Warren Daley
Ngunnawal Elder

Vanessa Grimm
Executive Director Strategic Communications and Engagement
Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade

• Building trust with the public and across departments through tone to increase engagement   
• Balancing an authoritative tone alongside a respectful, clear and transparent one to improve the reputation of your agency  
• Meeting key communication goals through applying the right tone to the right context

Sharon Kalina
Director Corporate Communications and Strategy
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

• How the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPNSA) developed a targeted strategy that addresses both misinformation and disinformation during the 5G rollout
• Countering “fake news” through media literacy campaigns and the promotion of factual content   
• Humanising your message through the use of trustworthy leadership and subject matter experts to increase the credibility of your message  
• Educating audiences on how to identify legitimate sources of information to combat misinformation on social media

Jenni Stiffe
Assistant Director Communications
Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPNSA) 

• Examining the importance of bringing stakeholders on a journey by utilising a stakeholder journey map 
• Creating an engagement model from scratch which encompasses stakeholder feedback and accounts for their needs  
• Engaging with stakeholders correctly through the power of listening to guarantee effective discourse

Benjamin Graham
Assistant Director Community Engagement and Communications
Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide

Director Media and Communications

Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability

• Identifying and prioritising the main channels on which your audiences typically engage with your department 
• Adjusting your tone, formality and response times in line with your audience expectations and platform  
• Creating social media guidelines around social customer support and protocols when specialist or specific information is required

Elliott Franks
Acting Director Social Media
QLD Department of Resources 

• Monitoring conversations that mention your organisation and identifying circumstances in which intervention is necessary  
• Developing a response strategies and protocols for misleading or offensive content that is associated with your brand  
• Responding to negative comments or complaints in a prompt and clear manner 

Jen Rosenberg
National Manager Strategic Communications
Australian Catholic University 

• Determining and defining clear rules and guidelines for community engagement via social media  
• De-escalating circumstances that involve negative or abusive users 
• Identifying the circumstances in which intervening in an online discourse is required and worthwhile to maximise the allocation of limited resources

Panellists:  

Joe Adamo, General Manager Strategic Communications and Engagement, Australian Energy Regulator 

Elliott Franks, Acting Director Social Media, QLD Department of Resources 

Olivia Gumienny, Social Media Engagement Advisor, University of Melbourne 

Tom Wald, Director Communications and Corporate Affairs, NSW Treasury 

• Rotating different responsibilities associated with social media management to prevent specific tasks from taking a toll on your mental health 
• Creating boundaries to segregate your personal and professional use of social media 
• Mitigating the impact of scope creep and heavy workloads on the mental health of social media managers 
• Addressing and overcoming staff burn-out while moderating alongside resource limitations

Maxwell Handsaker
Corporate Social Media Officer
City of Stonnington 

• Understanding best practice regarding developing content in various formats to maximise accessibility 
• Effectively representing people with disability on your platforms and tailoring your content to your audiences’ needs 
• Applying captions, Auslan interpretation, image descriptions, alt-text and Easy English to increase the accessibility of your content

Jacqueline Levett
Director Media and Communications
Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Expoloitation of People with Disability 

• Developing a robust organic content strategy that lies outside of specific campaigns 
• Leveraging your stakeholders’ social media reach to grow your following on a low budget 
• Identifying the right mix of organic and paid strategies to maximise the impact and reach of your communications  
• Ensuring that your mix of paid and organic posting achieves both short- and long-term goals 

Samantha Feyzeny
Head of Marketing and Communications
NSW Office of Sport 

Assistant Director Content (Social Media)

ACT Government

• Utilising data to stay connected with communities and audiences and tailor your content appropriately 
• Understanding the issues that matter to your audiences to create essential content for them 
• Leveraging social data analytics to understand the type of content that your audience wants to see and optimising your strategy accordingly 

Olivia Gumienny
Social Media Engagement Advisor
University of Melbourne

• Developing a social media content strategy by tracking trends and patterns on posts that perform well  
• Leveraging your content strategy to give purpose and direction to your social media channels  
• Reporting and using statistics to inform your content approach 
• Following trends and investigating spikes in positive or negative sentiment to better understand what content performs best on each platform

Joni Wanless
Assistant Director Content (Social Media)
ACT Government 

• Linking your content to relevant news and events to attract interest from your audience 
• Utilising storytelling to create a narrative and emphasise the relevance of your message 
• Leveraging different formats and platforms to communicate complicated messages clearly and succinctly 
• Diversifying your social media content through visuals, graphics, gifs, videos, infographics, quotes and memes

Erin Brissett
Coordinator Experience and Publishing
Merri-bek City Council 

• Communicating innovative and creative campaigns through unique channels to reach new audiences 
• Personalising messages for segments of your target audience to increase their impact and relevance 
• Using humour to grab attention and make your content stand out

Daniel Yee
Digital Content Producer
Yarra Ranges Council 

• Summarising longer messages into short, succinct and easy to understand messages 
• Identifying the types of messages that are best communicated via short- and long- form content 
• Delivering consistency and a more mobile-optimised social media experience to address decreasing digital attention spans 
• Assessing how short-form videos fit into your content strategy to make your message more specific and digestible

Anna Whitelaw
General Manager Corporate Affairs
Australian Renewable Energy Agency

• Summarising longer messages into short, succinct and easy to understand messages 
• Identifying the types of messages that are best communicated via short- and long- form content 
• Delivering consistency and a more mobile-optimised social media experience to address decreasing digital attention spans 
• Assessing how short-form videos fit into your content strategy to make your message more specific and digestible

Panellists: 

Rania Wannous
Chief Customer Officer
NSW Telco Authority  

Jen Rosenberg
National Manager, Strategic Communications
Australian Catholic University  

Melanie Skinner
Head of Communications and Engagement
Australian Public Service Commission  

Executive Director Strategic Communications and Engagement,

Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade

• Reviewing our reliance on the ‘facts’ to change minds and strengthen the impact of your external communications   
• Using ‘values framing’ to know which audience segments are persuadable and where resources will have most impact  
• Leveraging research to prove your expertise to senior internal stakeholders 

Jayne Cullard
Director of Stakeholder Engagement and Advocacy
EACH   

• Engaging with key stakeholders through collaboration to produce the best client experiences 
• Understanding why building a team that produces key deliverables is your first objective, but not everything  
• Incorporating all communications elements into a holistic function that adds objective value through strategic decision-makingVanessa Grimm
  Executive Director Strategic Communications and Engagement
  Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade

• Educating staff on how digital channels can assist in their roles to successfully transition skeptical audiences onto digital channels  
• Equipping tech-hesitant demographics to thrive whilst using technology through effective comms  
• Solving problems and facilitating connections through reliable data to demonstrate the impact of digital channels towards achieving goals and solving problems

Erin Gliapek
Digital Communication Manager, Communications and Engagement
QLD Family and Child Commission 

• Demonstrating the benefits of data and analytics on your comms processes and outcomes  
• Utilising chatbots and direct messages to cut through the noise in an oversaturated content landscape  
• Analyse your data through AI capabilities to increase your understanding of audience sentiment

Panellists: 

Jen Rosenberg
National Manager, Strategic Communications
Australian Catholic University 

Rania Wannous
Chief Customer Officer
NSW Telco Authority  

Todd Williams
Executive Manager, Organisational Strategy and Communications
Bellingen Shire Council  

• Embedding authenticity into the strategic pillars of your communications framework to build trust with your audiences  
• Prioritising principles like government efficacy and social justice into your communications strategy to produce innovative and creative campaigns   
• Deepening relationships across departments to further your internal and external communication strategy and maximise the impact of your communications

Mike Lagastes
Deputy Director, External Communications
Swinburne University of Technology