Online marketing experts converge in Auckland

Online marketing experts converge in Auckland today for the Social Media Junction conference

AUCKLAND, 16 November 2010 – The second annual Social Media Junction (SMJ) conference begins today in Auckland.

The two day event will see more than 150 delegates from the New Zealand business community meet at the Sky City convention centre to access the acumen of some of the world’s leading experts in marketing through social media.

Nicholas O’Flaherty, Managing Director of Auckland digital media specialist agency Bullet PR, says that with the phenomenon of social media growing daily as a communication, networking and business tool in the New Zealand market, the focus of this year’s conference is appropriately on Return on Investment.

“Clearly more businesses are becoming aware of the importance of social media as part of their business model, but we find there is still a lack of understanding on how to meet the challenges of harnessing this relatively new platform for doing business and how to make it work for a company,” says Mr O’Flaherty.

O’Flaherty says media are welcome to attend the opening keynote speech by US-based online marketing guru, Lee Odden, today at 9.00am. Odden’s presentation will focus on essential guidelines for customer engagement through social media and how a company can measure its effectiveness in using social media to do business.

Day Two of the conference will feature a full-day masterclass with Lee Odden that will “lay the foundation for social media success for business.”

Throughout the two days of the conference, participants and others can log on to Twitter and follow discussions of the speakers’ presentations via the hash-tag #smj2.

Registrations for the event can still be made by visiting www.socialmediajunction.co.nz

The full roster of international speakers that will present at SMJ2 includes:

Lee Odden, Founder and CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, USA – TopRank Online Marketing is a US-based digital marketing agency that has worked with medium to Fortune 500 companies to create better connections with customers and improve sales through social media, search and content marketing.

Simon Wakeman, Leading Social Media Expert, UK – Responsible for the first UK council launch of a podcast, Simon has since pioneered the use of social media tools including blogs, online video, Twitter and Facebook in public sector communications.

Cliff Rosenberg, Managing Director of LinkedIn, Australia/NZ – As LinkedIn continues its astronomical growth as one of the most popular social networking tools in the global business community, Cliff’s years of experience in directorship roles at Yahoo, iTouch and Vodafone directly inform his authoritative perspective on how the digital landscape continues to evolve for business.

Michael Fox, Founder of Shoes of Prey, Australian award-winning innovative online retailer – Michael’s dual passions for retail and online marketing came together in August 2009 when he left Google to co-found Shoes of Prey, a web site where women can design their own fashion shoes, which are then handmade and shipped to them.

Darren Whitelaw, General Manager of Coporate Communications for the Victorian Department of Justice – Darren led the online social media campaign following the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, and continues to work with the Country Fire Authority to harness the power of social media to raise awareness of bushfire preparation.

Louise Denver, Director of Media and Communications, Deloitte – Deloitte is recognised as one of the global leaders in its use of social media to help with collaboration within the organisation. Louise has been at the helm of this strategy for the past eight years and will share how social media has built and grown the Deloitte brand.
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