Digital Marketing and Social Media Conference
In this all-day conference, participants will explore how strategy, systems, and technology work together to drive sustainable digital marketing results. Join us to build your marketing toolkit and take a time-out to learn more!
Click the tabs below to learn what topics will be covered in each session.
Why People Buy: The Power of Story in Small-Business Marketing
Customers don’t connect with businesses because of products, services, or features alone—they connect with stories. The customer success story, the founder’s journey, the challenge you overcame, the impact you’ve had in your community. These stories help people understand who you are, why your business matters, and why they should choose you.
In this practical, hands-on workshop, participants will learn how to uncover authentic stories from their everyday business experiences and turn them into marketing content that builds trust, strengthens their brand, and creates stronger customer connections.
We’ll explore why stories are one of the most effective marketing tools available to small businesses and how to identify the moments, experiences, and successes that resonate most with audiences. Along the way, we’ll also discuss why certain stories attract media attention, what makes a story newsworthy, and how strong storytelling can support public relations and earned media opportunities.
Through guided exercises, attendees will identify a meaningful story from their business, clarify the key message behind it, and create a draft piece of content they can continue using after the workshop.
Participants Will:
- Develop clear messaging that combines emotional connection with practical business value.
- Adapt stories for social media, websites, email marketing, presentations, and customer communications.
- Explore how AI tools can help generate story ideas and strengthen messaging while maintaining authenticity.
- Identify authentic stories from their business that can support marketing and brand-building efforts, and leave with a practical storytelling framework, a message map, and a draft piece of content they can continue using after the workshop.
Getting Mentioned by AI: Separating Snake Oil from Sound Advice
AI is changing the way your customers make decisions — and if you’re the one doing the marketing on top of everything else on your plate, it’s hard to know which changes actually matter. There’s a lot of confusion and snake oil out there: countless voices touting shortcuts and hacks to get AI mentioning your brand, and much of it is nonsensical or even harmful. Only a small fraction is truly legitimate.
This isn’t about using AI to do your marketing for you — it’s about getting your brand mentioned and recommended when your customers turn to AI for help. In this hands-on session, we’ll cut through the noise. You’ll learn how AI chatbots and agents actually “think,” how that changes (and doesn’t change) what you already know about SEO, and the specific, do-it-this-week steps that get you recommended without shooting yourself in the foot later. The cornerstone to AI recommendations is positioning, so we’ll spend real time digging into what “better positioning” actually looks like, using a brand that does it well as our example. Then you’ll work through your own on a simple, but powerful worksheet exercise. No big budget or dev team required.
Participants will:
- Write sharper positioning for their own business, for both humans and AI, and leave with a completed worksheet they can put to work right away
- Identify the 3 levers where their brand can influence an AI’s response, and where to focus first
- Explain how optimizing for AI (GEO) differs from and works alongside traditional SEO
- Make their site AI-readable: how to structure content and prevent tools designed to keep your site safe from keeping it off AI’s radar
- Tell which marketing metrics still hold up in an AI world and where to find them
Simplify Your Marketing Approach
Feeling overwhelmed trying to figure out where to focus your marketing efforts? Are you spending time on tactics that sound promising but never seem to gain any traction?
In this session, you’ll discover a simpler way to approach your marketing. One built around your strengths and your actual resources rather than someone else’s playbook.
You’ll walk away with clarity on where to focus, a framework you can put to work right away, and a realistic path for building momentum that fits your business and your life.
Particpants will:
- Identify which marketing channels fit how you naturally communicate and where your audience actually spends time … so you can show up consistently without spreading yourself too thin
- Understand the four core jobs that marketing does for your business and the types of content or tactics that serve each one … so every marketing activity you undertake has a clear purpose
- Map your marketing to a weekly, monthly and season rhythm that keeps you visible and moving forward without burning yourself out.
How to Use ChatGPT to Get Found by ChatGPT
Online search has changed. More people are asking ChatGPT and other AI tools for recommendations instead of using Google. The good news? There are simple things you can do to help your business show up in those queries.
Participants will:
- Learn what SEO is — and what it isn’t — including common myths and realistic expectations
- Detail six key areas to add keywords in your website
- Clarify how online search has changed with the rise of AI and tools like ChatGPT
- Practice writing detailed and effective ChatGPT prompts to get responses you can use to generate content such as service website pages, FAQs, articles, and social media posts
- Walk away with five steps to help increase your business visibility in 30 days
Registration Information
Date: October 28, 2026
Schedule: 8:15 am – 4:00 pm
Location: Pyle Center, UW-Madison campus
Registration Fall 2026 – Coming Soon!
Date: October 28, 2026
Time: 8:15 am – 4:00 pm
Location: In Person, Pyle Center
Fee: $325 (includes lunch)
We cannot guarantee meals for participants registering fewer than 14 days prior to the event date.
The cost of this course is being paid by the Main Street Bounceback Program for eligible businesses. Eligible businesses must be in business (not pre-venture), located in the state of Wisconsin, and employing fewer than 500 employees. These businesses may register here:
Nonprofits, pre-venture (not yet started) businesses, and those participants from a company of over 500 employees, register below:
Registration Types & Dates
Early Bird Closes: 9/28/2026
Late Registration Begins: 10/14/2026
Course Registration Closes: 10/24/2026
Registration Fees
Early Registration Fee: $277
Late Registration Fee: $358
Cancellation Policy: Due to program costs and space limitations for these programs, participants are expected to cancel their registration at least 24 hours ahead of the program. Cancellations that occur less than 24 hours prior to the start of the program will be considered no-shows and may be removed from future programming and/or charged a course fee.
Disability Statement: Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities will be made if requested at least two weeks in advance. Contact the UW-Madison SBDC office at sbdc@bus.wisc.edu to request accommodations.
Note: Payment will be required at time of registration. You must have either a credit card or valid UW-Madison funding string to be able to register.
Presenters, Fall 2026
Why People Buy: The Power of Story in Small Business Marketing
Presenter: Tom Beckman
Thomas Beckman is a communications strategist, consultant, and educator who helps people and organizations find the right words to connect, inspire, and move ideas forward. Through 28 Power Communications, he has supported leading brands including Fiserv, Johnson Controls, Lockheed Martin, GE, Siemens, and the Wisconsin Army National Guard. A longtime mentor and frequent speaker, Thomas also teaches at the University of Wisconsin, where he shares his passion for message strategy, storytelling, and the evolving role of AI in communications.
Getting Mentioned by AI: Separating Snake Oil from Sound Advice
Presenter: Steve Robinson
Steve Robinson is a marketing futurist and technology expert. As co-founder of Path3, he’s working to make B2B advertising accessible to all marketers without their having to become digital paid-media experts. He also owns and operated Agent BOB, an AI-assisted marketing technology support company and regularly consults with brands on digital strategy.
When he isn’t scaling Path3 or consulting on marketing strategy, Steve is building community. He started the B2B Marketing Breakfast, now in three cities, and moderates Madison’s breakfasts in partnership with the Madison chapter of the American Marketing Association.
A sought-after speaker and podcast guest, Steve is dedicated to helping marketers navigate the change AI and technology are having on the practice of marketing — with practical, do-it-this-week steps built for owners who are short on time.
Simplify Your Marketing Approach
Presenter: Mike Schuster
Mike Schuster has spent more than 30 years in marketing — including 10 years leading a nearly $20 million direct-to-consumer retailer as President and General Manager.
That experience on the business side — managing P&L, building teams, and making every marketing dollar count — shapes how he thinks about marketing for small businesses today.
Through FiddleSmart Marketing, he works with small business owners to cut through the noise, focus on what actually moves the needle, and build a simple marketing approach that fits their business and their life.
How to Use ChatGPT to Get Found by ChatGPT
Presenter: Tara Ingalls
Tara Ingalls is the owner of Tingalls Graphic Design, a Madison-based branding and marketing agency. With more than 25 years of experience, Tara and her team have developed more than 1,500 unique brands for startups, nonprofits, and small businesses across a wide range of industries. She is a sought-after marketing consultant and speaker, known for helping business owners simplify complex marketing topics through practical, real-world strategies. Her workshops on branding, website design, SEO, AI, and digital marketing empower attendees with actionable ideas they can put to work immediately to grow their organizations.
The topics of this conference were incredibly timely and exactly the material I don’t have time to research on my own. The speakers were knowledgeable, prepared, and exhibited genuine interest in helping fellow entrepreneurs.
Learned so much and also gained confidence in my current strategies and inspiration for future ideas!
This was super informative and helped me not be so afraid of advertising… The speaker was lovely + very informative. Great materials to keep us reminded of everything after class!
The conference was efficient and welcoming!
Such a wonderful day. Inspirational and informative.
Each speaker took their ideas and introduced them at my level of understanding and provided simple, easy ideas and examples to implement… thank you for taking the fear out of marketing my business! I feel empowered to grow!
The open conversations and ability to chat one-on-one with the presenters was amazing!
The speaker was lovely + very informative. Great materials to keep us reminded of everything after class… Automating needs to be added to a list of monthly to-dos!
I’ve been to 3 other LinkedIn sessions and this was the best by far!
The Wisconsin SBDC Network is a proud part of the Office of Business & Entrepreneurship within the Universities of Wisconsin. It is funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. The Wisconsin SBDC at UW-Madison is also part of the Wisconsin Entrepreneurship Hub at UW-Madison.
The Wisconsin SBDC at UW-Madison helps entrepreneurs succeed at any stage. We offer no-cost, confidential consulting and business education across a wide region, primarily serving Dane, Sauk, and Columbia counties. SBDC services are provided in a nondiscriminatory way to all legal residents and citizens in the US.
Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities will be made if requested at least two weeks in advance. Contact us at sbdc@bus.wisc.edu or call (608) 263-2221.