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Social Media Practitioner Summit

May 20-21, 2025 | Atlanta, GA

Join an incredible series of practical, candid discussions with enterprise social media leaders to help you move faster and get it right the first time.

Agenda

Tuesday, May 20

9:45 AM

Registration, Networking, and Refreshments

10:30 AM

Welcome & Introduction

10:45 AM

Peer-Led Vendor* Clinic: Social Media Management Systems

*We are a vendor-free community, so these “vendor clinics” are a special opportunity to dig-in, ask tough questions, and get candid feedback — not a sales pitch.

Peer-led discussions where you can find workarounds and share successes (and frustrations) with the social media tool integral to your program’s success. If you aren’t a customer but are considering an investment in a particular vendor, you can get an honest assessment from other brands who use the tool. In this clinic, we’ll focus on SMMS like:

  • Sprinklr
  • Khoros
  • Sprout Social
  • Hootsuite

11:15 AM

Break

11:20 AM

Peer-Led Vendor* Clinic: Social Listening Tools

*We are a vendor-free community, so these “vendor clinics” are a special opportunity to dig-in, ask tough questions, and get candid feedback — not a sales pitch.

Peer-led discussions where you can find workarounds and share successes (and frustrations) with the social media tool integral to your program’s success. If you aren’t a customer but are considering an investment in a particular vendor, you can get an honest assessment from other brands who use the tool. In this clinic, we’ll focus on SMMS like:

  • Meltwater
  • Brandwatch
  • Sprout Social
  • Sprinklr
  • Khoros
  • Hootsuite
  • Talkwalker
  • Emplifi
  • Digimind

11:50 AM

Lunch Discussions

12:20 PM

Panel on Twenty Years of Social Media: A Look Back and a Look Ahead

Join us as we kick off our event with an informal panel discussion exploring where we’ve been and where we’re going as social media leaders.

We’ve seen this industry (and this work) shift wildly from blogging and organic engagement to pay-to-play environments and digital transformation. Throughout these two decades, what opportunities have emerged, and what still feels out of reach? What can we learn from our history in this space to better prepare us for the future as social media executives? 

1:00 PM

Break

1:10 PM

Case Study

How generative AI is shaping enterprise social media

AI might be the most over-used buzzword of the past year, but it’s also a potential source of savings for social media teams in terms of time, money, and resources spent. In this case study, see behind-the-scenes examples of how an enterprise brand can leverage generative AI for social media creation, management, and more. None of us want to feel left behind, so lean on the SocialMedia.org brain trust to understand how AI is already shaping the future of business and marketing on social media.

Case Study

Paid social media measurement: What’s working?

How does your brand approach measuring the effectiveness of paid social media when platforms are constantly changing? Whether you spend big dollars or manage a lean paid social media budget, you can’t afford to invest in ineffective campaigns. How do you determine which metrics and KPIs matter to your team and your leadership right now? Which tools have been helpful for capturing your paid social media performance? Hear directly from another Fortune 1000 brand on how they’re evaluating their paid social media strategy and performance.

Case Study

Team structure: Aligning with social media’s evolution

Do the goals and priorities placed upon your team align with where it sits organizationally? How are you delegating responsibilities among your team – are you organized by specialty or emphasizing generalists? As we navigate the current phase of social media’s evolution together, this case study is your chance to see behind-the-scenes how one enterprise social media team shifted its structure to keep up with the times.

1:40 PM

Break

1:55 PM

Case Study

Navigating crisis: Escalation best practices for social media

When crises arise, does your social media team know how to respond? Whether it’s an unprecedented global invasion or an internal emergency, having a usable, social-specific crisis response and pause playbook is critical to your company’s brand. This case study will uncover and address the ever-evolving challenge of identifying, assessing, and escalating brand safety issues. We’ll hear about setting escalation criteria and determining threat levels; alerting key internal contacts and managing follow up; adapting to new and evolving trends; and auditing and updating our escalation processes.

Case Study

Innovative strategies to maximize influencer ROI

With the rising costs of influencer and content creator marketing, how are you getting the most bang for your buck? As influencers – and their agencies – hike their fees and demands, this candid, off-the-record case study will focus on trends we’re seeing in the influencer and creator economy, strategies we’re using to get more value from our influencer campaigns, and methods for internal education about the rising costs of influencer collaborations.

Case Study

Social selling: What’s working? What’s not?

How are you setting up your sales team to successfully generate leads and boost sales on social media? Come hear a candid case study from a billion-dollar brand about what works best (and what’s fallen short) when utilizing your social program for revenue generation. We’ll hear about content and strategies that are helping close deals, platforms and tools that are working best for reps, and tactics to train sales teams and create buy-in. SocialMedia.org is the only place for you to strategize with other social selling and sales enablement leaders on helping our teams tackle the challenges of the coming year.

2:25 PM

Break

2:40 PM

Case Study

Evolving social listening programs for the future

What does a robust social listening function look like in 2025? How do we position this function as an essential part of digital intelligence, or digital research? In this session, we’ll hear how to take social listening to the next level – expanding across multiple channels, the tools we’re using to do so, where generative AI fits into our strategy, as well as how we’re sharing this digital intelligence with leadership to influence and inform business decisions.

Case Study

Employee advocacy: Scaling up for success

How do you incentivize and encourage employees to activate and engage in your employee advocacy program? We’ll get behind-the-scenes details on how to structure a program that can scale efficiently – from overcoming challenges with legal to increasing engagement during seasonal lulls and product launches, and even how to templatized your gamification strategy so it’s easier to reproduce.

Case Study

Video in 2025: How are you meeting the ever-changing demands?

What’s the role of video in brand storytelling? How can we pivot our social media teams to generate video content that is timely and on trend, but still on brand? In this confidential case study, you’ll hear about building an authentic video content strategy, getting the C-suite on board with emerging formats, measuring and optimizing video performance, best practices for vertical video, and ensuring accessibility.

3:10 PM

Networking Break

3:40 PM

Case Study

Tech stack adoption: Buy-in and governance best practices

Many of us spend months fighting for the buy-in and budget for various SMMS, listening, or security tools, but then are left with low user engagement or adoption rates post-onboarding. In this vendor-free case study, learn how to evaluate your tech stack to be sure you have the right tools in place, work with global and departmental stakeholders to gain widespread adoption of your tools, and ensure governance practices are upheld and understood across the enterprise.

Case Study

Scaling social care capabilities to keep up with demand

As the scope and expectations of our social care teams continue to grow, how can we scale our capabilities without additional headcount? This off-the-record case study will show examples of how to create efficiency and bandwidth for our teams to take on new responsibilities – including how to leverage AI for populating response libraries, considerations for expanding to new platforms, as well as best practices for reviews management and proactive monitoring and response.

Case Study

Social media maturity models: Proving our progress

What does a mature, social-first organization look like, and how can you identify tangible actions to get there? See how to utilize a social media maturity model to calibrate an ideal future state of your program and also gauge progress toward its objectives. We’ll learn how to develop your own model, how to gain buy-in from relevant stakeholders, and how to operationalize areas of improvement in order to reach goals.

4:10 PM

Break

4:25 PM

Case Study

Humanizing your BtoB brand

Does BtoB social media have to be business-as-usual and boring, or can it be interesting and engaging with some personality? Hear from a billion-dollar BtoB brand on how they’re integrating consumer methodologies into BtoB content strategies. This case study will give a behind-the-scenes look at how to cultivate a BtoB brand’s digital persona, how to upskill our teams to create content that resonates, and how to build a community that keeps coming back. From UGC to LinkedIn livestreams and leveraging SMEs, this session will explore new (and better!) ways to interact with our BtoB customers on social media.

Case Study

Maximizing the impact of your social media COE

Is your Center of Excellence (COE) fulfilling its purpose? How could it be improved to better serve the needs of your brand? This case study will confidentially review the evolution of a billion-dollar brand’s global COE structure – getting into the pros and cons of working within this model. Beyond structure, a critical component of success is how well you’re able to communicate the value of the COE to your leadership and demonstrate its ongoing benefits. You won’t want to miss this opportunity to get actionable insights into optimizing the operations of your social media COE from those who get it.

Case Study

Effective thought leadership strategies for your executives on social media

Do you have hopes for thought leadership as part of your executives’ social media presence that haven’t been realized? This case study will reveal how to work towards creating a culture of high-quality thought leadership on social media that increases brand recognition, reputation, and trust. We’ll cover everything from strategic ideation to content creation, publishing, response strategy and attributing value to the business and executives. You can expect candid takeaways about how to take actionable steps to enhance this integral part of your social media strategy.

4:55 PM

Adjourn

5:00 PM

Drinks Reception + Member Dinner

Following our day of conversations and case studies, we’ll all go out for a fantastic dinner together. It’s a perfect opportunity to connect with your fellow members before another big day of brainstorming, discussion, and collaboration.

Wednesday, May 21

8:00 AM

Themed Breakfast Discussions

The conversations over coffee and eggs at this event are often more lively than any other conference’s happy hour. You’ll want to be here bright and early (and on time).

The tables will be divided into functional areas so leaders can pick where they want to sit and connect with others who are interested in the same function:

  • Digital / Paid Social
  • Social Care / Community Management
  • Brand Reputation / Comms
  • Employee Advocacy
  • Executive Social
  • Governance
  • Influencers
  • Social Listening

8:50 AM

Opening Remarks

9:00 AM

Panel: Career paths in social media – where do we go from here?

Social media has changed rapidly, and so have the career paths, specializations, and opportunities within this field. We’ll talk about viable paths for specialization, related roles outside of social media, and how to navigate “aging” in this field.

9:30 AM

Break

9:45 AM

Workshop

Proving the value of social media strategy to leadership

How are you utilizing data and insights to show the impact of social media across your organization? Which metrics and data sets successfully tell your team’s story? Join us for an open discussion on how we position our social media insights to ensure continued investment. We’ll talk through what our leadership dashboards look like, how we present them to execs, as well as where we’re gaining buy-in and where we could do better. Come away with new tactics and approaches to proving the value of your program to leadership.

Workshop

TikTok: What’s working, what’s not, and what’s next?

What does the future hold for TikTok and how can social media leaders make the most of their brand’s presence on the platform? Join this off-the-record, members-only discussion of all things TikTok. We’ll cover the strategies that are working well, what we’re learning from those that have not, and whether we’re adjusting course amid an uncertain future for the platform.

Workshop

Holistic marketing campaigns: Building internal alignment

Alignment between broader marketing, communications, digital, content, and social media teams continues to be tested, especially when working on larger ad or brand campaigns. Join us in this conversation about how social media leaders can secure a seat at the table and work smoothly with larger teams to create a holistic, company-wide brand campaign. Together we can discuss best practices that help streamline internal processes and how to navigate competing priorities when you’re working across teams.

Workshop

LinkedIn: Strategies to thrive in 2025

How are you keeping up with LinkedIn’s ever-changing features, sunset functionalities, and constant shifts in the algorithm? Join this vendor-free, confidential conversation with your peers at billion-dollar brands as we discuss strategies from employee advocacy to social selling and everything in between.

Workshop

Paid social media: In-house vs agency

How are you facing the question of whether to manage paid social media efforts internally versus outsourcing them to external partners and agencies? Join this confidential discussion with other senior social media leaders to delve into the pros and cons of each approach and to discuss how to optimize your paid social advertising budget. We’ll discuss how you’re working to wrangle paid social sprawl, strategies to centralize the function, and the resources and headcount required to transition paid social operations in-house.

Workshop

Effectively managing employee advocacy as a lean team

Can you launch and run a robust employee advocacy program as a lean team? In this confidential, members-only environment, we’ll share tips and tricks for how we’re saving time and resources as small teams. We’ll gather insights on how to engage and train internal stakeholders to get them onboard with a new tool, and best practices for showcasing the value of the program internally.

10:15 AM

Break

10:30 AM

Workshop

Social media reporting: Building a data-driven culture

How can we build social media teams that are data-first, particularly when we have limited bandwidth? Join this confidential, members-only workshop as we discuss both current and ideal reporting structure and workflows, as well as success we’ve seen with presenting report findings to leadership. We’ll benchmark with our peers at big brands on the successes and pain points of building a “data-driven” culture.

Workshop

Operationalizing social care insights across the enterprise

Are you fully leveraging the invaluable customer and product insights your social care and community management teams can glean? Join this workshop with your peers leading social customer care and community management at other really big enterprises. We’ll discuss our processes and workflows for identifying actionable insights for business partners, how we’re using these insights within our marketing and communications functions, and examples of where business units were able to leverage social media customer insights.

Workshop

Utilizing influencers and creators for BtoB brand awareness

What role can influencers and creators play in a BtoB social media strategy? Join this workshop to hear and share real-world examples of how we leverage influencer marketing in event activations, brand partnerships, and day-to-day content strategy to increase brand awareness around BtoB products. We’ll share best practices for leveraging influencers for a BtoB audience, including opportunities for big wins and lessons learned along the way.

Workshop

Emerging technologies in social media: What’s the next disruptor?

With technology and social media in a state of perpetual evolution, how can you capitalize on the Next Big Thing? What evaluation criteria can you use to determine if a new platform or functionality is the right fit for your brand? Join this collaborative session to discuss which technologies are poised to revolutionize social media. Together we’ll discuss strategies for innovating in an increasingly competitive space including the merits and foibles of everything from artificial intelligence to augmented reality.

Workshop

Building and enforcing a holistic global social media strategy

As a global brand, balancing regional content needs with unified standards is essential, but how do you prevent stakeholders from going rogue? Join other senior social media leaders from global brands for a confidential workshop on defining and maintaining social media governance globally, partnering with regional teams to align on a holistic global content strategy, and enforcing governance policies across regions, while allowing for cultural nuance.

Workshop

Scaling executive social media beyond the C-suite

The value of a robust executive social media program is undeniable – but how do you scale it beyond the C-suite with limited resources and staffing? Join this workshop about strategies to create a self-service model for your executives’ social media presence that is sustainable for your social media teams. We’ll talk about staffing and resource allocation, and how we align executives to content pillars.

11:00 AM

Break

11:15 AM

Workshop

How social media audits can optimize your strategy

Join this confidential workshop to share insights and discover other how billion-dollar brands are conducting successful social media ecosystem and channel audits. We’ll compare our approaches to reviews and processes for gathering data, assessing performance, and the strategic decisions that came about from the audits. You’ll walk away with a stronger sense of how to use audits and reviews to create a data-driven, optimized strategy that maximizes your team’s time and budget.

Workshop

Safeguarding brand reputation and minimizing risk

Join this candid, confidential workshop to share risk management and crisis communication strategies. We’ll walk through how we’ve turned potential brand threats into opportunities for strengthening brand loyalty and compare our processes for strategic risk management on social media. Be ready to talk through effective crisis communication plans that preserve brand integrity and trust.

Workshop

Building lasting partnerships with influencers and brand ambassadors

How can we go beyond one-off campaigns to create long-term partnerships with influencers and brand ambassadors? Come together with other senior social media leaders to discuss how we’re working towards building enduring partnerships that strengthen brand awareness and foster loyal communities. We’ll workshop how we can differentiate between influencer and brand ambassador programs and how we’re assessing the impact and ROI of these collaborations.

Workshop

Social listening vendors: Which are worth it? Which aren’t?

When it comes to social listening, can our all-in-one social media management tools (like Sprinklr or Sprout) get the job done? Or do specialty tools (like Brandwatch or Meltwater) still win out? Join your fellow social media leaders for this vendor-free, confidential conversation about what’s working — and what’s not — regarding our social listening tool stack.

Workshop

Practical use cases for AI in social media programs

How and where does AI fit into your program? How could it fit in? Join other social media leaders at billion-dollar brands for this candid workshop. We’ll share and hear tangible insight into use cases for AI that go beyond content development, processes for internal adoption across programs and teams, and challenges or questions you still have about this developing technology. This won’t just be another buzzword-ridden lecture about the future state of this tool.

Workshop

Trendspotting: Sourcing and activating on trends before they go viral

By the time a trend goes viral on social media — whether it’s a meme, audio clip, or short-form video — it’s probably too late to be joining the bandwagon. Identifying trends your brand can participate in before they reach their peak is your best bet for engaging your audience and demonstrating your brand’s relevance. But how do you find trends that haven’t gone viral (yet)? Join this workshop to dive into tips and tricks around social listening for trends, best practices for working with legal teams, and which teams should be involved in execution to move as quickly as possible.

11:45 AM

Themed Lunch Discussions

During lunch, the tables will be divided into industries so leaders can pick where they want to sit and connect with others who are leading social media in the same space:

  • FinServ / Insurance
  • Pharma / Healthcare
  • Retail / CPG
  • Tech / SaaS
  • Transportation / Manufacturing
  • Travel / Hospitality
  • Utility / Energy

12:45 PM

Break

12:55 PM

Peer Advisory Roundtables

EXAMPLE TOPICS

  • Budget constraints: Stretching your social media dollars
  • Which AI tools are helping improve team efficiency
  • Global social: Optimizing regional collaboration and strategies
  • Agency support and oversight models for improving performance

1:30 PM

Peer Advisory Roundtables

EXAMPLE TOPICS

  • Maintaining a DEI-informed social media strategy
  • X: What role does it play in your social media strategy now?
  • Refining your talent marketing strategy on social media
  • TikTok: Strategies for leveling up

2:00 PM

Break

2:15 PM

Peer Advisory Roundtables

EXAMPLE TOPICS

  • Optimizing BtoB lead gen tactics on social media
  • Enhancing employee social media guidelines and policies
  • Leveraging the value of executive’s social media presence
  • Organic social media: Finding ways to innovate

2:45 PM

Break

2:55 PM

Panel: X, Threads, Bluesky – Hot takes on disruptor platforms

Join us as we wrap up our event with an informal panel discussion exploring how the latest shifts in platform popularity, ownership, and ad opportunities could affect your brand. How do we know when to capitalize on a trending platform vs when to avoid the melee as a brand safety measure? Alongside fellow social media leaders from top brands, hear how your peers are strategically ignoring or keeping a keen eye on the most recent disruptor platforms.

3:30 PM

Adjourn

Please note: This agenda is subject to change based on speaker availability and scheduling.