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With so many social media conferences being held in 2016, how can you find "must-attend" events that will accelerate your business and career?
Working in the field of social media, we need to constantly learn and equip ourselves with knowledge about the latest trends, tools, platforms and technologies. Participating in social media conferences is a great and fun way for social media marketers to get inspired and educated, to improve their performance and to broaden their network.
Below we have put together a list of 16 unique, must-attend social media conferences that should meet all of your needs for learning new things, networking and meeting top with industry experts. The list covers both events with a strong track record and new and promising events that provide a niche focus.
It’s time to start planning the year and signing up for the most promising events.
Social Media Strategies Summit (#SMSsummit)
February 9-11, 2016, Las Vegas, Nevada
The comprehensive 3-day social media marketing summit focuses on the toughest challenges marketers are facing in social media marketing, customer service, employee engagement, measuring ROI, and more. This conference should arm you with fresh perspectives on the digital marketing landscape, and key strategic insights on how social fits in with corporate objectives.
Guest speakers include Melanie Deziel, Director of Creative Strategy for Time Inc., Joie Healy, Senior Manager at Cisco, and Lisa Perez, Barbie Global Brand Marketing and Social Media at Mattel.
February 22-26, 2016, New York, New York
SMW is a worldwide event taking place 18 cities throughout 2016 and a publishing platform that shares insights into how social media and technology are changing business, society and culture around the world. The event is now in its seventh year, and it will welcome over 10,000 attendees from New York’s top advertising and media industries.
SMW’s 2016 global theme: The Invisible Hand: Hidden Forces of Technology (and How We Can Harness it for Good) will explore how mobile technology, networked connectivity, data and machine learning, and other technologies are the attributes of a new paradigm that is changing how we connect, consume and communicate.
Rock the Blog 2016 (#RTB16)
March 18, 2016, Hannover, Germany
Rock the Blog 2016 is a European networking hub for bloggers and marketing and PR specialists on the lookout for new trends and exciting new topics in the area of blogging and corporate blogging. The agenda for 2016 is to find a balanced selection of themes from the areas of Media & Technology, Lifestyle, Automotive, Finance and Politics & Law.
March 20-24, 2016, Las Vegas, Nevada
Adobe’s user conference is now an educational event that connects over 5,000 digital marketing leaders to learn and discuss social marketing as well as marketing analytics, campaign management and email marketing, digital experience management and digital advertising. At this conference, you will explore the latest trends and tools, learn how to get better at your craft, get more quantifiable results from your digital marketing programs and deliver the ideal experience to your customers.
Social Tools Summit (#SocialTools16)
April 12, 2016, Boston, Massachusetts
The Social Tools Summit is a unique conference that showcases the wide variety of social media tools available for large and small companies, how they can be fully leveraged, and real-life examples and best practices of how leading brands are deriving ROI from them. This is the first conference dedicated solely to using business tools to scale the ROI of your social media efforts.
To make this event even more interesting, there will be Trender Panel, a focus group of power users representing issues at the heart of social business, them being; Employee advocacy, social selling, influencer marketing, content marketing, social media ROI, visual social, listening, and social analytics.
Social Media Marketing World (#smmw16)
April 17-19, 2016, San Diego, California
Social Media Marketing World is hosted by Social Media Examiner and is probably the world’s largest social media marketing conference. Along with 3,000 budding social media marketers, the guest list will include over 100 of the world’s top social media marketing professionals such as Guy Kawasaki, Mari Smith, Chris Brogan, Jay Baer, and many more. Attending this conference, you will most likely discover the best and newest ways to deploy and track social tactics and to reduce your trial and error time.
May 5-7, 2016, Victoria, British Colombia, Canada
Social Media Camp is Canada’s largest social media conference, which will have its 7th event in 2016. What makes Social Media Camp unique is the broad spectrum of delegates that covers all aspects of social media. This is not only a “marketing” conference, but it also looks deeper at the cultural impacts of social media, its effects on politics, and its security and safety implications.
May 11-12, 2016, Atlanta, Georgia
This mobile-focused conference promises to offer a fresh, new approach to conferences: an “un-conference” for businesses that want to use mobile to grow their sales and revenues. From Virtual Reality pods to “Shark Tank”-like Mobile Accelerators to impressive speakers from Google, Coca-Cola, CNN and more.
May 11-15, 2016, Prague, Czech Republic
Organized by the social analytics company Socialbakers, Engage’s 2015 conference in Prague had more than 1,000 attendees and already has a number of speakers lined up for 2016 from the likes of NASA, Universal, BBC and L’Oreal. It will be an education-filled week, including workshops on how to use insights to get the most ROI from your social content, client care and advertising. The event brands itself as a “for social media marketers by social media marketers” event, a global conference for “social media marketers who are serious about improving their results”.
Content Marketing Conference (#CMC16)
May 17-19, 2016, Las Vegas, Nevada
Content Marketing Conference returns in the 2nd year with a laser focus on the actionable content marketing tactics, tips and hacks you demand for top performance. This event is also unique in that it is purposely capped at only 300 to energize sessions, maximize learning and power-up networking to make sure its attendees win big.
May 24-25, 2016, Atlanta, Georgia
The Social Shake-Up is an annual two-day conference hosted by Social Media Today. The conference enables entrepreneurs, marketers and other business professionals to meet with each other and the “who’s who” of social media as well as provide lessons in creativity, collaboration and analytics. The theme for 2016 is “Social is the Soul of Digital.” Thought leaders from top brands such as Visa, AT&T, Taco Bell, Sprint, and others, will examine how the social framework underpins everything in digital, and why it’s critical to be part of this transformation.
Leveraging Social Media for Communications & PR (#LAI_Corpcomms)
June 20-22, 2016, New York, New York
At this conference, you will have a valuable opportunity to hear from leading organizations who have found a way to successfully communicate with stakeholders, employees, and consumers by using social media. Moreover, you will discover how to leverage social media to drive results in your organization from a Public Relations and Corporate Communications perspective.
Corporate Social Media Summit (#CSMNY)
June 20-21, 2016, New York, New York
The Corporate Social Media Summit is a corporate-focused social media conference, which gives you a unique opportunity to learn from, and network with, senior leaders from the biggest brands in the world. Featured speakers at the upcoming event include Alicia Tillman – Chief Marketing Officer, SAP, Will Bottinick – Senior Vice-President, Social Insights, Citi, Gary Davis – VP Consumer Marketing, Intel, Steve Sommers – Vice-President, Global Brand Marketing, Under Armour, and Jonathan Pierce – Director, Social Media and Content Services, American Airlines.
Content Marketing World 2016 (#CMWorld)
September 6-9, 2016, Cleveland, Ohio
Content Marketing World continues to be the largest content marketing event globally. In 2015, 3,500 marketers from 55 countries joined the event. It’s the one event where you can learn and network with the best and the brightest in the content marketing industry. 2016 speakers include many social media influencers such as Jay Baer, President of Convince & Convert, Joe Pulizzi, Founder of Content Marketing Institute and Ann Handley, Chief Content Office of MarketingProfs. Content Marketing World will arm you with all the materials you need to build and implement a content marketing plan that will grow your business and inspire your audience.
October 4-7, 2016, San Francisco, California
Dreamforce is one of the largest nonprofit technology conferences in the world. Dreamforce 2016 will include over 1,400 breakout sessions focusing on practically every social media marketing role imaginable, over 4,000 partners in the Cloud Expo and a list of esteemed keynote speakers. Whether you’re a company of five or a Fortune 500, Dreamforce promises you a boom in success, sales productivity, customer satisfaction, employee productivity and lead volume.
November 8-11, 2016, Boston, Massachusetts
INBOUND “fuels the passion that drives the most innovative and successful business leaders”. This massive marketing event is aimed to provide the inspiration, education, and connections you need to transform your business. This event hosted 14,000+ marketing and sales professionals from all around the world and organized 170+ educational sessions in 2015. Past keynote speakers included Arianna Huffington, Seth Godin, Nate Silver, and Scott Harrison.
Which of these social media conference will you attend? Which have you participated before and recommend? Which do you want to add to the list? Please share with us!