We’re expecting this year’s digital Sitecore Symposium to reach record attendance again. And we’re also anticipating speaker selection to be tougher than ever with this year’s 2-day agenda. So, we’ve compiled seven tips to help you create a stand-out Sitecore Symposium Call for Papers submission — whether you’re a digital experience marketer or technologist. Don’t forget, be sure to make your Call for Papers submissions by 4 pm PDT on June 4, 2021.
A Snapshot of Sitecore Symposium
Sitecore Symposium is our biggest digital marketing event of the year with two days of customer success stories and best practices from top brands. Last year’s digital event attracted more than 5,800 digital marketers, developers, and IT professionals from more than 70 countries across the globe. The agenda featured 120 live and on-demand sessions led by digital experience experts from Microsoft, Chevron, Famous Footwear, and more. This year, be part of shaping the Symposium experience by making a submission to be one of our incredible speakers and sharing your brand story.
Call for Papers submission tips
Tip 1: Make the title count
Session titles that are vague or don’t help the attendees understand what the session is about will get skipped over quickly during the selection process. Create either a session title that is attention grabbing or make sure it summarizes the topic of your talk really clearly. This year’s session titles will be limited to 100 characters, so keep it short, catchy, and interesting — especially for anyone who might be seeing your presentation for the first time.
Tip 2: Pick a unique subject
What is special about your topic? During our session reviews, similar topics will often get grouped together by the product, feature, or capability. If you are going to be one of a 100 submissions on a particular topic, it helps for us to know what makes yours different.
Tip 3: Make it relevant
Think about the trends that are impacting brands today, and make sure your session speaks to ways your audience can meet or overcome a top-of-mind subject. This year we’ve got four themes, which will be our primary grouping for all 2021 Symposium sessions. Be sure to factor in one of these themes and relevant topics when preparing your session proposal.
Tip 4: Lead the way
There are many marketing strategies and technologies when it comes to digital customer experience. Show ways you are leading the pack with your innovations. Are you inspiring the developer community to go in new directions? Do you have a new technology or strategy in use that others might want to use with their Sitecore tech or marketing? Did you implement something with a new feature that does something you couldn’t do before?
Tip 5: Get to the point in your session abstract
While we don’t judge a book by its cover, we do think about how attendees use the session abstracts to decide whether they are interested in watching your session. Make sure you’re going to attract attendees (and us reviewers) by getting to the point quickly in your abstract and using a good hook to leave readers wanting more.
Tip 6: Be clear in your proposal description
The description is your chance to really capture the essence of your talk. Take the time (and character allotment) to make sure you’ve clearly articulated what technologies or marketing strategies you want to cover, what situation or problem you are trying to solve, and what you want your audience to learn. And be specific! This helps the session review team get a better picture of how your session will go.
Tip 7: Emphasize your takeaways
Last but definitely not least, make sure to articulate the practical and actionable takeaways that attendees will gain by watching your session. You want the review team evaluating your session to know that people will have clear steps for taking action on the advice and insights you presented.
To learn more and complete your Call for Papers submission, visit the Sitecore Symposium website.
Jason St-Cyr, Technical Evangelists Manager at Sitecore, was a contributor to this blog. He is part of a Sitecore Symposium session selection committee. Find him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Jill Grozalsky, Product Marketing Director for Experience Platform at Sitecore, is part of a Sitecore Symposium session selection committee. Find her on Twitter and LinkedIn.