Some of you might know that I am studying online media and my special focus is online marketing. The digital world changes so quickly that you have to keep your knowledge up-to-date almost everyday. Therefor I am reading books about online and social media marketing. Additionally I am listening to some podcasts and that is where the idea of taking a journey to Hamburg originated. It all started when I won a ticket because I recommended the podcast of the „Online Marketing Rockstars“ and gave them feedback about possible improvements and my opinion about the overall podcast. In result for that feedback they gave me a ticket for their Expo in Hamburg. What a great deal! I was so happy that I told everybody about it. Now you got to know the story about the way I won the ticket and the reason why I went to Hamburg for the Online Marketing Rockstars Festival.
First of all I would like to explain the festival to you and then I will give my opinion about it. So lets start with the explanation. The Online Marketing Rockstars Festival is – who would think about that – a festival where companies and professionals, but also students like me, meet and talk about marketing with a focus on the digital world. The festival is split up in two parts. First there is the Expo, where established companies, start-ups and agencies present their work and chat with you about the newest trends and show you some insights about their projects. Additionally to that opportunity the organizers of the festival thought it would be cool to give the audience more content about the online marketing world. Therefor they organized different speakers, workshops and guided tours with even more insights! You think that is awesome? I totally agree but they also have another part which is the (real) conference. This conference is the absolute highlight of the event and I was sad that I didnt won an All – Incl. ticket because my ticket allowed me to visit the Expo … only the Expo and not the conference. Damn! At this conference you had the opportunity to listen to the most interesting speakers of the whole online world. For me the highlight this year was Gary Vaynerchuck. He is one of the people who inspires me the most and that is why I was a little bit disappointed that I didn’t have the chance listening to his speech BUT the online marketing rockstars are real rockstars and thats why they decided to stream the whole presentation of Gary Vee on Facebook Live. Awesome! Now you know a lot more about the conference and I want to recap the two days from my perspective.
It was pretty easy to find the location because it is well known in Hamburg. This was not a problem. Everyone who has ever been in Hamburg knows the weather is not like in Spain or Italy. It rains a lot. I mean a loooot! In that case it was no surprise that it rained on the first day but it was a surprise that there was a huuuuge queue in front of the entrance because of an error. The system, which should let us in, did not work! As the organizers recognized that the queue was too long they said that everyone can come in without registration. I was a bit confused about that because they promoted the cashless payment system and now it was more a free „payment system“. When I went inside I saw this was a big event in the online marketing section. It was such a big location with many booths. On that conference you could find companies like Facebook, Instagram, Audi, Ströer, BILD and Yahoo, but also smaller companies and agencies. It was insane! My first impression was awesome. After the difficulties at the entrance I was satisfied because of the location and then they announced that we have free food and drinks because of the problems at the entrance. What a nice move of the organizers!
Now it was time to get to know some companies and agencies. I had nice chats with different companies about my bachelor thesis which I have to write this year. Besides that I had the opportunity to listen to a speech of THE best vlogger: Casey Neistat. He spoke on the Expo Stage about himself, the media companies and why he thinks that food and sleep is a waste of time. If you don’t know him, please check him out. He is one of the best storyteller in our time. After so much input I took a beer at the after party and went home to relax a bit because I expected the second day would be just as intense as the first one.
On the second day I stayed in bed and watched the keynote from Gary Vaynerchuck and another speech of Boz from Facebook. Thanks again to the Online Marketing Rockstars’ livestream on Facebook! Then I went to a masterclass, which is a presentation or let’s call it a workshop, about the impact of influencer marketing. This was a great experience for me to listen to a professional of the marketing section about a hot topic in that section! It was a nice experience to get to know more people in my field and had a chat with some of them. I just want to thank the Online Marketing Rockstars who gave me that ticket and opportunity to experience that event. It was an amazing weekend for me. Thank you! I put also the recap video down below that paragraph! Thank you for your attention and I hope you enjoyed that little review about the online marketing rockstars festival.