The inaugural Big Social Media Conference has been hailed a success by organisers after they achieved an 18.5m reach on Twitter.

Hundreds of businesses with an interest in digital innovation gathered for the conference to hear internationally-renowned speakers, including Canadian Melonie Dodaro and Facebook expert Mari Smith.

With talks on how to improve commercial performance through social media, and the do’s and don’ts of popular sites like LinkedIn, the speeches gave a host of helpful pointers.

The two-day event, held at Lancashire Cricket Club’s The Point, trended second in the UK, above the Tube strikes.

It was organised by John Ashcroft and Company in association with the pro-manchester Events For You team.

Chief operating officer Alexandra Kington said: “The Big Social Media Conference has been a year in the making.

"It was becoming clear through the work we were doing on social media experts that the UK was lacking a conference of the size and scale of Big Social.

"Given our contacts and growing prestige, we started looking to showcase the homegrown talent we have in the UK, alongside inviting our US counterparts over to Manchester.

"Although it pains me to admit it, the US is ahead of the UK when it comes to social, and this conference redresses that balance and shows that we are making headway here in the UK.”

Topics on the agenda included social media advertising, video marketing, boosting sales and profits and insight into some of the world’s most popular social media platforms.

The overall focus for the first day was going back to social media basics with the next day focusing on higher level methods, strategy and analytics.

Alexandra said: "We were delighted at the quality of speakers who attended Big Social.

"Mari Smith is the premier Facebook Marketing expert in the world. Melonie Dodaro is a number one bestselling author and Canada’s leading LinkedIn expert. Lilach Bullock is named as one of the top 20 female social media influencers.

“These are amazing speakers, experts and thought leaders in their fields.

“We were also incredibly proud to feature many Manchester experts such as Sam Flynn, Al Mackin and Guy Levine – all fantastic examples of Manchester-based business personalities putting us on the map, in terms of social media expertise.

“The response we have received has been outstanding. It is beyond what we ever thought possible.

“We reached a potential audience of 18.5m and have had a flood of amazing feedback from all over the world.

“This reaction alone shows that the UK, and Manchester in particular, has been crying out for an event of this type.”

Many attendees pledged to attend next year as well.

Robin Goodswen, social media manager of Access, said: "It’s difficult to know what level these conferences are going to be pitched to so I was a little wary that it wouldn’t be overly informative.

"However, it was incredibly useful, with speakers talking on a whole range of topics to improve social understanding and productivity.

"For Manchester to be able to attract speakers like Mari Smith and Melanie Dodaro, who are true legends in their own right in social media, is brilliant.

"Manchester is growing into a true centre for the digital industry, which hopefully means we’re only going to get bigger names in the future.”