What do you get when you put a Managing Editor, A Director of Global Marketing, 3 Founders, and A supermodel in one panel? A whole lot of inspiration, and not one seat left unattended. 30 Floors above Times Square, people were excited and anxious to hear about the panel that was about to take place. It was none other than the highly anticipated panel that was all over our Twitter feeds-The New Face of Social Good: How To Make Your Own Social Media Magic! Hosted by none other than my favorite organization She’s the First (who we have previously featured on our website.)
The event started out with an introduction from supermodel Alek Wek who She’s the First connected with through Twitter. I was lucky enough to meet her before and she specifically said she was completely against getting on twitter, the only technology she could use is email and that was good for her. But after many people persuaded her she caved in and joined in November, and since then she says it’s such a positive thing that raises awareness, it’s an outlet that we take for granted because countries like Africa don’t have it. I had to ask her, since I am at a She’s the First sponsored event what she is the first in her family to do and she says she’s the first to be a model (even though her mom at first told her NO), and her memoir is translated in up to 10 languages. And my favorite question of all- her advice to all of our readers out there-“Be YOURSELF. Even though sometimes you feel shy, there are people who are going to love you and identify with you and grow with you. One thing I thought to myself is that I couldn’t do this as long as I did if I wasn’t myself with the people who knew me. Be Yourself, Believe in yourself, and even though some people won’t, if you have few good friends you can count on your fingers, you’re set. ” 
After Aleks incredible introduction the panel which featured Adam Braun founder of Pencils of Promise, Susan McPherson director of global marketing firm at Fenton Communications, Michael Radparvar cofounder of Holstee, Tammy Tibbetts founder of She’s the First, and was moderated by none other than Mashable’s Managing Director Emily Banks. All of the panelists agreed that Social Media changed their life. The advice that was given was priceless, Michael said there is nothing more important then the first people you work with, and you love them like a marriage because you end up spending countless of hours with them. Adam said it’s okay not to start something; you can still be the head of marketing or the head of something. Find what you’re most passionate about, and seek work within it. And Susan made a great point about there are 3 times as many non-profits there were 10 years ago, but far less income. One of the best quotes of the nights was “A good tweet is like a good headline, it’s what grabs you to read the article, has to be catchy, that way your twitter is like your own magazine publication.”- Tammy Tibbetts The panelists agreed that the two biggest things of social media is transparency and storytelling. 
Adam Braun also took few minutes to answer questions for our Differences readers, he told me that a lot of hard work goes into overnight successes but if you believe in something relentlessly, it will happen. He also gave the advice for our teens to find your passion and find an organization out there and work with them, and if it feels right, you know you’re doing the right thing.
Throughout the event many people were also tweeting and connected because they were apart of changing a girls life. The Think Cloud agreed to donate a dollar to every tweet with the hash tag SMWMagic, and at the end of the night 1,137 #SMWMagic tweets generated 1,725,630 impressions, reaching audience of 621,260 followers! All of us were apart of something bigger than the event itself, we sponsored Eli’s senior year of high school in Tanzania!
It’s so funny because around a month ago I had a meeting with Tammy and she was telling me about all the exciting upcoming events she was in the process of doing. And I remember her specifically telling me about this Social Media Week event and all she had planned for it. And to see it all come to life, all run smoothly without a glitch was incredible. It was the most popular Social Media Week event, and I can honestly say the most inspiring as well.