Susan McPherson - Social Media Week New York (SMWNYC) - MAY 4

(Photo: Susan McPherson, third from the left, at SMW NYC 2012)

Next up in our Advisory Board interview series is Susan McPherson, Senior Vice President and Director of Global Marketing at Fenton Communications:

1. What is you or your organization’s greatest success with social media to date?

With Fenton’s support, I’ve had the opportunity to launch and grow #CSRchat, a biweekly Twitter chat that focuses on a range of corporate social responsibility issues. Over the last two years, I’ve facilitated conversations with a growing group of extremely intelligent and engaged people who come to the CSR field from a variety of perspectives. Special guests have ranged from Microsoft’s Citizenship Team to reporting guru Elaine Cohen to the Inteland Cisco CSR teams to the Director of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy. It’s amazing to see this community come together twice a month and take a deep dive into important questions, issues, and solutions that drive the CSR field forward. The more rewarding part is when I’m at conferences and events, I get the chance to meet #CSRchat participants in person—and they already feel like old friends.

2. What do you think is the most exciting thing happening in the emerging technology and/or new media space right now?

There are so many exciting things happening in the technology space, but I’m partial to innovations that use new media to create social change. Social entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and corporations are doing amazing things to improve the lives of communities across the globe. For an example, check out 10×10, a groundbreaking global campaign that uses documentary film, photos, blogs, videos, books, social media, and strategic partnerships to deliver a single message: educating girls in developing nations will change the world. With Intel as a founding partner, 10×10 really exemplifies a storytelling-driven campaign that strategically integrates relevant media channels, relationships, and events—all with the purpose of changing the world.

3. What speaker or event are you most looking forward to at SMW NYC?

Fenton is co-hosting “Giving Gangnam Style,” an interactive ideathon with 92Y, Mashable, and the UN Foundation centered around #GivingTuesday, the new national day of giving that launched last fall. The success of the inaugural Giving Tuesday proved that social is transforming how people give and that it’s turning everyday citizens into philanthropists. At this event, we’ll invite participants to share ideas and announce plans for how to participate in Giving Tuesday 2013. Based on the current attendee list, I truly cannot wait to see what the audience comes up with. It promises to be an inspiring and unique event. Another event I’m particularly excited about is “Money, News & Sex: Stories of Challenging Three Industries from Cindy Gallop, Jessica Jackley and Katie Orenstein.” I count all three as amazing friends who have paved tremendous paths for women everywhere.

4. What prompted you to join Social Media Week’s Advisory Board? What do you think is SMW’s greatest value add to the tech/media space?

I believe social media is a wonderful tool for facilitating connections, generating engagement, building communities, and inspiring change. But we all have to remember that it’s just a tool. Without offline engagement and relationships, social media loses a lot of its value. That’s what I think is so great about Social Media Week. It celebrates what’s so great about social media, but brings us all physically together to do so, creating a unique space where offline and online engagement fuse together, and paving the way for true innovation.

5. What is the most creative way you’ve seen social media used?

It’s not the most recent, but I LOVE Tipp-Ex’s YouTube Tippexperience. Essentially, you watch a YouTube video titled “A Hunter Shoots a Bear.” The hunter in the video then reaches for the Tipp-Ex white-out tape (sitting in an ad to the right of the frame), crosses out “shoots,” and invites you to choose your own verb. Depending on what you choose (from “kisses” to “punches” to “eats”), the video will change accordingly. So cool and shareable. Check it out and try it for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/user/tippexperience

Susan McPherson is a serial connector, passionate cause marketer, writer and corporate responsibility expert. As SVP/Director of Global Marketing at Fenton Communications, she focuses on creating visibility for the firm running its CSR practice. She’s a regular writer and contributor for the Harvard Business Review, Triple Pundit and Forbes and has 20+ years experience in marketing, public relations, sustainability communications. Prior to joining Fenton, McPherson was vice president, CSR services at PR Newswire. McPherson serves on the board of Bpeace, an organization dedicated to assisting women in regions of conflict and post-conflict start businesses and Earth 2 Hub, a London-based innovative media platform for science and technology. She also is a member of Echoing Green’s Social Investment Council and Social Media Week’s New York Advisory Council. Additionally, she serves as an adviser to the non-profits: Girls Who Code, Plant A Fish, She’s The First, The Adventure Project and The OpEd Project. Recently, McPherson was selected as a Vital Voices global corporate ambassador.

This post is a series of blogs contributed by SMW NYC media partner Differences Magazine. To learn more about Differences Magazine and to see the original post by Opal Vadham, please click here.

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.