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Last night was the first ever Mashable meetup in Leeds; the event took place in the upstairs section of the swanky Living Room on Greek Street.

The format of the evening gave people the chance to rant, rave or both for 60 seconds on something to do with social media in Leeds and then the rest of the group would vote for the person they wanted to hear more of by clapping.

The speeches ranged from what people were doing in social media to business, event and blog plugging and even a recruitment drive!

The ‘clapo-meter’; controlled by Stuart Bruce decided on a tie between Karyn Fleeting of Tinderbox Media, and our very own Sam Oakley. Karyn talked on the upcoming Think Visibility conference taking place in Leeds in September and Sam spoke on the separation of human behaviour and how social media was fundamentally about people.

The speeches went on to provoke further discussion, and we sat around thrashing out debate on public relations and social media education (the failings of academia), the integration and separation of different marketing disciplines, the future of social media and how the Leeds social media scene could grow.

For someone fairly new to the industry, this was my first networking event and I think regular meetings just like last nights will not only help to add gravitas to the Leeds social media scene, but will also benefit us individually through sharing and collaborating with each other.

I think the event was a success and hope we can all do it again soon…maybe next time I’ll even pluck up the courage to speak!