July 26, 2012 marked the day of Jugnoo’s first social media conference – Social Mix 2012. The highly anticipated event was stacked with influential speakers in the field, including Gary Vaynerchuk, Amber Mac, Gini Dietrich, and Geoff Livingston.

The conference kicked off with Amber Mac discussing her personal route to becoming a social media queen, followed by a few social media tips on how to effectively engage and interact with your audience. Some of her suggestions included listening well to your audience, knowing the right time to engage, watching trends, being adaptable to changes in social media, and making sure that you’re having fun in the process. In line with her innovative style, Amber included “Tweetables” at the bottom of her slides so the audience could tweet pre-determined quotes about the topics she was discussing. Amber’s slideshow is available here.

One of the most unexpected and powerful presentations was from Tim Burrows, Sergeant at the Toronto Police. He is also the individual responsible for spearheading the Toronto Police’s social media initiative. With his bold yet down-to-earth personality, Burrows explored the complications of “marketing the unmarketable” and how social media has enabled the Toronto police to directly engage with the public. According to him, conventional media controls what the public sees and for the sake of publicity, the media often distorts the police’s message and excludes important news (such as prevention tips), that “could make our community safer”. Social media has allowed the police to control their message and to establish a relationship of trust with their audience.

The conference ended on an energetic note with Gary Vaynerchuk, the self-trained wine expert, social media titan, and best-selling author of The Thank You Economy. His highly humorous and thoughtful wisdom truly engaged the crowd as he explained his simple yet provocative message: the world is in limited supply of effort. Vaynerchuk says that in this era of ultimate connectivity and information bombardment, companies need to put in genuine effort and truly show that they care about their customers. These efforts will spike positive word of mouth (which will be amplified through social media), and can make a powerful difference in customer retainment.

Well done to Jugnoo for hosting such an educational and successful conference!