Social media road trip planned for 2015

Collective Bias is rebranding its annual blogger conference in 2015 and taking the event on the road with a nationwide tour of 11 cities to facilitate increased participation by brands, bloggers and retailers.



The series of events is called SoFabU on the Road and springs from an event Collective Bias launched in 2013 in Northwest Arkansas called SoFabCon. Collective Bias brought in members of its extensive blogger network known as Social Fabric for a several day conference and the contraction SoFabCon was born. The premise was to create a forum where bloggers could connect with each other and leading brands and learn how to be better bloggers.



The concept worked well with several hundred people in attendance each year, but a format and location change made sense for 2015 due to the growth of Social Fabric community and the logistical challenges of hosting a large, multi-day event in Northwest Arkansas. The Social Fabric community now includes roughly 3,000 bloggers so Collective Bias decided to bring a series of events to cities nationwide and emphasize the educational aspects of the events with the new name SoFabU on the Road.



The series of one day events will improve access and participation by bloggers and brands, according to Amy Callahan, chief client officer and co-founder of Collective Bias.



Beginning in January, the first of 11 events will be held in Los Angeles, followed by Miami in February, Phoenix in March and Cincinnati and Seattle in April. Next up are Dallas in May, New York in June, Chicago in July, Minneapolis in August and Atlanta in September. SoFabU on the Road culminates in October when Collective Bias host the final event in its hometown of Bentonville, Ark.



Callahan said she expects between 50 and 100 participants in each city which would extend the reach to between 500 and 1,000 people versus the single event the company held earlier this year which drew 200.