Have you ever wished you could time travel? Or that you could be in more than one place at one time? I know I did at the YouToo Social Media Conference Friday, April 10, 2015 at Kent State University. This conference had social media professionals and speakers with extensive advice and useful tips on how to be successful online and how to brand yourself using social media.

The only problem? I was unable to be at every lecture, because attendees had to choose between breakout sessions. Luckily, however, social media saved the day. Thanks to all the active audience tweeps, I was able to search the hashtag #YouToo2015 on Twitter and find most of the inspiring quotes from all of the presenters. You can also find the tweets here.

So, if you weren’t able to time travel to see all of the breakout sessions at once, or if you just couldn’t attend the conference at all, here is some of the important information you might have missed out on.

Gouda or Game of Thrones Anyone? - Speaker: Mark W. Smith

Mark W. Smith, editor for mobile Web at The Washington Post, focused on the curiosity gap on social media. Main points that stood out in his speech were “Be declarative.” and “Give away the ending in your headlines.”

Mark referenced BuzzFeed’s online quizzes to support his claims about capturing people’s curiosity online. For example, BuzzFeed has quizzes like “What type of cheese are you?” or “Which Games of Thrones character are you most like?” Headlines like this intrigue and engage online users because they exemplify one of Mark’s principles of successful headlines: give away the ending. Mark also suggested avoiding questions unless they let users know exactly what they can expect after they click.


“I Hate You, Signed, Anonymous”- Moderator: Amanda Vasil. Panelists: Jan Gusich, David Barlaam, and Tom Green
During this breakout session, a panel of knowledgeable speakers discussed cyberbullying. Amanda Vasil, Change Agent at AKHIA, moderated this lecture and presented key facts and stories about the effects of cyberbullying.

Jan Gusich, CEO of AKHIA, Tom Green, OSBA Certified Specialist, Kastner Westman & Wilkins LLC, and David Barlaam, HR director, Global Talent Acquisition & Domestic Relocation, The Lubrizol Corporation, taught us how to change and decrease incidences of cyberbullying online. They emphasized the importance of making positive posts and suggested we avoid being negative on social media because once something is posted online, it cannot be taken back.


"Spin Sucks" - Speaker: Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, an integrated marketing company, and is also the author of Spin Sucks, a book about how to be an honest and responsible PR person. She captured the crowd’s interest by starting her speech off with a Miley Cyrus reference.

Gini recounted the story of how Miley’s genius PR people were successfully able to turn critics into loyalists using decidedly non-traditional strategies, like her provocative dance with Robin Thicke. She specifically explained why this oversexed shock routine worked for Miley. It worked because ultimately, it was honest. “Don’t lie,” she said. “Sex sells, but only if you’re selling sex.”

Dietrich also discussed a variety of ethical issues that public relations and social media practitioners face today. The ultimate emphasis of her presentation was, well, “Spin Sucks,” or to put it another way, honesty in PR and social rules.


Until Next Year, YouToo

This was my first YouToo Social Media Conference, and I left it filled with motivation and excitement to apply the knowledge I learned to my future PR career. I look forward to attending again next year because, just like Mark W. Smith said, social media is always changing.

Written by Lauren Taccone for the KSU Communication Studies blog

This past weekend, I attended the YouToo Social Media Conference, and I am so glad I did.  As I have discussed in my previous blog post, social media is becoming the latest digital frontier, and knowledge in utilizing it is becoming increasingly important. At YouToo, attendants heard from two keynote speakers who utilize social media in their professional lives and also other professionals who have grasped the benefit of social media.

The first keynote speaker was Mark W. Smith, who works for the Washington Post.  He talked about the tenants of good social media content.  He said that good social media must:
1) be declarative: it must say something;
2) figure something out– think about that eureka moment, it tells you something you didn’t know before;
3) surprise you: Smith said, the word ‘actually’ is a great word to use in a headline because it draws people in by telling them what they thought before is wrong;
4) it’s comprehensive, it helps explain something in a way that is easily understood;
5) it’s visual, including an image in your tweet or post gives you more engagement– face it, people like to look at something visual, it makes your post more appealing;
6) it delivers on its promise, meaning it tells you what you expect;
7) it gives away the ending: you must be able to tell people in a quick, succinct way exactly what they’re about to experience; and finally,
8) it tells us who we are: Smith related this to BuzzFeed quizzes– people love to be able to see themselves in a post and gauge at youtoosm.com how they relate to the rest of the world. Smith gave excellent advice on how to engage with people via social media and how to build a successful social image; however, one of the most surprising things that he said was this statement:

“Everything I say today will be a lie in six months, that can either scare you or you can evolve it.”

He is referring to how quickly digital media evolves and changes, and he encouraged all of us to always be students— to be constantly learning about the newest trends and how to best engage with our audience. While this intimidated me at first, I understand exactly what he is talking about.  The best way to do this is to use social media regularly, learn what is new and current, and grasp how people are interacting and adjust our strategies accordingly.

The second keynote speaker, Gini Dietrich, author of the book Spin Sucks, discussed the issues of ethics and media manipulation in PR and how we must be the ones to stick up for what is right. She had many compelling points about some of our favorite brands and how they utilize some of these questionable tactics in their media strategies.

In between these awesome keynote speakers, attendees had the opportunity to attend various break-out sessions that focused on topics ranging from cyberbullying to building personal brands.  The conference was not only very informational and educational but also fun!  Social media is an extremely hot topic, especially among communication professionals (Hello- us!) and there is so much to learn! If you attended the conference this year, I hope you found it as educational as I did.  If you did not get the chance to attend this year, I strongly encourage you to make the effort to attend next year!

Thanks for reading,
Lauren Taccone