One of my favorite things about marketing is the opportunity to engage people in a variety of ways. While core functions like email campaigns, online advertising programs and measurement are essential, there’s something about face to face interaction that there just isn’t a substitute for.
Last year was a fun one for me. After joining Piqora in May, Nick (our head of content) and I focused much of our effort on the foundational programs and processes I referenced earlier. As the year went on though, we spoke at conferences like eTail, Luxury Interactive and The Visual Content Marketing Summit – experiences that I’m pleased informed our planning for 2015.
Two weeks ago we hosted our first mini-conference in San Francisco – a fantastically attended event that saw over 60 attendees from brands of all sizes. They joined us for a panel that I felt lucky to moderate featuring Nanette Wong from Chairish, Scott Lyon from Social Moms and Cait Weingartner from Pretty & Fun. All three brought a different perspective to the ways that brands are tackling social.
After the panel attendees participated in roundtable sessions inspired by the “Huddles” that we had at X Change when I was at Semphonic. I’ve attended conferences of all sorts, and this format is my absolute favorite. Everyone is encouraged to participate and contribute, share ideas, commiserate and learn.
We enjoyed our first event so much and got such great feedback that we’re going to be continuing with our live events. Next up for us is SXSW in March – if you’re planning to be in Austin, we’ve rented out a great space downtown that we’re going to turn into the “Piqora Photo Factory.” We’ll have a series of very cool photobooth experiences, food, drinks, swag and a series of really awesome panels/fireside chats/interviews with a variety of folks. A personal highlight for me is a sitdown with NY Times Bestselling Author and lead baseball writer for ESPN’s Grantland.com Jonah Keri on Saturday the 14th. You can register to join us here.
After SXSW, we’ve also locked in a location – this time in NYC in April – for another mini-conference. Registration is open and it should be a great time. If you’re in town, I’d love for you to join us!
One last thing – we’re always looking for speakers, panelists and roundtable leaders for our events and webinars. Are you someone who has something to share? Let me know in the comments!