With 10 speakers before the first coffee break, a packed London conference room and a relentless Twitterfall, Social Media 09 was a marathon of case studies and opinion that fitted four days of knowledge into four hours.

Almost every speaker brought a new view to the debate. Aside from Sarah Beeny’s denial that TV stardom was the central driver of her site’s growth, and an agency rep thanking social media for the success of a Wonderbra viral (can a video of Dita Von Teese in a bra really be a tough sell?), the speakers shared some interesting case studies.

While there was nothing that new or controversial in the programme, we all came away with one point ringing loudly in our ears: Social media works.

From my vantage point at the back of the room (and in between furiously tweeting fellow delegates for an iPhone charger – I killed mine filling the Twitterfall) I recorded one line from each speaker that resonated with me.

These are just soundbites that struck me during each speech and it is by no means an exhaustive list. But you never know, there might just be a point in there that sparks something in your mind too… Here goes:

1. Robin Wright, Engine: “Mouse clicking can change brain behaviour.”

2. Katy Lindemann, Naked Communications: “There’s no such thing as social media – it’s just about being social.”

3. Sarah Beeny, Tepilo: “Fuck up fast.”

4. Marshall Manson, Edelman: “Flickr was a massive surprise, with a huge SEO benefit.”

5. Toby Gunton & Penelope Lipsham, Altogether Digital: “Make sharing easy via social bookmarking sites. Dothetest.co.uk sent 12k fans sent to the campaign site, while 1/3 of motorists and cyclists recognised the campaign.”

6. Emma Cowan, Central Office of Information: “People wanted to see real people, not the RAF.”

7. Mat Morrison: “Brands replace personality to build personal relationships, but social media made it a minefield. You can’t fool people. How can you keep pretending you have a social relationship when all you want is a business one?”

8. Amanda Brown, First Direct: “It’s a brave step to use live commentary and consumer comments on a website. But compliance and legal advised that live tweets were a bad idea.”

9. Paul Borge, Consolidated PR: “We made 1,400% more impact than the year before (when we didn’t use social media). Make sure you don’t send bloggers press material.”

10. Mark Pack, Mandate Communications: “Lifestreaming is good for political websites. So are multiple user paths.”

11. Giles Rhys Jones, Ogilvy: “Social sits across everything. 80% of everything you do should be practiced, 20% should be structured experiments.”

12. Andrew Grill: “When you’re put on hold to a call centre, nobody hears you scream. On Twitter, everyone hears you scream.”

13. Chris Thorpe, Jaggeree: “All you need is a broadcaster to shine a light on things and people find stuff out.”

14. Josh Feldberg, Digital Public: “Before you implement any social media strategy you’ve got to listen and choose the right channel. White van man doesn’t twitter.”

For the full presentations contact the organisers.

Jon is a senior digital consultant at Waggener Edstrom. Image via Paul Clarke.