Social Media World Forum 2010

Made Essential Reading on 25 March 2010 Felix Hemsley

It’s been hard to avoid the ever increasing adoption and usage of social media and with it, the number of dedicated events is on the rise. I was lucky enough to represent Essential Communications at this year’s Social Media World Forum at Olympia on the 15th. It was a really great event as I had expected it would be; a gathering of so many like minded people is always set to be a good event, especially one based around social media where the emphasis is on sharing.

This year’s event had a very strong focus on the ever awkward subject of analytics and ROI within social media – a topic which everyone has an opinion on and no two have I ever found to be the same. Other core aspects covered the mobilisation of social applications, and the increasing array of geo location based functions available through the majority of smartphones these days. As per usual most left the event with many questions answered but even more created, which is always half the fun, how else would the industry grow and evolve if we ran out of questions?

The highlight of the event was a real showcase for what social media can achieve. Barry, a social media enthusiast like myself, whom I know only from Twitter was at the event so we felt it was time to turn this virtual contact into a real world meeting. No sooner had we greeted one another and had lunch together, than we were collaborating under the spot light in front of 150+ people. Barry had been let down at the last minute by one of his 2 key speakers and as such needed to fill the time gap in his slot on stage. Thanks to his connection with myself and another friend Beth, he found the support he needed for the remainder of his spot and we actually ended up over running on time heading up a panel Q&A around personal branding in social media. The opportunity was really fantastic, I got to meet some great people who I’m now in contact with on a regular basis, and have some more meetings in London planned in the coming weeks.

Let me know if you’re going to be at any events soon, or if you just fancy meeting for a coffee as all of us here always love to chat and firmly believe nothing beats a good old face to face meeting.