By: Chidalu Motanya
The weekend of March 30-March31, American University’s Social Media Club held their second annual Social Learning Summit 2012.
The two day conference took place in the School of International Service and officially started on Friday with keynote speaker, Alex Priest. Priest was the founder of the Social Media Club, and creator of Social Learning Summit 2011; he now works for Uber DC. Priest gave a great presentation, naming it “How did we get here?” which talked about the process of social media from then and now. After Priest ended his presentation, the floor was open to fascinating questions, some which were displayed on the amazing tweet wall.
Day 2 of the conference began on an early Saturday morning; however, there were delectable Dunkin Donuts, Vitamin Water, Honest Tea, and other goodies waiting for the attendees when they arrived. The atmosphere was very casual, and the networking was just getting started. At 10:00 am, Social Media and 2012 commenced. A panel of speakers, ranging from the workplaces of Google to Ogilvy & Mather, discussed the best and worst times of social media in the past years and what the future has in store. And of course, the tweet wall was there with live action.
After the panel, the crowd departed and headed to different breakout sessions. Tweeting & Eating caught the eye of many people with a panel of great speakers. From Bitches Who Brunch to DC Dunkin, the panelist made you hungry for more information (and food, DC Dunkin gave the audience munchkin donuts, yum!). They gave great advice on the best places to eat in the DMV and how their careers began; the tweet wall did not miss a beat with the tweets.
Next on the list of breakout sessions was Online & in the Audience: Social Entertainment. This specific panel talked about how social media has an immense influence on the television shows viewers watch today. Twitter in particular becomes severely popular when a show such as Pretty Little Liars or Glee airs on TV. One of the questions asked after the discussion was “Do you think social media has the power to cancel a TV show?” The answer in short form was no, but you never what could happen in the future, as someone posted on the tweet wall.
Last, but certainly not least, was the very entertaining panel of Digital Runway with sophomore Christyanna Nguyen as the moderator. Everyone was exceptionally well dressed while conversing about what the fashion world is like today and how they were able to make it their profession. One of the famous quotes from the panelist was “DC does thrifting better than New York”, which received many retweets on the tweet wall. The panelists also chatted about how they use social media in their lives to promote their fashion statements.
Closing out the entire conference was the keynote speaker Peter Corbett from iStrategyLabs. Corbett talked about a mixture of upcoming projects and how social media has plenty of power to take over space through the use of data. Assuredly, the Social Media Club provided the attendees with plenty of information to keep in mind, tasty (free) snacks such as Pop Chips, and tables set up from places like Shop Jeen and David All Group. Social Learning Summit 2012 was a superb conference; if you are interested in social media of any kind, stay tuned for Social Learning Summit 2013.