Social Tools Summit Wrap

I enjoyed attending my third consecutive Social Tools Summit event in Boston last week, where I moderated a panel on branding and thought leadership.

It was great to take a day and get caught up on the state of the art in social media. The field is constantly changing, and there’s never a shortage of new tech, challenges, and opportunities.

The day featured panels on just about every aspect of the field. Experts and practitioners from big and small companies, education, non-profits, etc., chimed in on case studies and best practices. Social Tools may not be the biggest or splashiest event – but it fosters great dialog, networking and learning.

Branding and Thought Leadership

My panel covered areas ranging from video, to engaging people with live events and products, and influencer and content marketing. You can see the curated tweets below. Thanks to the panel for making it a great session: Jody Krasner Gladstein, Werner Kunz, Mark Traphagen, Martin Jones, and Victoria Desemone. Two social “Trenders” presented opposing views and kept the rest of us honest: Rachael Cobb and Sonia Mahnot.

Keynotes

Conference co-organizer Neal Schaffer delivered a stellar keynote on the importance of alignment of social media with other objectives. He also mentioned his forthcoming book, The Business of Influence, which I am excited about. And it was great hearing from Damian Keyes, founder of DK Music Management, on the future of influencer marketing.

Awards

Here are the product awards:

1. Best of Show: Talkwalker analytics (won Most Innovative last year)
2. Most Innovative: Outgrow interactive content platform
3. Highest ROI: Lithium social media management

Here are the people awards:

1. Social Genius: Kate Hutchinson (congrats, Kate! Nice bump from Best Tweeter 2016)
2. Social Hero: Rachael Cobb (making our panel proud!)
3. Social Guru: Mark Traphagen (way to go, co-panelist!)

Social Tools

Half the fun of this event is learning about new solutions and the favored tools of attendees – I always take careful notes. Here are some that were mentioned during the day, along with comments and descriptions (I was surprised not to see more vendors at this show as it is a great forum for hearing about what works, can be improved and feature wish lists):

• Buffer (got multiple plugs, I use this social scheduling tool and love it)
• Canva design (got a number of raves)
• Clearview Social employee advocacy
• Effin Amazing (my vote for Best Name)
• FanPage (create fan pages)
• GaggleAmp (employee and social advocacy and sharing)
• Google Data Studio (great for analytics reports)
• HootSuite (multiple raves, we use it and love it)
• Over app (trick out photos with text and art)
• Pixler photo editor
• Relay That image creator (“like Over app for desktops”)
• Shareably storytelling/sharing
• Simply Measured social analytics (“great competitor dashboard”)
• Engage Social SmartShare
• Sociabble employee advocacy
• SocialChorus enterprise social
• SpredFast enterprise social
• Sprinklr social media management
• TrackMaven marketing analytics
• Thought Horizon social selling