What We Learned at Social Media Camp Victoria

Last weekend Andrew, Martin and myself all had the pleasure of attending the Social Media Camp that was held in Victoria, BC.

With my job being in Social Media and helping others discover all the beneficial things
about the medium I wasn't sure how much I'd get out of the conference, but I hoped that Martin and Andrew would find some use in the content.

I thoroughly enjoyed both keynotes by Jay Baer and Amber Naslund. They talk in the big picture of social media and in strategy, not just the how-tos and panels. It was great to be able to sit in on a lot of the sessions and see other people’s perspectives on tools and how they go about certain tasks.

One of the big factors for me going to this conference was just to meet in-person all the great people I have been communicating with on a regular basis through our blogs and Twitter.  I also wanted spread the word that the North is chugging along on Social Media, we have come a long way in the last year. I hope we can continue to grow and to make a name for ourselves up here and also connect our efforts and community with the rest of the province.

Martin is our technical lead and was all over the technical content at Social Media Camp, go figure. He came bouncing out of one session informing me off all the interesting ways to track your social use. For example, how Bit.ly and Ow.ly both track the clicks and analytics of all their links and con supply reports to the user.

For Andrew, I think it was more about empowering employees. Every since my first day at Motion Media, Andrew has empowered me to be the "Social Media Guy" for his company. Social Media Camp reassured him that this was a good decision. Social Media Camp also sprouted some great ideas for Andrew on how Motion Media can become more social. You have to keep watching to see what he comes up with.

Andrew will for sure be back next year, as he takes any conference as an excuse to get out of town. I also plan to return to the conference hopefully in a bigger role, perhaps as a speaker or panelist or just to help plan and organize. As Motion Media, we love to network and connect with our southern friends and share the knowledge.