Jump-start your seminar 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 seminar.

Choose A or B or BOTH for Maximum Value and Learning

Social Media 101: From Curiosity To Comprehension Learn How To Make Your Organization Social Media Friendly

This interactive session will introduce you to social media best practices and tools. We will discuss what they are, how they are being used and the benefits (and risks) of using them in your organization.You will be provided with a basic understanding of social media terms, tools, and platforms with a focus on how they can be used for enhancing collaboration across your organizations or in public participatory or collaborative processes.

• Key social media tools and platforms and how they are used
• Selecting the right social media tool for your needs
• Exploring how to evaluate and document the success and results of your social media efforts - managing your return on investment
• Benefits (and risks) of social media in the public sector environment
• Leveraging social media in public consultation, participatory and/or collaborative processes

WORKSHOP LEADER: Jae Cooper is a communications consultant and is the founding partner of Elevate Consulting. Jae has developed and implemented communication strategies and plans, collaborative and participatory governance and operational models, stakeholder engagement strategies, and numerous public consultation processes on issues such as healthcare, environmental legislation, and municipal bylaws to name a few. He has worked with organizations at all three levels of government in Canada including Ministries, Municipalities, Agencies and Boards in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.

11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Afternoon break/lunch on your own.

1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
PRE-SEMINAR AFTERNOON WORKSHOP B

Understanding Your Communities And Engaging In Compelling And Meaningful Social Media Conversations To Reach Your Organization's Goals And Drive Results

We all hear about “Community” and “Conversations” as key drivers of social media. But, how do you define “Community” and how can you best converse and engage with them?

In this workshop, you will learn a strategic framework that will help you define, and more importantly, understand the fundamental drivers of all communities: employees, constituents, partners, other stakeholders. Once applied, you will be able to leverage this framework to further engage in meaningful and compelling conversations that meet the needs of your community, as well as match your overall organizational goals.

Specifically, this workshop will provide you with a concrete way to segment communities and address the fundamental needs and conversations required to reach that community, including:

• Learning the fundamental building blocks of communities
• Breaking down the key motivations and needs of your target audience(s)
• Identifying the key drivers for conversations and “virality”
• Understanding how to use social media for competitive intelligence

WORKSHOP LEADER: Dave Olson is the Community Director of HootSuite Media, Inc. HootSuite has been utilized to power campaigns from The White House, Martha Stewart Media and Zappos. Dave was also the Communications Wrangler of True North Media House, a media collaboration campaign to encourage social coverage of the winter sports and cultural events during 2010 in Vancouver. Dave is an experienced writer, podcaster, traveler and marketer adept at taking business and/or artistic projects from concept to completion. @daveohoots

These workshops are designed to take your seminar experience to the next level. Post-seminar workshops allow you to take the information you gained from the general sessions, and identify and focus on your individual needs and applications. Make the most out of this seminar by attending these highly interactive, hands-on sessions. Space is limited to ensure interactivity!

Choose C or D or BOTH for Maximum Value and Learning

How To Successfully Blend Your Traditional Media
And New Media Strategies

Traditional marketing efforts, with clear purpose, defined goals, and steady implementation, can be highly effective and even timesaving if executed in concert with social media channels and content that can be consumed, interacted with and shared.  Critical to this success is planning with Paid, Owned and Earned Media in mind, linked to a measurement framework and strategy for optimization that allows for great citizen engagement.

Most organizations still operate in silos regarding these capabilities and need to start transforming capabilities to take advantage of delivering brand messaging across multiple platforms using traditional and new media.

• The difference and similarities between traditional and new media
• How to structure movements not campaigns and drive higher citizen engagement
• The Paid, Earned and Owned Media ecosystem and considerations when planning movements and campaigns
• The key capabilities you should be planning into your organization
• A framework for measurement and optimization of citizen engagement across Paid, Owned and Earned Media

WORKSHOP LEADERS: Nikolas Badminton, Director of Digital Strategy at TribalDDB has 15 years of traditional and digital marketing experience. Badminton has delivered award-winning digital programs across a range of categories. He has worked on traditional marketing with Dell, British Airways, Barclays Bank, Vodafone, T-Mobile and O2 and on traditional/digital engagement with The Canadian Tourism Commission, Microsoft, AT&T, and Electronic Arts in recent years.
 
Dan De Sosa, Supervisor of Analytics and Insight at TribalDDB is responsible for establishing digital analytic standards for converting social and digital driven insights to tactical and actionable citizen inspired recommendations for strategic engagements. Dan has experience with implementing digital analytic solutions across multi-channel campaigns. lutions across multi-channel campaigns for brands such as Starbucks, Microsoft and Nike.

11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Afternoon break/lunch on your own

How To Incorporate Social Media Into Your Crisis Communications: Prepare, Promote, Respond And Improve

The rise of social media means that everything happens at lightning-speed. Success and reputation management in this mobile age means that your organization needs to be nimble with social media. Dialogue is just as important as message delivery.

When responding to an emerging crisis, you need to react fast, with a streamlined approach; communicating solely through news releases doesn't work. It’s important to remember that your critics have access to the same tools.

• How to prepare: have a streamlined approach and a team in place
• Merging social media tactics with traditional communication approaches
• Determining which social media outposts and management tools to use
• Creating content that's mobile and web-friendly
• Building an engaged and active community following

WORKSHOP LEADER: Christine Wood is the Director of Innovation & Integration at Kendall Wood. She is passionate about strategic communications, collaboration and innovation. She is a seasoned communications specialist with more than 12 years experience in the private sector and eight years in the public sector.

As the director for Social Media and Online Communications for the provincial government, Christine Wood led the development of strategic engagement using new media. She was responsible for the online presence of the BC Government (over 70 websites and apps) and took the lead in transforming the way government communicates with the public using web 2.0.