Today the first OMCap, a conference and networking party for Online Marketeers, will take place at Kosmos in Berlin. During the day more than 40 speakers will discuss topics such as SEO, SEM and Social Media. Check out the program here.

Last night the founder Andre Alper organized a pre-party to kick off. Apart from doing angel investing and starting Hitmeister, Alper also advises Rocket Internet on their online marketing. Since no big conference on the topic existed in Berlin yet, Andre felt compelled to do it himself (#DIY). 

After coming across an open invitation for the pre-party on facebook, TechBerlin hopped on the S-Bahn to Warschauerstrasse where Club Matrix opened its doors. Starting a “party” at 7pm in Berlin was a little ambitious and it took until 10pm for around 150 people to join. As always with facebook promoted events, organizers did not welcome the number of people who reserved via facebook (400!), but significantly less. 

The costs for the conference are EUR 499 per person and drinks at the pre-party were unfortunately not included in the package.

Online marketing is a hot topic. of course. While startups live and breathe it, more traditional companies also increasingly shift their budgets online. The conference seems to work. Alexander Huth, who works for Rocket Internet but is also involved in organising OMCap said that “there will definitely be another conference next year.”

One of the visitors we ran into was Kai Rieke, the founder of edarling, and yes, in case you wondered: that is a Rocket startup. Together with his SEO manager Stephanie Wood he started chatting about the conference: “What are conferences for? Just to have a laugh together. Do some networking. Most of the time you know everybody already.” Florian Eckelt of Lieferando added: ”online marketeers in Germany is a very small group. Like a family actually.” 

New trends? Online sales through social media. Facebook is the buzzword tonight. But also SEO for Bing is heard a few times. There is said to be a ‘secret area’ where you can get tips for optomizing search results on Microsoft’s promising search engine. Eckelt of Lieferando says: “in Germany Google is clearly the biggest player. But you have to think about other parts of the world where Bing is also big.”

Talking to organiser Andre Alper was much harder. He declines a short interview: “I’ve got a 1000 things on my head. Such as talking to my guests. No press.”

By midnight I left the scene, but guests who went to a party of Alper last year expected it to go until 3am. The conference program starts at 9am and there are still tickets available. Unfortunately there is no live stream and i can’t find a section on the websites where post conference presentation videos are announced (so German!). 

We wish everybody a nice day at the first OMCap! 

by Derk Marseille