At Filament, we value learning as much as afternoon ice cream breaks (trust me, we treasure these A LOT.) Because of this, Filament invested in sending several of us to the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference in St. Louis, Mo.
My coworkers and I came back with brimming notebooks to fuel our clients’ businesses, but I wanted to share the three most meaningful takeaways:
The 3rd Day
Bright and early the first morning, we attended the first keynote session given by Dre Baldwin. Dre didn’t make his school’s basketball team until he was a senior in high school. Even then, he was only a bench warmer. Five years later, Dre became a professional basketball player. So, how did he do it? He showed up on the 3rd day when the newness wore off and created a separating gap between himself and his counterparts.
Our take— Filament clients rely on us to show up and work hard on their business every day, not just on the days when things are new and shiny. Every day we do this, we help our clients create a separation gap between themselves and their competitors—this cycle makes all things possible.
The only constant is change
All you have to do to understand the challenges marketers face every day is watch the Facebook algorithm, analytics or privacy changes for a week. Content, analytics, creative— oh my! Every day the world of marketing is changing. In fact, the only constant in this industry (and agriculture) is change. Each change makes us stronger and more able to withstand the storms coming.
Day 2 keynote speaker, Pam Moore, reminded us that we are only as strong as our weakest link in marketing. If an entity relies solely on Facebook to market, one change could shut down the entire business. She reminded us not only not to put too many eggs in one basket but also to go with the flow and ride the waves of change. Most importantly—she reminded us to be who we are 100% of the time and not let change affect our core business principles.
Our take— Many Filamentarians are marketers by day and farmers by night. If there’s anything we know well, it’s change. We roll with the punches and make the best of change, so this keynote address was right up our alley.
The heart problem
Until your social media marketing success translates into having food to eat or not, you won’t quite understand the importance of metrics like Steph Nissan does. Lindsey and I attended this breakout session and left feeling a renewed fire for social media analytics. Steph shared with attendees the 18 metrics she uses to show ROI on her social media efforts. Not only did she share these stats with us, but she also said, “If you are unwilling to get beyond surface metrics and show what you’re contributing to the bottom line, you have a heart problem and are stealing from your business.” Wow.
Our take— At Filament, we’re always looking to innovate our analytics process and show more-in-depth metrics. But, because of this session, we have a renewed passion for finding meaningful metrics in our social media efforts.
#MDMC18 was jam-packed with over 80 sessions and speakers. Believe us, we each had to order new notebooks when we got back to the office.
