Melanie
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Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing podcast. Today, it's just me, Esther, with you to talk about attending events. And this topic came up because I recently attended UpLift Live. But I'll talk more about that as we go through the episode. So I wanted to talk to you about why it's important to attend events and what type of events to look out for when you are looking for ones to attend. So in my opinion, events are a great way to learn. They are a great way to upskill and increase your knowledge about a certain topic or theme. So I have attended a number of events over the years of being in business, and some of these events have been industry-specific with working in social media. I have gone to events that exclusively talk about social and all different aspects of social media and all different platforms that are included in the social media spectrum. And those events have been great. So when I was presented with the chance to go to UpLift Live, which was an event speaking exclusively about LinkedIn, I was a bit sceptical, I have to say. How are we going to fill a whole entire day talking about just one platform?
But to be honest with you, it was quite possibly one of the best events that I've ever been to. And I think the fact that they exclusively honed in on just one platform made it even better. Because instead of coming away with your head swimming with, oh, I need to do that for Facebook and I need to do that for Instagram, and I need to do that for Pinterest, and I need to be doing this, and I need to be doing that. It was just lots and lots of of tips and information on how to maximise your use of LinkedIn, which, again, to be honest, it's not one of the platforms that I use exclusively or even in the majority of cases. So again, another point that I thought about whenever I was presented with going to this event was, but what if they're all just LinkedIn nerds and the information goes over my head because I'm not on that platform all the time or even every day. What if I don't resonate with what they're saying? What if it's above, it's too high or it's too much information for me or it's beyond my capabilities? But it wasn't.
I have to say that even though probably the majority of the people attending were LinkedIn experts or have used LinkedIn or even do training in LinkedIn for their clients, there was such a broad use of information that I didn't feel that it was over my head or I didn't feel that I couldn't implement it. And I know there are other people there that I met who also don't use it exclusively, and they're not even in the social media business. They were there to learn more about LinkedIn to use in their own business. So it It was a pleasant surprise, I have to say. And I want to say thank you to John Asperian, Jeremy Freeman, and Gus Blandall, who organised the event in Birmingham. And that brings me on to another point, because some people don't think about going to events or don't plan to go to events because they are in different geographical locations to where they are. So I'm sure if you're in a big city or even in a country with more people than I am. So in Northern Ireland, there's 1.8 million of us. There's not that many. It's definitely something that I have to consider when going to lots of events is the fact that I will be taking time out of business to travel, to most of the time, fly over to different events, to get a hotel, to be staying away from my family and my business for one or two days. Depending on what the event is. But part of that travel helps you to decompress. It helps you, when you step away from your business, to have more of an open mind when it comes to your business and let the creativity flow. When you are staying somewhere else and you don't have maybe the stresses of the everyday family life and pet life and home life and work all piled onto one, then it does give you the chance to breathe and breathe fresh air into your business. It also helps when it comes to networking.
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I've been to adventures in marketing, which happened in Edinburgh. So again, travelling from Northern Ireland to the mainland of the UK for that one as well. And there were some people who had just taken the day out of their business. So the nine to five that the event happened, they arrived for nine o'clock and they left just after five o'clock. Family commitments, lived nearby, whatever the reason was. But they missed out on a lot of networking, and that was networking before the event, networking after the event. If you can afford to, whether it's economically or physically and mentally, take time out to be able to go and spend the day before or even a few hours before the event with the other attendees, then it gives you a chance to get to know them before you're sat next to them in the auditorium or in the event space. It will help you forge your relationship in a more neutral environment, in a more sociable environment, Because most of the time when we go to these events, we only have our business head on and we will talk exclusively about this is what I do and this is how I help my clients and this is what I want to get out of this event. But if you're in a more social setting, you'll be more likely to talk about your family, your pets, your holidays, your likes and dislikes, your favourite food. And those are the points that give you extra information to be able to build relationships. And at the end of the day, when we network, it's all about building relationships. And those relationships may lead to working with that person, may lead to that person recommending you to someone else that they know. It may lead to business for you, which at the end of the day, we want to see a return on our investment of going to the events. But I think the number one return should be your learning experience. And that, come at me, Give me your opinions on this one.
But I think first and foremost, you need to be learning and upskilling and growing your knowledge. Because if you stay working in your business all the time, you're not seeing what other people are seeing. You're not listening to industry experts. You're not cleaning your information from people who know more than you do. And it's okay not to know it all, but it's not okay to not not want to know more. So it helps you learn. It helps you with your networking. It helps you grow personally. It helps you grow the business, like I said. It's also nice to get that refresh. So when you step outside of your business and you can maybe switch off the laptop for 24 hours or take it with you and write down all the information that people are sharing, you never know what golden nuggets of information are going to be shared unless you're there in person. Now, in the case of UpLift Live, they recorded all the sessions and they have shared them with people who have bought the ticket. And that doesn't happen for all events either. I know it was very common over COVID and the lockdowns that we weren't allowed to go and be with people in public, in closed-in spaces. So it was much more common to have online events, and they're still ongoing today, and those are fine, too. But in my opinion, if I don't walk away from my computer, if I don't walk away from my office, when a message comes through, when an email pops up, when I remember that I have to do a certain thing for a client or for our own business, then I will do that because I'm sat at the computer rather than just focussing 100% on the event. Whereas if you're in a physical in-person event, you're more likely to turn the notifications off on your phone while you're listening. Other events that I have planned to go to in the next 12 months include AtomaCon, which is in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north of England. And again, that will be a few days out of my business and it'll be a few days away from family.
I'm also going to Social Media Fest in November in Wexford, in the south of Ireland. And Social Media Marketing World in San Diego next year. Those are all events that I will be going to, that I'm interested in. AtomaCon is a business event in general. They do talk a lot about social media and how to use it for your business, but it's not exclusive for that. But the other two that I mentioned, Social Media Fest and Social Media Marketing World, are more based on the use and good practises in social media and learning more about the updates and the new technologies that are coming out around those. So my advice would be to find events that are coming up. They can be near you. But like I said, if I stayed, if I was only looking for events that were near me to go to, I might get to one event a year that was industry-specific for me. If there are none near you or not enough in your opinion, and you see that there is a gap in the market, then why not make your own event? That's what Tweeting Goddess Samantha Kelly has done on many occasions. She has started events because there wasn't the information that she was looking for out there. So she invented the event. She created them. Actually, Social Media Fest is her event. She's had many others through the years. But there's nothing to stop you from stepping forward and creating an event of your own. I would love to hear what events you're going to go to in the next 12 months or even beyond. Because some people have even started looking at events for September 2025, for example. Every month, we send out an email from our email list that you can sign up to at our website, themondymorningmarketing.com, and we include a list of upcoming events that we think you might be interested in. Do let us know if there are any coming up that you've heard of that we haven't heard of, and sign up for the newsletter so you can keep on top of all the latest news and get copies of the latest podcast releases as well. That's it for today, guys. Thank you for joining me. And we'll be both back. We'll both be back, even, next week with another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing podcast. Until then. Bye bye.
