Last night, SMC Knoxville hosted the long-awaited Social Media Smackdown, where our panelists debated the merits of their favorite social networks in an attempt to sway the audience to believe each panelist's network was the best.

Representing Twitter, we had Rick Laney, Vice President of Ackermann PR. Katie Granju, Social Media Manager of Scripps Networks spoke on behalf of Facebook. Nicole Denton, Digital Communications Specialist at Pyxl covered Pinterest, and Shane Rhyne, Digital Strategies Manager at Ackermann PR, represented Google+.

While the event itself was held last night at Calhoun's on the River (big thanks to Calhoun's for sponsoring!), the debate started long before via some social media smacktalk across Twitter, Facebook and Google+, which really helped attract a crowd for the main event.

So, which network truly won? It's hard to say, really. A vast majority of guests did leave saying this: if they could only have one social network in their lives, it would be Facebook...but we all knew that already, right? We have to say that all panelists did a great job of selling the features of their chosen networks, and of course, while the event was all in good fun, we did leave our guests with one caveat: all social networks are important, and social media strategy is about finding the right combination to reach your target audience.

Thanks to everyone who came out last night, thanks to our speakers, our moderator Chad Parizman of Scripps and of course our wonderful sponsor, Calhoun's! To see photos of the event, head to our Facebook page!

Our next event will be held March 27, so stay tuned for more details on that, and don't forget to purchase your tickets for Social Slam on April 27!