On Thursday, April 21, 2016, over 1,300 marketing professionals converged at the historic St. Louis Union Station for the 2016 Midwest Digital Marketing Conference (MDMC), where marketing communications experts from across the country presented seminars and panels on the latest developments in digital, social, media and tech.

The theme of this year’s conference was “innovation without borders,” so it was particularly appropriate that several OneSpace team members attended. OneSpace helps companies leverage agile talent to accomplish goals more efficiently, effectively eliminating the borders between internal team members and external expertise.

If you were unable to attend MDMC or you missed out on some of the sessions, here are a few of the stand-out presentations and key takeaways our team members were talking about when they returned.

• Music, Mobility, and Millennials
• Made to Share: The Journey to a Hit
• The Big Opportunity with LinkedIn that Most People Aren’t Seeing
• B2B Social at Scale

Seminar: Music, Mobility, and Millennials

Pandora’s Gabe Tartaglia

Tartaglia presented a number of interesting statistics regarding millennial music preferences and habits.

• 35 percent of millennials make purchases on their phones at least once a month.
• 48 percent of millennial gamers would choose to keep their music apps if they could keep only one app on their smartphones.
• 60 percent of millennials say music makes them feel closer to their cultures than religion, language or tradition do.
• 87 percent of female millennials listen to Pandora while getting ready to go out.
• 75 percent of millennials say their most important entertainment choice is music.

Key takeaways: Millennials make up a third of the U.S. population and spend over $1 trillion per year. Take advantage of the fact that music is so important to them and seek out opportunities to infuse marketing strategies with musical elements.

Seminar: Made to Share: The Journey to a Hit

Buzzfeed’s Brant MClean

McClean explored strategies for developing blog posts and other online content that people will want to read and share.

• Use your awareness of your audience’s identity, knowledge and emotions to gain an understanding of how they’re using media in their lives.
• Our thirst for knowledge is utility-based; we seek out information that helps us accomplish our goals.
• The topics discussed in your best-performing posts are the ones that are resonating with your audience; build upon that by expanding on those ideas in new posts.

Key takeaways: Be bold: Make bold, informed choices. Be mobile: If you can’t view it on your phone, it doesn’t exist. Be nerdy: Leverage data from creation through distribution. Be learned: Constantly learn, refine, rinse and repeat. Be nimble: Be ready to test; be ready for change.

Seminar: The Big Opportunity with LinkedIn that Most People Aren’t Seeing

LinkedIn’s Nicki Powers

After sharing with the audience that 90 percent of buyers consume at least 10 pieces of content before making a purchasing decision, and on average, B2B purchasing decisions involve at least seven decision makers (that’s 70 pieces of content), Nicki Powers discussed the importance of keeping content digestible:

• Blogs are your raisin bran (a healthy staple; top of the funnel)
• E-books and guides are your spinach (extremely healthy; middle of the funnel)
• White papers are your roast (keeps you full and satisfied, but shouldn’t be your entire meal; lower in the funnel)
• Culture and gifs are your chocolate cake (great for dessert, but you don’t want too much)
• Bold statements are your Tabasco sauce (adds some flavor if sprinkled in from time to time)

Key takeaways: Ideally you want 65 percent raisin bran and spinach, 20 percent roast, and 15 percent cake and Tabasco.

Panel: B2B Social at Scale

Moderated by FleishmanHillard’s Steve Bauer
Independent consultant, Marisa Lather
Jeff Leonard of Wells Fargo
Nick Weber of Monsanto
Jason Falls of Elasticity

The panel discussed ways to optimize B2B marketing results through the use of social media.

• Make sure you and your company know your overall objective with social media (customer acquisition, awareness, lead generation, etc.) and let that determine the metrics you focus on.
• Don’t be afraid to bring a personality into social platforms. Humanize social interaction and avoid posting automated responses.
• Find out what’s interesting to others about your brand and talk about it.
• Don’t focus all communications on your direct services; share content that’s appealing and likely to capture your audience’s attention. For example, make a calendar and add as many things as you can that are happening that day (like National Toast Day) and figure out how to post a message that pertains to that event.
• “Start with your content, listen to your analytics, remain flexible and when in doubt, test it out.” – Marisa Lather

Key takeaways: Identify your niche and make sure your messaging matches that audience. Also, platforms and expectations are ever changing, so don’t be afraid to try something different.

 

From our perspective, MDMC 2016 was a great success. Our team members were delighted to meet so many smart, innovative leaders, and they came back with fresh insights that we’re excited to explore further.

If you’re looking for custom solutions designed to help you scale your content marketing efforts, OneSpace delivers high quality, original content written by subject matter experts, as well as around-the-clock moderation services.

Request a complimentary consultation to find out how our enterprise services might be a good fit for your needs.