The very first exclusively “people” focused Social Media public event will take place here in the Rubicon Centre, CIT Campus on Saturday June 30th from 10.30am – 4pm in celebration of World Social Media Day.
This unique event which is free to attend will feature people that have utilised online platforms to enrich all aspects of their personal lives. World Social Media Day was started in 2010 by social media focused news site Mashable to recognise the digital revolution happening right before our eyes. This will be the second year that Cork has celebrated World Social Media Day with last year’s event attracting a massive crowd of over 200 people. There was over 1,400 meetups in over 90 countries last year with Cork’s event ranking in the top 10 in size worldwide.
“Our event last year went viral. It was organised in 2 weeks and all we did was mention it on Twitter and Facebook a few times – we knew this year that we had to make it bigger and better” said Cian O’Regan co-organiser.
The event is family focused with the speaker’s ages ranging from 12-70 years old. The day’s events are designed to be extremely diverse so that everyone both young and old will find something that will catch their interest. There will be kids entertainment and local bands on the day.
The event will feature an array of local and national speakers from a wide range of backgrounds that have used social media in a unique way.
Cork Food writer Lilly Higgins who utilised social media platforms to help monetise food blogging will give a talk on how to leverage the web to get published. Lilly recently published her cookbook “Make, Bake, Love” from the success of her cooking blog.
Cancer survivor Alex Slye will talk on the day about how the support she received from social media helped her cope with her illness.
Young app developers from Coder Dojo will give a talk on their experiences on learning computer coding and the founders of Coder Dojo James Whelton and Bill Liao will also be in attendance on the day.
For the teens and adults the range of topics up for discussion on the day will include social media, online writing, food blogging, computer security, app development, journalism, autism support, mental health issues, keeping your kids safe online, and much much more.
There will be workshops in basic blog set up, basic online search skills, food styling, online writing and food photography. A craft group will demonstrate their skills and help you learn knitting, crochet, spinning etc.
Margaret Smith Co-organiser of the event says that “this is a chance for Cork to shine ,to show that we can produce an event which is outside the box and demonstrate how we Corkonians have a love of talk whether it be online or not.”
After the conference there will also be a night time event for people to unwind and let their hair down with lots of prizes, music, food and craic to be had. Everyone is welcome to come along to both the day and night event.
“We want this event to shine a light on a common misconception that social media is all about enhancing your ego with the amount of connections you have. We want you to come along and see that there are real people behind the computer screens and that real connections are what’s important ” said Cian O’Regan co-organiser.
Margaret said “last years’ event was so much fun that we really wanted to build on that and create something that would lift our spirits and make people happy. There is way too much doom and gloom around”
The event has relied entirely on the generosity of people to get it off the ground and the organisers would like to appeal to more people to get in contact to donate either time, products or equipment for the day.
