City Connections: IIT Stuart Students at Chicago Social Media Week - Part 5

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Several IIT Stuart undergraduate and graduate students attended Social Media Week Chicago this past September, a week-long series of events that takes place in cities around the world featuring experts, iconic brands, and leading thinkers sharing their ideas and inspiration. Thank you to Jia “Sylvia” Yan, a student in IIT Stuart’s M.S. Marketing Analytics and Communication program, for sharing her experiences and insights from the week.

IIT Stuart: Tell us about the sessions you attended and what you learned.

Sylvia: During SWM, I had the opportunity to attend nine sessions, including:

  • Big Data vs. Big Brother: How marketers are dissecting the consumer at the intersection of mobile and social
  • SEO Strategies for PR and Social Media
  • Making The Cut: How Cars.com turns auto journalism into sharable social content
  • Using Social Tools to Inform Strategies - Moderated by Bill Rancic
  • Keynote: Highly Recommended: Harnessing the power of word-of-mouth and social media to build your brand
  • Using Social Media to Find Jobs (Jobseeker Focused)
  • Company Culture "Blind Date" via Wakefield Media & DePaul Career Center
  • I'm Lovin' It®: How McDonald’s sets a new social media standard
  • #SMWChicago Insider Pass Networking Party

I have learned a lot of new information about social media from these sessions. For example, most people focus on SEO or content and forget about page loading time. However, one session discussed recent survey findings that pointed to loading time becoming a more important factor than others. If your website takes too much time to load, you will lose consumers. As a student, I also wanted to learn how to use social media to build my own network and search for jobs. After attending “Using Social Media to Find Jobs (Jobseeker Focused),” I learned that a job seeker should carefully review all their online content to ensure it’s professional and appropriate. Meanwhile, we should also focus on retaining our networks after building them, such as with thank you notes or holiday greetings through social media.

IIT Stuart: Were you able to take advantage of any networking opportunities during the week?

Sylvia: When I attended the #SMWChicago Insider Pass Networking Party it was a great opportunity for students to communicate with professionals. Due to the informal nature of the event, people were really patient with questions. Next time, I will better prepare my questions in advance. I have a strong interest in McDonald’s social media strategy and I attended “I'm Lovin' It®: How McDonald’s sets a new social media standard.” I prepared several questions about social media strategy for McDonald’s external communication manager and was able to start a conversation and build my own network.

IIT Stuart: How have you been able to connect content from SMWChicago to what you're learning in class?

Sylvia: Based on the SMWChicago schedule, I chose which section I was interested in. For example, “Making The Cut: How Cars.com turns auto journalism into sharable social content.” In this session, Cars.com’s social media manager talked about how to use social media tools to optimize brand marketing, which we have discussed in our social media class. In class we’re learning the basic information and guidelines about social media, and SMWChicago provide real business cases to illustrate how to consider social media questions or deal with real social media strategy.

IIT Stuart: Will what you learned inform how you utilize social media personally and professionally?

Sylvia: Before I attended social media week, I only considered LinkedIn as my professional link. After talking with social media professionals, I learned that we should be aware of all content we have posted on online, especially Facebook and Twitter. I never used Twitter too much before SMWChicago. However, I found a lot of people heavily used Twitter for networking and job seeking. Students can consider using social media to build up their professional profile and communicate with people.

IIT Stuart: Would you recommend IIT Stuart students attend next time?

Sylvia: Definitely, I was very honored to represent IIT Stuart and attend sessions. SMWChicago provides a platform for people to communicate with each other. As student, you can learn the latest information about social media, but also have a great chance to interact with professionals in the industry to know what happens in the real business world while building your own network.

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