Key Takeaways about New Media from New Media Europe 2015
This past weekend we attended New Media Europe 2015 – a conference in Manchester UK for bloggers, podcasters, social media visionaries, content creators and marketing professionals looking to up their game through New Media Marketing.
The had some fantastic international speakers presenting, including Cliff Ravenscraft, Chris Ducker, Amy Schmittauer, Andrea Vahl, Harmony Eichsteadt, Ian Anderson Gray, Phil Pallen and Jonathan Tilley to name just a handful.
Izabela and Mike Russell, the event organisers said:
“It was amazing to see so many people getting together in Manchester, forming new friendships and enjoying their time together. Our opening keynote, Cliff Ravenscraft, referred to everyone in the room as “the crazy ones”. Izabela and I are certainly inspired to do something even more “crazy” next year for New Media Europe!”
It was a great event, but we guess for you reading this now – you want to know what we learned! It is hard to sum it all up into one article (there was a lot of content consumed!), so here’s 3 ideas that really stood out for us…
How to build an audience…prioritise them first!
A lot of the speakers were talking about building a community/audience/following (whatever you want to call them online), and yes we know that in order to build an audience we should interact first to build these connections. But how much of a priority do we place on that over our own stuff? For example, what is the first thing you check when you login to your social media accounts? Notifications right? You want to know who is talking to you. This is what Cliff Ravenscraft suggested…instead of checking YOUR notifications first, or YOUR inbox first, flip to the newsfeed and find out what’s going on in their world! Even better, send a personal email to a connection, and show an interest in them FIRST.
This is so applicable to small business marketing too, we are building these relationships up online, moving offline relationships online, but are we nurturing them correctly?
ACTION: This is more of a challenge really… over the next week, when you login to your social media accounts, BEFORE checking your notifications, go instigate some interactions first.
Video can’t be ignored anymore
Video marketing is nothing new, however video marketing is now reaching a stage where it really shouldn’t be ignored, and for our own business we are going to be looking at ways to get more into video in the near future.
Amy Schmittauer presented a fantastic talk on Youtube marketing and how easily we can add it into our marketing mix, however the key here is being consistent and keeping it fresh. As Amy put it in her talk: “To build a great viewership you have to make videos so that everybody knows what they are going to get in each episode, but they always come back because there’s always something new.”
The amount of video being taken in and around the conference was crazy. Anyone who was anyone was constantly using Periscope or Blab or taking video for Facebook/Twitter/Instagram. Andrea Vahl’s alter ego ‘Grandma Mary’ came out and started interviewing all the speakers just using her iPhone and an inexpensive microphone – this is fantastic because all these speaker will then go and share the interview to their audience! Win, win!
We even got interviewed by Grandma Mary! Watch here.
ACTION: With services like Periscope and Blab bringing live video streaming into the mix, companies that don’t embrace video content may get left behind. Take some time to look into them and see if you can benefit from them.
A Podcast Series
We have thought about the idea of launching a podcast for our business, but keeping consistent to a weekly podcast seems daunting! However we really liked this idea… instead of doing a weekly podcast, do a podcast ‘season’ where the amount of episodes is limited to a specific number, concentrate specifically on one issue, and show people how to solve it over the course of the podcasts. For example we could launch a podcast that takes people through 10 important steps to building your email list, and get guests on the show to talk about each step.
ACTION: This one requires some thinking, instead of looking at podcasts as a continuous thing, can you think of a cool idea for a one off podcast series?
Networking at Conferences
What this conference really hit home for us was that although the content is great, what we really love about attending is the networking opportunities. Let’s just say we didn’t get a whole lot of sleep! We actually learned a whole lot more from speaking to people one on one! Conferences bring people together who have a common passion and they do have a great sense of community. So next time you go to a conference – make the most of the networking. We built up some great relationships at New Media Europe that we are sure will be priceless in the long run, and this wouldn’t have happened if we just attended the talks and nothing else.
If you would like to come along next year keep an eye out for their website: http://newmediaeurope.com
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