The first Preston Social saw over forty people come to the New Continental this week to see Nathaniel Cassidy and Tom Stables talk about online reputation, personal branding and digital personas.
AdvertisementIt was very reassuring to have such a good turnout for the first event, and proved that there is a niche and demand for this kind of gathering in Preston. The balance between a formal talk and informal socialising worked very well, and feedback was overall very positive.
#prestonsocial was great tonight. Great food and drinks at the New Continental and great speakers in @DuchessofGrange and @TomStables
Top night @prestonsocial, long may it continue. Props to @josephstashko and presenters for making it happen #prestonsocial
Had a great time at #prestonsocial -very informative – my to-do list is even longer now!!!
If you missed the event or want to refresh your memory of Tom and Nathaniel’s talk, take a look at the slideshow below.
Following the talk, attendees socialised and discussed the future of the Preston Social, suggesting different formats that could be used in future. A common point raised was the suggestion of a debate style event where a topic relating to social media is debated by a panel before being opened to the floor and discussed by attendees.
Something I’d love to do would be to have two shorter talks, with the talks acting as starting points to producing discussion from the audience. The idea of a community-generated event is something I really feel strongly about, and I don’t want the event to take a top-down approach whereby the organisers are the ones who control everything about the event.
If people in Preston are doing something exciting with social media and want to tell the community about it, they can come and talk about it at the next event. We’re totally open to people taking ownership of the event and pushing it in the direction they want it to go.
So get in touch if you want to be involved in the next Preston Social, be that helping to market the event, speak at the next event, or suggest new format ideas. Send an email to socialmediapreston(at)gmail(dot)com, and don’t forget you can catch up with all our online movements at the Preston Social landing page.