Marketing conferences give the pulse of what’s going on in the industry.  They update you on what you missed during the year and help you identify what you should tell your customers. For others, those events elevate the channel over the objective.

We would love to go to all of them but it has become impossible as there are too many and we’re all too busy.

So we need to pick the right one. Social Media can provide an unbiased insight into the popularity and nature of each of them.

We ranked the following conferences by volume of conversations:

1. SXSW
2. Blogworld
3. Womma
4. LeWeb
5. Pivot

Our analytics are based on the last 6 months of conversations produced by the top 2000+ influencers in Social Media (english speaking). Therefore the bulk of conversations from SXSW show in March 2011 does not count in this analysis. SXSW is ranked number one by a long shot.

Here are the important dates:

• August 16^th, 2011: grand opening of SXSW PANELPICKER 2012 (the event is held in March)
• Sept 22^nd, 2011: WOMMA Talkable Brands Exchange
• October 17-18^th, 2011: Pivot 2011
• Nov 16-18^th, 2011: WOMMA Summit 2011
• Nov 3-5t^th, 2011: BlogWorld LA 2011
• Dec 7-9^th, 2011: LeWeb 2011

Below are the word clouds featuring the top 50 expressions used when one of the conference is mentioned. Click to zoom in:

The text version of those expression clouds is available below, where I highlighted a few expressions to see how the keywords are ranked. The ones on the top of the list have high occurrence.

A couple of interesting notes by looking at how expressions rank for each conference (one color per expression):

• ‘Social Media’ (obviously), ‘Marketing’ (obviously) and ‘Business’ appear at the top of everyone’s concerns.
• ‘Brands’ issues are a top priority for Pivot attendees.
• Platforms (i.e. Twitter, Facebook,…) are not a primary concern for Blogworld people but rank fairly high among LeWeb attendees.
• ‘Influence’ is only discussed by people mentioning Pivot.
• ‘ROI’ & ‘Measurement’ are only talked about at WOMMA.

#	BlogWorld	Pivot	SXSW	LeWeb	WOMMA
1	social media	social media	social media	social media	social media
2	blogworld & new media expo	marketing	sxsw	social	word of mouth
3	blogworld	pivot conference	year	new	word of mouth marketing
4	blog	rise of the social consumer	new	company	womma
5	new media expo	social consumer	marketing	social networks	word of mouth marketing association
6	time	brands	time	leweb	marketing
7	marketing	social advertising	south by southwest	facebook	social media marketing
8	new	business	work	marketing	brand
9	social media marketing	consumers	help	twitter	community manager
10	los angeles	social networks	business	le web	social media monitoring
11	business	new	brand	web	public relations
12	content	social media marketing	event	social business	business
13	year	brian solis	company	google	social media policy
14	expo in los angeles	new york	world	business	new
15	conference	facebook	share	climb the social business hierarchy	womma summit
16	blogworld expo	time	social networks	time	share
17	new york	advertising	social media marketing	app	code of ethics
18	event	networks	twitter	year	time
19	video	year	content	brands	companies
20	social networks	social marketing	conference	social business hierarchy	social networks
21	share	work	blog	content	facebook
22	work	twitter	panel	share	help
23	company	customers	create	users	social media roi
24	brand	trends in social advertising survey	day	social media marketing	work
25	help	content	well	social media crises	blog
26	bloggers	state of social	facebook	blog	social media week
27	world	companies	great	work	customers
28	great	share	new york	report	social media measurement
29	social media business summit	engagement	ideas	change	best practices
30	well	week	online	discusses	best
31	blogworld expo in los angeles	steve jobs	customers	george colony	measurement
32	qr codes	change	comments	social media club	manager
33	week	ad	connect	conference	community
34	online	state of social marketing	community	show	twitter
35	social media club	new york city	san francisco	well	video
36	day	digital	vote	social media in europe	online
37	presentation	products and services	presentation	video	womma summit 2011
38	expo	experience	new york times	world	social media today
39	twitter	influence	sxsw interactive	services	provide
40	san francisco	world	network	jeremiah owyang	engagement

Well, if you are interest in social media ROI or ROI Measurement discussions, WOMMA is probably your conference.

Contact us with your interest and we’ll look up which conference you should spend your time in: conversation+conference@ecairn.com

How will you pick a conference in 2012?