Here we are getting down to the ‘smaller’ blogs. Yet they pack a punch. I like the blogs operated by a single person or a small company with information and posts from dedicated bloggers. It’s refreshing and illuminating to see what types of posts come out of the smaller blogs.
So, here are my favorite five event-related blogs for the year.
In spite of Classic Exhibits’ support of this blog, that’s not the reason I’m including them. I always find unusual, entertaining and informative blog posts from Mel White and Kevin Carty, the two main bloggers. They’ve been in the industry long enough to know what’s important enough to blog about. You may feel there’s a little too much self-promotion on the blog, but it’s tempered by a lot of posts that are just damn useful
Covering event marketing from Facebook and mobile marketing to creating a YouTube channel for your event, the Event Manager Blog gets a lot of things right. Plus it’s a nicely designed blog, making it easy to spend time there – a big plus in the crowded blogosphere.
I don’t see too many posts on social media event marketing, but the Exhib-It blog from the display company is full of very useful information on many aspects of tradeshow and event marketing.
Joyce has been writing and blogging about tradeshows for years and it shows. Her blog always has new thoughtful and informative posts that are helpful for virtually any exhibitor.
I wish Ken blogged more often – he’s that good. Funny, thought-provoking and informative, Ken’s goal is to make you a better exhibitor – and entertain you at the same time. Also one of the best tradeshow presenters in the biz.
One of my favorite bits of TechCrunch is TechCrunch TV, which regularly features interviews with interesting (both known and unknown) folks in the social media/technical world. That and a lot of solid content keeps me coming back.
I’m a recent reader of Soshable, which is the social media blog of one JD Rucker, an outspoken and thoughtful blogger. I found enough material to keep me engaged for hours.
Setting up a virtual tradeshow website for your tradeshow appearance is as easy as setting up a new website. Mainly because that’s exactly what it is. While I’ve seen a number of ways to do it, having a blog platform for your virtual tradeshow gives you the most control and flexibility.
There are some platforms that allow you to set up an virtual ‘booth’ which looks graphically much like a booth, replete with branding, graphics, aisles, floor sections and more. The trouble is, it looks like a website from 1998.
With a WordPress blog platform, you can customize it to no end and maintain total control over the process, look and feel and content.
So why set up a blog that’s specific to a single show appearance? Because you can funnel lots of eyeballs there, and once those eyeballs arrive, you can drive them to other useful things, such as opting into email lists, downloading branded white papers, ‘liking’ your Facebook page or more.
A well-built site that’s specific to a show will be packed with content. Some of that content would optimally be posted before the show to prep the world to the site. While this would be very useful for search engines, it is also a prime opportunity to invite your current clients and newsletter subscribers to check it out. Once the show is underway, have a plan to post videos, articles, interviews, photos and more on the site. Make it a place for people to find general information about the show, and specific information about your products and services and company.
Even though you have the virtual tradeshow website, don’t forget about Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. Use those outlets to inform the wider population by the use of hashtags (Twitter), keywords (YouTube and Flickr) and ongoing conversation (Facebook). Those social media platforms will help raise awareness and drive traffic to your main site, even though much of the content is the same.
Two recent examples of the use of virtual tradeshow websites come to mind: the site set up for Osram Opto Semiconductor for Lightfair and the site put up by Griffin Technologies for their appearance at CES in 2010. Both were quite successful, and should be used as models for how to set up your own virtual tradeshow website.
So, the short list:
Set up a blog that focuses on one event
Register a domain and create a name for the blog that describes your company and appearance at the show
Create some content before the show, mainly teaser material
Post obsessively during the show: videos, articles, photos, interviews, product reviews, testimonials, booth guest schedules, demo schedules, etc.
Post much of the same material to Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, using keywords, show and company hashtags, links back to your site.
After the show, continue to post updated material or video and information from the show for at least a couple of months. It’ll help keep the site high in the search engines. Plus, if you can keep material dripping onto the site for the rest of the year until the next show, it’s a great set-up for the next year.
Your payback for your time and energy will be much more visibility and a unique record of all the materials you took and archived at the show.
So you’re going to shoot a tradeshow teaser video to get people to be aware of your upcoming appearance whetting their appetite to see your company’s exhibit at the show. But you’re rarely messed around with video. Maybe you don’t like getting in front of the camera. Or you don’t know what to put in a brief video.
Well, let’s take a look at ten things to think about when assembling your video.
1. Know whom you’re talking to
What is your intended audience thinking about the issue you’re going to talk about? Are they well informed? Ill-informed? Mis-informed? The more you can understand the mindset of your audience, the better your video will be. In the case of creating a short video that relates to a tradeshow appearance, does your audience know anything about you company or your product? Are they familiar with the show? Do they have the proper context for your presentation or are they coming in from the cold?
Steaz Teas Interactive Fortune-Telling Cactus
2. Pick a single topic and stick to it.
You’ve seen videos that try to do everything and cover a lot of ground. In the case of a short teaser video, know exactly what the topic and don’t waver. If you have more than one reason to invite people to your booth, do more than one video.
3. If you’re going to be on camera, rehearse your presentation a few times, but don’t overdo it.
There are other ways to create a video than to use a video camera. A screen-capture program, for instance, is a great way to put a video together without actually getting in front of a camera. But if you’re going to put your face onscreen, rehearse it a few times until you feel comfortable with the bullet points you’re going to cover. And yes, you should just cover bullet points, and NOT read a script. By rehearsing it a few times you’ll get comfortable with how you’re going to say it. Record a few times and go with the best. Don’t worry about perfection – there’s still no perfect presentation – but just relax and let it flow and you’ll be fine.
4. Fancy production or not?
In most cases, there’s no need for fancy production. If you’re a service company such as a dentist or accountant, just be real and show people who you are. If your company is a high-end video production company, yes, you should show your chops! But in most cases, expensive production is lost on YouTube. It depends on the expectations of your audience, which are being lowered continuously thanks to a lot of low-end video production.
5. Authenticity
Want to impress people? Don’t try and be someone you’re not. If you can show who you REALLY are – your AUTHENTIC self – people will find that much attractive than a horse-and-pony show that has little to do with who you are.
6. Don’t waste time – respect people’s time and use it wisely
If you have 60 seconds worth of information, don’t use three minutes to get it all out. Be short and sweet and then get it over with. Respect people’s time. If they get used to your short (and respectful) videos, they’ll have a greater inclination to come back and see more.
7. Don’t do a hard sell – talk conversationally
This goes back to authenticity. Most people don’t speak in a hard-sell mode in social situations. Imagine you’re in social situation and you’re talking casually with a friend or colleague. Now, use the same approach on your video and you’ll be fine.
8. Solve a problem
If you can describe how your product or service solves a problem in 60 seconds or less (and you should be able to do that!), you have a great chance of getting people to show up at your booth or shop. What exactly does your product do? Do you have a proven result? Tell how your solution will improve their situation. Share it.
9. Subtitles can increase response.
Okay, I have no evidence to support this! But to my way of thinking, by showing subtitles you are reinforcing your message. Of course, there are a few people that don’t hear well and the subtitles may assist them in understanding what you’re talking about. Plus, it’s a good place to put a phone number or web URL. Most video editing programs allow you to insert text on the screen. Again, don’t overdo it – but use it.
10. Put a smile in your voice!
One of the first and best lessons I learned when I got into radio as a teenager: put a smile into your voice! It comes across…really!
So you hear that blogging is a good idea, but you’re stuck on how to start the whole process. After all, there are a lot of questions you have around blogging.
F’rinstance: It’s time-consuming, so how do you justify the extra time to make it happen? If you’re just starting, you’re thinking it’s probably difficult with a steep learning curve. Not to mention – WHAT should you blog about? What topics are worthwhile? Where will ideas come from?
I understand – I’ve been there. In fact, when it comes to finding topics, I’m there every single day!
While there are hundreds of reasons to blog (and probably as many NOT to blog), I thought I’d share the top ten reasons why I like blogging.
It gets me noticed. Three years ago, before I started Tradeshowguy Blog, it was hard to get anyone to notice anything I did in the tradeshow world. Now a lot of folks at least know who Tradeshow Guy is – it opens doors.
Blogging helps me think. When I set out to write a post, I have to concentrate on the topic. I research, take notes and finesse the post until it’s presentable.
It makes me a better writer. Not that I’m Hemingway, but I like writing, and the discipline of writing regularly helps make me better.
Speaking of discipline…knowing that I’ve made the commitment to at least two or three posts a week keeps me always thinking and aware of possible topics, podcast interview subjects and more. Discipline is key to making that happen regularly. Being a blogger keeps me much more aware of the industry than I probably would be otherwise
Networking. I’ve met a ton of people through the blog. Some have become good friends. Some I’ve steered business leads to. Others have sent me leads. Networking is a terrific reason to start a blog.
More speaking gigs. I don’t do a ton of gigs, but the two biggest ones I’ve done in the past year (EDPA in Jacksonville last December and Event Marketing Summit last month in Chicago) came about as a direct result of the blog. And of course, I’m always looking for more!
Uncovering a passion. It continually amazes me that I’ve found something I’m passionate enough to write about on a regular basis – social media and tradeshow marketing. If there is an aspect of your business that you’re passionate about, blogging is a great way to share that passion.
More business. People ask ‘do you make money from your blog? What’s your ROI?’ I have made money from my blog, but not in the way I anticipated. I’ve sold info-products, text ads and banner ads. I’ve had business inquiries. I have made money consulting (not much!). I don’t dwell on it, but I do feel like there is a big upside ahead.
It’s now part of my identity. I have two blogs that I maintain regularly, and both have become a part of who I am. What do you do? Among other things…I blog.
It’s damn fun. Seriously, I like it when there’s a new post out and I can let people know via Twitter and Facebook. When I get comments, I’m always curious to see the reaction. New blog posts are cool/fun, and when the blog looks to be a little stale, like day-old bagels, it’s pretty easy to polish off a new post and start over again.
Blogging can be a great way to position your company (and yourself), tell people about your upcoming tradeshow appearances, discuss new ideas and products in your industry, build client relations and a whole lot more.
In short, in my opinion, blogging is well worth your time.
With a nod to Carly Simon’s Number One Hit “You’re So Vain” back in ’72 (aahh..the good ol’ days!), if your blog is about you and your company, you’re missing the boat. By a long shot.
At first blush, you’d think the purpose of a blog would be to tell the world about yourself and your company. After all, isn’t that what you see on other company blogs? A raft of press releases, horn-tooting and ‘wow, look at us!’ crap.
Who wants to read that? Do you?
If this blog was all about ME (Tim Patterson, @tradeshowguy, Interpretive Exhibits), how would that help you? How would it solve your everyday problems of trying to market to your target audience at tradeshows, events and conferences?
It wouldn’t. Because what WE/ME are going through likely is not what YOU are going through. Oh, sure, we might find a few areas of common ground, but if all I did on this blog was toot my horn, you wouldn’t bother to come back. Not to say you should NEVER toot your own horn, just be aware of not over-doing it. Your blog is about your readers, not you. When researching a recent presentation on blogging, I looked for exhibit company blogs just to see what they were blogging about. MOST of them were self-congratulatory and PR-laden. In other words, boring and bland.
And the goal of a blog is to get people to come back.
You do that by offering information, insight, and (hopefully) solutions to issues and problems your audience is facing.
If your audience, for instance, is marketing at a tradeshow and want to use QR Codes or set up a SCVNGR smart-phone game, you’d want to find a blog that’s explored that.
If your readers chime in on a problem that you’re written about, it’s a good sign that they’re interested. Write more about that topic. Do some research, talk to experts, compile evidence. Show what works and what doesn’t.
For example, I was interested in QR Codes, so I contacted a company that used them. Found out a bunch, read a lot, spent time figuring out how they work. And blogged about it a few times.
As a result, some poor misguided fools now think I’m a QR Code expert! HA! Well, that’s they’re problem. Just this week I’ve been interviewed by two people who saw me as an expert source on QR Codes for tradeshow marketing, thanks to a recent blog post.
Last week, I was contacted by two companies that asked if they could re-publish my QR Code blog posts and QR Code Tradeshow Marketing Guide.
All because saw a hot topic that the readers of this blog were interested in, did a little research, made some personal observations and blogged about it. And as a result, I’ve gathered a lot of information about QR Codes. Perhaps I’m at least a pseudo-expert.
So if all you’re writing about on your company’s blog is your latest widget, or how the CEO got an award, or how you have a new shiny facility…face it, your audience doesn’t care.
What is your Return on Investment in Social Media? Seems to be a logical and oft-repeated question these days in the marketing world.
But to answer that you have to define both of those terms. When it comes to social media, what is your actual INVESTMENT in making social media happen? And how (and what) do you measure your RETURN on social media?
Your investment could be a lot of different things: time spent, money spent, videos and photos shot and shared, tweets, blog posts, brand impressions made, efforts to make those connections with people you meet online (how will those turn out?)…can you think of anything else? Goodwill spread? Number of fans? Number of new fans that are created by your brand ambassadors that you don’t even know about, that are now a part of your community?
And what about your return? Try defining that: is it actual sales dollars generated? Customer service dollars saved by having less people in your CS department thanks to your awesome social media engagement? Future sales results of new connections you’re making now online? The dollar value of the goodwill you created by responding to a crisis in real-time? Number of fans on Facebook? Or the number of interactions you have on Facebook with those fans? No doubt you can think of more if you put your mind to it.
It appears that ROI in the social media world has too many moving parts to pin down to a specific number, or even a general number. Because as soon as you do that, someone is going to say, ‘well, did you include_____?’ and you have to start over again.
Trust me. There’s a lot of value in the ROI of social media. It just depends on how you slice it.
Are you using social media to drive traffic to your tradeshow booth? That’s great – it be an effective tool for creating buzz at the show. Even though social media activity is effective at communicating with your community, using social media is often not integrated very strongly with a company’s overall marketing goals. Let’s see if we can help change that for you.
Let’s say you’re working with an ad agency. They’re tasked with getting fifteen media mentions out of your tradeshow appearance. Meanwhile, your marketing department is tasked with getting X number of brand impressions. And your sales staff is tasked with generating X number of leads and closing a certain percentage of those leads. All of these entities are working to support the company’s overall marketing goals of creating more sales.
So how can you use social media to directly support all of those entities on conjunction with your tradeshow marketing, instead of just being a stand-alone operation that interacts with your community and not much else?
Start with the end in mind by breaking down your marketing goals: for example, based on past experience the sales department will need X number of leads to create X number of sales. For instance you may know that for every 100 leads generated at a tradeshow, the sales department can close 62% within three months.
Add to that your goals in press and blog mentions, and overall branding impressions and you have your end goals in mind. How can social media support those goals?
Start by choosing your key social media marketing metrics that relate to your tradeshow appearances. It’s easier to take each individual show and look at them separately, although at the end of a year it’s useful to compare and tally all of those numbers to see how the overall efforts at all shows combined performed.
Traffic: are you using social media to drive your customers to your tradeshow booth? Keeping track of traffic at a tradeshow is difficult without outside help, but by adding this component to your metric measurement, you get a better handle on how effective your tweets and Facebook postings can be. Beyond that, you can promote giveaways or contests via social media which specifically brings people to your booth for that contest or event.
Leads: when you track tradeshow leads, have a check box or area where you can indicate whether the visitor found you via social media. Did they reach you via a tweet? Was it a Facebook posting? A YouTube video? A company blog post? All of these social media outlets should support your efforts and by tracking the results you can determine which is most useful.
Buzz or Mentions: often an ad agency that’s working to bring you media mentions will have their own set of industry press contacts, and they can effectively exploit those relationships. Those efforts can be supported through social media: Twitter in particular is becoming known as a place where press relationships are started and developed. Not only that, once you meet a blogger or reporter on Twitter, the connection is direct with no gatekeeper.
Customer Support: your community of customers, clients, hangers-on and competitors (yes, they’re there too!) are all talking about you. Whether you want them to or not, they’ll say what they want when they want. By being proactive in listening to and responding to that conversation when appropriate, you are helping to improve the company’s overall performance. It may not show up as a direct impact on the bottom line, but the impact is there: fewer customer support tickets; less need for customer service support personnel; quicker response to nip problems in the bud before they become giant negatives that have to be dealt with. Your customer support team can be invaluable in your social media monitoring because they often are the front line in dealing with customer problems and know what’s happening before anyone else in the company.
Now that you’re tracking metrics, add those to your actual goal numbers previously set. Build a spreadsheet that takes into account the number of booth visitors you achieved through social media and where they came from. Add in your confirmed impressions via industry press and blogs (often a harder number to pin down: you should be able to determine a magazine’s circulation numbers, for instance, but knowing how many blog readers a specific blog has is probably harder – I’d suggest looking at Alexa rankings along with Compete.com and Quantcast.com although the caveat is that the data is very approximate).
Finally, add in actual leads and confirmed sales. When you track the numbers from show to show, and continue to implement social media to draw people to your booth, a clearer picture will emerge of which social media tools are the most effective and which are not. Having that information will help guide you to determine where to put your focus from show to show.
Depending on what your company’s involvement is in social media, there are a number of approaches you can take to moving forward during the first quarter of 2011. And that’s the KEY: MOVING FORWARD from wherever you are at this moment. With the forward motion of all things social media, if you sit still you’ll get further and further behind!
If your company is NOT doing anything with social media:
If you’re at the very beginning, you’ll have to start somewhere. Starting anywhere is better than not starting at all. Ask around the office, and look for your company’s own ‘digital native.’ This is the person that’s already online with social media. They’re already on Facebook and Twitter. They may be posting fun videos on YouTube or Facebook. Perhaps they’ve got a LinkedIn account. They’re adept at discussing and moving around in the social media world.
Once you find that person, sit down with your marketing manager and the company owner (presuming you’re a small or medium-sized company and have easy access to these people) and discuss the following steps:
Where you are
Where you want to go in the next 3 – 6 months
What tools you’ll need
Who will be in charge of the company’s social media efforts
How much time it will realistically take to set up accounts and start to build your community
What are your goals
What are the steps required to meet those goals
What other internal or external help you’ll need
At this point, you’re really doing a full assessment of where the company is in social media. Find out what your strengths are, where the holes are in your knowledge and determine the best way to fill those gaps. Here is where you’ll also be appointing someone (or two or three) that have the capabilities to lead the company’s social media efforts.
From here, look to what how you can start to create a community, stay in touch with them and provide them with information, content and response to their feedback.
Then, start: get the Facebook and Twitter accounts going, check in daily, put up links on your website to direct people to the new social media outposts. At the outset, once the accounts are set-up (should take a very short amount of time), the initial involvement might be a few minutes a day. As you see more of your community finding you, you’ll have more opportunity to ask questions, look for feedback and find ways to respond to their comments and questions.
If your company IS ALREADY involved in social media…but you feel there’s a LOT more you could be doing:
GET CREATIVE: If you’re past the first few baby steps described above, this is where you can start to get creative with your postings. Take note of what other companies that ‘get’ social media do. Riff off of their efforts. Come up with ways to creatively produce short videos that show the human side of your company, such as this one from gDiapers that was a video birthday present where employees described what they liked about their boss Kim.
VIDEO is a great tool to share how-to’s, information, what-ifs and much more. It’s an invaluable tool to humanize your company. How can you be creative with your videos?
EVENT CALENDAR: Create an event calendar that outlines your company’s 2011 event schedule. Determine which of the events is the most important, and focus on putting together a significant social media effort into connecting with your community around that event. Don’t ignore the other events; but by choosing a ‘most significant’ event, your social media efforts will fall in line. If you choose to, for instance, do a lot of giveaways via Twitter at the big show, plan on supplementing your other shows with smaller Twitter giveaways. If you’re planning a Tweetup at the big show, think about putting together smaller Tweetups at your smaller shows.
LISTEN: Consider digging deeper with your listening tools. The more you listen to what’s being said online about your products, company and competition, the quick you can respond to issues that arise. Tools such as Radian6, Jive Software, Hubspot and more offer access to deep, real-time conversations around the important things in your world. Some are free, some are paid, but all can help lift the lid a little more on what people really think.
RESPOND: When you come across a conversation that relates to your product or service offerings, step in. David Meerman Scott, in his newest book “Real-Time Marketing and PR,” tells the tale of a company that saw a comment from someone who was not happy with the non-response from a company on a request for quote for a telephone system. The company politely stepped in offering to help on any questions or to offer a quote. Long story short: they sold a $250,000 phone system be responding to a tweet and asking if they could help. So yes, this stuff does happen. It is important and it shows that by responding to an issue in real-time, good things can happen.
BLOG: If you’re not blogging yet, this is an opportune time to figure out how your company can use a blog to stand out in the crowded marketplace. Blogging is not a casual commitment; it requires consistent time, energy and thought, and there’s likely no immediate payoff. But a blog is the best online tool to position your company as a leader in your field, share ideas, create community, and stake out ground.
If your company is neck-deep in social media:
If you’re already doing great things with social media, you probably have a good sense of how you got here, and perhaps where to go from here.
CONTINUE LISTENING: look at different tools that can help you uncover conversations that you previously didn’t hear about. Look at new tools. Keep your ear to the ground. Read blogs on social media such as the Social Media Examiner and Mashable.
BUILD YOUR NETWORK: The wider and deeper your personal and professional network, the more opportunities that will arise out of that network. You’ll find new knowledge, timely information and quicker access to new tools.
ENHANCE YOUR PRESENCE: Since you’re already blogging and you’re on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and perhaps other social media outpost, ask yourself: how can we enhance the connectivity of these tools? What can we do to show our community who we really are? What can we do to reach more of them? Do we share more of ourselves? Do we offer more how-to’s and tutorials? Do we do more webinars? Do we bring in experts in the field and interview them? Do we step up to a higher level of video production? No matter where you are, there is always room for improvement. How can you improve either in incremental steps or in a big leap?
Social media is many things. It’s a great learning tool. It’s an amazing real-time connectivity tool. It’s hard work; it’s fun. It’s unlike anything the world has seen up until this century and it’s changing the nature of business. It is leading to transparency in more company activities. It empowers consumers to gather information from unlimited sources before they commit a dollar to a purchase.
Social media is perfect for the event world. Events are inherently social. Business is social. By learning how to effectively use the social media tools at your disposal, you’re moving a step ahead of your competition and a step closer to creating a valuable community that will help support your business.
When speaking in Jacksonville at the EDPA’s annual conference earlier this month, I asked for a show of hands to see how many bloggers were in the audience.
A few hands went up. I expected more. Many more. Not sure why…maybe my expectations are unrealistic. Or maybe it’s that I’ve seen the value in having an active blog. It keeps your mind sharp, it keeps you in front of a growing audience, and it it lets people know who you are and what your expertise is.
Yet many companies simply don’t consider blogging as a valuable marketing tool. Here’s how I see blogging in terms of helping promote a tradeshow appearance or to enhance a tradeshow marketing schedule.
It gives you a place to tell your audience about the new stuff (products, service) that you’ll have at the show.
Blogging is a platform to invite any partners that may have at the show to discuss their products and how it ties in with yours.
It’s easy to insert a video into a blog.
You can easily post photos of visitors to your booth.
You can give reviews and opinions of the show and other products and services.
Your blog is a ‘home base’ for all things show-related. Post documents, downloads, press releases, etc.
Having said all of that, blogging is not to be taken lightly. It’s a significant committment in terms of time and energy. And if you are going to set up a blog for your company, it’s important to make sure that you have new material showing up regularly, whether it’s every week, three times a week or just a couple of times a month.
But once you’ve made the committment and the process of blogging becomes part of your routine, you’ll discover that it’s a great outlet for all sorts of things. You can post slides from a presentation, videos from your company, how-to’s and informational tidbits that educate and illuminate your audience.
It also allows you and your company to gain more visibility within your industry and target audience.
Blogging isn’t the end-all and be-all of online presence, but it’s a valuable marketing and positioning tool.
