Appropriately for a social media conference, our invite to this one came via Twitter. One of our followers put us in touch with the organisers and suggested we might be interested in speaking (thanks @robmwright)

So, yesterday morning saw me driving across the pennines to one of the more unusual conference venues, the Chill Factore at Trafford Park near Manchester. A range of delegates from social housing organisations across the midlands and the North came together to share their experiences with using social media to engage with their residents, suppliers and stakeholders and get some great ideas for how to take things forward.

There was a great range of experience in the room, from those taking their first tentative steps in a brave new world, to those who were relatively old hands. The conference opened with a video message from housing minister Grant Shapps MP, who's pledged to answer questions tweeted to him during the day as follow up. My presentation was during the middle of the morning, and I was initially a little nervous as I was taking a slightly different tack and looking at using social for employee engagement. The idea being that engaged employees become advocates for your brand and can then help with your social efforts. I also took a more in depth look at LinkedIn and Google+ company profiles. It was pretty clear from a show of hands that many of the organisations present had either set up and then neglected their presences there or not looked at them at all. One delegate even grabbed an iPad while I was speaking and starting registering there and then.

The session seemed to go down well, with some great reactions and follow up on Twitter:

@nickatkin_hht: @welovechatter really enjoyed your session ad will be working through slidepack when available on@NHConsortium website tomorrow #NHCsocmed   

@Jamoo1987: Emotionally engage people in recruitment says@welovechatter #nhcsocmed clever yet simple stuff.. @knowsleyhousing: Learning a lot about Google+ from @welovechatter #NHCsocmed #googletotakeontheworld

@jenbostevo: I deleted my LinkedIn account last year as I didn't rate it, looks like @welovechatter have convinced me to resurrect it #NHCsocmed The rest of the day was really interesting too, a great session from @lizcable on listening online (and great to finally meet her in person having followed her on twitter for years), interesting to hear Nick the Chief Exec of Halton Housing Trust committing that they'll have eradicated company email by 2014 and a great fun joint presentation rounding off the day from Bromford housing who've partnered with local youth radio station KIC to better understand their younger market and pick up tips on how to engage using social...an unorthodox but clearly really successful approach. Here are the slides:

I'm just now waiting with bated breath for the speaker feedback sheets to come in...fingers crossed I acquitted myself well!