The second day of the Social Media and Brand Week continued the success from day 1, with speakers presenting on various topics that enlightened the audience. The first speaker Masher Zaheer, CEO of Credit West was followed by Selin Persentili founder of SP Branding and Management, who both imparted their years of wisdom and experiences with the audience before Eren Yagmuroglu, Istanbul born innovator and founder of Maxfield and Parrish Inc took the stage to share his insights. Yagmuroglu spoke about change, branding and marketing which focused on educational talks and workshops. He explained how he tries to find unusual ways to advertise brands and does reverse advertising and alternative branding of the artist Fasil Hosay, and was in charge of his project “Say on the road”. He stated that social media is a media platform where people air their views and grievances against government polices and how development happening in a country can be heard globally and how government policies can be promoted via media platforms. He explained that social media is also a strategy to push a certain kind of music and culture in a particular place for mostly conservative people of a country.
Following the concurrent session, the second speakers political campaigners Atif Muezzinler and Omer Yetkinel spoke about big data and data brokers and how social media utilise information derived from personality tests, learning of peoples likes and dislikes, which they sell to other companies, where they made references to the Cambridge Analytical data breach. They also discussed the role social media plays in politics and the difficulties social media poses to politicians due to two-way communication. They elaborated on how data is used for the manipulation of politics and elections due to brand identity in terms of fliers, candidate followers on Facebook, Instagram posts, memes etc. The last speaker, Dr. Berk Cagdas who is the CEO of Renault Mais Inc. operating under Oyak Group, discussed how an audience can convert data into information that can help sharpen our lives. He also discussed and his experiences and set backs before becoming successful in his career. He encouraged us to know our value as individuals and always be aware of our ego/pride and try to correct our shortcomings. He elaborated that we should understand how to manage our flaws and weaknesses and avoid negative thoughts.
The event came to a close with a question and answer session and raffle draws organized by the sponsors credit West Bank, Life Cell, Turkish Airlines and Cookies Bake Shop. Many left the event better for their attendance, taking with them invaluable wisdom and guidance as they departed.
