It’s been a long time since you’ve attended an in-person event. As the world returns to gathering together to learn, I thought it would be a good time to tackle how to make the most out of the experience, whether it’s a multi-day conference or a local networking session.
1. Create your event strategy: You must make events intentional. Spend some time before the event looking at the sessions, speakers, and activities. Prioritize the ones that will best help you meet your goals, solve your problems, or build your community. Write down your goals for the event.
2. Prepare before the event: Research the speakers for the sessions you are planning to attend. Follow them on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or whatever social platforms they’re on. Start to engage with them. Like and comment on their posts and videos, tag them in your posts where appropriate. If there’s an app for the event, come up with a list of attendees you want to reach out to.
3. Revisit your original strategy during the event: At a multi-day event, review your goals and evaluate your progress at the beginning and end of each day. Remind yourself of what you’re doing there, and try to make each session, interaction, or event a step in the right direction. Reach out to other participants and suggest a meetup during a break. Take photos and post on social media, tag the speaker, and use the event hashtag.
4. Don’t be an event hermit: If there are networking activities or meetups in the evening, attend them. Force yourself to go up to new people and introduce yourself.
5. Follow up after the event: When the conference is over, your work isn’t done. Put together notes from the events, including whom you met, what you learned, what new initiatives you want to start, or what new technologies you want to learn. Don’t wait a week or more to do this. You’ll be surprised at what you’ll forget.
– Brian Piper
Apply these skills and meet Brian at the Creator Economy Expo from May 2 to 4 in Phoenix. Register today.
Of all the things that I’ve learned from operating events, I’ve realized people attend in-person events for reasons you may not fully realize. Sure, they attend to network. But some may seek a technology that makes their job easier. Others want to find someone who has the same goals to work with. Others want to get people interested in their product or service.
But then there are the results that attendees didn’t expect. One of my favorite stories is that of Bert van Loon and AJ Huisman. They are both from the Netherlands, but they met in Cleveland, Ohio, at Content Marketing World. After finding each other and discovering they had similar goals, they opted to work together and have been ever since.
Now, after two years of doing our part to keep safe and mitigate the spread of COVID, I’m back to my event organizer role – helping create the in-person event Creator Economy Expo from May 2 to 4 in Phoenix.
I can only wonder how attendees will benefit from their in-person conversations and what they will learn to grow their content businesses in a Web3 world. And I wonder who or what will be my next Bert and AJ story.
Rev Streams: Brand deals for TikTok and Instagram, YouTube ads, affiliate links, and ebooks
Our Favorite Actionable Advice:
Create what interests you: Kat found travel to be a wildly successful content tilt. But she realized she and her audience would benefit more from a content pivot to a holistic lifestyle and motherhood.
Keep your day job at first: When Kat earned more money from her content business than she did as a flight attendant, she left her job in the sky.
Reinvest in your content brand: Kat reinvests her revenue back into the business to buy new equipment, hire a video editor, etc.
– Sarah Lindenfeld Hall
Read all about Kat Kamalani and her content pivots.
Know a content creator who’s going full tilt? DM us. Or email tilt@thetilt.com.
“The high-speed lane to stronger writing is this: Be as specific as possible.” – Ann Handley
things to know
Money
Teach now: Creators on Teachable can join The Next Big Creator Competition. Grand prize is $100K with three runner-up prizes of $10K to create a new online course. Another 40 will win promotion in Teachable marketing. (Teachable; h/t The Publish Press) Tilt Take:If you find the online course platform’s terms amenable, you might as well enter the competition, too.
Learn and earn: TikTok’s Creative Agency Partnerships University to help marketers and agencies learn better how to use the platform’s features. (Social Media Today) Tilt Take:Creators would be smart to take the courses to better position themselves with the marketers and agencies interested in TikTok.
Audiences
#GoToTikTok: Instagram sends creators who want to do a deep dive or get more tips to its TikTok account (@InstagramCreators). (Matt Navarra) Tilt Take:Even Instagram knows it should go to where creators are – and that includes going to TikTok.
Forget the A list: Not all creators prioritize fame. Long-tail creators work to build, grow, and nurture communities. “Within the Creator Economy, we’re seeing little digital villages thrive on new platforms that are all about the long tail community (Discord, Community App) and we’re going to continue seeing these support communities sprout up everywhere.” (MarTech Series) Tilt Take:Another name for “long-tail creators?” Content entrepreneurs – creators who build a sustainable business, not influencers who rely on social platforms.
Tech and Tools
No SEO for AI: Google’s search advocate says content generated through machine-learning tools is against its webmaster guidelines, so it would be considered spam. (Search Engine Journal) Tilt Take:As AI-content generators get “smarter,” we expect Google will be less able to notice the difference.
Don’t mention me: Twitter is working on an “unmention” feature so you can remove your handle’s tag, though your name will still appear. (Social Media Today) Tilt Take:Yes, please. We’re tired of tags for promotional purposes only and irritating reply notifications for irrelevant content.
And Finally
No overhaul: Proposals to overhaul copyright law in light of the creator economy’s growth and “Big Content’s” concerns should include the involvement of experts experienced with the creator economy. (Fortune) Tilt Take:Traditional mainstream media shouldn’t be the only voice in copyright discussions.
Curated moneymakers: Jehava Brown’s 196K Instagram followers mean she can charge $5K for a single post and $3K for a Story. (Insider) Tilt Take:Insider curated an interesting list of pricing charged by creators. As we reviewed it, we couldn’t help but be concerned by how many are solely focused on an influencer-model business.
Your team for this issue: Joe Pulizzi, Ann Gynn, Laura Kozak, Marc Maxhimer, and Dave Anthony, with an assist from Angelina Kaminski, Brian Piper, Pam Pulizzi, Sarah Lindenfeld Hall, and Don Borger.
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