I am so excited about the opportunity I was given to help out WordCamp Portland! This year I volunteered as WordCamp Portland’s Social Media Manager! It was a fantastic experience and I just love the WordCamp Portland community! They are very enthusiastic about WordPress and I love WordPress!
The Community
By volunteering I was able to engage and learn from the WordCamp Portland community. They are smart, enthusiastic, fun, and helpful! They were so much fun on line and in person! As the WordCamp Portland social media manager I managed and engaged on:
Our community could follow along on what was happening on any of these social channels with the most updated information that was posted on daily or by following our hashtag #WCPDX.
Before WordCamp
There is always a lot to do before a wordcamp. Our mission as we had chosen to accept it was to make it the best wordcamp ever! We had the theme but we needed the speakers. So my first goal was to get out our “Call For Speakers” messaging to get those speaker submissions in by our deadline. Twitter was our best bet but we used all of our social channels. In previous year’s Twitter was the only social media channel used. This year we added Facebook, G+, YouTube, & Instagram accounts. By doing this we were trying to reach as many people as possible in getting the word out about our wordcamp and grow our social presence.
All during the month of September and the 3 weeks of October prior to the wordcamp event we prioritized as a team what messaging was to go out on a weekly basis and distributed the information across the social channels. Once we had the speakers announced then it was all about the event details:
- Where
- When
- What to expect
- Food
- T-shirts
- Schwag
- Sponsors
- After Party
The content was pumped out everyday and the WordCamp Community was excited! They tweeted, retweeted, asked questions, and used our hashtag! It was FANTASTIC! Throughout the weeks we grew the awareness of the new social accounts and grew the community there as well.
During WordCamp
October 24, 2015 arrived! I showed up with iphone charged, laptop, and extra charging cables to get me through the day. We kicked off the event with Justin Sainton welcome message and we were off and running!
I attended every session I could some of them I was able to stay for the entire presentation and others I got in just before the end. I was taking pictures, tweeting, retweeting, checking the #WCPDX hashtag, on Facebook, and on Instagram. The attendees were on fire and so was I! By the time noon came around I was looking to charge my phone because it was nearly dead. Fortunately, my husband Eric had volunteered at Wordcamp Portland as well and he is my tech support. He showed up with an external battery pack for me to plug my phone into and I had the hook up! I was walking around with my phone in one hand, laptop bag in the other, and the battery pack in my back pocket. It was great to have the confidence that my phone wasn’t going to die and it was actually charging while I was using it. I REALLY appreciate my husband saving the day! He’s my hero!
After the technical issues were resolved the rest of the day was smooth sailing for me! Attending as many sessions and live tweeting and interacting with everyone is the best! I just love it!
After WordCamp
It’s funny that a lot of people don’t think about that the social media manager job is not done just because the event is over. There are post activities that still need to happen. There was still plenty of buzz going on for a week or so after our wordcamp was over. Plenty of thank yous, tweets about the event, and then of course presentation links.
I have tried to also partner up with other wordcamps and send out some social love about their upcoming wordcamp event because I think it’s important for us to support each other.
It’s been exactly a month today and over the weekend WordPress.tv uploaded all of WordCamp Portland’s videos on to their site. This meant more work for me to get the word out but it’s not work I just love it and I am glad to have the continued content to put out there!
So, I guess you could say a social media manager’s job is never done! (ha ha!)
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