Highlights from PR News’ Big 4 Conference #Social16

This week, PR News held its Big 4 Social Media Summit & Visual Storytelling Boot Camp (#Social16), where agencies and brand representatives gathered to discuss ways to make their messages stand out on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter.

The Motherhood’s social listening team followed along with the online conversation and rounded up some interesting takeaways from the event!

• David Kellis from Clorox asserted that organic social media is dead (with the possible exception of Twitter influencers), and that brands must use strategies like earned media outreach, influencer marketing and social media listening to effectively reach their audiences. Social media listening, in particular, is what he called the “most important use of social media that we have.” It is a data mine for insights, ideas and input on areas of interest.

• David Landis (Landis Communications) and James Mowdy (BSPOKE) explained how to maximize Periscope, including some best practices:

• When it comes to sharing information – whether it’s a social post, video or longer-form messaging – Paul Englert with @CKMondaviWines reminds us to be concise!

• PR News shared a summary of its four data visualization takeaways for creating infographics. The takeaways mirror the top-note themes from the event, such as keeping infographics concise and distilling the information in them into a simple story.

• Stephanie Elsea with the American Heart Association shared the “rule of thirds” via this visual as a way to balance social media promotion:

• PwC’s Leslie Douglas shared an interesting tidbit for brands interested in exploring Snapchat as a viable marketing platform: Snapchat has more than 100 million daily active users, and collectively, they watch more than 10 billion videos daily.

Were you at the event? Tell us your favorite takeaways in the comments below, and follow along with the conversation using #Social16!