My Review of SMX Advanced

Why go to a conference like SMX Advanced? I chose to attend primarily because I was looking for a higher level of educational material as well as to do some networking within the community. This event is billed as the place for the top players in the Internet Marketing industry to go and connect and after being disappointed over and over again by the sessions at SES (Search Engine Strategies), I was excited for the opportunity to learn a few things and leave with some nice takeaways.

How did it measure up?

No question it blows SES away in terms of quality content, and the overall sophistication level of both the audience and speakers. The beauty of an ‘advanced’ conference is the presenters can skip past the basics and cut right to the meat in their presentations. The best sessions moved at a feverish pace where I scribbled down notes, names of tools, or gave up and just wrote ‘download and review powerpoint’. Many of the good ones also exposed ‘grey hat’ tactics I was unfamiliar with. Some were downright technical others were ‘no-brainers’ that I just never thought of before. Whether you want to use tactics like this or not, it’s good to know what competitors may be doing in this regard.

The sessions were not perfect however, with some speakers who didn’t really belong and one session in particular that was a major disappointment (Beyond the Usual Link Building). I wasn’t the only one who felt this way, and the posts on Twitter using the #smx hashtag would be frequently saying things like “this is smx ADVANCED”, “getting sleepy”, etc. In a conference as short as this (2 days) with a very limited amount of sessions, it’s extremely disappointing to go to a ‘dud’.

It was also clear that a couple of the presenters I encountered did not understand how savvy the audience was, and began presentations with a basic rundown of a topic and continued on as if they were speaking to a group that was new to the topic. One instance of this in particular was Craig Greenfield during the Twitter Tactics & Search Marketing session. His presentation stuck out like a sore thumb and it was very obvious to everyone watching that it was totally out of place. No disrespect to Craig, he holds a top position at Performics and is likely to be extremely savvy with the potential to really ‘wow’ the audience but it was clear that he really missed the boat. Before going to the conference I had read that all presentations were reviewed and discussed ahead of time which made it even more disappointing when these issues occurred.

How about the networking?

Much more networking opportunities were available than the larger conferences due to the small size, organized lunch table sessions, pre-show networking site (SMX connect), and post show parties & mixers. You can really tell that creating these opportunities went into the planning of this conference rather than being an afterthought. Even more powerful was a general sense of community that existed at the show. As I’ve said on this site before, I have never been an aggressive networker and haven’t pushed my face out there in the Internet Marketing community. With that being said, it was nice to meet some of the people in the community I follow or communicate with online and found most people to be very friendly.

I’ll be back

In short, despite a few hiccups with some bad presenters and issues with climate control, seating, etc., the conference was well worth the admission. Danny Sullivan and the SMX crew did an unbelievable job in organizing and running this event, and Danny in particular is a great moderator. His entertaining personality combined with his high level of knowledge helped to keep sessions moving forward, on track, and delivering quality information.

I will definitely be attending future SMX Advanced events and will probably check out SMX East when it rolls into New York City in October. I left with a nice collection of tips, tricks, & takeaways, some new contacts, and most importantly, moments of inspiration.

Tagged as: SMX Advanced