THE STORY OF BUZZ2009

BUZZ2009 STORY

As we ramp up for Buzz2010, we thought you might like to know how this all came about. So here’s the story of Buzz2009.

Hatching Buzz2009
The first meeting about doing some kind of advanced social media program for associations took place in April of 2009. We (Lindy Dreyer and Maddie Grant of SocialFish, and Merritt Colaizzi and Rob Birgfeld of SmartBrief) thought it would be fun to join forces, but weren’t really sure what that might look like. And we certainly had no idea that what eventually became Buzz2009 would be such a smash hit and such a valuable experience for us and for the association executives who took part.

We did know that there was a need within the association industry for advanced social media education. We did know that we had lots of ideas for creating a really special learning experience, and we did know that we had access to some truly stellar speakers through our various social and professional networks. We also thought we were just about ballsy enough to negotiate and barter and cajole lots of great people–friends, advisors, sponsors–to help us figure out the best ways to provide value for the audience we wanted to reach, to find a great venue, and to help us spread the word.  We picked a date (July 9, 2009) and we set the wheels in motion.

Promoting Buzz2009
The theme of Buzz2009 was word of mouth, specifically framed by Andy Sernovitz as the keynote speaker. We wanted to demonstrate Andy’s 5 Ts of Word of Mouth Marketing in action, so one very important element for us in the way we conceived the event was to use social media–and our own tactics for spreading word of mouth–to put our money where our mouths were and show how a conference like this could be created using the very tools and ideas we were going to be discussing.

Our most important word of  mouth engine was this blog, which we’re continuing to use for Buzz2010 (and beyond), and we posted tons of information about speakers and what kinds of content and value participants could expect to find during the conference.  We spread the word out on Twitter, Facebook and all of our networks, and experimented with many social media tactics for the conference itself.  A full rundown of our planning processes was posted on the blog as a Living Case Study.  One extremely successful tactic was using scholarship places provided by sponsors to not only build even more buzz around the event, but showcase why people thought they wanted to attend–basically having potential attendees spreading word of mouth for us, including this awesome slideshow by one sponsorship applicant.

Day of Buzz2009 and the Live Webcast

The day came and our impressive final lineup of speakers helped build a one-day program that exceeded everyone’s expectations. A very important consideration when planning Buzz2009 was to be able to provide some content for free and to a virtual audience, catering to those people who we knew were very interested but would not be able to attend the live event. We achieved this goal through our mid-day webcast moderated by Guy Kawasaki. The livecast was free, and open to everyone, and we ended up attracting 5,000 viewers–a huge success which made the 75 association execs in the room with direct access to our speakers feel even more special.

Buzz2009 quickly sold out last year, and we’re so happy that the “buzz” is continuing this year.  This is a very short summary of how Buzz2009 got started. There’s a lot more information on this blog; we hope you’ll have a dig around if you’re interested.

Looking Ahead to Buzz2010
You might have noticed that Buzz2010 looks a lot different from Buzz2009–the format and topics are very different (just to keep you on your toes!). We believe that the association community is in a different place this year, with changing needs when it comes to social media education. We’re always mindful of the way our industry is learning about and experimenting with social technologies and we’ve redesigned the event to meet those needs. And we’re working to keep the energy and excitement of Buzz2009 alive in a lot of small ways, starting with a whole new slate of phenomenal speakers.