SMM Rocks is the oldest Social Media conference in Ukraine

Stanislav Matyushenko is a managing partner in I-marketing and the organizer of the SMM Rocks conference. This is the oldest Social Media conference existing in Ukraine. This year the event had to be postponed due to quarantine, it will be held on October 7.

Stanislav, you have graduated from the Geography Faculty of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. But people know you as the organizer of digital events. Did you manage to work at least a little by profession, as a geographer?

Yes, really, I studied at the Faculty of Geography. But it was a long time ago. Honestly, I stopped doing geography long before graduating. I made my first website in 2001. My guys and me, we`ve got $ 200 and I realized: Oh, we can make money on it!

Actually, this is where the geography has finished. It has been put on hold, and I went into digital, although at that time there was not even such a concept. There were sites, the Internet and search engines began to develop, but all this was only in its infancy.

Where did you study website development?

Then I got to some “Web Design in 10 Days” classes, where we were taught the basics of website development. Some Java Script, some HTML, some Photoshop, and so on. Then there were a lot of different editors to create sites - Dreamweaver and some others. 

I gathered some of my friends - a programmer and a painter. We were looking for customers and we successfully engaged in this business. We were students, and at that time, the money that customers paid for the development of sites was enough for us.

Was this your first money earned?

No, I already successfully earned much earlier. When I was 8-9 years old, I sold the Kievskiye Vedomosti newspaper in the subway. I bought it in bulk and sold at Khreshchatyk Street and metro stations. It brought me a good income. One day I brought home half of my mom’s monthly salary, who worked as an accountant.

And then the crisis of 2008 was a very significant moment. I then worked in one large digital agency, in one of the largest web studios, and this crisis then severely shattered the entire advertising sphere. And then I`ve thought deeply - what should I do. I temporarily went into cargo transportation, apartment renovation, and so on.

But then I`ve managed to return to digital, and since June 2009 I have not changed this area.

Now there is another crisis in the country. It is so serious that its consequences are still hard to imagine. What crisis means to you - is it just stress or new opportunities as well?

Crisis is a mix. Now many businesses are frozen, events are canceled. We moved SMM Rocks from April 23 to autumn - October 7, 2020. We had plans for these revenues, and we should adjust these plans. But in this case I understand that I can change nothing. Why should I worry and be nervous when I can change nothing?

We looked at what is happening in the world, and we realized in March 10th that the conference had to be rescheduled and we implemented it quickly. We rebooked the location, we talked to the speakers and we informed the audience. We were glad that just few people had wanted to return tickets. And we solved every such request individually.

Concerning the changes. We will hold the same event in autumn that we planned for the spring - at the same location, with the same speakers. However, we understand that everything is changing so quickly in SMM that speaker reports will also change in light of these innovations. Moreover, there will be new cases.

As for the work of our team, the crisis has little impact on us organizationally, since there are only three of us. Nevertheless, it influenced financially.                   

And with regard to the Ukrainian economy, the crisis has already led many companies to go online even more, and it`s not bad. And users begin to get used to the fact that they can buy online an increasingly wide range of products.

But a small business such as coffee shops or a beauty shops will die partly due to quarantine, because there are no working capital, there are no customers, and it is not clear how to survive this outage.

You and your partners have been hosting the SMM Rocks conference for 6 years. How does this event differ from other educational events in the field of digital?

We are a pioneer conference. There was one conference before us, but by the time of our appearance, it no longer existed. Therefore, now SMM Rocks is the oldest Social Media conference in Ukraine.

We constantly discover new speakers, while we have the core staff of lecturers who have been with us for many years. And first of all, this is Vladimir Galika - our key speaker and partner - Managing Partner NGN.agency. And this year NGN.agency is already co-organizer of the SMM Rocks conference.

As for the new speakers, it is always interesting for me to discover them and show them to the market. This year it is worth paying attention to Zoya Lobod, who will talk about working with bloggers. A report by Sonya Spivakovskaya about Comfy's SMM network should be interesting enough. It seems interesting to us how such a powerful retailer processes his Instagram, how the audience is involved. They have 185 thousand subscribers and this is a very good result for business in social networks.

We are also waiting for a report by Vera Slivinskaya on TicTok. This resource only comes to Ukraine and of course, in April there would be a more recent and interesting report about TicTok, well, and much will change by the autumn. We think that TicTok will already be very popular in six months in Ukraine.

Many of our listeners become our speakers over time. For example, Sonya Spivakovskaya - attended our conferences for three years, and this year she would already act as a speaker. I communicate a lot, I listen to recommendations, I monitor the market - that's why the range of our speakers is constantly growing.

Tell us about your team. How many people work on SMM Rocks?

We founded the company I-marketing, which is now engaged in SMM Rocks with my friend Sergei Aliksuk in 2012. I have already talked about our long-term partner Vladimir Galik. Three people are organizing the conference except the freelancers.
Who is your audience?

We have quite a stable audience. 30 percent, it consists of those people who have visited our events before.
Last year, the Big Conference “Social Media & Digital SMM Rocks” gathered more than 400 listeners. This year, we planned that there will be up to 350 students, which is the optimal number for our small team.

Therefore, we slightly changed the format this year and we specially physically reduced the location.
We have two main audiences. Just over half of them are representatives of medium and large companies, Internet marketers, PR managers, SMM specialists, and so on.. And the second part is the owners of the companies themselves, small and private entrepreneurs. As well as freelancers and agency staff.
Conventionally, these are the people who order services and those who provide them.

And I can say that Ukrainian SMM has a female face. From year to year, about 75% of our students are 25 years old girls and older, i.e., with already existing experience in this field.
 

It is interesting to know your opinion about the level of Ukrainian specialists in the field of digital?

Our experts are very cool, and this is not a secret. As in ideas, so in their implementation. We are not afraid to try new things and we are very creative. Many innovations come to the European market from Ukraine. And it’s great that educational projects can contribute to this.

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