Some of the best talks at MozCon each year come from the community speakers—those who're able to make a pitch to grace the stage.
This group enjoys the same privileges as the other speakers, including being able to deliver a keynote-style talk, and are always well-received by the audience.
If you're eager to be a member of this group, step right up.
We're now open for MozCon community speaker's pitches.
We'd be happy to have your best effort.
(This year, we'll have six speakers.)
The nuts & bolts:
- Submitting is as simple as filling out the form below
- Only submit one talk (the one you're most passionate about)
- Pitches must be related to online marketing & 15 minutes long
- Submissions close Sunday, April 16th at 5pm PDT
- All decisions are final
- Talks must must adhere to the MozCon Code of Conduct
- You'll be required to be present at MozCon in Seattle
if you submit a pitch, you'll hear back from us regardless of whether you're accepted or denied.
Sorry, community speaker pitches are now closed. We'll be announcing the winners soon!
Community speakers receive...
- At least 15 minutes on the MozCon stage for a keynote-style presentation, plus 5 minutes of Q&A
- A free ticket to MozCon. (If you already have one, we'll either refund or transfer the ticket to someone else.)
- Four nights of lodging covered by us at our partner hotel
- A reimbursement for your travel (flight, train, car, etc.), up to $500 domestic and $750 international
- A free ticket for you to give to anyone, plus a code for $300 off another ticket
- An invitation for you and your significant other to join us for the speakers' dinner.
If you're curious about what the process look like, take a look at what Zeph Snapp wrote about his experience as a community speaker.
Long-time community member Samuel Scott, one of our fantastic community speakers at MozCon 2016!
How do you pick speakers?
The selection committee, comprised of Mozzers, reviews every pitch. Initially, we review only the topics. This helps us make sure the topics match our audience.
Later we look at the entirety of the pitch, with an eye for what the finished product would look like on stage.
Things to consider for your pitch:
- Focus your pitch on online marketing. MozCon is all about actionable information.
- Your pitch is for MozCon organizations, so detail what you're talking about. We need to know the actual tactics you'll be sharing.
- Read this post on how to prepare for speaking, from pitching to the actual gig.
- Review the topics already accepted to ensure there is no overlap.
- Honor the form's word limits. (Linking to Google Docs, for example, will result in an immediate disqualification.)
- No one from the speaker selection committee will be able to evaluate your pitch in advance.
- Lobbying on social media is frowned upon and won't do you any good.
- Link to a video of you presenting and to your SlideShare channel (or wherever we can take a look at decks you've created in the past)
A little weak in the knees about speaking at MozCon?
Don't be scurred.
We've got your back.
Whether a speaker has hundreds of talks under her belt or is giving her first talk, we work with them to deliver a product she'lll be proud of and the audience will both love and learn from.
We provide instruction on topics and review the content in its entirety.
We encourage pitches from speakers of all backgrounds, knowledge levels, and speaking experiences.
A few additional things we help with:
- Discuss and refine your topic
- Assist in honing topic title and description
- Review outlines and drafts
- Best practices and guidance for slide decks, specifically for our stage
- A comprehensive, step-by-step guide for show flow
- Serve as an audience for practicing your talk
- Review your final deck
- Sunday night pre-MozCon tour of the stage to meet our A/V crew, see your presentation on the screens, and test the clicker
- A 15-person dedicated crew to make your A/V outstanding
- Whatever else we can do to make your talk outstanding
Now over to you.
If you've ever had a vision of making onto the MozCon stage, this is your best shot.
So, umm, shouldn't you be typing feverishly in the Google Form above?
Good luck.
Unfortunately can't go in mozcon but waiting eagerly to read in post.
Holy crap, Ronell and Moz!
I just saw that you put my picture in this post. <embarrassed but proud> I just wanted to second the idea and tell everyone that if you want to grow your digital marketing career, MozCon is the best place to get noticed.
I had been a community member for a few years, and I pitched last year to speak as a community speaker on server log analysis. To my surprise and delight, I was accepted! Ever since, my career has grown in ways that are so numerous that I cannot list them all here.
Here's one: I'm writing this right now on a plane returning home to Israel after speaking at two events in South America -- that were direct results of the organizer seeing the video of my MozCon presentation. She contacted me out of the blue to come to speak. No joke!
In addition, I've become a regular columnist for the global marketing publication The Drum -- my most recent column was aiming to communicate the value of SEO to traditional marketers through mentioning several great resources here on Moz and elsewhere.
All of this came directly or indirectly as a result of pitching and then speaking at MozCon.
So, if you want to get noticed, change jobs, get more speaking engagements, hug Roger, tell Rand that he needs to grow the mustache back, or just want to see how awesome Ronell is at emceeing events, here are a few tips.
1. Actionable. There's a time and a place for thought-leaderships talks and for best-practices discussions with the goal of doing something specific. MozCon -- or at least the Community Speakers part -- is the latter. Make it like this: "You want to do X? Here's how you do X." What can MozCon attendees take away from your talk and implement the following day at work?
2. Make your pitch short and concise. Mine was something like this: "How to do server log analysis for technical SEO. Check X for A reason. Check Y for B reason. Check Z for C reason. Here's how you fix X, Y, and Z if something is broken. Any questions?" (You can see my presentation's deck and notes as one example.)
3. Be original. Think of a topic that is rarely discussed on this blog or in the SEO and online marketing worlds. The year that I spoke, another community speaker talked about hiring best practices -- and that was a topic that is hardly ever talked about. So, be original and think of something better than "this is how you build links" or "this is how you do on-page optimization."
4. Don't worry -- you'll have help. Your pitch doesn't have to be performance-ready. Mozzers will help you with the outline, the flow, the text, the images, the design, and more long before you send them the final version. (Thanks to Erica McGillivray and Christy Correll for helping with mine!) Just have a great pitched that is fleshed out comprehensively but is also simple and concise.
5. You need to submit a video. If you don't have a video of you speaking on YouTube or something, film yourself with your phone for five minutes or so and upload that to as a private YouTube video. The important thing is not what you say here (that's what the text of the pitch is for) but how you will say it. The idea is to get an idea of your speaking style and delivery too -- for the audience's benefit.
6. Everyone will be very supportive. Can I tell you a secret? No matter how many times I speak at events, I get so nervous beforehand. I'm a nervous wreck. Even though I hope I appeared confident on stage at MozCon, I was pacing back and forth backstage for an hour beforehand. When I finished my talk, all I could see was white light -- the emcee, Zeph Snapp, asked me someone's Q&A question, and I just blanked and started babbling.
But it was OK! Beforehand and afterwards, Mozzers and everyone else at the conference were so supportive. A guest of mine was sitting in the audience, and she overheard someone say during my talk in admiration, "I don't know how people get on this stage and do that -- I never could!"
So, don't worry -- no matter how nervous you think you'll feel, it will be all good. Everyone in the audience -- all 2,000 of them or so -- will give you massive props just for having the guts to go on one of the top stages in the world. And it just gives you more practice for any future speaking talks that you may have.
Well, if anyone has any questions about the community speakers section, feel free to connect -- glad to help! But I'd suggest talking to Ronell and Moz as the best obvious resources. :)
Just back from traveling, Sam. Your making onto the MozCon stage had everything to do with the hard work you'd put in over the years. Me and many, many others were excited to see you up there.
can I pitch again after two year hyatus ;-)
This is awesome that you guys involve community speakers a chance to share their insight on a chosen topic. Looking forward to MozCon!
Looking forward to pitching to speak or attending to hear other people speak regardless. MozCon is one of those must attend digital marketing events on a global scale!
Can't wait to hear the community speakers this year! Last year's speakers were amazing.
I'll have to put this on my radar. There is no way that I could give a credible keynote speech this year but I would love to speak at a future Mozcon.
Wow !!
I would love to be there and hear everything here that you tell us first hand. But from Spain traveling there for assistance as a listener is a bit difficult, so I will have to wait patiently to read all your posts.
Thanks to everyone for contributing your knowledge that are really interesting and people like me with small projects help us a lot.
A greeting.