Social Media Marketing World Convention - San Diego, April 2015

                                                                                         Me and @SueBZimmerman (the Instagram expert!!)         Mari Smith - the "Queen" of Facebook + Social                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Media Marketing (Buy her books!!)

Last month I ventured down to San Diego to meet up with my good friend and marketing guru Rhoda Rizkalla Couvaras (@marquispr) to attend the Social Media Marketing World Conference (#SMMW15 - check it out on Twitter and Instagram). It is the largest Social Media Convention in North America. There were 4,200 people in attendance from 57 different countries.   I could not believe how far some people had traveled to attend this conference. I met people form India, Ireland, Australia and Zimbabwe! Seeing this instantly validated my somewhat hesitant decision to attend the conference. If people were traveling THAT far to learn about Social Media, then clearly I was in the right place. The information learned was invaluable and I have already reached out to a few of the speakers for extra information and help. (For Facebook and Pinterest especially, thanks Vincent Ng of MCNG). All of the speakers were amazingly motivating. I highly recommend attending.

Being an entrepreneur and always being mindful of how much the business is spending, I thought I would step out of my comfort zone and try something a little different for accommodation. I have heard about Airbnb from so many colleagues lately I thought it was my turn to give it a try. I went online, researched the MANY available options in the area (Little Italy) I wanted to stay and reserved my darling little "blue room" in a converted B&B.

When I arrived by Uber (a first for me that day as well - loved it!) I thought all was dandy until I went outside, perched on my little deck with a peek-a-boo view of the Bay when all of a sudden....

Needless to say, I gasped..... then HOWLED with laughter and took so many videos, of every conceivable size, type, model and brand of plane that lands at the San Diego Airport that I got a message from Telus saying I had "exceeded my Data limit", all within about thirty minutes of my arrival. It was an adventure and I was a trooper for two full days until I moved into the Manchester Grand Hyatt where the Conference was held.  I loved the experience of living in a neighbourhood, seeing how the locals live etc. but then I also liked the crystal blue pool with cocktail service at the Hyatt too!  I guess I got the best of both experiences.

My take away's from my Social Media adventure down South:

1)  If you want to learn anything and everything about Social Media, attend the SMMW Convention in 2016 in San Diego.

2) Stay at least one full day and night past the conference end date so you can recover from the information overload you put your mind to.
     (I didn't, big mistake).

3) Take Uber everywhere, in any city it is offered. It's fabulous. (Much faster and less expensive than any conventional taxi service).

4) If you want specific information on Facebook and Social Media Marketing, Google Mari Smith. (She's your girl - buy her books).

5) If you want to learn anything and everything you ever need to know about Twitter, Google Guy Kawasaki.
    (He was hilarious and says it like it is. A no BS kind of guy. Loved that).

6)  Try out an AirBnb.  Just make sure you ask the host if their house is located below a flight path to a major airport. (I didn't know to ask that question before this trip.)

7) There, I just saved you about $5,000.

p.s. Did I tell you about the police incident in the Uber cab (it has a good ending)? That's for another blog post perhaps....