How I experienced the #SMMW22 event in San Diego

March 23, 2022

Last week, I visited San Diego for the event Social Media Marketing World. And I thought it would be a good idea to give you some feedback and tips related to this event. I will keep it short, but I hope that you can learn something from me. So let me share my experiences with you…

I arrived on Sunday and went straight to a meetup which was organized by Ecamm.  Ecamm is a company which has an all-in-one livestreaming platform specifically designed for Mac. Although I didn’t stay at the meetup very long, I got to talk to a few happy customers from Ecamm. In my opinion this company offers a very interesting product. 

In the evening there was a pre-event network get together where a lot of interesting people were gathered. Arriving in a place that is new for you is not always easy, but as I did a lot of online networking before the event, it was a lot easier for me to immediately dive into interesting conversations on the first evening. 

On Monday I went to a few talks and did a lot of networking and video making. I made some video material with attendees, but also with the Social Media Examiner team. Social Media Examiner is the organizer of Social Media Marketing World, and you will find those videos on Tik Tok and on Instagram Reels very soon. 

I also made an exciting video with Michael Stelzner who is the CEO and founder of Social Media Examiner, which made my day! Furthermore, I visited some booths like The Prepared Performer where I made some gifs. You will find them on Instagram. I also visited Streamyard because I am a happy customer of them, and I have been using it since I am active on LinkedIn Live. Since then, the tool has evolved a lot. I now also use it for Podcast recordings. Another plus is that the sound quality of Streamyard is excellent because you can download it in separate audio tracks.  

A very interesting talk I had was with Emerick, the CEO of Agorapulse. I was happy to hear that they have now a solution to organize and follow up your Instagram DMs, which are the messages that that you receive on Instagram. When I was on Clubhouse, I had some difficulty managing the many messages I received. Now with the latest update, users should be able to more efficiently handle these messages. 

And then there was Park Howell, who I met during networking at the bar in the Hyatt Hotel. His talk familiarized me with the ABT framework which stands for ‘And But Therefore’   Because I tweeted and was very active during this session, I was one of the prize winners and I got his book. I will dive into this and report back on my blog, my YouTube channel or on the podcast. 

On Tuesday there was the keynote by Michael Stelzer with a few fascinating trends and insights into the S-curve. The S-curve is a curve that goes from attract to extract in an S shaped figure. The message was that in the beginning every social media channel wants to attract users and then in the end they want to extract from them. I also gained interesting insights about Facebook posts: the posts that do best or have the best reach and engagement on Facebook today are text-based posts with backgrounds. 

Another insight was that you should focus on the video. You probably heard that Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app. It’s a video sharing app. We know that Instagram Reels are important, and I think they will be even more important in the future. Tik Tok is at this moment the most popular social media website. This means that you really should be active on TikTok if you if you want to be prepared for the near future. Michael also talked about content creators: there will be a trend that they want to get paid. He talked about the metrics of social media. Getting followers is not what matters most. Followers are interesting and it can be a sign of authority if you have lots of followers, but they won't see your post just by following you. The algorithm chooses which posts will be shown to people. 

I also followed sessions about LinkedIn by Julia Fox and talked to Chandler Bolt from the Self Publishing School. He's a well-known author with who it was very interesting to talk to. The day ended with happy hour and networking in the sunshine outside.

Wednesday has begun with a talk by Cathy Hackl about web 3 and the metaverse. So guys this is really coming! You cannot neglect that anymore…

Next on my agenda was lunch with Mark Schaefer, which I eared by buying his crypto coin. He is a truly inspirational person; I have gained a lot of insights from him during this lunch. And what really excites me is that I gave him an idea for one of his next talks! As I know very well how TikTok works, I will be launching a new account for my business efficado. I will make sure the algorithm knows which are the people that I want to follow me and what content I use to get those people on my account.  Mark was intrigued and he decided to make a video about it, which he posted on his Instagram. 

However, the biggest surprise for me was yet to come. I won a free ticket for next year's event, an awesome, epic prize! So I will be there again next year on Social Media Marketing World 2023!

And then at the end of the evening, I participated in the post event networking which was the end of the event. Hopefully my feedback will trigger some of you to get to know more about certain topics. So don't hesitate to send me a message to connect with me, to follow me on social media and/or my podcast. Next to that I have launched my CMOClub, which is for marketing leaders around the world that want to connect. If you are a CMO, you can fill in the form and I will get back to you.  If you go to my Instagram or Twitter, you'll find the link in my bio.

Bye for now!