Yesterday Leona Hobbs, our Director of Communications, and I both presented at the Managing Social Media Conference put on by the Canadian Institute in Toronto. We were in some great company, among the “who’s who” of Canadian social media practitioners, including Joseph Thornley of Thornley Fallis, Collin Douma, VP of Social Media for Proximity Canada (and SMG alum), Jen Evans, Founder and Chief Strategist at Sequentia, and David Jones, VP, Digital Communications at Hill & Knowlton.

Leona presented a very well-received presentation on digital crisis communications which was described as “a smart, practical presentation on social media crisis management” by tweeters in the audience, and included the following:

• Managing a social media crisis: when and how do you respond?
• Deciding on a proactive or reactive approach
• Effective correction of mis- and disinformation
• Working with communities to effectively manage potentially damaging issues
  

I closed the day with the presentation of a case study originally delivered for the first time at Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco with client Scott Monty, looking at how setting content free has delivered real and measurable results for Ford.

Overall, anecdotal feedback we got following the sessions was that Day One of the conference was of exceptional quality, and I have no doubt of that. The folks on the slate were some of the best of the best – I only wish I’d had more time to attend and absorb more sessions! For those, like me, who could not attend, don’t forget you can view the Tweetstream from the event!