and research about customers, their buying patterns, their purchase life cycles, and their value to a brand, and utilizing it into offers and timely promotions that make sense.

It’s like my hometown baker with his winning cakes, regardless of the victor on the sports field that day.

There’s no doubt that real-time marketing, when done well, can provide a mix of viral buzz and sales success. But let’s not be mistaken that it’s a new tactic, nor is it the saviour of marketing today.

The saviour of marketing today, much like the saviour of any business strategy, is and will remain simple – know your customer, understand what makes them tick, use the data you have on top of the data you’re continuously gathering, and integrate all of that into something called “marketing strategy”.

You might be surprised at the results, real-time or otherwise.

image: evergage

Six Simple Ways to Measure Owned, Earned and Paid Social Media ROI

There’s a popular misconception that it’s difficult to use targeted metrics to measure your social media ROI. Not true.

Nor is social media only good for measuring an increase in brand awareness, although that’s definitely a measurement gauge.

The fact is, social media can offer some of the best metrics for measuring your ROI. All you need to do is set your success guides?what you want to achieve and how long you want to spend achieving it?then measure your results against that.

Here are six simple metrics for the main networks ?to measure your social media ROI – financial and brand – across earned, owned and paid media.

Blogger Outreach

A key component of many (if not most) social media campaigns,?blogger outreach programs?can offer some of the best mileage and results of any marketing tactic. Measuring your success isn?t too difficult, either. All you have to do is determine the answers to the following questions:

How many bloggers wrote about you?
How many comments did these posts receive?
How many social shares did the post get?
What was your traffic pre- and post-outreach?
How much product did you have to provide for bloggers versus how many sales you received?

Twitter

One of the stalwarts for any product launch, service or business, Twitter not only offers instant eyeballs but great returns as well. Again, measuring your impact is relatively simple:

What was your?retweet?value (cost of manpower/resources versus follower who takes action)?
How often was your?hashtag?used?
How many times was your?vanity URL?used?
How many new (genuine) followers did you get while your promotion was on?
If you used something like?Sponsored Tweets, what was the cost versus the click-through and conversion?

Facebook

Although it has its critics (including me), Facebook offers some great built-in tools as well as demographic options to help gauge a campaign:

How many new worthwhile fans did you make versus how many you targeted?
How many times was your promotion message liked/acted on?
If you built a Facebook application, how many times was it installed or shared?
Were you successful in reaching your target demographic? (Facebook Insights?can help you here)?
How much did you spend on a Facebook ad, and how did click-throughs and new sales/customers compare?

Google+

While brand pages are still being judged on their effectiveness on Google+, and in-line Google Ads are complementing Google+ content, there are ways to measure your current activity there:

Has your profile on search, and resulting traffic to your site, been raised because of your use of Google+?
How many Circles have you been added to?
How many Plus Ones are your comments and discussions receiving?
How active is your community?
How many?Ripples?are your discussions creating?
How many attendees are taking part in your?Hangouts?

YouTube and Other Video Sites

More than just a fun place to see kids hurt themselves on bikes, YouTube is a key tool in any marketing campaign now?just ask the companies that?used it to such effect?during this year?s Super Bowl.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g9wXBkdWEg[/youtube]

Here are the questions you should be asking:

How many views did you get?
How many Likes/Upvotes and Favorites did you receive?
How many downloads did you get (on video sites that allow downloads)?
How many embeds has your video seen elsewhere on the Web?
How many subscribers did your channel attract?
If your video had a call to action with a vanity URL, how many times did people click through?
How many social shares did you get across networks your target demographic use?

Mobile

As marketing evolves, the different ways to reach an audience combine to create new outlets. Mobile marketing is the perfect complement to social marketing, and measurement can easily be achieved:

Did you use a?push SMS system?to drive traffic to a mobile-friendly site? If so, how many views did that account for?
Did you use?QR codes, and if so, how many times were they used?
How many downloads did your mobile app receive?
How many check-ins were used on?Gowalla?and?Foursquare?
What was the most popular operating system? (This can tell you a lot about your audience?s demographic and buying options.)

These six metrics offer just some of the immediate ways you can measure how successfully your social media goals were met. There are more still, including monitoring tools and more defined analytics. Which ones you use will? depend on the goals you’ve set and how you define success.

No matter how you collect the information you need, it all comes down to comparing man hours and financial outlay to your return to see how successful you were.

It’s important to remember that a lot of marketing can come down to luck and circumstance as much as brilliant strategy?timing and a welcoming audience are key.

But the one thing you can control is measurement, and with social media and mobile marketing, measuring the metrics has never been easier.

So what’s the excuse?