To share the evolution of Social Media Examiner and Social Media Marketing World, Ray Edwards will interview me. More About This Show The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. You’ll discover the behind-the-scenes story of how I founded Social Media Examiner more than seven years ago and how we decided to start our own conference. Listen to the show to learn which connections Ray and I share from the early days of social media. Listen to the show to discover the key to building a great business. How We Foster Networking Because Social Media Examiner had been doing online events for years, we knew how to connect people who weren’t physically present. By the time people showed up, they were super-stoked to be there. Last year, 500 people showed up! Networking Bingo at the opening night party is a great way for attendees to meet people at Social Media Marketing World. Is Social Media Marketing World right for you?
Wonder how the Social Media Examiner blog got started?
Interested in how we grew a live conference from an online publication?
To share the evolution of Social Media Examiner and Social Media Marketing World, Ray Edwards will interview me.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.
In this episode, Ray Edwards of The Ray Edwards Show takes the mic to get the backstory on how Social Media Examiner went from publishing a blog to hosting a live conference.
You’ll discover the behind-the-scenes story of how I founded Social Media Examiner more than seven years ago and how we decided to start our own conference.
Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:
The Social Media Examiner Story
The Beginning of Everything
Prior to launching Social Media Examiner, I was writing white papers for clients and I also authored a book called Writing White Papers.
Somewhere along the way, I started a weekly newsletter, which included interviews with experts, pieces written by experts, and tips and techniques. I started covering social media and how it could be used to generate more leads for white papers.
Subsequently, I reached out to Copyblogger and MarketingProfs, and wrote some articles for them. The turning point came after I sent a LinkedIn request to Ann Handley, chief content officer for MarketingProfs, and she asked if I was on Facebook. After opening a Facebook account, I was immersed in a different world.
Then, I went to a small conference in San Diego and met Paul Colligan, Warren Whitlock (co-author of Twitter Revolution), and Mari Smith.
As a result, I decided to do an online conference under my white paper business. (Up to that point I did teleclasses, where people would pay $39/month to hear me interview people like Bob Bly, Peter Bowerman, and others in the copywriting world.) I sold a couple of hundred tickets for the Copywriting Success Summit, more than I ever had for my teleclasses, and the conference was all done via webinars.
This led to doing the Social Media Success Summit, for which we sold around 700 tickets.
I felt I was onto something, so I searched domain names at GoDaddy, found SocialMediaExaminer.com, and immediately registered a trademark.
I had the opportunity to speak at BlogWorld and MarketingProf’s B2B Summit in October 2009. Deciding that would be the time to launch, I hustled to build Social Media Examiner and reached out to all of my friends, asking if they would write one article a month until it didn’t work for them anymore.
I officially launched Social Media Examiner on October 12, 2009.
Listen to the show to learn which connections Ray and I share from the early days of social media.
A Focus on Quality Content
When we launched, blogs were opinion outlets and I wanted to be a resource. That’s why we’re known for how-to content and why our tagline is still “Your guide to the social media jungle.” I knew if we could create content with a certain level of depth or richness to it, it would be smart in the long run; each of our articles is at least 1,000 words long.
And we’ve invested heavily in the quality of our content. We’ve always had at least two or three, and sometimes up to five, editors working on all of the articles and we put at least $1,000 into development for each article. Our vision statement is, “All we serve is quality and we serve all with excellence.”
I’ve been in this business for seven years, and almost everyone who started in this space has moved on. It just goes to show you can win in the long run if you consistently deliver excellent value.
Many people perceive that there’s no room for them in this space but that’s not true. In any industry, there’s a certain level of fatigue that affects people who have been in it for a long time. There’s need for newness, innovation, and improvement, and that’s where the new people come in.
Listen to the show to discover the key to building a great business.
Starting the Conference
I didn’t consider starting a live conference until I attended Joe Pulizzi‘s event (Content Marketing World) in Cleveland, Ohio, about five years ago. It was Joe’s first event and I noticed he had a calm, relaxed sense about him. When I asked him how that could be, he credited the event organizers. He said this is what they do for a living.
All of a sudden, I wanted to explore the conference option.
I started taking pictures and notes, and looking at the experience differently. Almost a year and a half later, I held my first live event.
After attending a number of live events, I found there were a lot of things I wanted to improve on; a lack of information for instance. I’d show up and have to figure out where I was supposed to go since there was no one to point me in the right direction. Or networking parties that were so loud, I couldn’t communicate with people without yelling in their ear.
I wanted to fix those things.
Listen to the show to hear more about what leads to the demise of events.
Social Media Marketing World Growth
Everybody told me the hardest thing about an event is getting people to attend. I knew it would be a challenge; however, I had been building a media company for a long time and it turned out to be the secret sauce.
The first conference was in 2013 but I’d started Social Media Examiner in 2009, and had been building an incredibly loyal following. My audience was already getting daily emails and interacting across the social channels. It turns out they…
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