September 11-12, 2024ㅤ•ㅤChicago, IL
Board Meeting Agenda
To see what types of sessions you can expect at this meeting, download last meeting’s agenda here.
Wednesday, September 11
10:00 AM
Pre-Conference Networking, Coffee, & Breakfast
Join us for a welcome event with coffee and continental breakfast to make your first connections and socialize ahead of our official meeting start.
This bonus experience will be hosted by Sprout Social, a social media management platform that unlocks the full potential of social to transform your marketing and business strategies. In addition to all the members you’ll meet, Sprout Social will have a couple folks there to answer any questions you may have about their offerings, too.
11:30 AM
General Registration
12:00 PM
Lunch Discussions
Grab a seat at the table! This sit-down lunch is the perfect opportunity to meet all of the great social media leaders you’ll get to know at the Board Meeting.
12:30 PM
Welcome & Introduction
12:50 PM
Choose your Show & Tell Talk and Head to the Room
1:00 PM
Show & Tell: Solving for the ROI of paid social media
How close have you gotten to cracking the code of attribution? Join Cisco’s Hannah Swords, Global Paid Social Lead, to see firsthand the progress they’ve made towards solving for paid social media ROI by tracking leads throughout the funnel. She’ll share a behind-the-scenes look at how they’ve been able to optimize paid campaigns, taking optimization from in-platform to further down funnel and even building out a broader digital/social ecosystem dashboard via Tableau. While questions remain on this elusive goal, you’ll gain insights into how Cisco continues to close the gap on quantifying paid social impact. |
Show & Tell: Livestreaming for BtoB brands: Engage your audience, humanize your brand
Connecting with your audience in fresh and exciting ways is an ongoing challenge for many BtoB brands. How do you balance educating prospects while simultaneously humanizing your brand? Join Dynatrace’s Social Media Director, John Rocker, as he takes you behind the scenes to share his team’s success from turning traditional webinars on their head through livestreaming, and how your brand can, too. |
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1:30 PM
Break
1:45 PM
Show & Tell: Influencer programs’ evolution: The constant demand for more
In increasingly complex and evolving digital spaces, how do you take an influencer program to the next level? When struggling to cut through the noise and create original, engaging content, what strategies drive consistently strong organic and paid performance? Join Amy Ortega, Senior Director of Social Media at the University of Phoenix, as she empowers us with her story of taking an influencer program from zero to hero in three years, including launching a proactive short-form video strategy, testing creative assets, and adding headcount. She’ll also discuss their plans for staying nimble amidst perpetual industry change. |
Show & Tell: Social care 2.0: Up-leveling care teams with a personalized approach
Mike Disser and Ashton Rosati, Nissan How can you optimize your social media care efforts to provide a more personal approach that builds brand loyalty while ensuring customers get the answers they need? Join Nissan’s Mike Disser, Manager of Social Media Customer Experience, and Ashton Rosati, Team Lead of Social Media Customer Experience, as they share strategies they’ve used to up-level their social care team, including implementing a “writer’s room” approach to refine care responses and creating a surprise and delight program to enhance customer experiences. |
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2:15 PM
Break
2:30 PM
Show & Tell: Social media’s impact: Measuring your brand’s cultural relevance
When leadership asks for data to support your gut instincts, how do you translate the seemingly intangible into meaningful KPIs? Join Megan Stinn, Social Strategy and Activation Lead for The J.M. Smucker Company’s pet brands, as she discusses scoring impact for program initiatives like UGC, Surprise and Delight, and off-feed commenting, to quantify their cultural relevance with target audiences. She’ll review their scoring methodology, early wins, ongoing challenges, and plans for scaling this measurement standard across the 30+ brands in their portfolio. |
Show & Tell: Social media crisis response: Building critical playbooks
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. Join Julia Meder, Enterprise Communications Strategist at Edward Jones, as she shares the key components for creating your own social media crisis playbooks and pause protocols, how to proactively build reputation management into your social media program, and escalation best practices for organizations of all sizes. |
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3:00 PM
Snack Break
3:30 PM
Show & Tell: Building a robust executive thought leadership program that demonstrates value
What does it take to build a robust executive social media program, and how do you demonstrate its ROI? Ali Clauson, T-Mobile’s Senior Lead of Executive Social Media, shares how you can structure, support, measure, and report on the value for your leaders. Using examples from T-Mobile’s award-winning program, she’ll discuss how to build a plan to manage your top executives’ social media presence – from strategic ideation, to content creation, publishing, response strategy and attributing value to the business and executives. |
Show & Tell: 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. Join Megan McDonald, Senior Manager of Global Social Media Operations at Boston Scientific, as she shares how to work with global and departmental stakeholders to gain widespread adoption of your tools, evaluate your tech stack to be sure you have the right tools in place, and ensure governance practices are upheld and understood across the enterprise. |
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4:00 PM
Break
4:15 PM
Show & Tell: The secret sauce of virality: How to give your content the best chance to go viral
As social media managers, we all dream of creating viral moments for our brands but making that dream a reality is often easier said than done. Join Roland Cailles, Director of Social Marketing for MGM Resorts International, to learn the secret sauce of virality and how your brand can take advantage of trends, cultural moments and partnership opportunities to get millions of views on your content. |
Show & Tell: Building a comprehensive social listening program to safeguard brand reputation
Your brand’s reputation can change in an instant. How do you stay ahead of the curve and keep situations from spiraling out of control? Learn how the social media intelligence team at United Airlines identifies, minimizes, and mediates internal and industry-wide crises. Carly Pietrzak, Senior Manager, Social Media Intelligence, will share how she works hand-in-hand with departments across the organization to defuse or de-escalate potentially brand damaging issues and incidents. |
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4:45 PM
Adjourn
5:00 PM
Member Dinner
Following our afternoon of conversations and Show & Tell Talks, we’ll all go out for a fantastic dinner together. It’s a perfect opportunity to connect with your fellow members before a big day of brainstorming, discussion, and collaboration.
Thursday, September 12
8:00 AM
Breakfast Discussions by Functional Area
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, and social listening.
8:50 AM
Choose your Member-Led Discussion and Head to the Room
9:00 AM
Agency relationships: When to stop, start, or continue support?
If your agency partnership needs an overhaul, what steps can you take to close the gap? Join Nicole Emerick, Director of Allstate’s Social Media Center of Excellence, for a discussion on evaluating agency support that meets your brand goals without exhausting your bandwidth. From boundary setting to breaking up and finding a new partner, think of this conversation as a therapy session for improving agency relationships. |
Improving brand reputation through strategic community engagement
How do you marry proactive community engagement with reactive social media customer care to improve brand reputation? Join Victoria Wilson, AMD’s Manager, Social Media Center of Excellence and Governance, in a discussion about strategies to turn online negativity into brand positive, fan-making moments. We’ll discuss how we’re balancing social listening and routing automation, ensuring key moments get a human touch, and which platforms are the best place to engage with our customer and fan communities. |
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Overcoming leadership objections to social media’s value proposition
How can you use feedback from social media to drive strategic decision-making across your organization? When it comes to presenting social media’s impact on business results, which metrics matter most to your C-Suite, and why? Join Amanda Jaeger, Senior Manager of Global Communications at Walmart, for a discussion on sharing your social media wins with leadership. We’ll explore how to present social media as a partnership tool that leaders want to use for better brand visibility, decision-making, and risk mitigation. |
Amplifying event sponsorships with a social-first engagement strategy
When your brand partners with a large event, what are the best strategies for increasing awareness and exciting your audience? After your event wraps, how do you measure the impact and success of your brand’s involvement? Join Zurich North America for a conversation on getting social media to the forefront of sponsorship activations. Jennifer Schneider, Vice President and Head of External Communications and Cam Robbins, Senior Manager of Digital Communications, will share their experience as the title sponsor of a PGA Tour tournament, and facilitate an open discussion on leveraging social media to maximize audience reach — on and off the playing field. |
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9:30 AM
Break
9:45 AM
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Putting the care in your social media customer care program
Are you equipping your social media care team with the resources it needs to source customer and product insights effectively? When it comes to business intelligence, what’s actionable, what’s not, and which tools make sense? Join Marcus Story, Director of Customer Experience at Delaware North, for a discussion on caring for our teams and customers in measurable ways. Share tips and tricks for optimizing your care program, including creating a knowledge repository, improving response times, and celebrating agent performance. |
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Bringing paid social media in house – is it worth it, and what does it take?
Bringing your paid social media in-house is a huge endeavor with potentially costly pitfalls – so how do you know if it’ll be worth it? Join Cisco’s Senior Manager of Social Media, and communities, Victoria Venere, for a confidential, in-depth discussion on what it takes to move your paid social media program in-house. We’ll discuss how we’re determining appropriate staffing levels, ensuring our tech stack is equipped to make the transition successful, and managing internal expectations along the way. |
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10:15 AM
Snack Break
10:35 AM
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Generative AI for social media: Insights, applications, and future directions
Discover the potential of generative AI for social media creation, management, and more. Since the dawn of ChatGPT, American Family Insurance’s Senior Customer Experience Specialist, Josh Feyen, has explored and implemented GenAI technologies for social media, identifying practical use cases and developing a comprehensive prompt library. Having taught thousands within his organization about compliant and efficient GenAI use, Josh is eager to share a few insights and spark conversations on leveraging AI to elevate our work in social media. |
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Tailoring employee advocacy programs to engage employees across roles
How can you create an employee advocacy program that serves the needs of all employees, from executives to sales agents? Join Alexis Dredden, Senior Social Media Advisor at Boomi, for an off-the-record conversation on efficiently customizing your employee advocacy program to resonate with different organizational roles. Hear about strategies for encouraging participation, as well as creating social self-sufficiency across the organization. |
Democratizing social media data across the enterprise
How can making social media data more readily available enable internal partners to make faster, data-driven decisions? Join Lee Henderson, VP Issue Management & Social Media Intelligence at U.S. Bank, for this candid discussion that will explore best practices for using social media data to build trust, credibility, and utilization across your organization. |
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11:05 AM
Break
11:20 AM
Forward-leaning social content: Navigating risk acceptance
How do you balance creating trend-forward social media content while adhering to the guidelines set by your legal and regulatory teams? Join Keith Kaufelt, Manager of Brand Experience at CarMax, to discuss establishing risk acceptance within your marketing department. This confidential conversation will delve into navigating legal guidelines and exploring strategies to help your organization creatively work within these constraints to produce buzz-worthy social media content. |
Scaling an executive social program 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 Vishakha Mathur, Merck’s Associate Director of Global Communications and Social Media, in a discussion 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. |
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Emerging technology 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 Abbi McCollum, Vice President of Linear Digital and Social Media for HGTV at Warner Bros. Discovery, 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. |
Social media governance: Navigating enterprise-wide challenges
Governance can be the bane of any social media leader’s existence, but especially one who ensures standards and regulations are being met at a house of brands with multiple lines of business. Join Vicky Guerrero, the AVP of Social Media at Synchrony, to discuss governance challenges and concerns, current structures and systems, how you manage access to account passwords, and best practices for conveying the value and importance of governance internally. |
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11:50 AM
Lunch Discussions by Industry
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, and utility/energy.
12:50 PM
Head to Your Unconference Room
1:00 PM
Unconference Round 1
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
- Maintaining a DEI-informed social media strategy
- Twitter/X: What role does it play in your social media strategy now?
- Refining your talent marketing strategy on social media
1:30 PM
Unconference Round 2
EXAMPLE TOPICS
- TikTok: Strategies for leveling up
- 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
- Refining your paid social media mix amid platform uncertainty
- Brand reputation: Dealing with negativity on social media
2:00 PM
Snack Break
2:20 PM
Unconference Round 3
EXAMPLE TOPICS
- BtoB brands: Cultivating customer loyalty on social media
- Social team structure: Ensuring alignment with organizational goals
- Re-evaluating Reddit’s place in your social media strategy
- Operationalizing social listening insights across the enterprise
- Your career: What’s next for social media leaders?
- Team management: Upskilling your team while fighting burnout
- Scaling employee advocacy programs
2:50 PM
Unconference Round 4
EXAMPLE TOPICS
- Upgrading your performance reporting and dashboards
- Social governance: Combating social media sprawl
- The influencer economy: Managing your brand’s approach
- Demonstrating the value of social media to leadership
- Crafting a winning social commerce strategy
- Up-leveling social care operations and automation
- Lean teams: Doing more with fewer resources
3:20 PM
Adjourn
Please note: This agenda is subject to change based on speaker availability and scheduling.
