The 10 Most Influential Speakers at Big 4 Social Media Summit

2016 has been called the “year of influencer marketing” for public relations. The old ideals of press releases and leveraging traditional media outlets have been left in the past. Effective PR professionals know that in order to gain attention for their brand they need to influence the voices that their audience trusts.

An influencer’s voice—whether a blog, a review or an expert who moves the market at the speed of a tweet is worth gold – Cheryl Conner

Building Influencer Relationships in PR

The PR industry is shifting towards building influencer relationships that support marketing and overarching business goals. In Gravitate PR’s post Five basic tips for influencer marketing success they point out that, for most PR pros, influencer relations should be viewed as a clear extension of traditional PR programs. Once influencer relationships are established, influencers can help drive brand awareness, increase sales, and boost customer satisfaction.

Next week PR professionals will gather in San Francisco at PR News’ event: Big 4 Social Media Summit. (The day before the summit is a Visual Storytelling Boot Camp as well, more on why visual content is more important than ever here.) Despite the supposed “year of influencer marketing,” when I was looking over the agenda I noticed that the topic was nowhere to be found. Nonetheless, I wanted to find people attending the event who talk about influencer marketing regularly, although not part of the agenda.

The 10 Most Influential Speakers at Big 4 Social Media Summit

The following list is compiled of the top 10 speakers at the Big 4 Social Media Summit who talk about influencer marketing and public relations. Whether you are attending the summit or not, these thought leaders are pioneering the public relations industry.

Top 10 Most Influential Speakers at #Social16

1. Carlos Gil, Global Head of Social Media, BMC Software
2. Sahana Jayaraman, SVP, Head of Digital Brand Lab, Eastwick Communications
3. Karen Lee, Associate Director, Digital and Social, Stanford Graduate School of Business
4. David Landis, President/CEO, Landis Communications Inc.
5. Leslie Douglas, Senior Manager, Social Media, PwC
6. Chad Mitchell, Senior Director, Digital Communications, Walmart
7. Ian Beckman, Jr. Video Producer, W2O Group
8. Kriselle Laran, Vice President, Head of Digital, Zeno Group
9. Karen Do, Senior Manager, Brand Social Media, Adobe
10. Leslie Drate, Social Media Manager, U.S. Consumer Print, HP

How PR can leverage Influencer Marketing

If you are a PR professional wondering how you could leverage influencer marketing, please feel free to contact us. We would love to chat with you about how we see the PR industry relying on influencers for success. If you plan to attend the Big 4 Social Media Conference, please tweet us and let us know what session you are the most excited about. Tweet the @Traackr handle directly or reach out to Justin Dorfman (@justindorfman87) or Ian Mckay (@ianalexmckay) who will both be attending the conference.

What do you think about PR and influencer marketing? What’s the biggest trend in the PR industry?