smwldn

After five thrilling years, it's time for Social Media Week London’s (SMWLDN) next step and after much consideration it’s time for me and the Chinwag team to pass the baton.

The next edition taking place this September in London will be run by CrowdCentric, founders of Social Media Week and the team that runs the event in New York. It's a massive undertaking and we wish the NYC team all the best.

Social Media Week London is all about the people. This year with over 260 events and 20,000+ tickets booked it was bigger than ever.

Behind the scenes the Chinwag team swells in number as we do our best to tackle the avalanche of administration, emails, logistics and communications that SMWLDN brings with it.

This year we had an exceptional crop of helpers who supported us through what was, to put it mildly, a rather busy few months. We couldn’t have done it without them.

Multiple award winning BBC Director of Comedy, Will Saunders, has assembled a crack-up team to help us see off this year’s Social Media Week London.

At Just in Beta, a socially powered free comedy event, we present a night of live digital comedy that pipes the web on stage through a series of tubes and laughs at it. Hard.

250+ events and it can be a little tricky working out what to go to. As events get full it can be tricky to figure out what to attend.

We've distilled down some of the sessions (that still have space, at time of writing) that you might fancy perusing.

A moment of your time, please! It seems that scores of you lovely SMWLDNers are putting a few moments aside to peruse the packed out schedule, but finding no joy when it comes to actually registering your intention to attend events.

High time we changed that, I’d say.We present you with the quickest and easiest guide to registering for events at Social Media Week London that has ever been.

Nine and a half weeks means two things to us: a movie that’s very missable and a deadline which definitely is not.

If you want to submit an event for Social Media Week London, you have until 2 August 2013. Right now we have 20 submitted events - let’s double that number. You need nothing more than an idea or a work in progress.

As the saying goes, "many hands make light work". Don't know about light, but we can definitely promise exciting, enticing and engrossing roles working with the Social Media Week London team here at Chinwag.

Like the picture above, enthusiasm and inquisitiveness with a can-do, brainiac, professional approach is what we're after. Interested? Know someone? Check out the info below.

Experience the international side of Social Media Week. Enter the SMW Travel Award Programme for grants to see SMW overseas.

The global team are looking for one participant, one speaker and one event partner to send to one of our spectacular SMW Host cities. Fancy bopping over to Berlin, living it up in London or moving and shaking in Mumbai? Well now you can with SMW's help.

Submissions are open, enter now.

On Thursday at the Advertising & Marketing Hub at Facebook, Toby Daniels, Founder & Executive Director of Social Media Week shared 10 Principles for an Open, Connected and Collaborative World, providing examples of how individuals and organisations are leveraging the power of technology and the creative potential of social media to achieve extraordinary outcomes.

Developing a Digital Strategy in a Social World took place on Weds 26th Sept at the Advertising & Marketing Hub at Facebook. Digital media has gone through more revolutions in the last decade than other forms of media have experienced across their lifetimes. From web 2.0 to commoditisation of display advertising to sweeping changes of social media.

How do the world’s leading digital strategists plan, develop and maintain a coherent brand in such tumultuous times? Tune into the livestream below and catch up with our expert line-up of strategists who handle some of the world’s leading brands as they navigate the rigours of a changing digital landscape. Panelists at this session included Sonia Carter (Kraft Foods Europe), Justin Pearse (Bite Communications), Johannes-Tobias Lorenz (McKinsey), Craig Hepburn (Nokia) and Alastair Duncan (Alternative Genius).

Digital Mission will be returning with its fourth expedition to New York next Spring, from 18th - 22nd February 2013 to take full advantage of the 150+ events taking place during Social Media Week New York.

Following on from 2010's successful Digital Mission to NYC trip, this Mission to New York will co-incide with Social Media Week New York. We'll be putting together a Mission Programme (see more below) but we'd also like to make Digital Mission as open and collaborative as possible, so we'll also be holding a Meetup on Thursday 22nd November where you'll be able to suggest anything you'd like to see included in the trip.

This year was not only the year of the Queen's Jubilee, the Olympics and the Paralympics, but also the only year that Social Media Week London will take place twice within 12 months (therefore, needless to say, there will not be a SMWLDN in February).

Our second Social Media Week London this year has now passed, having moved to it's new home of September, and what a week 24th - 28th September 2012 was.

This September's SMWLDN saw 176 events taking place across the city, with 21 of those being Chinwag events - and all the rest thanks to our 125 wonderful event partners including BBC, Beyond, CIPR, Dachis Group, Dell, McKinsey & Company, Eventbrite, Great British Chefs, Hootsuite, London College of Fashion, Microsoft, Nursing & Midwifery Council, Royal Television Society, Story Worldwide, Skype, Unilever, Yammer and more.

This is a guestblog by Beckie Stravers / Social Media Week.

Ollie Lloyd of @gbchefs started off the discussion on the social business of food driving home the basic 3 rules of social strategy. Make it look good, make it worthy of sharing, and start a conversation! With special emphasis on the “looking good” part. Spend money on great design, there is no place for average images in the social medium. However, remember that a good food image (or any image for that matter) is created with love. Not food stylists.

Great British Chefs also emphasised dedicating time and experimenting in trendy or fridge social efforts, but be prepared to fail. GBChefs saw an oppotunity with Google+ to host live cooking demonstrations paired with G+ hangouts. This risk ended up paying off as GBChefs outlines greater follower numbers on G+ than Facebook. Though their Facebook insights are nothing to sneeze at, quoting an average of 400 engagements per post 3-4 times per day.

This is a guest blog by Joyce Sullivan / Social Media Week.

I hear the weather was dreadful in London on Monday morning but the talks and conversations sparkled at Using Social To Go Global Supported by Open to Export.

The session kicked off with Sam Michel of Chinwag aka @toodlepip welcoming all with a ‘meet your neighbour’ greet.

Philip Montague @PhilSMEin of hibu kicked off the morning talks by first sharing a boyhood memory how he confidently jumped off the back of his grandfather’s sailboat to swim to secure the dinghy line that came undone. Though confident he could make the journey on his own, he realised he needed help to get back to the boat. Lesson learned: as confident as you may be, you may need some help with your journey. Philip’s intro framed the mission for Open to Export how they help UK businesses navigate their product export potential.

With four fashion events and the chance to win a trip to LA...Fashion is in the air!!

This Thursday, 27 Sep, Social Media Week London will be holding it’s fist ever Fashion Day supported by Nokia at the Sport, Entertainment & Cultural Hub @ Engine.

Highlighting the impact of social media in the fashion industry, new trends, challenges, the future, and much more will be featured during SMWLDN fashion day.

The day will be split in to four sessions focusing on different areas as depicted below: