Jump-start your conference experience by attending these interactive and practical workshops. These information-packed sessions are a great opportunity to network with fellow attendees while taking a hands-on, common-sense approach to mastering social media strategies that will enhance your understanding of the informative, case study presentations throughout the entire conference.

Choose A or B or BOTH for Maximum Value and Learning

Social Media 101: How To Successfully Leverage New Media Tools In Your Organization And Achieve Organizational Buy-In

In this in-depth workshop, you will learn about emerging new communication strategies using social media and explore ways to use them to better connect with your stakeholders. You will gain a tactical overview of the latest tools, hear specific government case studies, and explore and discuss ways these methods can be implemented within your agency.

• Utilize Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media services
• Use blogs and wikis to better communicate and share information
• Empower existing supporters to spread your message within their own networks

A significant portion of the workshop will also focus on how to achieve internal buy-in from superiors and colleagues for implementation of these ideas. We will also spend time discussing how to quantify success in achieving these initiatives.

At the end of this workshop, you will leave with many new ideas, tools and techniques to implement social media into your organization.

WORKSHOP LEADERS:

Mike Panetta, Vice President for Public Affairs and Emerging Media at Grassroots Enterprise, manages a number of the firm's non-profit, trade association, and political clients and leads efforts to embrace new technology for political and advocacy purposes. He is also an elected official in the District of Columbia, serving as the U.S. "Shadow" Representative; in this role he is a leading voice to grant the District voting representation in Congress.

Kevin McCann, Executive Vice President of Client Services at Grassroots Enterprise has built and launched online campaigns for Fortune 100 corporations, political campaigns, national non-profit groups and the Canadian and U.S. governments.

Testimonials From Past Grassroots Enterprise Sessions:

"Many valuable ideas resulted for me to take back to the office."

"Great overview. Lots of good examples to look up."

"Good overall information on the challenges and ways to connect to a specific audience."

12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Lunch On Your Own

1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
AFTERNOON PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP B

How To Design And Implement An Effective Social Media Strategy That Maximizes Reach And Message Impact

Many organizations recognize that social media is a new, trendy form of communicating with their target audiences. They jump on every social media tool from Facebook to Second Life with high speed implementation, but then become disappointed when their social media efforts are not successful with their target audience.

Why doesn't social media resonate with these organizations' audiences? Because, without researching, analyzing and building a strategy prior to launching social media tools, the organizations run the risk of creating social media tools that are not accepted or used. Social media is about networks of individuals, not organizations. This requires consistent, regular, timely, and thoughtful usage of social media tools; therefore, a strategic social media strategy is vital to an organization's success.

• The importance of identifying your target audience and their needs
• Tools and methods to identify, categorize and understand your audience
• Ways to align social media tools with your organizational goals
• Elements that are key for a comprehensive, successful social media strategy

WORKSHOP LEADERS:

Lisa Stafford is a Senior Associate at Kearns & West Inc. She is an experienced government agency communication and outreach program manager. Her expertise has been built in creating specialized live and web-based training programs, working with new media technology, cultivating relationships with bloggers, developing strategic communication plans, and crafting target messages. Ms. Stafford has been engaged in social media since the late 1990s. With her early use of social networking sites, she has seen the transformation of social media tools and their evolving usage.

Anne Gunning, APR, is a Principal at Kearns & West Inc. where she has worked as a strategic communications consultant and facilitator for more than 20 years. Ms. Gunning has facilitated several virtual focus groups with both domestic and international audiences. She used emerging online tools to facilitate these discussions. Ms. Gunning has built several social networks with the assistance of the social media tool LinkedIn and actively researches new technologies, such as virtual town hall meetings.