Social Media Junction - getting world-class in NZ

Social Media Junction (#SMJ) – NZ’s biggest Social Media Marketing event to date - went off like clockwork on 17 - 18 May, 2010.

The two-day event held at SkyCity Convention Centre, Auckland, @SMJunction attracted a large turnout of senior, mid-level and junior executives from various industries, from Auckland as well as Wellington.

Social Media Junction featured a star-studded Marketing Conference (Day 1 Programme) and a ‘Masterclass’ Workshop (Day 2 Programme) - both covering significant trends & topics that are all the buzz in the SM & digital space right now.

A veritable meeting of the best minds in the business, the SMJ conference brought together a group of leading international speakers from USA, Canada, Australia:

L-R: Josie Campbell, Belinda Nash and Julien Smith

Julien Smith, Canada

Co-Author (with Chris Brogan) of New York Times bestseller ‘Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation and Earn Trust’

L-R: Mr. Social, Andy Beal

Andy Beal, USA

Founder of MarketingPilgrim.com; Author of ‘Radically Transparent’

Mike Hickinbotham
Senior Adviser Social Media, Telstra, Australia

Click here to view the Speaker Bios

L-R: Aisha Hillary, Mr. Social

Aisha Hillary

Senior Marketing & New Media Specialist, SBS – Special Broadcasting Service, Australia

Andrew Cordwell
MySpace, Fox Interactive Media, Australia


...and some of NZ’s best known SM practitioners:

Grant Osborne, Director, First Rate

Tom Bates, Social Media & Viral Marketing, Air New Zealand

L-R: Jennifer Duval-Smith, Bullet PR; Greer McDonald, Stuff.co.nz

L-R: Mauricio Freitas, Founder, GeekZone.co.nz; Justin Flitter, FlitterMedia

Andrew Ferguson, MD, Gravitate.co.nz

and

Paul Brislen, Vodafone Duncan Blair, Orcon Russell Brown, Media7

Bryony Hilless, 2 Degrees Alistair Helm, Unconditional.co.nz 
Bernard Hickey Interest.co.nz...

Simon Young, Director, #sy

The conference included 3 interactive panel discussions chaired by Justin Flitter, Vincent Heeringa and Simon Young. The “real-time” Q&A sessions led to some interesting anecdotes as well as some lighter moments.


Day 2 was a full-on Social Media Masterclass which was a day-long Online Reputation Management Workshop conducted by Andy Beal. He shed light on valuable tools, tips & tricks and SM and ORM best practices. A well-attended class, Andy managed to keep it light yet loaded, cracking a few good jokes as the day went along - maybe that's why they call him the Indiana Jones of Reputation Management!

L-R: Mr. Social with Andy Beal

Andy Beal is founder and editor of MarketingPilgrim.com, USA; author of ‘Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online’; Creator of Trackur.com - a SM Monitoring Tool; Internet Marketing Consultant to leading companies in USA.

Topics Andy covered during his in-depth Workshop:

• The Art of generating buzz around your brand

• Fight a reputation attack

• Achieve 5 stars at customer review sites

• Pimp your blog for brand control

• Own the first ten links in Google

• Find your customers through social networking

• Build a reputation monitoring safety net
 
ending with a 6-Step Action Plan for a successful online reputation management campaign.

L-R: Belinda Nash, Paul Matthews, Jennifer D-S, Bryony Hilless, Alex Erasmus

L-R: Nicholas O'Flaherty, Bullet PR; Andrew Cordwell, MySpace

Nicholas O’Flaherty, Managing Director, Bullet PR was the MC at SMJ.

 

All in all, a top-notch event, Social Media Junction was organised by the team at Bullet PR - hats off to Jennifer, Nicholas, Paul, Alex and Kevin.

I attended SMJ all thanks to the good folks at Bullet PR and the generosity of David Gapes, Editor, AdMedia & Fastline. A big thanks to all involved. As Nicholas said, SMJ promises to return next year. Till then... bon soir!