Hundreds of multi-platform handles converged in #yyj this week to ping, post, tweet and embed in the latest social media clouds and memes.
Don’t get it?
There’s an app for that.
The fourth annual Social Media Camp conference drew more than 600 participants from across North America to Victoria this week.
“Last year, we were the largest social media conference in Canada,” said co-founder Paul Holmes, at the Victoria Conference Centre. “It’s too early to say if we’ll be the biggest this year but we were beating the Canucks on Twitter trending [Wednesday] night.”
“Anybody can beat the Canucks,” quipped a passerby.
Social Media Camp is a general interest conference that targets everyone from online newbies to internationally renowned experts.
Topics at this year’s event ranged from mobile photography and cyberbullying to emergency management and using the latest online platforms. The majority had a marketing and business outreach bent.
First-time Social Media Camp attendee and Parksville resident Colleen Jordan came with colleagues from the Regional District of Nanaimo parks department.
“My experience with social media has mostly been personal,” she said. “I found the nuts and bolts of how to use things like Facebook – how to write a great post and status – the most helpful.”
Jordan said she gleaned several ideas for online outreach about health and events for her job, which has mainly relied on traditional media such as print and radio.
Keynote speakers at the conference included Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith, named one of Forbes’ top 20 women who influenced social media this year, and marketing veteran Sam Fiorella, who launched a new book at the Munro’s Books table at the conference.
Participants live-tweeted presentations, introduced themselves with online pseudonyms, held international Google+ hangouts over laptops and iPads and drifted in and out of formal presentations.
In the social showcase session, multimillion dollar companies presented alongside homegrown startups.
Morgan Remmers, manager of local business outreach for Yelp, shared plans to help local businesses improve their profiles. The U.S.-based online business directory and review site says it gets 102 million unique visitors each month.
