The second annual Local Social event returned in 2014 with another amazing group of speakers and networking opportunities.

The Local Social is a networking collaboration of local marketing organizations and was held on October 23rd in Richardson, TX. This event brought together experts in the digital industry to discuss search, content and social tactics to help optimize businesses.

The National Panel of digital marketing experts included:

• Mike Grehan – CMO & Managing Director, Acronym.
• Pamela Parker – Executive Features Editor Search Engine Land and Marketing Land
• Jerod Morris – Director of Content, Copyblogger Media
• Loren Baker – VP of Business Development & Co-founder, Search Engine Journal
• Larry Kim –  Founder and Chief Technology Officer, WordStream

Meet the rest of the speakers.

The presentations created some animated tweets as you can see from these samples:

Seriously, y’all – go download @larrykim‘s slides from #ls2014 — http://bit.ly/thelocalsocial ~ ‏@GregGifford

This @mikegrehan is smart AND funny. “Put that in your tweet and tweet it” #ls2014 #CMO #expert #author… http://instagram.com/p/ugY70qzKxK/ ~ @MelanieNeal

View Mike Grehan’s presentation on Slideshare.

Listening to the donkeys vs unicorns. Myths and realities of PPC optimization per @larrykim #ls2014 ~ @gwickes

SEO Social media Google Digital Marketing optimization conversion. Just a few things I’m learning about #ls2014 ~ @BeautyBuzzMedia

5 yrs ago, SEO was voodoo guy in corner. Now it’s all company involved 4 campaign style approach @lorenbaker #ls2014 ~ @gwickes

Special thank you to Jacob Henke for all the great photos of the Local Social 2014. Check out the photo gallery.

The event brought out some equally impressive “homegrown” panelists like digital marketing and communications consultant Andra Dunn of the American Marketing Association; Mark Barrera of Social Media Dallas; John Nosal of the DFW SEO Group; Todd Ebert currently CMO of ReachLocal; and Greg Gifford of DFW Search Engine Marketing Association.

@LissaDuty really woke up the local panel when she asked “What do you think of Bing and how are you leveraging it for your clients?” @GregGifford responded “Raise your hand if you search on Bing.” Five people raised their hand, everyone laughed and Greg responded “Next Question!”

And then, as if all of that wasn’t enough, there was also a special event with Daniel Wu of Baidu/Gridsum who came in from Beijing to discuss the world’s fastest growing digital marketing industry in China. Wu also discussed how businesses in Texas can effectively reach a target audience in China.

Do ya think that in like 10 years when Baidu takes over the world, we’ll all be like “I was in the room at #ls2014 listening to their plan”? ~ @GregGifford

Listening to rep from Top Search Engine in China: Baidu There is no Google in China! #search #LS2014… http://instagram.com/p/ugSwRPzK4N/ ~ @MelanieNeal

Needless to say, those that attended got much more than their money’s worth from this event! These are some of my highlights from #LS2014. Comment below and share your favorite moments.

Diana Wells

Diana Wells is a writer, a poet, a blogger, an event manager and someone that loves to make people laugh. Lover and rescuer of any kind of animal, especially dogs, horses, hedgehogs, elephants and sloths. She doesn’t actually rescue elephants and sloths but supports organizations that do.

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