If the usefulness of social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, et al.) has you all “a-twitter,” you wouldn’t be the first. For those who fully embrace the purpose and the potential of today’s new media landscape however, the possibilities seem limitless. Those limits are fully expressed, and even somewhat extended, at BlogWorld – dubbed the world’s largest social media conference — and Colorado companies are fully represented at the upcoming international event.
Held on the East Coast last spring, and again on the West Coast this November 3-5, BlogWorld brings to life the most comprehensive and latest tools and techniques in the industry. With more than 300 speakers, 150 sessions and three full days of content, information presented at the show spans all areas of the industry, and it’s part of what sets this conference apart from others.
“What makes us unique is we are new media people talking about new media, not traditional media people telling each other how to be new media,” said Rick Calvert, CEO and co-founder of BlogWorld. “Not just content creators and bloggers, but businesses and brands and a place for them to come together. The social media of business summit the largest social media conference in the world. We help people delve into that world and become experts in it — it’s all under one roof though,” he emphasized.
New York and Los Angeles often are at the forefront in this new media landscape, given their proximity to technical and traditional media resources; Colorado, however is fully represented as well. Attendees like ColoradoMoms.com and Cohn Marketing in Denver not only will rub elbows with world-class speakers while gathering the latest techniques in this digital space, they also will network with stand-out, Colorado-based speakers.. Sonia Simone, CMO and co-founder of Denver’s Copyblogger Media; Dennis Yu, CEO of Boulder-based Bitz media; and Kara Williams of The Vacation Gals in Carbondale, Co., all are highly-anticipated speakers at the conference. In addition, two separate social-media savvy experts have previously served as conference director for the seven-year-old event: Boulder’s Dave Taylor of AskDaveTaylor.com, and Firestone-based Jim Turner of OnebyOneMedia.com.
BlogWorld creators emphasize that the show attracts today’s most popular and knowledgeable bloggers, podcasters, Internet radio and television broadcasters, as well as the most influential Facebook and Twitter celebrities and social media professionals. In 2010, BlogWorld attendees had a combined monthly reach of more than 250 million people.
“New media and traditional media are converging,” explained Calvert, emphasizing that part of the event’s mission is to take the best of both arenas – the traditional, and the new – and bring them together to form outstanding, informative and accurate content for users.
Conference sessions are designed to help digital content creators (like bloggers and podcasters) learn how to better create and distribute content using the latest trends in online journalism, social media, online communities, internet broadcasting and video streaming. The Social Media Business Summit, for example, offers educational sessions designed to teach marketing, public relations executives and business owners the most effective ways to use social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs, YouTube and more.
“In this challenging economy, businesses are being forced to shed expensive traditional marketing methods in favor of lower-cost new media alternatives to grow their businesses. Most are looking to answer two key questions about social media: which tools should our company use to engage our customers via the social web, and how can we as a company become social and do it right? That’s exactly what they are going to learn at this conference from companies like Kodak, Ford, Sony, Southwest Airlines, Cisco, and Pepsi to name a few,” said Dave Cynkin, president and co-founder of BlogWorld.
As new media continue to pervade our very existence, it feels good that Colorado companies and individuals are not only in the mix, but at the forefront of creating change for the future. I’ll be at the BlogWorld conference this month, checking out exactly what this social media landscape can do for the individual, for small businesses and for how we all receive our information. Not to mention how our Colorado counterparts stand out from the crowd at what must be one of the noisiest sections of the information highway.
Doni Luckutt is a lifestyle expert who believes by enhancing interpersonal connection, we can stop simply living, and become Simply Alive! If you have a suggestion on what brings you to life, connect with her on Twitter @SimplyAlive, via e-mail Doni@SimplyAliveWorld.com or on her blog: .
