
The audience of a conference is far wider than those who physically buy tickets. The organizers know it. The speakers must know it.
Because, when speakers go up on a stage, they speak not only to those they see, but also to an invisible crowd. The latter follow the event through their social feed and dramatically extend the venue’s boundaries.
Remarkable keynote speakers made their stage a platform. Their insights on stage transformed to tweets, images and conversations. MozCon 2015 proved it to the fullest.
Twitter Turbulence: Over 30k Mentions
We monitored and analyzed engagement levels around MozCon’s speakers throughout the event. The results show how important it is to invite the right keynote speakers to a conference. The overall impact: over 30k mentions for the conference in three days!
All speakers were insightful but these top 5 lead the conference on social:
Will Reynolds
@wilreynolds | 1,703 Mentions
For the one who pointed out that, “competitors are waiting to overtake you,” Reynolds knew very well how to reach first place.
Reynolds is the founder of the digital marketing agency Seer Interactive. He spoke about the disruptive environment we live in and how to continuously focus on people and their needs. With an effective activity on Twitter along the event, he managed to conquer the first place as a MozCon influencing speaker.
Good SEOs are those who think of themselves as the concierges of the internet — @wilreynolds #mozcon pic.twitter.com/aeS4fxtnPL
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) July 14, 2015
Dr. Pete Meyers
@dr_pete | 1,262 Mentions
Pete Meyers, AKA Dr. Pete, “broke the internet”, almost literally. Moz’s marketing scientist talk was, “Surviving Google: SEO in 2020,” where he took the freedom of analyzing the future of the SERPs and how not to lag the industry. Google is changing the SERPs continuously, moving more relevant actions to the front. Today, you can find answers and take action on various queries straight at the SERP, like getting directions, paying for tickets or booking hotel rooms. If that’s the case now, what is it going be like in 5 years? How can we be prepared for it?
His unique presentation showed the real opportunities in today’s and tomorrow’s SERP. This lead to Twitter conversations like:
Google is a commercial ecosystem – could this SERP be the future? (We're not that far away…) @dr_pete #mozcon pic.twitter.com/aOiTkaDYHI
— Kevin Gibbons (@kevgibbo) July 14, 2015
"Don't see 2 ranking opportunities on this page. There are 22. Don't bury your head in the sand." –@dr_pete #MozCon pic.twitter.com/42HoXRNUdE
— Trevor Klein (@trevoratmoz) July 14, 2015
Cindy Krum
@Suzzicks | 937 Mentions
The immediate result of Cindy Krum’s talk was 196 new Twitter followers. How did she do it?
Krum, a mobile marketing evangelist at Mobile Moxie, live-tweeted her slides. She also offered a bonus slide on twitter. Smart move.
Krum spoke about a common new pain: improving mobile SEO. She dived into the deep details of the new Google Mobile Friendly algorithm and how to survive it. And this was the response from her talk:
holy crapballs! @suzzicks is live tweeting her own presentation… AND providing bonus slides! #baller #mozcon pic.twitter.com/Mqi2N4Ud7D
— Greg Gifford (@GregGifford) July 14, 2015
Dana DiTomaso
@danaditomaso | 895 Mentions
DiTomaso took the mentions lead on the first day of MozCon. And it wasn’t easy. DiTomaso, a partner at Kick Point, needed to overtake Moz’s Rand Fishkin’s intro presentation and even Moz’s new MozContent announcement.
Her brand strategy talk was about matching the identity of the company with its branding. She explained how to analyze a brand strategy, define a new one and set its tone and voice.
Here are top shared tweets taken from her talk:
Marketing can't fix a bad product or a co. that doesn't care about solving problems for their customers @danaditomaso #mozcon
— Wil Reynolds (@wilreynolds) July 13, 2015
#mozcon @danaditomaso Company silos are what can destroy a Brand. And Brand = Promise. A broken brand is broken promise.
— Gianluca Fiorelli (@gfiorelli1) July 13, 2015
"Brand strategy is the marketing of the future." @danaditomaso #mozcon
— Tori Cushing (@ToriCushing) July 13, 2015
Kristina Halvorson
@halvorson | 789 Mentions
SEO is important because of what comes *after* the click. If your content sucks, your SEO is all for naught. –@halvorson <– YES!! #MozCon
— Trevor Klein (@trevoratmoz) July 13, 2015
Don't focus on more content. Focus on getting the content users need in front of them when they need it. @halvorson #MozCon
— Ruth Burr Reedy (@ruthburr) July 13, 2015
MozCon Complete Speakers Influence Metrics
Rank | Speaker Name | Twitter Handle | Twitter Mentions | Total RTs |
1 | Wil Reynolds | @wilreynolds | 1703 | 947 |
2 | Pete Meyers | @dr_pete | 1262 | 626 |
3 | Cindy Krum | @Suzzicks | 937 | 551 |
4 | Dana DiTomaso | @danaditomaso | 895 | 445 |
5 | Kristina Halvorson | @halvorson | 789 | 447 |
6 | Cyrus Shepard | @CyrusShepard | 731 | 465 |
7 | Matthew Brown | @MatthewJBrown | 697 | 340 |
8 | Adam Singer | @AdamSinger | 684 | 367 |
9 | Marshall Simmonds | @mdsimmonds | 675 | 319 |
10 | Gianluca Fiorelli | @gfiorelli1 | 650 | 474 |
11 | Cara Harshman | @CaraHarshman | 649 | 305 |
12 | Courtney Seiter | @courtneyseiter | 605 | 281 |
13 | Mig Reyes | @migreyes | 604 | 232 |
14 | Lexi Mills | @leximills | 555 | 247 |
15 | Marty Weintraub | @martyweintraub | 514 | 211 |
16 | Richard Millington | @RichMillington | 511 | 251 |
17 | Mary Bowling | @MaryBowling | 492 | 217 |
18 | David Mihm | @davidmihm | 492 | 267 |
19 | Marta Turek | @MTurek | 407 | 146 |
20 | Adrian Vender | @adrianvender | 382 | 205 |
21 | Purna Virji | @purnavirji | 359 | 178 |
22 | Tamara Gielen | @tamaragielen | 340 | 137 |
23 | Duane Brown | @duanebrown | 227 | 131 |
24 | Stephanie B Wallace | @SWallaceSEO | 175 | 101 |
Mentions of Honor: Two power-speakers are missing from the list above: Rand Fishkin and Ruth Burr Reedy. Fishkin is the face of Moz. He performed the opening and closing talks at MozCon and had a total of 2,239 mentions. We wanted to widen the scope of research to also include people who were less associated with the conference.
Ruth Bur Reedy did amazing social work during MozCon – and was super friendly. She initiated conversations with many speakers during the event and got a total of 1,731 mentions – regardless of her impressive talk during the event about getting hired to do SEO.
Event as a Content Eruption Trigger
The keynote speakers made MozCon what it is, not only on stage, but also on the Twitter. They created an experience of closer engagement all along the event.
The influencers made all the difference. They made the conference an ongoing content creation and curation event. Make sure to acknowledge how essential the influencers on stage were and network with them to amplify your next event tens time more. If you have a chance, MozCon is a great event to see it in action.