Experts and speakers from numerous companies including BuzzFeed, Pandora, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Refinery29, Pinterest, GoDaddy, Under Armour, LinkedIn, HubSpot, Google, Yahoo, Nielsen and more take part in the two-day extravaganza of industry knowledge sharing.
The Midwest Digital Marketing Conference is the largest digital marketing conference in the Midwest. The most recent conference was an on-demand Digital Experience featuring over 80 sessions led by across nine tracks: Data, Digital, Social Media, Creative, E-commerce, Innovation, academic/student, Tech and entrepreneurial. Conference founder Perry Drake, UMSL director of business collaboration and assistant teaching professor, held the first conference in 2013 where he envisioned an event driven by national thought leadership, which grew with the supportive connections and St. Louis’ intuitive desire for it. Though it was originally intended for his students at UMSL to connect with and learn from industry professionals, by 2017, only about 10 percent of the audience were students, and the rest industry professionals and community members. The conference has become the largest digital marketing conference in the Midwest. Recent years have set attendance records with nearly 2,000 marketers and friends with over 130 speakers. Social Media Marketing Adjunct Professor Sarah Dalton expressed MDMC’s importance for the region recognizing that, “It helps us in the Midwest stay on the same level as folks on the coasts” (https://blogs.umsl.edu/news/2017/04/17/mdmc-17/).