Keeping it real. The social media Summit by Shareablee

Our first INTERACT Summit confirmed for us what we had been hearing for some time - that our industry is hungry to have a conversation about the challenges we all face and how to collaborate together to help solve them. As I said recently on a call with one of our INTERACT speakers, sometimes you need to lose the plot, just a little, and try something unexpected.

We can't wait for you to see this year’s line up and take all the inspiration and actionable insights back to your workplace.

There's a lot of talk about innovation as a high level concept but we want you to learn about how it's applied in a tactical, practical way by industry leaders as we talk about their wins and their losses. Because at the heart of INTERACT is courage. The courage to collaborate with each other, to face the unsexy and often hard questions together and to clarify how to get things done - especially when you're scared of the change in thinking, and culture, it requires.

We're curating a program that includes Monetization and Branded Content, because most brands have finally given up the romantic notion of being publishers and are looking at how best to partner and make their successes scalable. With analytics in Shareablee's DNA there will also be a big focus on how to look to the data earlier in the process - not just to evaluate your success after a campaign - but to help shape your creative and narrative early on. This interplay is where real magic happens. We'll also hear from some exceptional brands, some of them long established, who've found a new voice on social and are breaking new ground in how they engage with their audiences.

With some of the biggest media companies, publishers, agencies and platforms in attendance we'll be learning what issues even they grapple with and how they turn them into wins.

Last May at our inaugural INTERACT, we aimed to have 100 people in attendance. In the end, more than 400 of you came and stayed for the entire program which was absolutely action packed from keynotes with the NBA, MSNBC, Prudential and WarnerMedia, to our engaging lunchtime Game Show all about influence and panels ranging from Brand Resilience to the Hitchhiker's Guide to leading with Data.

We've moved our event to the summer this year and I can't wait to see you there at the ViacomCBS Midtown HQ at Times Square on June 10. We're planning an even bigger program with speakers from companies including IBM, Facebook, WarnerMedia, Zenith, Mondelez, TIME, iHeart Radio, BET, Univision, ViacomCBS, VOX Media, Minute Media, Fullscreen, NatGeo, Telemundo, Digital Media and more!

On the surface, INTERACT is a valuable networking opportunity, with a Shareablee curated program and some quality merchandise to remind you what lessons to keep close. Beneath that is a real, honest, unvarnished conversation which pushes us forward together. That's why we established INTERACT and why I hope you'll join us.

For those of you in the Shareablee community outside of North America, we'll be live streaming the event and hope you'll send through your questions and comments via social @Shareablee. If there's one social media event you attend in 2020, make it this one. See you then!