#SMW4x4 Aboard the HMS President – Our Best Event Yet!

It’s hard to believe it’s been a week now since #SMW4x4, the panel event we organised to coincide with Social Media Week, LDN, 2012.

Thankfully, the fantastic feedback we have received tells us the event was a big success – with a good balance of information and fun – so we can breathe easy and personally – I couldn’t be happier!

We saw over 200 people brave the cold, prepare their sea-legs and make their way through the doors of HMS President, to be greeted by our over-zealous doorman and (a slightly less aggressive) little old me. After a glass or two of bubbly, kindly sponsored by brand new Digital Agency BDMdigital, guests took their seats (where possible – we’re sorry we were a few short due to such a great turn out) to listen to the four humorous and info-packed case studies from our expert panel of Speakers.

Mel Kirk (Head of Blogger Engagement at Jam) was up first, with an interesting and truly funny look at how Jam worked to promote Samsung to the top tech bloggers – with a great “extreme unboxing” video that had the audience laughing and feeling sightly queasy in equal measures. Along with some great stats (75% of people will believe what they see on a Social Network, don’t you know…) and impressive insights relating to the campaign, Mel also re-iterated the importance of building real relationships with Bloggers before discussing ideas with them. As an ace Vlogger herself, Mel and the Jam team clearly see that creativity and a personal touch are all important when approaching Bloggers who are essentially bombarded by brands every day.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOAtFMgA8W4[/youtube]

Next, Alex Myers (MD, Manifest Communications), complete with fractured shoulder (what a Warrior) gave us his views on how Manifest have used Social Media in their innovative and fun work with BrewDog. Alex demonstrated how Manifest get creative by listening to conversations that are already happening on Social Platforms, and use that data to give new and existing customers something new and brilliant. A great example of this was based around the Royal Wedding, where the Manifest team noticed that many Beer Lovers were unimpressed by the way brands were launching cheesy special editions in the run up to the big event. Brewdog therefore thought out of the box and helped Brewdog to come up with the controversial Royal Virility Performance Beer, laced with Viagra and obviously commemorating the Wedding Night. Top stuff, and despite running (a teeeeeny bit) over time, a talk that clearly inspired many.

Molly Flatt (Social Business Director, 1000heads) then showed us how the ‘heads had worked with Nokia and enabled them to reach a completely new audience of female, style conscious fashion bloggers, rather than the standard techie crowd who usually discuss their products (Sorry to any Nokia Geeks who many be reading…!) Creating a partnership with Elle Magazine, they approached up-and-coming Bloggers (rather than the well established, hard to reach “famous” ones) and set them a fashion Journalism challenge, using Nokia to help them along their way. The prize? The chance to report for Elle from New York Fashion Week. Pretty. Damn. Cool.

#SMW4x4 reached over 112,000 people and over 1 MILLION impressions on Twitter. Amazing.

Finally, and with something a little different, Christian Gladwell (CEO at Human Digital) explained the way his company worked completely differently to most, focusing on some impressive stats and introducing their latest innovation – a Social Media ad-tracker. This created some great buzz amongst the audience and raised some questions – a great way to end the individual presentations.

Our chair for the evening, James Whatley (Senior Associate Director at OgilvySocial) then opened for the floor for an insightful and amusing Q&A session, before our thirsty audience (and panel!) retreated to the bar to enjoy 1000heads generosity at the bar. It was great to see so many conversations starting, new contacts made, and hear the feedback from the audience, which was overwhelmingly positive. It seems that the crowd appreciated the opportunity to hear first-hand some of the more creative ways to use Social Platforms and the data we get from these networks – so a huge thank you to our Speakers for sharing their content with us all.

Throughout the evening, we had the gorgeous photographer Lisa Brown from Lisa-Jane Photography working her way through the crowd to capture the evening for us. Her beautiful photo’s can be seen below.


 

If you came along on the 13th Feb and would like give us some feedback, suggestions or get further information, or if you couldn’t make it and would like to find out more from us or the team involved, please do feel free to add your comments below.

Also – if you thought our Event or Speakers were amongst the best of the week, please do vote for them over at the ChinWag SMW Awards – we would all appreciate it! Simply follow the link and fill out the form here.

You can read more about the event from independent sources here;

 
Last but not least – a huge thank you to everyone involved with our Goodie-Bags, including Seven Dials, Mongoose Beer, Dr Bronner, Innocent Smoothies and Nourish . (Remember you can get 40% off at Nourish using the code in your bag before the end of February!) Also of course to our drinks sponsors – 1000heads and BDMdigital – and event partners – CloudNine Social Media and Digital Talent, and Crisis – who we will be donating any profits to (please feel free to donate here if you haven’t already).
It was a great night, and we’re still grinning.
Next event will be in 3 months – keep your eyes peeled!

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