April Carlisle, SVP, Director of Strategy for Global Shopper Marketing, Leo Burnett & Arc Worldwide As the old adage goes, “content is king” – and many industry experts believe that it alone is the key to unlocking the limitless potential of shopping in our new seamless world. But CONTEXT (social, environmental, lifestyle, etc.), not CONTENT, will [...]

SVP, Director of Strategy for Global Shopper Marketing, Leo Burnett & Arc Worldwide April Carlisle recently joined Leo Burnett and Arc Worldwide in this newly created role. She oversees shopper and customer marketing initiatives for various clients within the agency, including Allstate, Fifth Third Bank, Firestone, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s, Sprint and Samsung. April has 20-plus years [...]

US Media Manager,  Beam Inc   Katie Fischer was appointed US Media Manager at Beam in October 2012. In this role, Katie is responsible for stewarding Beam’s media investments across broadcast, digital, print, OOH and local activation.  She works closely with the brand teams across the US business, building impactful media plans and managing the [...]

Social Content Manager, Beam Global @Bagpipersandbeer Jason joined the Beam Global Digital Marketing team in October 2012.  In his role, Jason oversees the Social Media content curation, strategic direction & execution for the Jim Beam portfolio of brands as well as a small team that is responsible for 4 other brands at Beam.   Prior to [...]

Vice President, Fleishman Hillard @jursarealwom Darrell manages an Emerging Media practice where he and his team helps companies such as Naked Juice, Gatorade, General Motors, AT&T, Navistar International, Abbott and The Illinois Office of Tourism learn, use, track and benefit from technology that allows brands to become more human in the real world; where most [...]

Senior Director @SMoritz Stephanie is responsible for leading public relations, social media, word-of-mouth, and experiential marketing for ConAgra’s Consumer Foods brands, such as Slim Jim, Chef Boyardee and Healthy Choice.   Stephanie is a passionate advocate for social media and shaped ConAgra’s enterprise-wide social media strategy.   Stephanie was recognized as one of PR Week’s, [...]

Daliah Saper has handled many high profile cases (including one she argued before the Illinois Supreme Court) and is regularly interviewed on national tv, radio, and in several publications including Fox News, CNBC, ABC News, and The Chicago Tribune. She has repeatedly received the honor of being named a“Rising Star” by Super Lawyers magazine, is [...]

Former Marketing Manager at Brown-Forman Marketing Manager with over 10 years of experience with category leading brands in grocery, club, drug, mass and c-stores. Offers a solid mix of strategic marketing skills and tactical sales skills. Able to understand the vision and objectives of brand, generate relevant shopper and retailer insights and mix all the [...]

The combination of traditional TV viewership declining and competing for eyeballs as a result of ever growing ways to reach a consumer has resulted in a need to shift a portion of marketing dollars away from TV commercials to other channels, Katie Fischer, US Media Manager at Beam Global will share her insights on where eyeballs are [...]

So you have a large audience of customers, fans, email list recipients, Twitter followers, etc.  So now what? Steve Dembo, Director of Social Media and Online Community, Discovery Education shares how Discovery Education grew and harnessed the power of 6500 teacher evangelists using their video on demand services.  He will walk you through how they used bottom up tactics [...]

Director of Social Media Strategy, Discovery @Teach42 As a former kindergarten teacher and school Director of Technology Steve Dembo is a pioneer in the field of educational social networking.  Currently serving as Discovery Education’s Director of Social Media Strategy and Online Community, Dembo was among the first educators to realize the power of blogging, podcasting, [...]

  Social Media Community Manager, Walgreens @SamOgborn Social media community management across over 2 million fans on Facebook and over 100,000 followers on Twitter. Walgreens’ impressions through social media have risen to over 5.6 million a day – almost equivalent to the amount of foot traffic we receive in our stores daily. Community management within [...]

Hear successful Word of Mouth campaign case studies from a big brand and agency perspective as well as stupid things brands do from Attorney Daliah Saper. Suzanne Fanning, President, WOMMA Darrell Jursa, Senior Vice President at Fleishman Hillard Stephanie Moritz, ConAgra DAliah Saper, Saper Law

Three top community managers share best practice case studies on how they are building engaged audiences Tim McDonald, Huffington Post – how to build a referal network to grow you following and engagement Samantha Ogborn, Walgreens Jason Miller, Beam Brands

The amount of web content created by brands, PR firms, social media marketers and search optimizers is increasing at an exponential rate. The number of marketers who are writing for the web is exploding. So each article, blog post and email must stand out or get lost in the flood of information. This means writing with search [...]

Case study examples of how brands are using mobile to market to consumers with relevant, real time messages that result at increased revenue. Richard Goldsmith, Director Social & Mobile Programs, R/GA:   Augmented Reality Best Practices Nick Aguirre, Former Marketing Manager, Brown Forman:  Jack Daniel’s Tailgate Throw Down B to C Mobile Campaign Abraham Velasquez, [...]

Jeff Willinger, RightPoint Consulting @jwillie

President, WOMMA @SuzanneWOMMA Suzanne Fanning is a senior level marketing communications executive whose innovative social media programs have been featured in Advertising Age Magazine, Fast Company, Forbes Magazine and on the cover of PR Week. In addition, her successful marketing strategies have been published in several books including Groundswell, Word of Mouth Marketing, Social Marketing [...]

Community Manager, Huffington Post @TaMcDonald Tim McDonald leads the field as a continual student and practitioner of new media. As the Community Manager for HuffPost Live, Tim is building and managing a community for Huffington Post’s live streaming network. Continuing his passion for community management, Tim founded My Community Manager, a resource for community managers [...]

Director of Collaboration, Social Computing and Intranets, Rightpoint Consulting @Jwillie Jeff named one of the top SharePoint influencers to watch in 2012 and 2013, has been called a character with character and an early adopter of enterprise 2.0 technologies, social media content and marketing, e-commerce; community building, management, and engagement. Jeff is an internationally sought-after speaker [...]

President, Orbit Media @crestodina Since January 1, 2000, Andy has been immersed in web strategy and digital marketing. A year later, he started Orbit Media Studios, which provides high-end web design to businesses in and around Chicago. Since then, Andy has led web strategy and planning for hundreds of projects. His role is to align [...]

Tuesday, November 6th (Schedule is subject to change) 8:30 am – 9:30 am Registration 9:30 am – 9:45 am Welcome 9:45 am – 10:15 am Reach Consumers in their Playground: Baby Center’s Big Day Out 360 Social Media Plan Dina Freeman, Sr. Manager of Social Programming, Baby Center 10:15 am – 10:45 am Monitoring and [...]

In preparation for speaking on a recent PRSA panel on brands and bloggers, I asked some of the smartest people I know in the blogger brand space (my blogger friends) what advice they would give to brands looking to work with bloggers.  Here is what they said: Emily ‘Donahue’ Dickey Get personal. I’ll be much [...]

By now, you’ve likely heard about @TheBloggess vs. @brandlinkcomm. More likely is that you have heard about it, you agree that the way Brandlink Communications handled the situation is going to go down as an example of one of the biggest PR snafus in history. Don’t Say ANYTHING Electronically You Wouldn’t Want the World to [...]

Southwest Airlines is hands down the leader when it comes to the airline industry and  social media. Brooks Thomas from the Emerging Media team at SWA will lead a Power Session on how they leverage Twitter, Facebook and blog to interact with customers and increase customer satisfaction and will also share about their new blog [...]

Sean McGinnis and Dan Newman started 12most just a few months ago, but heir site already receives hundreds of thousands of unique visitors regularly. Joining Sean & Dan on this panel is Emerson Spartz of Spartz Media, which generates over one hundred million unique pageviews across their three websites. How did they do it? Let [...]

Revving up for the rest of the week.  Very excited for our own Social Media Week Event, in Partnership with Social Media Club Chicago (with Social Media Icons @Broadwaychicago, @cubsinsider @chicagofed @mccormick_place)   Here’s where the Social Media Masters Crew will be today.  Hope you can join us: Tuesday, September 20th 9:00 am They Said [...]

Huge kudos to the Social Media Week team for orchestrating an amazing week of events.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but was completely impressed with the day one sessions and am looking forward to the rest of the week.  Here’s a quick re-cap of the day and learnings from the sessions I attended: When [...]

First off, thank you to Barry from gdgt.com for inviting me to their VIP event.  I attended gdgt Chicago last year when it was over at the current home of the Craftsman Experience.  I was blown away at the number of cool gadgets, but was there as a general attendee and wasn’t able to spend [...]

They all are taking the lead in creating cutting-edge social media programs and lucky for us and YOU, they are part of our amazing speaker’s line-up for our 3rd Annual Social Media Masters Summit. Sessions will cover social media topics that are critical to building a strong social presence in the social space.  Find our [...]

If you don’t you should.  Brands who are embracing social media are building stronger relationships that brands sitting the sidelines.  Several companies are taking the lead in creating cutting-edge social media programs and lucky for us and YOU, they are part of our amazing speaker’s line-up for our 3rd Annual Social Media Masters Summit. Sessions [...]

They all are taking the lead in creating cutting-edge social media programs and lucky for us and YOU, they are part of our amazing speaker’s line-up for our 3rd Annual Social Media Masters Summit. Sessions will cover social media topics that are critical to building a strong social presence in the social space.  Find our [...]

Moderator: Barbara Maldonado, Social Media Strategist at Legacy Marketing Partners Sam Jemielity Director of Content, Playboy.com Adam Kmiec Director of Social Media Heidi Skinner VP of Social Media, Critical Mass   Lynde O’Brien Director Electronic Media Strategy, Health Care Service Corporation  Hear about mobile campaigns that go beyond a free taco for every 5th check-in.  [...]

                 Moderated by Gabrielle Tompkins Crain’s Chicago Business Mari Luangrath Owner Foiled Cupcakes Azure Nelson Editorial Director and Social Media Manager Onewed.com Katy Lynch Owner Social Katy Shannon Downey Owner Pivotal Productions Chicago Often times, small businesses don’t have the same resources as larger brands.  Smaller budgets doesn’t always [...]

Jeffrey Cole Senior Manager, Global Social Media Operations PR, marketing, digital, product management and customer service departments all own a piece of the social media puzzle.  Integrating all messages seamlessly in a way that sends a constant message to consumers is critical to executing solid campaigns.  Jeffrey Cole will share valuable insights on how Kellogg’s [...]

Amy Colton Executive Vice President, Current Lifestyle Marketing Bridget Brennan Author of Why She Buys Join the discussion on the importance of reaching women online, the challenges brands face and the critical role of digital media.  New research on mom’s digital habits, interests and behavioral trends will be presented by the Marketing to Moms Coalition [...]

          Mo Moorman Jockey, International @momoorman Adam Keats Weber Shandwick @akeats Gina Judge Tropicana @OJgal Leah Segedie #mamavation @bookieboo Kim Moldofsky @momimpact   Blogging has evolved into so much more than free product reviews.  Meet two top bloggers who have created successful businesses through hard work, unique ideas and strong relationship building.  [...]

Ramon Deleon Social Media Visionary & International Speaker There’s no one else we could imagine kicking off our day besides local favorite and international speaker Ramon Deleon. Buckle up and get ready to get a morning jolt of energy as Ramon shares his latest words of social media wisdom.

Lisa Miner Director of Public Relations Steven Beasley Director of Digital Media    The Museum of Science and Industry’s 2010 experiment, Month at the Museum, was the perfect marriage of crowd sourcing and online, interactive reality TV.  The program caught the imagination of people around the world. After more than 1,500 applicants from around the [...]

Lisa Miner Director of Public Relations The Museum of Science and Industry’s 2010 experiment, Month at the Museum, was the perfect marriage of crowd sourcing and online, interactive reality TV.  The program caught the imagination of people around the world. After more than 1,500 applicants from around the globe, and more than 20,000 online votes [...]

If you haven’t hear by now, HP is discontinuing their HP TouchPad and selling them at the deeply discounted price of $99 for the 16G version and $149 for the 32 gig version. Thanks to @jwilly for the news that Best Buy had originally intended to send them all back to HP, but instead decided [...]

More than 38 years ago, Rollin King and Herb Kelleher got together and decided to start a different kind of airline. They began with one simple notion: If you get your passengers to their destinations when they want to get there, on time, at the lowest possible fares, and make darn sure they have a [...]

Suite Partners accelerates brand growth by creating content that connects products to people in a meaningful and emotional way. As a copmany, they have originated a supremely efficient experiential brand theater concept. Scaling intimacy, the model accelerates the growth of relevant conversations and communities, leading to increased brand consideration and cash register rings. Suite has found that [...]

Since 1921, Medill has been recognized worldwide as a jewel at one of the nation’s elite universities. At Medill, young men and women are shaped for the successes they achieve in journalism and the Medill-invented field of integrated marketing communications. Journalism students learn their craft on the streets of Chicago and Washington, D.C., and marketing [...]

An industry leader, Crain Communications Inc is one of the largest privately-owned business publishers in the U.S. As an authoritative source of vital news and information to industry leaders and consumers worldwide, each of the company’s newspapers, magazines and websites have become required reading in their respective business and consumer sectors. ChicagoBusiness.com is one of these [...]

Kim Moldofsky is a Chicago-area social media mom of tween boys who morphed from an overeducated stay-at-home-mom to problogger, freelance writer, informative speaker, and savvy consultant. She is the founder of MomImpact.com, a firm that connects brands and bloggers for conversations, events, and reviews. Clients have included LeapFrog, ConAgra Foods and Kenmore (Sears). As a [...]

Leah Segedie is a fitness matriarch in the social media realm who helps “digital moms” learn and sustain healthy living practices to combat obesity. She has lost over 170 lbs. over two pregnancies and is an inspiration to women all over the internet with her communities Bookieboo.com and Mamavation.com Leah has been recognized for several [...]

Ellen Guggenheim is a strategic management and business development executive driving revenue and long term client partnerships for innovative digital marketing, market research and technology organizations. Clients include P&G, Kraft, General Mills, Unilever, Mars, SC Johnson, Wrigley, Kellogg’s, Hershey’s, Microsoft, Sony, Verizon, AMD, etc. Vertical industry expertise in Consumer Packaged Goods, Pharmaceutical, Retail, Financial, Technology [...]

Heather is a recruiting professional with a strong background in digital and direct marketing.   She is a master connector with experience placing top candidates at a myriad of clients from start-up’s to Fortune 500 companies across an array of industries: BtoB, BtoC, Retail, Financial Services, Professional Services, Nonprofit, CPG, etc. Active in a number of [...]