On Thursday, July 10, we hosted our monthly educational meeting, this time with the topic of Social Media Crises: How to Identify, Manage – and Avoid. The lively and interactive session featured a panel of experts: Tom Donahue of Porter Novelli, Drew Hawkins of DeMoss PR, Ashley Mowrey of Newell Rubbermaid, and Candace McCaffery of CKM Communications.

While a lot of great information was shared in the hour and a half panel and audience discussion, much can be boiled down into three key takeaways: 1) Plan ahead with a protocol in place before an incident happens; 2) act quickly but with checks and balances in place , and 3) always stay true to your brand.

See more in our Storify summary:

Thanks to all who came and participated. We’ll see you next month on August 14 for Social Advertising: To Facebook & Beyond!

Our 4th Annual PechaKucha Night is just a few weeks away!  On June 12, JWT Atlanta will host Social Shorts, powered by PechaKucha, featuring the following line-up:

Title: Let Them Eat Cupcakes
Description: How Cupcakes Help to Democratize Desserts
Presenter: Nichelle Stephens, Cupcakes Take The Cake –   @niche

Title: My Little Pony: Marketing Is Magic
Description: In 2010, Hasbro lost control of their brand. Although the My Little Pony television series and toy line was intended to target children, it found surprising popularity with adults. Hasbro could have shut the fan base down or even ignored the “bronies,” but they didn’t. Here’s the story of what happened next.
Presenter: Holly Hefner, JWT Atlanta – @hollygrande

Title: Hooked on Story: How to Make Your Brand a Habit
Description: With a crash course in brain science, attendees will learn what it takes to use social storytelling to attract attention in a noisy social world, bring people into their brand’s communication stream and keep their attention over time.
Presenter: Ed King, Hooked On Story -  @StayingInDroves

Title: Finding the happily-ever-after in life and leadership
Description: This PechaKucha-style presentation was part of closing keynote session at the 2012 IABC Southern Region Conference.
Presenter: Alexander V. Taratov, Employee Communications, UPS -  @ataratov

Title: FOMO | The Mobile Device & Ad Men
Description: We use our phones as  a camera, alarm clock, board game, metronome, magazine, map, bank, GPS tracking device, bank, TV, and more. Mostly, we use them to stay connected and keep from missing out!  An unprecedented amount of Americans suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out). And every good Ad Man should be taking advantage of marketing to the mobile device.  Let’s take the next 6 minutes to understand this Ad Man’s new frontier.
Presenter: Karen Rogers-Robinson, SMMMD Consulting Inc – @SocialMMMDiva

Title: Can You Tweet Too Much? 
Description:  How social media helped to build the largest news site in the Southeast dedicated to sustainable business and environmental policy news.
Presenter: Beth Bond, Southeast Green – @BethSEGreen

Title: Embracing the Digital Social R/Evolution
Description: In today’s digital age typified by my “Millennial” generation, social media has quickly become the catalyzing force that drives our cross-cultural global community. Conveniently about as long as a Millennial’s attention span, my presentation explores the evolution of “global citizenry” through the lens of digital communications, the progress (and pitfalls) of having the world at your fingertips, how the world changes 140 characters at a time, and most importantly how YOU can make an impact.  Join me in taking part of the R/Evolution.
Presenter: Stephen Fowler, Emory University Student – @stphnfwlr

Title: It’s all about giving back!
Description: The importance of incorporating a community and/or global impact component into your firm to illustrate that you actually care about the community (or world) you’re doing business in.  And why they should buy your product because after all.. you care about something OTHER THAN yourself. The slides will highlight some of our firm’s ongoing work in Haiti.
Presenter: Solomon Carter, The Fourth Man In The Fire Consulting Group

For those of you who have missed previous years’ events and haven’t heard of PechaKucha, here’s a primer:

PechaKucha 20×20 is a simple presentation format – 20 images, each for just 20 seconds. The images advance automatically and you talk along to the images.  (For the math-challenged like us, that means presentations are exactly 6 minutes 40 seconds long). These fast-paced presentations are fun, inspiring and sometimes amazing. PechaKucha Nights were devised in Tokyo in 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. Today, there are events happening in hundreds of cities around the world. Learn more here.

Tickets are on sale now  - reserve yours at Eventbrite today!

JWT Atlanta is a dynamically structured unit of JWT, 300+ people strong, based in Atlanta with offices in Dallas and Houston. Along with strategic and creative development, we also provide integrated engagement services including digital strategy, social media, media planning and buying, UX, website design/development, search and analytics – all under a single leadership team. Clients include the United States Marine Corps, U.S. Virgin Islands, Transamerica, Shell, Jiffy Lube, Quaker State, Pennzoil and FEMA, among others.

[Guest post by Katia Herrera, Social Media Club Atlanta intern]

It’s always fun when digital professionals can get together to share our tribulations, enjoy our triumphs, get excited about the future…and of course, have a good time! Luckily for us, we get to do it in our backyard once a year at Digital Summit Atlanta.

If you’re interested in digital media and marketing, web strategies, design, startups, innovation, or emerging tech, this is the place to be. This year the Digital Summit is taking place at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre on May 20-21, 2014. With more than 100 speakers – leading digital thought leaders, we want you to be part of the region’s largest digital gathering just as much as you do.

So once again, we’ve partnered with Digital Summit Atlanta to provide you, your friends, and colleagues a special discount. As you register for Digital Summit Atlanta, simply enter the promo code “SMCatl” to received $50 off any pass you wish to purchase!

Not enticing enough? You also have the chance to attend Digital Summit Atlanta for FREE! All you have to do is tweet the message below anytime between now and May 2nd and we’ll select TWO winners at random to win.

We’ll announce the winner on our Twitter feed and Facebook page on Monday, May 5.

Just tweet this to enter:

#SMCATL followers get $50 off @DigitalSummit_ & 2 lucky tweeters win free tickets! Here’s how: http://ow.ly/vZlEe  #dsum14

After all, free always tastes better (or sweeter). Good luck and we’ll see you there!