Going Solo

Going Solo Lausanne was my first experience ever dealing with sponsorships. And I can tell you, for somebody who is not (but not at all) a salesperson, it was a bit scary. Thankfully I had Lily to help me out.

One of the things I realised the first time around was that we didn’t have an offering which was really suitable for startups or companies with really small budgets. So, for Going Solo Leeds, we added a £250 package which was specially designed for startups or micro-companies who want to be present at Going Solo but might not be able to afford a full sponsorship package (they range from £1,250 to £4,000 — but before deciding that’s a lot, check what’s in them ;-)).

Here’s what the micro-sponsorship package offers you for £250:

• Logo on Going Solo Website
• Logo slide in rolling slideshow presenting sponsors and partners on a screen in the lobby
• 2 special sponsor discounts for the event (30% off ticket price) or 1 minute presentation/video on screen in lobby (rolling)

One nice thing about the Old Broadcasting House, our venue, is that the lobby contains large display screens which we can make available to sponsors.

One of the screens will have a rotating slideshow of all the logos of our partners and sponsors (like we display them all on the website, in the sidebar and on the sponsors page). Some packages allow a customised slide rather than just a logo (check out the sponsorship offerings for details on that).

So, that’s what the second item in the micro-sponsorship offering is. As for the third, well, it’s a choice between two special discounts and a minute of screen time. But actually, it’s way more than a minute of screen time, because it will repeat throughout the day.

A second screen will be used to show a series of trailers, demos, screencasts, films or even slideshows (!), put back-to-back, and which will be on repeat all day. We plan on selling maximum approximately 30 minutes of screen-time total so that the number of repeats throughout the day and the lunch break is worth it. So, the micro-sponsorship offering gives a choice between two discounts or one minute of this screentime.

Screentime is also available as an “add-on” to any other sponsorship (£100 for the first minute, £50 per extra minute — max 5 min. per sponsor). Our offerings also include display tables (nicer than booths because you get more interaction with the attendees), podcast interviews and blog posts, the possibility to sponsor lunch or distribute goodies. Download the PDF detailing our packages and get in touch if you’d like to talk about them (we’re open to being creative, so if you have other ideas, we want to hear them).

• E-mail: sponsorships at going-solo dot net
• Phone: call Stephanie Booth on +41786254474 (GMT+1, CET)

Of course, I haven’t yet come to the meat if you’re a company thinking of becoming a Going Solo sponsor: the audience of the conference is very focused and engaged. We saw in Lausanne that all the people present were freelancers or thinking of becoming freelancers (and no one who just came to “browse” or check us out but were not really our target audience). As a result, there was a lot of interaction, a lot of personal engagement, and a great atmosphere. Everybody was really there to look for practical solutions to real issues.

So, Going Solo is really a unique occasion to contact such an audience. Anyway… There’s more information about all that in the PDF you’ve probably already downloaded ;-).

The event is in just over a month, so now’s the time to talk!

Promoting an event like Going Solo is a huge amount of work — often more than what you’d imagine (and more than what I imagined initially). That’s why everything the community does to help counts.

We don’t have a team of online marketers to get the word out there. It’s basically down to me, and of course to what all the kind people supporting Going Solo are willing to do.

I’m a blogger and a busy person, and so I know how easy it is to “want to do something” but not actually get around to doing it. Or how easy it is to think that what I can do won’t really make a difference.

So, I’ve tried to make it easy for you to “do something” to help get the word out about Going Solo Leeds (to your readers/network/community/friends) if you feel like it.

First, logos and blog badges which you can easily insert in a blog post or a sidebar by copy-pasting the code we provide, like these two for example:

<a href="http://leeds08.going-solo.net/" title="Going Solo Leeds Conference: 12th Sept."><img src="http://leeds08.going-solo.net/files/going-solo-leeds-logo-yellow-rectangle.gif" style="height: 75px; width: 150px;" alt="Going Solo Leeds logo." /></a>

<a href="http://leeds08.going-solo.net/" title="Going Solo Leeds Conference: 12th Sept."><img src="http://leeds08.going-solo.net/files/going-solo-leeds-badge-180x260.gif" style="height: 260px; width: 180px;" alt="Going Solo Leeds Badge." /></a>

(You can find others on the Promote Going Solo page.)

Second, the Going Solo Leeds home page provides you with the main information and links, as well as a brief description of the event if you’re looking for some stock text (we encourage you to speak in your own voice, of course, but sometimes it’s handy to know what the key points are).

Third, the videos and photos of the Lausanne conference are available (and embeddable — Flickr and DailyMotion) as illustration material. I guess this is particularly relevant if you were present in Lausanne and want to point out one of the highlights of your Going Solo experience to tempt others to follow in your steps.

Fourth, there are events on Upcoming and Facebook (as well as a Facebook group) to which you can invite your friends very easily (you certainly know how it works if you’re on one of those two services).

Fifth, if you’re into offline stuff, you can ask me (steph at going-solo dot net, or @stephtara on Twitter) to have a box of Going Solo MOO cards sent to you, or print out our posters and plaster them all over your neighbourhood:

And sixth, so that you don’t have to figure it all out for yourself, there are two links you can use to point people to registration:

• http://goingfar.expectnation.com/gsleeds08/public/register/order is the direct link
• http://leeds08.going-solo.net/registration provides some extra information.

While we’re at it:

• http://going-solo.net is the Going Solo blog
• http://leeds08.going-solo.net is the Going Solo Leeds website

Happy blogging, thanks in advance, and let us know if you don’t see your post appear in the coverage list soon!

Update 01.08.08: bloggers and community managers can now ask for their discount/referral code.

I should be in bed sleeping, but I’m too excited by this video of Ouchy that Sébastien has just finished editing. Last Saturday he and I headed out to get some footage of the area around the venue hotel, and we ended up rollerblading around for a little guided tour. I took some photos and will upload them tomorrow. In the meantime:

[dailymotion id=x5exxp]

Ouchy is the “lakeside” area of Lausanne, and is where Going Solo will be taking place. If you’re into rollerblading and have enough space in your luggage, take them with you. You can go from one side of Lausanne to the other on your wheels, and it’s pretty nice!

With Going Solo, I’m learning tons about how to advertise/promote something through social media. It might seem ironic, as a large part of my work has to do with explaining social media to people, but this is the first time I’m really actively trying to get the word out about something. Of course, I have established my reputation as an individual through social media, but I never really tried to achieve that. It’s something that happened to me, took time, and sometimes almost feels like an accident. I didn’t have an agenda.

In the case of Going Solo, however, things are different. From the start, time was of the essence, as there was a set date where everything had to come together (and that date is now less than two weeks away). I had an agenda: get the word out to as many relevant people as possible, encourage people to blog about it, to register, or to sponsor. Gather feedback, leads, and even get help. Encourage a community to form around Going Solo.

A new experience for me. I made mistakes of course, and learnt from them (I won’t detail everything in this post, or you’ll still be here reading it tomorrow morning — if you haven’t fled by then).

One of the things I still haven’t quite figured out is whether it’s better to “spread the word” all over the place, or concentrate on one or two spots. It’s the same kind of headache I faced recently with videos: upload everywhere, or chose one service and stick to it? My tendancy is to be present in as many spaces and communities as possible, though I’m not sure I quite trust my judgement there. Urs of ComMetrics thinks it’s better to concentrate on a few tools rather than spread oneself too thin (see the end of his post):

As well, to sustain your competitive edge it is necessary to limit the social media tools you use – using a blog and Twitter well is better than doing Facebook, MySpace, blogging, and Twitter – it just fritters away your time.

Urs Gattiker, unified communications – what it means with Twitter, Friendfeed, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us

The discussion is open.

In the meantime, as I’ve spread Going Solo all over the place, I’d like to give you a round-up of where you can find us.

Facebook

• Going Solo event
• Going Solo group (this seems to be working really well!)
• Going Solo fan page
• Going Far fan page
• we’ll be adding public events for the pre-conference drinks and the party shortly
• video of LIFT08 Open Stage speech

Upcoming

• Going Solo upcoming event

E-mail

• Going Solo newsletter on Google Groups

Twitter

• Going Solo Twitter account

Crowdvine

• Dedicated Going Solo social network (for attendees only)

There, I hope I didn’t forget anything! I’ll write another post on keeping track of coverage, but in the meantime you can check the link collection on del.icio.us (includes blogs posts and interviews, mainly).

You know that one thing that’s important for us at Going Solo is to take advantage of all the modern tools that social media provide us. That’s why, for example, we’ll talk about how you can use blogs and other forms of social media (Twitter, for example) to help make yourself known to prospective clients.

And of course, we’re also eating our own dog food. Going Solo was blogged about even before the date and time were set, and of course we have a Twitter account, Facebook group, and of course a dedicated social network for the event attendees (reminder: looks like many of you still need to join there!)

Hell, a few days ago, I even created an e-mail newsletter for Going Solo! How about that?

As you can see, we have no fear trying out all sorts of exotic means of getting the word out about Going Solo. Registration will close soon, yes (I still need to blog the exact date, thanks for reminding me), but until it closes, it’s still open, and Hotel Aulac just next to the venue still has free rooms. So, it’s worth the trouble!

We’ve gone a bit over the top here and taken the trouble to create a poster you can actually print out on paper (completely portable). You can even send it out to your friends as a PDF e-mail attachment if you want!

Enough blah-blah. Here are the links to the files (A3 colour is best, but not everybody has an A3 colour printer, so there are A4 and black-and-white version too):

• Going Solo poster, A3, colour
• Going Solo poster, A4, colour
• Going Solo poster, A3, black-and-white
• Going Solo poster, A4, black-and-white

Now, obviously, the Going Solo crew cannot travel all over Europe this week-end to plaster posters all over the place. So, we need your help. Grab a friend, print out a bunch of posters, and go put them up in strategic (but legal!) places. For added online fun and sharing, take a photo of your poster (make sure the context is well visible), upload it to flickr with the tag “goingsoloposter” and put the link to the photo in the comments or e-mail it to me.

Thanks for helping out!

I should have written this post long ago (I thought about it so much that I was actually certain I’d already written it). Although in my mind the audience for this conference is quite clear, I realise each time I talk about Going Solo to a new person that it’s actually far from obvious.

The people I have in mind can be described as “freelancers and small business owners working in somewhere in the internet industry”. I’m defining an audience through the intersection of a way of working (loosely called “freelancing”) and an area of work (the “internet industry”).

More details, on the “freelancing” part. Who do I include?

• freelancers, obviously
• small business owners/partners (people who are mostly their own boss)
• people who are thinking of going solo/freelance, or might be tempted one day (students, employees, or unemployed)
• any person who is “their own boss”

Now, for the “internet industry” part. I’m casting a wide net here:

• anybody who either “builds” the internet or uses it as a “media channel”
• designers, developers, photographers, social media people, consultants or all shapes and sizes, event organizers, PR and marketing people, independent journalists, bloggers, podcasters, startup-ers, writers, artists, thinkers, tinkerers… and I’m forgetting loads

In addition to that, I believe that anybody who works with freelancers will find this event interesting. And any freelancer, even outside this loosely defined “internet industry” will get something out of this day.

Geographically, now, who is this event intended for? People who are comfortable in English, of course (although Going Solo will be held in French-speaking Lausanne, it will be entirely in English), from all across Europe. It’s open to people from further away, of course — but I’m aware that flying over the Atlantic for a one-day event might be a bit of a stretch for some people ;-). So, let’s say Going Solo is European-centric.

As you can see, I’m describing the attendees from an “insider” point of view. I’m part of this group. But seen from the outside, what would we have? Without expecting every single person to fit the description, I think we can say that the people coming to Going Solo are an audience which is:

• internet-literate
• cutting-edge in what they do (something which pushes many towards freelancing)
• highly connected and networked
• influent
• willing to learn, find solutions, evolve
• enterprising

I hope this post helps make things clearer. Leave a comment with a question if there are murky areas left!

The internet industry is fast-moving and as such, generates a large number of freelancers. These soloists often choose this path by passion for what they do rather than because of their solid business skills.

Going Solo is an event for European (and other) freelancers and small business owners, which will address the business side of freelancing in the web world.