We made a really big bet on creators. Then we found out how many pages it touched. Social Media Marketing World is getting an official creator track. Here's why. I had just come back from a 4,500 person event in Dallas where creators were spending $1,000 on a ticket. Everybody told me these people are making great money. What they don't understand is marketing. And what they don't understand is how to use AI. A lot of marketers actually love working with creators. Jessica put it best: the marketing people can help the creators brand themselves and market whatever they're creating. Then came the ripple. There wasn't an obvious ticket for a creator. So our marketer ticket became the general access ticket. Social, AI and creator content, all in one. Jessica and Jon had to change about 12 pages on our website. The product name. The checkout. The thank you page. The welcome series. Her words: "I can say it so fast, but it took many hours." They moved mountains. Next up is a formal launch, so everybody hears about it. So tell me. Are you a creator, a marketer, or both? Drop it in the comments 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #RoadTo3000# #CreatorEconomy# #EventMarketing#

I had a blind spot. And a friend spotted it in about thirty seconds. I was talking with Keenya Kelly recently. We were chatting about Social Media Marketing World. Then she asked me something, "Mike, have you ever thought about adding a creator track?" I'm not sure she finished the sentence before I said yes. Here's why. Creators are everywhere in our community. They're on our podcasts. They're walking the halls at the event. And yet, we had no place built just for them. I couldn't believe I'd missed it. So I didn't sit on the idea. I didn't send it off for review. I just did it. Today, I'm excited to announce a brand-new Creator Track at Social Media Marketing World. And the lineup? Let's just say we've recruited some really huge creators. Thank you, Keenya, for seeing what I couldn't. Has someone ever pointed out something obvious that you completely missed? I'd love to hear from you.

Creators are paying big money for events. Just not mine. I was on the phone with Keenya Kelly, who was in New York at a TikTok event. She said there is a whole new generation of younger creators who want to know how to be successful on social media. And she said, "You have all the greats already who come to your event." So I asked Lori, our event director, what she thought about adding more creators to the lineup. "I like the idea. Years ago, we had a creator track. You were just too early with it. I think now's the right time." Her version: hands-on, in the room. A creator gets up, gives an example, and everyone tries it. Not recorded. Not streamed. I pushed back. If it's not recorded, our virtual ticket sales take the hit. Recorded and streamed means a full crew. Her estimate: 25 thousand minimum. Probably closer to 30. Then she said it needs to be a full track. Friday and Saturday. Five speakers a day, just like the rest. Yes, it's going to cost more. But it brings a new audience to us, and that's exactly what we need. I feel like it's a risk we've got to take. Then Lori asked the question I didn't see coming: "Why are we limiting this brand new track to a small room?" While I'm trying to get to 3,000, this is a big shift for us. If you're a creator, would a creator track get you there? Reply "Yes" 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #CreatorEconomy# #EventMarketing#

Jon was mid-pitch when my power cut out. His first thought: "I just thought you hated my idea so much that you just left the meeting." You've sent us more than 200 ideas to fill Social Media Marketing World. Jessica and Jon have been going through them. Two made it to the table. Idea one: a monthly speaker meetup. Jon wanted it for ticket holders only. One of you suggested free speaker previews for anybody. Jessica liked that the exclusive version gives people a reason to buy sooner. My take: marketers will almost always say yes to a PR opportunity to a big audience. If we do this, we do it in public. Idea two: seven of you asked us to find out why past attendees stopped coming. We already know. It's almost always budget, or the dates don't work. So I don't want to ask why. I want to send an email that says, "We saw that you attended last year and you don't yet have your ticket this year." Then answer the real objection: all the things you've been meaning to do with AI, you'll be able to do as a result of coming. That's something I could write with my eyes closed. If you've been to a conference and never went back, what would win you back? Start your comment with "I'd come back if…" Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #RoadTo3000# #EventMarketing# #EmailMarketing#

Last year I asked a handful of podcasters one question: would you like to give away a free ticket to your community? Here's the catch. They had to announce a contest on their podcast. Then pick a winner and announce them on a different episode. Some of them kept reminding their listeners for about four weeks. "Don't forget to participate in the contest." That's free advertising, whether anybody buys a ticket or not. Jessica liked that it puts us in front of audiences that don't know us yet. Jon said it better: it's exposure from somebody those listeners already trust. And the host runs it however they want. A rating and review. A post on Instagram. They pick the winner. Everyone who doesn't win still gets a link to buy a ticket. Then Jessica pushed back. Why only podcasters? Plenty of people have huge audiences without a show. Fair point. But a podcast is guaranteed delivery. So the plan is to run it again, this time with AI podcasters and social media marketing podcasters. A short list. Maybe 10 people. Ideally people I know. Because if I don't know them, the chances they say yes are pretty much zero. It's one small play on the road to 3,000. If a podcaster handed you a free ticket to give away, what contest would you run? Start your comment with "I'd..." 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #RoadTo3000# #PodcastMarketing# #EventMarketing#

I showed two of my team how my AI editor makes this show. One of them asked why I was showing her. My AI editor is called Blade. A viewer, Ray Edwards, named her. So I pulled up a fresh call and walked Jen and Lisa through it, start to finish. Download the Google Meet recording. Open Claude Code. Drop the file in. Type "begin scripting." That's it. It keeps my computer awake, transcribes the call, checks the story so far, and writes the outline, the hooks and the script. Then it pings me. In the middle of the demo, it did exactly that: "Mike, the October 29th script is ready." Lisa asked about the training docs. There aren't any. It was just an ongoing conversation. I like this. I don't like that. Over time I had it keep a document of everything we've ever said on this show. Every episode, who spoke, every timestamp. So when I asked it to find the flashback where we named the AI editor, it found it on its own. Lisa: "It's kind of mind blowing." Then: "Why are you talking to me about this?" Because I wanted them to see what's possible. Jen asked how long it's been. About 30 days. A few weeks ago I was the main character, the producer, the scriptwriter and the editor. Now Blade is a full scale producer of the show. I create the show and she takes care of the rest. What part of your work would you hand to an AI? Start your comment with "I'd hand off…" 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #AIVideoEditing# #ClaudeCode#

One of our biggest fans has 530,000 people in his Facebook group. What if they all had a room at my conference? Jessica has been building our referral rewards. Rewards money can't buy. Her next steps: run the plan past our operations team, and get Joel to sign people up for the referral program the moment they buy a ticket. My worry: I would hate to take on a lot of costs and then not have a lot of people be part of it. Then I showed her my call with Jonathan Mast. He offered to bring his AI community to Social Media Marketing World. I offered him a private room on day one, just for his people. Jessica's first reaction: "That sounds like maybe it could be part of one of the incentive tiers too." Here's the key to the whole thing. Nobody gets into that room without a ticket. That's kind of a big development. Now Jessica goes back through the 200 and some ideas you've sent us to find what we do next. If there were a meetup just for your community, would that get you there? Reply "Yes" or tell me what would. Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #RoadTo3000# #CommunityBuilding# #EventMarketing#

I asked you to name my AI editor. You delivered. A while back I told you my AI video editor was getting so good it needed a real name. I asked you to drop ideas in the comments, and I promised to call out the winner. So I sat down with Jessica to make the call. First, a shout-out to Jonathan Mast. He's the one who said he'd love to see a weekly show, so now there is one: the best moments of the week, five or six minutes, on YouTube. My AI editor even made the thumbnails. The first ugly ones got no views at all. The new ones changed that. Jessica's take: "It really feels like you're watching a show and you know it's going somewhere." Then the big one. Ray Edwards left this comment: "Kubrick (or Stanley). Or... BLADE." Jessica had never heard of Stanley Kubrick. Stanley reminded me of a vacuum cleaner. She said, "Oh yeah, the Stanley Steamer." Kubrick doesn't roll off the tongue. But Blade? "Just has a cool factor sound to it." It cuts through the noise. And editing is all about cutting. I let Jessica make the final call. Blade it is. Then I asked her one more question: is Blade a guy or a woman? "Ooh, a woman." So meet Blade. She's our awesome editor. Thank you, Ray Edwards. Did we pick the right name? Reply Yes, or start your comment with "I'd have gone with…" 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #AIVideoEditing# #ContentCreation#

We put one video on our sales page. Then I looked at the data. While I'm trying to get to 3,000 people at Social Media Marketing World, every visit to that page matters. The video autoplays the second you land. First, the retention graph. I'll be honest, it's ridiculous. Average view duration is about 12 seconds, and those 12 seconds are the first impression. Then I went into Microsoft Clarity and zoomed in on the intent data. 57.7% medium intent. 12% high intent. Add that together and it's 70% medium or high intent. We have not seen that in a very long time. I've been watching recordings of people coming to the page. They're in deeper consideration. And this all started with a question to Jon: what does this make possible? His answer: put testimonials featuring multiple people in key places on the website. So the speaker page used to have a stock photo of people learning. Now it has attendees on autoplay, testifying about the content. The register page used to show two smiling faces. Now it shows people talking about the return they got. If you've got a page that isn't converting, maybe the fix isn't more words. Maybe it's other people's voices. Now I want to hear from you. Do autoplay videos annoy you, or do they pull you in? Tell me in the comments 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #VideoMarketing# #ConversionOptimization#

One of our viewers called me with an offer. I didn't ask him to. Jonathan Mast comments on almost every single episode of this show. He told me, "You didn't even ask me to do this. I'm the one that reached out." He has a community he'd love to get excited about Social Media Marketing World. So we got on a call to find a way to collaborate that's mutually beneficial for both of our communities. His idea: a virtual lunch before the event. People get to ask questions, and more importantly, we have some fun with it. My first reaction: I really like the idea. Then I threw one back. What if I gave him a space at the event on the very first day? A room with a bunch of tables, exclusive just for him and his community. The one catch: they need a physical ticket to get in. His answer: "I think that'd be amazing. Let's do it." Here's why I think it works for both of us. He has an incredibly loyal community of people who are very excited about AI. I have what I believe are the world's best trainers on AI. And Jonathan said the part I keep coming back to: "Something special happens when we sit down next to each other." Nothing is decided yet. I'm taking it to my team. Should we team up? Tell me in the comments 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #RoadTo3000# #CommunityBuilding# #EventMarketing#

I had a crazy idea. Jon could tell from my face that I'd already built it. Here's the backstory. While I'm trying to get 3,000 people to Social Media Marketing World, my AI video editor has been turning our on-site testimonials into ads. One person per ad. Then I wondered: what if we had a searchable index of every original testimonial video? And what if we took four or five different people and sewed them together around one theme? So AI built the index. It even came up with the themes. Feels like family. Nothing beats in person. Stay human in the age of AI. Search "energy." Boom. Every quote about energy. Then I showed Jon the first theme ad. Five people, one idea, each in their own words. His reaction: "I was there when we were recording all those testimonials. To hear it reshuffled like this… it's really cool." Then he told me what it makes possible. One video on the website with many voices, instead of nine testimonials on the screen. One video per email. Sending an email about ROI? Here are five or six people telling you what it was worth to them. My new problem isn't finding great content. It's choosing. Jon said it best: "I'll take a too much problem over a not enough problem any day of the week." Which theme would you want to watch? Tell me in the comments 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #VideoTestimonials# #AIinMarketing# #VideoMarketing#

Zero sales on the old page. Three on the new one. I did not see that coming. My AI video editor turned our conference footage into speaker videos and testimonial videos. Jon's first reaction: "Those look like they were professionally done." Then I tried something on our sales page. The moment you land on it, a video starts playing. We split-tested it against the old page. Jon brought the early data. Less than 150 people between the two pages. The old page: zero sales. The video page: three. "Shut the front door." Visits to the checkout page were up 251%. Jon admitted it's probably the lowest conversion rate we've ever called a test on. We're calling it anyway, and testing a different headline next. Jessica's take on why it works: the video at the top grabs your attention right away and sells the entire experience of the conference. Does video sell you on an event? Reply "Yes" or "No" and tell me why. 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #SplitTesting# #VideoMarketing#

Our site traffic looked the same. Our sales were down 50%. Over the summer we changed our sales page. We put small business right in the headline. Then sales dropped. Jon, my marketing director, had all the data saying the same thing: traffic was the same. So I asked him: do we really know that traffic was real? It wasn't. "We're experiencing the same problem that a lot of other websites and companies are experiencing right now, which is bots." We'd turned off a setting in Cloudflare that let a whole bunch of bots through. So now we have two problems. → Fewer people opening and clicking our emails → A sales page that isn't converting the way it needs to Jon put it simply: our list used to grow from Google traffic. People aren't going to search engines. They're going to AI. Less traffic means the page has to work harder. So I'm going back to the grindstone on conversion. I've got some crazy ideas up my sleeve. If your numbers look fine but your results don't, check whether your visitors are even human. Has this happened to you? Reply "Yes" if bots have ever fooled your numbers 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #ConversionRateOptimization# #MarketingAnalytics#

Our ticket sales have not been very strong. I woke up in a little bit of a dread state. So I asked myself a question. Could the AI video editor I built for this show edit testimonials from the conference? We didn't get many good testimonials by reaching out to customers. But we captured 40 or 50 of them on location. It turned them into short ads. Angus Nelson watched one and said, "These are great. They're high energy. They've got a rhythm." Then I hit a wall. I had AI go through about 2,500 clips and compare them with last year's sizzle reel. Its answer: last year had close-ups of people smiling. This year was mostly wide shots. Then the light bulb went off. What if I stripped the audio out of the testimonial footage from both years and had AI compose the whole thing into a high-action reel? Angus: "This is nuts." Now that reel autoplays the second you land on our sales page. So far, it has already created a sale in my split test. Pictures alone just don't convey the energy of an event. Video might. Would a video like this get you to buy a ticket? Tell me below. Start with "I'd..." 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #AIinMarketing# #VideoMarketing#

AI helped me create 45 different ads from video clips filmed at my conference. My brain has exploded with excitement. We had 40 or 50 testimonials filmed at Social Media Marketing World. I spent hours going through them and picked the top 15. My AI editor turned them into vertical ads. One is Reynol, who runs a cleaning business. He went from $80 an hour to $120. I sent them to my marketing department to run as paid ads on Meta. Then I got a crazy idea. These could be podcast ads. So I had AI strip the audio out, I recorded a little call to action for the end, and now they're actual audio ads. Then another crazy idea. They're all vertical, so why not put them on the sales page? With Claude's help, people can click and watch them right there. Then one more. All the source footage was shot in 16 by 9. So I asked for 16 by 9 ads too. That opens us up to YouTube and other platforms. I started with an editor that edits this show. I wondered if it could make ads. Now I have vertical ads, horizontal ads, and audio ads that run across the podcast. Have you used AI to help edit your ads yet? Answer "Yes" or "Not yet" below and tell me what happened. 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #AIinMarketing# #VideoMarketing#

AI found over 2,000 video clips from my conference to use in my ads. I rejected nearly all of them. Here's what happened. I'd just trained AI to make video ads from testimonials, and they came out beautiful. But I had this dream: what if it could go through the thousands of clips shot at the conference, find the right ones, and drop them in at the right moment? That's what good video editors do, right? So I asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude to find me a solution. I landed on one tool and downloaded it. That process was a nightmare. It was limited to 500 videos a month. I have thousands. Then Claude said, "I know the tech stack this is built on. Why don't I just build this for you?" I'm all, let's do it. This is where things got really, really, really messy. AI had to watch literally everything. Hours. I was canceling meetings. I got fried in the brain. So I said, there's got to be a better way. Scrub all these clips and tell me which ones you think are best. It came back with the shots it liked as little animated GIFs. It built a searchable index: type "writing" and up come people taking notes. Click any clip and it shows you the key moments inside it. Then I trained it on how I wanted the cuts done, and it rebuilt one of our testimonial ads with b-roll. While I'm trying to get to 3,000, this whole system was born less than 48 hours ago. Would you let AI pick your clips? Reply "Yes" if you'd try it, or tell me where it would fall apart for you. Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #AIVideoEditing# #AIinMarketing#

What would you do to get into the speaker party? That's the question my team just put on the table. We want people to bring their friends to Social Media Marketing World. Not for cash. For something money can't buy. Jessica and Jon spitballed ideas, ran them through Claude, and came back with a tiered plan. → Player One (1 referral): 15-minute early access to the keynote → Power-Up (3 referrals): an exclusive t-shirt, the one we give staff and speakers → Boss Level (5 referrals): a "Level Unlocked" invite → High Score (top 3): your name on the leaderboard, two Disneyland tickets and All Access tickets for World 28 Early keynote access is a bigger deal than it sounds. Those front-row seats go fast. Then I asked Jessica the obvious question: "Why can't we just let them come to the speaker party?" "I don't know, can we?" Of course. Anything is possible. None of this is locked. You get a real say in what we build. Which reward would actually get you to bring a friend? Start your comment with "I'd..." 👇 The weekly number is at the end. And Jon thinks we have a bigger problem. Press Start: The Road to 3,000. Next time: what's going on with our sales page. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #RoadTo3000# #ReferralMarketing# #EventMarketing#

AI cut a four-minute testimonial into a video ad. I just prompted. It took about 90 minutes. I asked for a new skill whose only job is 9 by 16 vertical video ads. First, my team recorded a bunch of really well-done video ads for another event, and I told Claude to study them and tell me what they have in common. Cold open on the face. A five-beat arc. Captions that are super short. Then came the fights. The end card. It struggled with the palm trees, so I ended up over on ChatGPT. The first mock looked a little too much like Hawaii. The second one actually looked really great. The music. I asked Gemini, because Gemini is multimodal, and we ended up with high energetic percussion. The tracking. Sean Cannell moves around a lot. I had to train it to follow him. And then it took the raw clip, figured out the key points, tracked in on Sean, and created the ad you see in the video. While I'm trying to get to 3,000, I now have a system where I can give it raw video footage. This is literally being done on my desktop. Have you used AI to actually edit a video? Reply "Yes" if you have, and tell me what you used. Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #AIVideoEditing# #AIinMarketing#

We're building a referral system to help get us to 3,000. So we tried to cheat it. My worry was simple. Someone could game it by having a lot of people click on the link. And somebody who refers 100 unique people is worth more than someone who refers 100 clicks of the same person. I said we couldn't tell if visitors were unique. Jon said we could. Jessica had tested it. She closed her browser, went back in, and it didn't add a new visit. So I said, give me the link. Let's see what happens. We all clicked on it. I grabbed my cell phone and turned off my Wi-Fi. Jon saw it come in right away. Then Jessica told me to go from my computer again. "It's not going to show up here." I did. Visits means unique visits. It's going to be hard for someone to game it. But here's what we've learned. It's really hard to get people to take action. So the real question is, is a referral system worth the lift? Jon thinks having a referral tool makes it a lot easier for people. I think the key is going to be the prize. Is a referral program worth it? Start your comment with "I'd..." and tell me what you'd do 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #RoadTo3000# #ReferralMarketing# #EventMarketing#

We built a fun little tool so people could invite a friend to our conference. Then we checked if anybody used it. We sent an email to everybody who has a ticket to Social Media Marketing World and told them about it. Jon had the numbers. About 20, 25 people went to the page. Five downloaded an invite. Jessica had a theory. We sent it on a Friday afternoon. A midweek morning would get more traction. And honestly, more people did this than our video testimonial ask, because it's easy and it's fun. But here's what hit me. The only people who could find it were people who already bought a ticket. So I pulled up the registration page. Right by "Need to convince the boss?" I thought, what if there was a button that says invite a friend? Maybe they haven't committed to going yet. But they can send this cool little thing to their friend. Jon saw it right away: they send it to a friend, and then they buy their tickets together. So I said, just for the heck of it, why don't we try it? I built the button right there on the call. "Don't go alone. Invite a friend." I think we have a winner. We're going to track it and see if anybody actually clicks. What would make you invite a friend to an event? Tell me in the comments, and start with "I'd..." 👇 Press Start: The Road to 3,000. #SocialMediaExaminer# #SMMW27# #RoadTo3000# #EventMarketing#