6 Ways to Get the Most out of Day 2 – #ISUM16

It’s Day 2 of the Internet Summit in Raleigh, NC. Here are six ways to get the most out of it, based on what was shared on Day 1.

Enjoy. You’re out of the office. Like Al Madrigal said – you’re out of the office, put the phones down. There were as many people in the room for the keynote yesteday as there were at Dreamforce 4 and the vibe felt the same.
Day 1 Keynote
Have a plan. Arnie Kuenn of Vertical Measures reinforced this in his pre-conference work shop. What is your plan to get the most out of Day 2? Why are you here? What metrics are driving you and how will you be sure you accomplished your goals. Spend a few minutes looking at the agenda to make sure you’re getting the right input and think through how you will follow up afterwards.
Learn. Rand Fishkin‘s keynote talked through all the ways that conventional ideas of modern
Fishkin’s reasons that content marketing fails.

marketing and content creation can be wrong. Learn the right ways to make data driven decisions to accomplish your goals.
Think platforms. Viveka von Rosen‘s coverage of the value of LinkedIn as a platform opened my eyes with her observation that, “This is a platform where the users are primed to buy, primed to make decisions.” Everyone knows the value of Facebook as a platform, but Andrea Vahl‘s observations on how to work a prospect funnel and the impact of AB testing provided insight on the unique capabilities of this platform.
Find tools. Everyone gets better with the right tools. Small improvements in yield matter. The exhibitors provide resources and real value – I was a big fan of SwagChimp, and realized I needed to be using something like Calendly as well.
Dogfood. This hit home in Kuenn’s talk – if you are here to learn about best practices in modern marketing outreach, then you’ve got to live it in what you do. His observation was that Vertical Measures couldn’t preach the value of content marketing as an agency if they weren’t doing it themselves – we can’t pass on the lessons learned here unless you’re using it in what you do.