July 10, 2012

#WDS World Domination Summit Redux

As a first time attendee at the World Domination Summit over the weekend in Portland, I had nothing to compare it to. Oh, sure, I’d read the blog post on Chris Guillibeau’s blog last year that attracted my attention and ultimately led me to grab a ticket in a very short window. On opening night during the street festival/carnival in northwest Portland, several people I spoke to tried to explain why they loved the first year and came back the second year.

The most memorable description of the event came from Cynthia Morr is, whom I met on Friday evening at the street fair and opening party (and who later gave a workshop on creating a book-writing map) said that we’re all on a fool’s journey in this life, and this conference is here for all of us who recognize that and want support for that journey.

Of course it’s much more than that. The World Domination Summit is the brainchild of blogger, author and intrepid traveler Chris Guillibeau, who’s made a name for himself (and what caught my attention) by attempting to visit every country in the world (he’s still about 20 countries from completing the task). He’s created products and written books around the idea of being remarkable and non-conforming in an increasingly average world. The WDS is a gathering of people from more than a dozen countries: bloggers, authors, software writers, photographers, cubicle workers and more. The thing that I think drew them together (and ultimately led me to commit to return in 2013) was that all of them had a palpable generosity of spirit.

Hence, the World Domination Summit. Version 2.0 doubled the attendee list, and tickets still sold out five months in advance.

While I could go on at length about the various speakers and breakout sessions and the countless attendees I met, I was curious to look at WDS from an event execution standpoint.

Non-commercial: WDS had no branding whatsoever except its own. No corporate sponsors, no branded spaces, no onstage interruptions to thank some company for ‘helping to make this possible!’ This gave the attendees a feeling of togetherness that kept the outside world at bay for the weekend. More on this later.

Staging: the main stage at Newmark Theater in downtown Portland was sparse but effective. The design team created a unique, identifiable and effective onstage statement.

Interactivity: WDS created an online smartphone connectivity platform at WDS.fm that encouraged attendees to find, indentify and connect with each other. They created an online task list called ‘The Unconventional Race’ which awarded prizes to the top three finishers. While I gave up after several hours after realizing that my phone wasn’t quite capable of easily completing the tasks, I followed the regular race updates and was interested to see how others reacted. Some folks really jumped on it and others said it didn’t appeal much to them. The portal also gave individual attendees an updated schedule that – once you logged in with your user account – was unique to you. If you needed to know where to go next, the easiest way was to pull up the portal and find the info at your fingertips.

Variety of speakers: Since the speaker line-up was the biggest part of the event, Chris and his team brought a remarkable array of known and unknown presenters. Some were authors, bloggers and successful business people. Others were world travelers sharing tales. Others yet shared amazing stories of extreme life changes and the creation of powerful and effective non-profits. Each speaker, whether an experienced presenter or not, brought passion, uniqueness and touching and inspiring stories.

Crowd-sourced workshops: Months before the event, the 1000 attendees received an invitation to offer their expertise in smaller workshop breakout sessions. Once those submissions were gathered and filtered, the attendees then voted online for the ones they wanted to attend. As a result, several weeks ahead of the event, some 80 breakout sessions were offered on a first-come first serve basis. Once you made a selection, that workshop would then show up later on your personal schedule on the WDS.fm portal.

Loads of networking opportunities: Time was set aside each day for attendees to just talk. And talk we did! I forget how many people I met or how many asked me for a card. The first two most common questions seemed to be ‘Were you here last year?’ and ‘Where are you from?’ From that starting point we’d learn about each other’s reasons for showing up, the projects they are involved in and the dreams they’re chasing.

Powerful close: at the end of the second full day of speakers, Chris got back up onstage to thank everyone for coming, to spread his appreciation around to all of the (unpaid) speakers who volunteered their time to show up and share their experiences. Then he reminded us that he did say there would be a surprise at the end. At which point he discussed the economics of the event. Chris reminded us that last year’s event lost about $30K. But this year, with twice as many attendees, and thanks to an anonymous donor who wanted to support the World Domination Summit, they had quite a bit of money left over. And, as he put it, it turned out to be about – on average – $100 for each attendee. So instead of keeping the money, they decided to give it back to the attendees. As we left, each one of us was handed an envelope with a $100 bill and a small card instructing us to ‘start a project, surprise someone, or do something entirely different- it’s up to you.’

Bottom line: the World Domination Summit is unlike any event I’ve ever attended. Its uncommon lack of convention created a huge demand: 5000 people were on the waiting list for tickets in January with only a few hundred available. Its pleasantly surprising lack of corporate sponsorship creates a welcoming community that says ‘hey – we’re here for you, not to make money. Please join our family of like-minded individuals. We want you to learn and enjoy!’ It’s near flawless execution made it extremely easy for attendees to willingly partake, meet people, soak up the atmosphere and information and engage.

I am so there in 2013.

Links:

Chris Guillibeau.com
World Domination Summit (get on the list for next year’s event!)
World Domination Summit 2012 Flick Photostream

Photo Credits Armosa Studio, used by Creative Commons permission

May 31, 2012

15 Ways to Stand Out in the Social Media Crowd

It seems everyone tweets. Everyone has a Facebook page. If they’re not on YouTube with their own channel, it’s coming soon. Your competition is popping up on Pinterest and Google+. So how do you stand out from the crowd, especially if you want to stand out at a tradeshow, event or conference?

Let’s count the ways (an incomplete list!):

Create good content. Whether it’s a short tweet or a longer blog post, or a photo of your new tradeshow booth, find ways to deliver something GOOD to your followers.
Be responsive. If you get a comment be sure to respond.
Don’t belittle your competition.
Do things differently. You may do the same thing or provide a similar product as your competition. Can you find a way to do it differently to stand out?
Do different things. Don’t do the same thing everyone else is doing. Search for ways to do different things.
Take risks. Risks are just that: risks. But if you don’t risk, you don’t get the reward. Take a risk now and then. Small, medium, large risks…they’re all worthwhile at some point.
Work hard. You don’t necessarily have to outwork your competition, but you do have to work hard. Good hard work is important and it shows, especially when compared to others that may not be working as hard.
Have good manners. Politeness counts for a lot!
Think for yourself. Take input from your colleagues and assess what the market is saying – but at the end of the day, think for yourself and make decisions based on what YOU think, not what others think. After all, it’s your life and your business.
Don’t follow the crowd. Following the crowd makes you one of the crowd. Not a good idea, since the idea is to stand out from the crowd.
Do what you’ll say you’ll do. It’s amazing how such a little thing like keeping promises is important to standing out in the crowd. You’d be surprised – or maybe not – by how many people don’t keep their word.
Show some initiative. Don’t wait for the boss to ask you to do something. Don’t wait for your partner to give you an idea to pursue. Come up with your own ideas and follow them. Initiative helps you stand out from the crowd.
Be attentive. When people are in your booth, or responding to your online postings with comments and questions, act as if they’re the most important thing in the world at that moment. The attention you give to them will be remembered.
Make people feel good. By spreading a little happiness, you’ll be remembered. Find something about your followers or visitors that you can compliment.
Be consistent. Yeah, really. That’s important, too!

May 24, 2012

10 Reasons to Share Content from Your Tradeshow Appearance

It seems like I’ve been doing a lot of list-making lately. Here’s another one!

Branding: the content you share defines your company. Think before you tweet!
Networking: share content that highlights or involves people from other companies. Take photos of booth visitors, tag them in the photos and watch them share with their followers.
Interactivity: by sharing content and responding to comments and questions, you’ve begun to see interactivity, which leads to…
Engagement: a step above simple interactivity (which may be almost meaningless), engagement is more personal and responsive.
Organic spread (your content could go viral): a good piece of content gets legs, no matter who it comes from. Can you create, either purposefully or accidentally, a piece of content that spreads throughout the social media system? If it happens, pay close attention to the type of content it is, and see if you can determine why it spread. Then try to recreate something that does the same.
Social proof: if your followers like your material and share it, now you’re exposed to potential new people who may not have previously known you existed. But because they saw it from one of their trusted sources, now you’ve suddenly a trusted source.
Humanize your company: by becoming human to your market, you become more attractive to them, generally speaking.
Caring: by sharing you’re showing that you care about others.
Reciprocation: if you share something that focuses another person, company or product (it may complement something you’re doing so it makes sense to highlight it), those people will feel compelled to do the same for you vie reciprocation.
Sharing drives traffic to your booth. And your blog. And your Facebook page, Twitter page, YouTube channel, etc.

photo credit: serenitbee

May 22, 2012

Goal Setting for Tradeshow Social Media Marketing

Do you have a set of clearly defined, easily measurable goals for each of your tradeshows regarding your social media marketing efforts?

If not, here’s where to start.

First set down your show objectives.

What metric are you most interested n moving during your tradeshows when it relates to social media? Yes, you want to move the sales needle, but as you add on social media components, you are putting more people into the potential sales funnel.

There are myriad tools available for tracking your social media interaction, but your measurements should be driven more by what you want to learn.

Need to know how many visitors you had this year compared with last?

Want to find out if people respond to a series of tweets inviting them to your booth to get a great deal, meet a famous person or win a contest?

Need to know how many people see those photographs you posted on your Facebook page from the show, to gauge interest in your products or services?

Once you determine what you want to learn, start focusing on the various ways social media lets you do that in the realm of event marketing.

Some of the metrics you might be interested in:

Facebook page ‘likes’ – perhaps not as good as adding someone to an email marketing list, but by having them as a Facebook friend they are giving you permission to engage with them.
Booth traffic. If you have a rough count of booth visitors from last year’s show, you can compare to what you get this year. If not, start counting anyway – it’s a good metric to have.
Direct response visitors, which will come from contests or other come-ons sent out via Twitter or Facebook.
Getting more followers on Twitter. If you have show-goers following you on Twitter, chances are they’ll come to next year’s show as well, which means it’ll be easier to find and track them to your booth.
QR Code responses. If you invite people to download documents or sign up for a newsletter, track the number of people that have used the code. Compare the percentage that actually followed through on your offer.
Blog post views
Photo views
Video views and possible click-throughs from your YouTube channel to a specific landing page.
Want to take a survey in the booth? Here’s a great opportunity to do a little market research. Just make sure to ask respondents how they interact with you online (or if they do at all). Offer a small reward for taking the survey. Capture contact information – at least a name and email so you can follow up. Put them on a newsletter if you publish one.
Length of Facebook thread, to show you how much a particular topic or post resonates with your audience (of course, it might be the responses that they’re responding to, not your original post!).
Impressions and other opportunities-to-see you.

And of course the sales information that you should be tracking from show to show:

Number of leads
Number of registrations for demos (or other)
Number of appointments made
Number of proposals delivered
Number of sales
Amount of sales
Average amount of each sale
Comparison of different shows and year-to-year same show results

Yes, there are a lot of moving parts and your particular goals will of course be unique to your company and product or service. The more you are able to track social media metrics and compare those numbers with the more traditional sales tracking metrics and see how they work together (or not), the more informed you’ll be and the better positioned you’ll be to adjust your direction or jump in a new direction when the signs point that way.

photo credit: 401K

April 20, 2012

Why Your Company Should Consider Blogging

If you’ve been doing tradeshow marketing for years, and you’re edging into social media, good for you. Companies that work intelligently to drive traffic to their tradeshow booths are showing some great results.

But do you have a blog? If so, are you using it to its full effectiveness? If not, why not? Perhaps you should consider blogging. The presence of an active, engaging blog can make the difference between closing a deal or not, all other things being equal.

Here are some reasons to consider blogging:

It’s a marketing tool that’s much easier to maintain than a newsletter. You can add and change it at any time.
You want to influence people in your market.
You want to be seen as a thought leader or industry leader.
You have an expertise and you want to share.
You like engaging in debate with strangers, who can often become friends and perhaps even clients.
It helps you get found online. Blogs are search-engine friendly.
Blogs can bring your team together. As an example, the 300-employee company Hubspot in Boston invites any employee to contribute to the blog, which allows them to have several posts a day offering a number of viewpoints and various useful information.
Blogging forces you to stay sharp. By continually coming up with material you’re always learning and sharing what you learn. As a result, you become smarter and more well-known for knowing more than most people in your industry.
As a result of blogging people will ask you questions, which leads to you learning even more.
Creating great content leads to sales. Seriously. When you create great content, you create trust, which brings in people that are interested in your content. Those people often become business leads, and leads often become sales.
Creating content leads to comments and discussions. Those comments allow you to learn from readers to find out exactly what they’re interested in. It also gives you insight in to the pain points they’re experiencing. And in a sales call, knowing those pain points and how to solve them leads to sales.

So what about tradeshows, events and conferences? How can blogging help in your event marketing? Let’s take a look.

By having a blog platform, you are able to share more information about what happened at the event in real time.
As the date of the show gets closer, your blog is a platform for sharing what you’ll be doing at the show. Classic Exhibits’ lead-in to their appearance at Exhibitor this year was a perfect example. Their regular blog readers saw the various videos they posted that teased their Exhibitor appearance.
A blog is a perfect platform for posting multi-media from the event: audio, video and photos. This is a great place to interview happy clients and post those video clips on your blog, which become power testimonials for your product or service.
Once the show is over, your blog is a place to do continual follow-ups. Material that you compiled at the show can be spun out on your blog over the next few months.

Yet, in spite of all of these great reasons to blog, make no mistake: blogging isn’t easy, and there’s not necessarily a direct payoff from all of the effort that goes into a blog. However, an active blog can be a powerful tool and is often the difference between making a sale or not when going head to head with a competitor who is not blogging.

(photo by Annie Moles, courtesy commons.wikimedia.org)

April 9, 2012

What Have You Done For Me Lately?

There’s an old Janet Jackson hit song that asks the question: what have you done for me lately?

Not only does the question apply in love relationships (as in the song), but it applies to you in your relationship to your customers and clients.

It applies in your social media efforts, your tradeshow marketing schedule and your other marketing endeavors.

Did you post a terrific article on your company blog last week that helped solve a big problem that your industry faces? Awesome. What’s next?

Did you make a stunning appearance at the last big tradeshow and leave your clients and potential customers wide-eyed and amazed? Great. What are you doing at the next show?

Did you host a Twitter chat recently that got a lot of industry folks involved while you posed and answered questions? Cool. When’s the next one scheduled?

Did you put together a nice little video and post it on your YouTube channel last week that illuminated an issue in your industry – and your insight may help people move forward with more confidence? Excellent! What about this week?

Get the message? Everything you do recedes into the past, and it recedes rather quickly.

One of the folks I follow on Facebook is an old rock-and-roller from the Sixties. For months he’d update us about his activities: new tour, travel adventures, fan meetings, etc., and posted numerous photos of all of those activities.

When he went silent I didn’t actually notice it for several weeks. Then when it dawned on me I wasn’t catching his postings, I wondered if it was because he was dead. Okay, I didn’t really think that seriously, but it crossed my mind! Then I mused it might be because of the weird algorithms that Facebook uses to determine what information shows up in your news stream. Then it occurred to me that he might have simply stopped posting things.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Any salesperson will tell you that the hardest thing, especially if you’re selling a long-cycle product, is to stay ‘top-of-mind’ with your market.

I’ve missed making exhibit sales to companies in the past that I simply hadn’t called in six months. They knew who I was, they were aware of my company’s capabilities and skills – and my interest in working with them – and yet, when it came time to choose an exhibit company, they chose another company that was more ‘on their mind’ than I.

Trying to keep the hopper full in marketing, whether online, social media, tradeshow, traditional or some combination, is to attempt to feed a beast that will never be satisfied. If you’re a blogger, your readers want to know what’s next. If you’re on Twitter, yesterday’s tweets are yesterday’s news. Last month’s tradeshow is history.
It’s all history. It all recedes quickly.

So: are you staying on people’s minds?

Are you feeding the beast?

What have you done for me lately?

(photo by Dan Ingram, used by permission)

April 4, 2012

Case Study: Classic Exhibits and Social Media at EXHIBITOR 2012

Late in 2011, Mel White, the VP of Marketing and Business Development at Classic Exhibits Inc., contacted me to ask if I’d be interested in guiding their social media efforts at EXHIBITOR 2012 in early March.

“Sounds intriguing!”

So we set out a plan. Our main goal was to create as much buzz as possible (on a limited budget) leading up to the event. The plan was to shoot 2-3 entertaining teaser videos before the show. The videos would slowly reveal the concept and design of Classic’s new 20 x 30 display, a booth that would showcase their most popular 10’ inline exhibits.

Starting three weeks before the show, we started posting short teaser videos. The videos slowly revealed the “Be Better” concept using a lighthearted investigative reporter approach. Getting the inside scoop from Classic was the main theme. They appeared on the Tradeshowmarketing YouTube channel, here on Tradeshowguy Blog, and on Classic Exhibits’ blog, Trade Show Tales. In addition, we posted these on Classic’s LinkedIn group and Facebook page. Almost immediately, traffic to Classic’s blog tripled.

At the show, we posted more videos, shot a lot of photos, and met a host of people who saw the video. All of this was tweeted about and shared on Facebook as well.

So what did all of this social media activity get us? Let’s take a look and count the numbers where we’re able.

The four Classic Exhibits-related videos gathered a total of 760 views on YouTube (the five non-Classic Exhibits-related videos, by contrast, got a total of 177 views).

During the show, I counted about 20 people who made a comment after recognizing me (and my classic old Stetson Bogie-style hat) from the videos. According to Mel White, of the over 230 leads at the show, about 40 percent mentioned either the videos or the blog posts. In fact, Mel stated, “We’ve been exhibiting at EXHIBITOR for nearly 20 years. This year we doubled the number of end-user leads compared to past years. Some of that was the exhibit design, but the videos attracted customer to our space who would not have visited us otherwise. More than anything, the videos boosted our ‘cred’ with our distributors. We were viewed as the social media innovator at the show.”

A few of the results:

Various links and comments I made on Twitter about EXHIBITOR (both Classic Exhibit-related and non-related tweets) got mentioned and/or re-tweeted to over 36,000 people.
TradeshowguyBlog posts related to Classic Exhibits/Exhibitor have received 265 total views.
YouTube search ranking for ‘EXHIBITOR 2012’ showed ALL videos on the front page of the search results, taking the Top 3 spots and 5 of the Top 10.
Google search results for ‘Exhibitor 2012’ were less impressive, although a podcast recap of the adventures in Las Vegas at EXHIBITOR and in Anaheim at Expo West showed up in the Top 5.
On Bing, a search for ‘EXHIBITOR 2012 video’ showed a Classic Exhibits blog entry as the top result.

Bottom line: From my perspective, it was a fun and worthwhile project, both for branding Classic Exhibits and as @tradeshowguy at the show. With all of the views and positive feedback, it added up to a win/win for both!

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