A Lisburn digital marketing expert has been confirmed as a speaker at Social Media Fest Belfast. Ruth Young, founder of Ruthless Media, will take to the stage at the Clayton Hotel in Belfast on Wednesday, April 29, as part of the final speaker line-up for the sixth edition of the event.
Social Media Fest, which has previously taken place in Wexford and Dublin, is coming to Belfast for the first time with a full-day conference built around the theme “Connect, Create, Conquer: Mastering the Social Media Landscape”.
Running from 9am to 5pm, the event is aimed at business owners, managers, entrepreneurs, marketers, freelancers and creators who want practical guidance on growing their presence online.
Ruth will deliver “Are Your Meta Ads Working Against You?”, a practical, no-nonsense guide to building a full-funnel Meta Ads strategy that stops wasting budget and starts turning strangers into customers.
Ruth is a Chartered CIM digital marketing professional with more than 20 years of experience working across public, private and non-profit sectors.
Over the past six years, she has worked with more than 400 organisations, providing tailored support to maximise their social media impact. Her services include training, mentoring, strategy development, account troubleshooting and management of paid advertising campaigns across platforms including Meta (Facebook and Instagram), LinkedIn, Amazon and Google.
Ruthless Media helps businesses promote products and services online through social media advertising and Google ads, using data driven strategies to grow traffic, generate leads and increase sales.
Outside of digital marketing, Ruth is President of Lisburn Chamber of Commerce, is studying Level 4 in British Sign Language, is an elder in her church and organises the Ruthless Christmas Do for the self-employed community.
In her Social Media Fest session, Ruth will walk attendees through a full-funnel Meta Ads strategy that meets customers at every stage of their journey, from the moment they first discover a brand, through consideration, all the way to conversion.
Attendees will learn why targeting the wrong stage of the customer journey is costing them budget, how to build a full-funnel Meta Ads strategy, and how to stop running campaigns that work against each other.
Speaking about getting involved, Ruth said: “Being a self professed social media geek for over 26 years, it was a no-brainer to get involved. The line up of speakers is incredible and I’m honoured to be presenting alongside them.”
Conference director Esther Ocampo said Social Media Fest Belfast is designed to give businesses practical, locally relevant advice they can use straight away.
She explained: “We’ve spent four events building something in Dublin and Wexford that people genuinely value, and the appetite from Northern Ireland has been impossible to ignore.
“Belfast is a city full of ambitious business owners who deserve access to the same quality of conversation and the same practical tools that our southern attendees have been benefiting from. Bringing Social Media Fest to Belfast felt like the natural next step.”
What organisers say sets this conference apart from others in the sector is its deliberate focus on speakers who understand the specific realities of hyperlocal markets, delivering advice that attendees can act on immediately to make a difference in their business.
Esther added: “There’s a tendency at conferences to bring in people from major cities in England or the US who tell you what is working for brands with enormous budgets, and you sit there thinking, that is never going to apply to my business. That is not what Social Media Fest is about.
“Every speaker at this event understands the local market. They know what it takes to build a business here, to reach customers here, and to grow from here. The advice you will hear on the day is advice you can take out of the room and use immediately, whether that means connecting with the person beside you, posting something that afternoon, or finally tackling the platform you have been putting off for months.”
Tickets for Social Media Fest Belfast 2026 are on sale now.
Social Media Fest 2026 takes place at the Clayton Hotel, Belfast, on Wednesday April 29. Doors open at 8.30am for registration and the conference runs until 5pm. Tickets are available at https://bit.ly/SMFestPress
For further information, visit socialmediafestglobal.com or email [email protected]
