Congregation Social Media Gathering 2013: Unique

I have just spent the weekend in a tiny wee place in the west or Ireland called Cong. Population 35 (apparently) and setting for The Quiet Man (famously). As mentioned in a previous post I was headed there to take part in Congregation Social Media Gathering, an unconference on the theme of social media. I would highly recommend perusing some of the blog papers submitted as entries to the unconference because you will definitely learn something new and at the very least you will get an understanding of how unique an event Congregation was.

While there was a certain amount of trepidation around the format (4 rotating huddles with 2 different speakers at each throughout the day) it actually worked splendidly. With 50 attendees I think there was only maybe one or two present that I didn’t interact with in this quasi-formal setting but tried to catch up with them during the even more social aspects of the weekend.

I heard presentations about affiliate marketing, about why the digital native/ migrant nomenclature is all wrong, about questioning Google’s omnipotence, about using social media in the classroom (my favourite in fact), about online donations and about developing content strategies. My own presentation is below which was developed from this article I wrote for Pixel Design about making the most of sponsored stories on Facebook, promoted tweets on Twitter and promoted posts on LinkedIn.