Friday was the first (of hopefully a long running series) social media conference in Lincoln – Linc Up Live.
Organised by Celia Lacy, Glen Le Santo, Andy Clayton and Tim Downing, the aim of the day was to elevate the importance of digital media within a rural environment.
The original line up included Trey Pennington, a highly influential and well-loved social media star. Sadly and tragically he took his own life on Sunday 4th September, and as a result the event was dedicated to his memory and all profits were donated to The Samaritains, a charity which has routes in Lincoln that works hard to help those like Trey. Their work is important because you can see it in people who are alive today.
While the event may have not been quite the same without Trey, there were still some excellent and very inspirational speakers and I came away empowered to make more of my existing skills in social media both professionally and personally, as well as learning a few extra things which I wish to develop over the coming weeks.
Glen Le Santo, started by pointing out that facebook status updates are simply the cave paintings of today – simply “messaging” each other with what’s been going on.
Maz Nadjm of Oglivy UK, Eb Adeyeri of Lewis PR, Joanne Jacobs (“a real life angry bird” who talked a whole load of sense), and Kate Day of the Telegraph were our keynote speakers, who presented on topics relevant to digital media in today’s society. Then there were the breakout sessions – a chance for discussion on a range of topics. I went to the sessions by Alistair Walker of North Point Social on the nuts and bolts of social, and Hil Gibb’s session on positive thinking. Both were excellent chances to have an open forum. And of course the day was encased with lots of chances for networking.
Here are just some of the nuggets of information that I took from the various parts the day (taken from my tweets from the event)…
- Social media is about telling your story to the world. And everyone has a story.
- Be genuine and authentic in social media… Be sure your followers will find you out (twitter will reveal your personality for what it actually is – so be yourself, or it will leak out anyway).
- Companies can target with wider audiences by working with (and surprising) relevant bloggers. I hope to be relevant one day!
- Linking to other people’s content is more interesting and useful than linking to your own.
- It is very easy to play the “Klout” system so take the level of influence suggested in the scores with a pinch of salt.
- Twitter is great for filtering content through real people.
- The art of connecting with people is about knowing what they need not what you need. Be useful to your connections.
- Being positive is a choice. Be empowered and realise you have that choice. And watch out for monkeys.
- Love the terms “mood-hoovers” and “dementors” from Hil Gibb’s positive thinking break-out session – people who will always be down regardless of how great things are. Beware of them and don’t let them drag you into their pit.
- People will perceive you the way you project yourself – and treat you that way. So project the person you want to be and it will be so.
There was loads of other stuff too there is no way I can summarise it all here, but you get the idea of the sorts of things we discussed.
For next time I’d love to hear someone speak on the launch and development of Google Plus, which I still don’t use much despite having been on it since nearly the beginning. I can see good ideas in it as a social platform but also gaping holes.
An excellent event that has given me reason to be addicted to social media… I’m very much looking forward to the next one.
If you’re interested in attending the next one you need to mark 17th February 2012 in your diary and watch out for details on the website http://lincuplive.eventbrite.com/ and twitter feed http://twitter.com/#!/lincuplive. Oh, and to find out what other’s thought of the day check out #LUL360 over on twitter.
To donate to The Samaritains in memory of Trey Pennington please visit www.justgiving.com/trey-pennington.