Stereotypical SLS 12 Wrap-Up Blog Post

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Stereotypical SLS 12 Wrap-Up Blog Post

When I wasn’t arranging hummus platters, securing orange balloons, eating popchips in a corner or arbitrarily freaking out, I did get to enjoy SLS 2012. And in true wrap-up blog post fashion, I picked my 5 favorite moments of the weekend.

#1. Getting the Weekend Started – The Faculty Face-off

The Faculty Face-off was a lively panel that discussed social media and education. The panel consisted of AU Faculty members including Scott Talan of SOC, Stef Woods of CAS and other tech-savvy professors. Biggest take-away? By excluding social media from the classroom, not only are professors losing student’s attention, they are doing them a disservice. These skills are no longer a hobby, but an essential skill in today’s digital world.

#2. Alex’s Kick-Off Speech: How Did We Get Here?

In true AP fashion, AU SMC founder and former President Alex Priest gave a bomb.com kick-off keynote. He used Uber’s “God-view” map and the narrative arc of “How did we get here?” to structure his presentation. Biggest insights? Data is more important than you think, progress is slow and hard and our “always-on” generation approaches problems in a fundamentally different way.

{bonus: check out his presentation here}

#3. Opening Panel – Social Media and 2012

The opening panel featured industry leaders from advertising, PR, tech and social media discussing what’s on the agenda for this year. Ryan Lytle, the multi-talented producer, reporter and social strategist at U.S. News & World Report did an excellent job moderating this robust panel.

The panel was full of great content including new technology, making mistakes and overcoming setbacks. New Media Strategies’ Joe Gizzi discussed social sentiment analysis, a new tool that NMS will use in the upcoming year to examine the effectiveness of more subjective content.

MWW’s Ari Greenberg spilled the beans about one of his past mistakes: “FratCast,” a social media platform built around frat bro Q&A. We were also lucky enough to hear about MWW’s wildly successful campaign with Nikon that asked users to submit potential cover photos for Nikon’s timeline page. Ogilvy and Mather’s Nichole Brown put it all into perspective explaining that in the long run, mistakes are truly the best learning experiences.

The panel discussed how to find your “share-balance.” Google DC’s Corrie Davidson explained that social media has changed her career for the better but emphasized that it’s important to use discretion. For example, no one wants to see your 9AM liquor store check-in. Best takeaways from this panel? Content needs to be more interactive and smart companies will take full advantage of Facebook timeline. Brown emphasized that it’s great for companies like Ogilvy to showcase their rich history.

#4. The Digital Me – Personal Branding

Alright, elephant in the room – we admittedly chose the wrong hashtag for this panel. Let’s just say that “#DigMe” brought up some pretty unfortunate tweets. I’ll let you put two and two together. Thanks to the keen eye of @emilCDC, we quickly added an “i” to our hashtag and the problem was solved.

Personal branding and conference planning expert, Tod Plotkin of Green Buzz Agency and What’s Next DC, moderated the panel. Big theme? Being proactive. Panelist Bennett Resnik summed it up nicely when he said “dig your well before you’re thirsty.” All of the panelists emphasized the importance of building your network and staying in touch with people regardless of whether or not you need a job. Update your LinkedIn regularly. Rachael King reminded us that your LinkedIn should not be a copy of your resume. King’s idea to create a Pinterest resume was a huge hit. It’s one of the most innovative and functional ways of using Pinterest that I’ve heard thus far.

While all the advice was good, my favorite nugget came from David All Group’s Bennett Richardson: when trying to network online – Facebook poking is the best way to go*.

*kidding

#5. Closing Keynote with Peter Corbett – Looking Forward

Peter Corbett has done some incredible things for the DC community, especially over the past year. DC Week really blew my mind, especially the Core Conference and Social Media Week DC had some great events created by members of the DC community. All this being said, it was great to have him here for our closing keynote.

Corbett discussed ‘what’s next’ but took a refreshing outlook and discussed how social media has the power to hack physical space through the innovative use of data. He shared some of the recent projects from Grandstand, a web platform from iStrategyLabs that transforms social media channels like Foursquare and Twitter into games, rewards and visualizations. With Grandstand, venues can run promotions, drive ad revenues and increase brand engagement. Full of insight, inspiration and some very cool projects, the closing keynote was the perfect end to the weekend.

#6. Bonus reason: the AU Social Media Club team

GroupTexts, 3AM emails, tri-weekly meetings with a sleep-deprived president – I’ll admit that planning this conference was no easy task. Thankfully, I had a team full of creative, hard-working, hilarious and passionate members. The event would not have happened without them (seriously) and spending time with them was definitely the best part of the whole process. You guys are the best!

Well, those are my favorite moments – what were yours? Let me know (@ChloeTroia) and I hope I see you at #SLS13!

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Tags: american university, college, communications, conference, featured, marketing, Panels, Personal Branding, SMCEDU, social media, tech

In: AUSMC, Events, Experience, Featured, Personal Branding, SLS, Social Media Tools, Technology

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