education

IABC Social Media Conference

Build an engaged online community

Program

Browse the program below

Schedule at a glance

Thursday, 5 November

Friday, 6 November

Full program

Thursday, 5 November

8–8:45 a.m.
Registration and Continental Breakfast

8:45–9:45 a.m.
Opening Keynote Address

Social media: Transforming business, ROI and the role of public relations
Corporations continue to make significant strides in harnessing the power of social media, but we’re just beginning to grasp the implications of how this medium can influence not only discrete functions such as sales, customer service and product development, but also business models.Social media plays an increasingly important role in public relations, marketing and advertising, but companies are also using it to drive internal communication and collaboration within the workforce. As social media gains a foothold in new business functions and our understanding of ROI evolves, what does the future hold for corporations and PR professionals leading social media efforts? Presenter Aedhmar Hynes will examine tomorrow’s social media landscape and share advice for communication executives looking to prepare for emerging, business-focused social media trends.

This session will discuss:

• The importance of defining and measuring social media ROI for guiding investments around brand building, generating demand and more.
• Opportunities for integrating social media in both internal and external communication and how connections between brands and key audiences today are influencing innovation processes.
• The changing role of public relations and why social media is extending the discipline’s reach across the business.

Presenter / Aedhmar Hynes, chief executive officer of Text 100 Global Public Relations, has worked in the public relations industry for more than 20 years, 19 of which have been with Text 100. Throughout her career, she has worked exclusively with technology companies, consulting on behalf of both large corporations and small start-up companies. She is a member of the Aspen Institute Roundtable on technology, a member of the board of trustees of the Arthur W. Page Society, and sits on the foundation board of her alma mater, The National University of Ireland-Galway.

10–11:15 a.m.
Select and attend one of two workshops:

Workshop One / Unleashing your corporate blog-ability
People yearn for dialogue, relish feeling "in the know," and follow leaders who are remarkable, not boring. More and more businesses are using internal blogs to connect executives with their employees. But are you still afraid to take the plunge? Internal roadblocks still in your way? Discover your ability to blog—and how to infuse personality and creativity into your corporate communications.

Attenders will learn about:

• Developing powerful content that blends leading-edge content with low-cost media.
• Persuading executives that corporate blogs can drive results.
• Measuring impact, including tonality and circles of influence.

Presenter / James D. Lynch is vice president of employee communication at the American Express Company. In this role, he manages all internal communication for 22,000 employees worldwide across Global Business Travel, Global Commercial Card, Global Network Services, Global Merchant Services and Global Human Resources. He also serves as a communication adviser to the vice chairman of the American Express Company, and the executive vice president of Global Human Resources.

Workshop Two / Get social: Your reputation depends on it
The 24-second Twitter cycle has everyone jittery about social media and its impact on corporate reputation. Damage is done so quickly—how can you stay on top of the buzz and perhaps even turn a bad situation to your advantage? This session will discuss the presenter’s experience using social media to manage Dow Jones’s reputation.

You will learn:

• Effective ways to monitor the conversation.
• How to build a positive reputation using multiple social channels.
• How to connect executives with stakeholders and their ideas.

Presenter / Diane Thieke, marketing director at Dow Jones, connects communicators with the information, conversations and tools that help them identify hot issues, create and measure communication strategies, and keep executives informed. Previously, she was responsible for public relations at Dow Jones Factiva, where she led the company’s efforts to use social media to manage reputation and engage executives and employees in conversations with stakeholders. With more than 24 years in the digital media industry, Thieke has held management positions in business development, product development and editorial.

11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Select and attend one of two workshops:

Workshop One / The good, the bad, the ugly: 5 years of internal social media at Siemens USA
It all started with a US$25 piece of blogging software and a “let’s see what happens" attitude. Now, five years later, Siemens offers a glimpse of the lessons learned in the Wild West of social media: adventures in blogging, being ambushed in wikis and out-Twittered, the shootout at the IT Corral, social polling and trying to keep up with Facebook. 

In this session, you’ll discover:

• Unexpected ways to use blogs and when Facebook isn’t a good idea.
• Employee communication outside the firewall.
• Twitter: I’m not as interesting as you think.

Presenter / Jim Lukach manages online communication for Siemens. As part of the internal communication team, he is responsible for the corporate intranet, maintaining department sites and producing content. He is currently exploring the ways employee communication can work outside the firewall. He has helped to implement blogging, podcasting, video blogs, wikis and citizen journalism, and social polling into employee communication. Before joining Siemens, Lukach worked in IT, archaeology and education. He is the author of Lost Inside the Happy Noise. 

Workshop Two / Building communities that connect with customers
The initial goal of building an online social network for Sears was to engage with Sears customers and get to know them better. Two years on, the company has a vibrant customer community that fosters dialogue and provides invaluable feedback and ideas for the business. 

In this session, you’ll discover:

• How to think about starting a community: goals and tradeoffs.
• Best practices that can build customer engagement across social media.
• Ways to measure success and ROI.

Presenter / Rob Harles is senior vice president of Sears Holding Company and is responsible for developing and launching the Sears Community which builds dialogue and solicits feedback from its customers across all of the Sears brands. It has thousands of registered users and is one of the largest retail communities of its kind. Before joining Sears Holding Company, Rob was senior vice president at comScore Networks and a strategy consultant in the financial services practice of McKinsey & Co.

12:30–1:45 p.m.
Luncheon Keynote Address

How to reach reporters using social media pitches
Social media provide an array of new channels for contacting reporters and other members of the news media. Discover which approaches work, which fall flat, and why.

In this session, you will learn:

• To keep social media pitches short.
• Not to try to be buddies with media contacts if you aren't.
• To show how story ideas fit into the work they do.

Presenter / Stephen L. Baker is a senior writer at BusinessWeek covering technology. Before moving to New York City, he was a Paris correspondent, covering technology in Europe. Baker joined BusinessWeek in 1987, as manager of the Mexico City bureau, where he was responsible for covering Mexico and Latin America. He is also the author of The Numerati—his take on technology and life and how we track and make predictions about people by using the data that’s publically available about them.

2–3:00 p.m.
Select and attend one of two workshops:

Workshop One / How to build an employee-friendly intranet with a Web 2.0 toolkit: Lessons from ESPN
Does your current intranet suffer from a lack of employee involvement or interest? Or just a plain lack of traffic? Perhaps it’s time to hit the “reset” button and build a new intranet from scratch. In this session, learn how social media can provide the right blueprint for constructing an intranet that employees will use every day. Fresh off their recent intranet launch, the communication team at ESPN will show how they used a variety of Web 2.0 tools to build a dynamic and business-focused site.

Find out how:

• Employee-generated content can drive more traffic to a site and increase workforce engagement.
• Online video and podcasts can jumpstart business conversations between senior executives and employees.
• A retooled intranet can help communicators do more with less.

Presenter / Alex Cortes has been with ESPN’s corporate communication department since 2000. In his current position in internal communication, Cortes ensures that information reaches employees through a variety of sources and technology to meet the needs of the ESPN community. He has held a variety of external PR roles, including viewer response and consumer relations, TV listings and network publicity, and web site content management.

Presenter / John McCloskey is senior director of ESPN global internal communication where he is responsible for employee engagement, executive communication and organization development. Prior to joining ESPN, McCloskey led enterprise communication efforts for global brands and organizations including Travelers, Lockheed Martin, the Federal Aviation Administration and the United Nations. His professional background includes print and broadcast journalism, writing, producing and reporting for CNN, the BBC, Reuters and ABC News.

Presenter / Dave Williams has been working at ESPN since 2000. Prior to joining the corporate communication team he worked with ESPN's production operations team on all of ESPN's studio shows including SportsCenter, Sunday NFL Countdown, and Baseball Tonight. As a senior internal communication specialist, Williams brings his vast videography, digital editing, writing, and production experience to the internal communication team. He ensures that the multi-media aspects of the organization’s internal communication strategy are of the same high-quality production techniques that ESPN employees are accustomed to seeing on their external programming.

Workshop Two / Connecting people in the new media world
Nokia believes in a world where everyone can be connected, and social media provides exciting new opportunities to enhance communication and explore new ways to exchange information. Yet, companies face unique challenges as social media changes the communication landscape. This session will identify the ways that social media challenges large organizations—internally as well as externally—and explore the strategies and activities Nokia is taking to meet those challenges.

You will explore:

• Strategies for facilitating adoption of social media inside a large corporation.
• Where to place the social media function within organizations.
• Effective strategies for connecting—internally and externally—in a new media landscape.

Presenter / Molly Schonthal, a social media communication representative for Nokia, develops and directs the social media strategy for a wide range of devices and services throughout North America. Schonthal manages Nokia's relationships with key social media influencers and leads new initiatives that support active, robust interactions between Nokia and social media spaces. Schonthal has also served as marketing and communications manager for Nokia's Technology Out-Licensing operation and as the global product marketing manager for Nokia's Enterprise Solutions group.

3–3:30 p.m.
Coffee Break

3:30–5:00 p.m.
Select and attend one of two workshops:

Workshop One / How to use every social media tool in the box to engage employees
Who do customers trust? According to the 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer, the answer is each other—and your employees. In the survey, executives, ads and news outlets all ranked significantly lower than employees as trusted sources of information. So the question is, what are you doing to activate your brand from the inside out?

Together in this session, we’ll explore how to:

• Use social media to empower employees to become web savvy.
• Listen to your employees as they raise business issues.
• Make social media tools, policies and governance work for you instead of against you.

Presenter / Justin Goldsborough is an account supervisor at Fleishman-Hillard. Prior to joining Fleishman, Goldsborough was a social media manager at Sprint, where he managed the employee blog and social networking site, Sprint Space, and was a founding member of the Twitter lead team. Before Sprint, he was a communication specialist at Applebee’s, where he worked on the employee intranet.

Presenter / Becky Ericson is a social media strategist at Fleishman-Hillard who focuses on employee engagement and enterprise solutions. She’s worked with a number of Fortune 500 companies to develop communication plans to address workforce challenges. Before that, she managed employee engagement communication at the Dow Chemical Company.

Workshop Two / Listening 2.0: Activating social media across the enterprise
The Internet has added new ways for companies to listen, augmenting the information gleaned from surveys, focus groups and other traditional market research. But the first generation of listening tools on the web was heavy on automation and light on real insights and actionability. The next generation of listening tools is designed to generate action across the enterprise, so that brands evolve into “listening organizations.” Learn how web listening is changing, and how you can organize internally in order to discover better insights through listening and take advantage of them to deliver maximum business impact. You'll also get a sneak peek into what you should expect in the future, so that your company is ready.

You will learn:

• How Listening 2.0 capabilities deliver actionable insights.
• How to set up an internal governance structure and workflow in order to embed listening throughout the enterprise.
• What the uses are for listening, beyond PR/reputation management and customer service.

Presenter / Constantin Basturea is the director of social strategy at Converseon where he formulates and implements comprehensive strategies for Fortune 500 companies. Basturea is the founder of the NewPR Wiki, a founding fellow of the Society for New Communications Research and a member of WOMMA's Membership Ethics Advisory Panel. 

Friday, 6 November

7:30–8 a.m.
Continental Breakfast

8–9 a.m.
Morning Keynote Session

Best and worst of social media
You can learn a lot about social media from the people who do it right—and the people who do it wrong! Many organizations do social media right. But many, many organizations do it wrong. They make the classic mistake: They try to apply old rules to new tools. And by doing so, they do a lot more harm than good. In this fun keynote session, leading communication expert Steve Crescenzo will take you on a romp through the best and worst that social media has to offer.

You’ll learn:

• What some of the smartest companies are doing with social media—both internally and externally.
• How to convince leadership that using the new tools means paying attention to new rules.
• What not to do when trying to use social media tools to reach and engage your various audiences.

Presenter / Steve Crescenzo has helped thousands of communicators improve both their print and electronic communication efforts through his work as a consultant, writer and seminar leader. Recognized as one of the leading experts in employee communication, Crescenzo is the leader of the popular Creative Communications Workshop.

9:15–10:15 a.m.
Select and attend one of two workshops:

Workshop One / Video and social media: The facts about what you really need to know
Video and social media are two of today’s hottest tools when it comes to communicating with stakeholders—be it consumers, employees, the media or your specific industry. But did you know that YouTube only represents roughly 41 percent of the online video-sharing market? Or that watching video on sharing sites is more popular than using social networking sites? In this session, you’ll learn successful video and social media strategies through case studies and interactive discussion.

You will learn:

• The difference between facts and myths about video and social media.
• When to create video in-house and when to outsource.
• A step-by-step guide to creating successful video.

Presenter / Jack Serpa is senior vice president of client solutions overseeing Medialink's national Client Solutions team. He has more than 20 years of experience in generating new revenue in public relations and media research. He was formerly a vice president of business development at Cision, an international provider of news media intelligence, where he focused on sales expansion, industry relations, product development and acquisition integration.

Workshop Two / Developing a social media presence to build your business
You know how to Tweet, have fans on Facebook and upload photographs from all of your events, launches and meetings to Flickr. But do you know how to make a significant impact on your company’s business potential through a dedication to authentic social media communication?

In this session, you will learn:

• Why social media fluency is a must for growing your business and communicating with co-workers.
• How to enhance existing communication efforts with social media components.
• The building blocks for creating a comprehensive social media strategy.

Presenter / Anna Whitlow is a senior communication strategist at Deveney Communication. She creates comprehensive promotional marketing plans, develops strategic alliances between corporations and nonprofits and spearheads media relations efforts for companies around the globe. She is leading social media strategies for both Deveney Communication and its clients, using the technology she’s grown up with as a certified member of Generation Y.

Presenter / Jeffrey Ory, ABC, APR is vice president at Deveney Communication. Ory is recognized globally, working on projects that have earned the highest national and international honors in the profession, including two of the pinnacle recognitions in the communication profession: The IABC Gold Quill Award and Jake Wittmer Research Award. A long-time IABC member and volunteer, Ory served as the chair of IABC’s Gold Quill Awards program and is currently on the executive board of IABC.

10:30–11:30 a.m.
Select and attend one of two workshops:

Workshop One / Executive Communication 2.0: Helping today’s leaders communicate with today’s employees
Social media such as blogs, podcasts and interactive video are changing the way organizations communicate—and corporate executives need to catch up. The days when an “Executive Letter” on page two of a print publication was all the executive communication you needed to do are over. Your executives need to get up to speed on the latest communication tools—and they need your help to move out of their comfort zones and embrace the new communication tools available to them.

In this information-packed session filled with real-life examples and best practices, you’ll learn:

• How to coach your leaders, and help them understand that social media tools are more than just new channels. They represent a whole new way to communicate to employees.
• How you can start using podcasts and video right now—without increasing your budget—to reach, engage and motivate your workforce.
• How to turn traditional, one-way executive communication vehicles into interactive, ongoing, two-way conversations between the workforce and its leaders.

Presenter / Steve Crescenzo has helped thousands of communicators improve both their print and electronic communication efforts through his work as a consultant, writer and seminar leader. Recognized as one of the leading experts in employee communication, Crescenzo is the leader of the popular Creative Communications Workshop.

Workshop Two / Using social media to enhance the brand
Virgin has built a powerful brand by being the “consumer champion.” This means shaking up industries from airlines to mobile phones by offering differentiated experiences and brilliant customer service. Social media is a powerful tool to build, enhance and deliver on this brand promise.

The session will explore best practices, lessons and challenges from several Virgin businesses and will discuss:

• Leveraging the power of consumer brand ambassadors.
• Delivering real-time customer service.
• Creating connections (not marketing) through social media.

Presenter / Julie Cottineau is the vice president of brand at Virgin USA, overseeing branding strategy for new Virgin companies in North America, and providing strategic brand support for the established Virgin businesses. Prior to joining Virgin USA, she served as executive director of consumer branding at Interbrand, a leading global consultancy. She has 20 years of experience in strategic development and implementation across a wide range of innovative brands such as Orbitz, TD AMERITRADE, Vitamin Water and Subaru Tribeca.