The Center for Development Communication (CDC) is organizing the “Ready Conference” in Washington DC from July 23-25 2012 to help UN, World Bank and other practitioners to implement the social media side of an existing communication strategy. This three day hands-on conference will show you how to use key social media platforms to build relationships, seek advocates, create and reinforce social networks. Building on CDC’s extensive experience in communication for development this course will provide you with:

• the ability to use concrete social media tools to help implement an existing communication strategy
• means to identify online influencers in the blogger and twitter spheres for your organization
• tactics to target the influencers
• awareness of when your agency is being talked about online
• be able to develop a decision process to engage in reputation management
• the ability to measure the impact of social media communication

Who should attend?

Information and communications officers, programme officers, and technical specialists, will gain the most from attending this course. This includes those involved with: (1) writing, editing and developing technical documents for the country programme; (2) Coordination of news releases and media relations; (3) Content Management for web sites; and (4) External communication with beneficiaries, stakeholders, and donors.

What are the prerequisites?

Participants will need to bring:

1. Laptop or Net Book

2. Have determined needs in thier communications strategy which might be able to be met by social media

3. Have delegated authority to create content and use social media on behalf of your organization.

Where will the conference take place?

The Ready Conference on Social Media will take place in Washington DC, USA from 23-25 July 2012 and will be held at the Metro Center Conference Center, 700 12th Street, N.W. Suite 700, Washington DC, 20005.

What are the tuition fees?

The special introductory fees for UN and other development agencies is $1,500.00 for the three day course. This includes pre workshop learning needs assessment, workshop materials, instruction, and post workshop follow on mentoring and virtual support. Group discounts will apply for more than three participants from the same agency.

Who is on the faculty?

The faculty will include Moncef Bouhafa, CDC Director as well as Jeffrey Ghanam, a middle east specialist who has written and spoken extensively on social media and is working with development groups to implement social media in developing countries.