Of course it’s absurd to call any set of five videos ‘the Top 5’ but it’s fun to create lists, anyway. For the past week I’ve been reviewing videos of 2011 to see which ones floated to the top. There are a lot of social media videos (of course), but these are the five that grabbed my attention.
Enjoy!
Social Media Revolution 2011
This video captured the zeitgeist of the various social media stats floating around and presented them in a compelling way:
Egypt’s Uprising: Tracking How Social Media Stirred Action
Social media is changing the world, and giving voice and freedom to a generation that won’t sit still while the current leaders try and keep the status quo. Here’s an interview from Dubai-based News Group International on how social media affected some of the uprisings in the Middle East:
What happens to all those thousands of pieces of content you’ve created after you die? Adam Ostrow examines the life of your tweets and status updates post-death.
No, not the kind of engagement where you have to buy the girl a nice diamond ring that costs three months salary and leads to you saying “I do” in front of hundreds of people. We’re talking social media engagement, the kind that starts when you post something interesting on your Twitter or Facebook profile and people share it because they liked it so much.
So what does it take to be good at social media engagement?
Bottom line: what is interesting? If you find something interesting, chances are that someone else will find it interesting, too. While it’s a simple concept, like many simple things, the actual implementation of ‘being interesting enough to re-tweet’ is harder than it sounds.
First, you have to know your audience. What kinds of people are following you? Or more importantly, what kind of people do you want to follow you? Because if you push out some really fun and engaging tweets, they’ll get re-tweeted and you’ll continue to pick up more followers – the kind that like your type of tweets!
Second, you have to be able to articulate in a very short space what you like and what you find engaging and interesting. That may mean sending links out with your tweets or Facebook posts – which is certainly okay; after all, those longer form posts just won’t fit in a tweet – but when you send out a link, realize that you’re doing the same as 90% of all the other people tweeting. Most are sharing links. Can you create a tweet that stands on its own without a link and is still fun and engaging, or clever? If you can do that, and leave some space for someone’s Twitter handle, chances go up that it’ll get re-tweeted over and over.
If you’re paying attention to the kinds of posts and tweets that get shared again and again, and you are able to create similar posts, you’ll find that your audience is engaging with you.
Admittedly, doing this is not the easiest thing in the world to do for most of us. We are in awe of those people that seemingly invent clever tweets in a moment’s time that relates to something in the news. So, pick your moments. When you find something that is interesting to you, think about what interests you about it. What makes it interesting? Can you put your thoughts or observations into a short, pithy tweet? Can you find a new twist on it? Even if it’s not perfect, get it out there.
Find out what your community is interested in and then be interesting to them.
That’s how to get more followers that can’t wait to read what you’re up to today. That’s the art of engagement.
It makes sense to drum up as much interest before an event as possible, even prior to any official promotion launch. In fact, social media is ideally suited for just this task. By putting a blog post or video together, for instance, on what is coming at the event (even though it may be months away), and driving traffic to that blog post or video through social media, you’ve already primed the pump to whet people’s appetites for the event.
Also, by searching for and keeping tabs on Facebook pages, LinkedIn groups and discussion boards and Twitter accounts you can slowly expand your reach and build momentum. One key to this effort is to uncover which of the social media platforms your audience hangs out at the most. You should be able to do this through searching for hashtags on Twitter, groups on LinkedIn and association or event pages on Facebook and examining the number of people involved and the level of engagement by those people.
Before the Event
Depending on the size of the event, you should consider building a small event-related blog. WordPress blogs are easy to set up and customize and domains are about $10 a year. If you’re the promoter, this is mandatory so you have a landing spot online for information related to your show. Here’s where you’ll include all pertinent info, including cost, times, dates, contact info, how to purchase a space, etc.
If you’re an exhibitor, it’s still a very useful piece of your pre-show promotion. It’s easy to share blog posts on Twitter, Facebook and relevant LinkedIn groups, and a blog legitimizes your platform more than just a Facebook event listing.
But don’t forget the Facebook listing, either. It’s easy to set up, and easy to invite people. Don’t invite everyone – although Facebook gives you this capability – because it’s a waste of time. People across the country or in another country don’t care and people who can’t relate to your event won’t bother to respond. So pick and choose.
Set up a LinkedIn event page as well. Here you can only invite 50 people once the event listing is created, but this is good in that it forces you to choose carefully who to invite. Focus on those who might actually come and benefit from the event.
During the Event
Not every exhibitor is working hard on social media to engage show visitors, although at times it seems like that. Still, you can make your efforts stand out by offering great value in your booth, such as high-profile guests, demonstrations, high-value giveaways or downloads and other enticements.
Be sure you know what the standard hashtag for the event is. While there is no official repository of hastags (that I know of) since they come and go quickly, a medium to large event should have a hashtag that is getting used by exhibitors and attendees. Once you determine what the hashtag is, use it in every single event-related tweet.
During the event, someone from your staff can be in charge of creating content for either your blog or for other social media platforms, such as Twitter or Facebook. This might also include videos for YouTube or Facebook, which might include testimonials, demonstrations of products or explanations of services.
If you’re able, set up a Twitter board. It’s easy enough to put up a large flat screen hooked up to a laptop that displays real-time tweets using the show’s hashtag. This does a couple of things: first it shows people that you’re on the cutting edge (although not so much as a year or two ago), and secondly, it gives people a reason to tweet about your booth and your company, just so they can see their tweet show up in real time. Believe me, it happens!
Be sure to shoot a LOT of video. The more you shoot, the more you have to share after the show. As the weeks and months go on, if you can still offer pertinent information via your social media outlets, you’ll continue to stay in your prospects’ minds. Even if you don’t shoot much extra video, use information from the show (comments, insights, etc) to create more blog and Facebook posts.
This is just a start – no doubt you can find more ways to promote your tradeshow, event or conference using social media. If you think of something I didn’t mention, be sure to add it in the comment section below!
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.
Recently I posted a video call “QR Codes FAIL” on my YouTube/tradeshowmarketing channel and here on the blog. It was meant to show that QR Codes don’t always work as intended.
Mike Vincent of FanFareMobile.com chimed in with a comment about using SMS codes, since they’re so much easier.
Since my knowledge of SMS codes is limited, I hooked up with Mike to discuss the issue…and out of that came this podcast.
Even if you’re not using LinkedIn to its full extent – and who of us really are? – no doubt you recognize the enormous potential that LinkedIn holds especially for those of us in the event industry.
A number of recent blog posts point out the benefits of using LinkedIn when you’re looking to bring more people to an event or conference, or draw visitors to your tradeshow booth.
Earlier this year, LinkedIn made it easy for web masters to integrate their LinkedIn groups into their websites. They did this by opening up its API to groups. What’s an API? Check Julius Solaris’ very informative post here. Basically, it allows you to make tons of connections to like-minded professionals through LinkedIn – but you do it by putting that outpost onto your website. At this point, I’m not seeing a lot of plug-in widgets, but I get the impression they will soon become plentiful. If you run a WordPress blog (like this one), there are a couple of LinkedIn plugins that allow you to display a LinkedIn badge or a share button. Check this article on WikiHow to find out more about connecting LinkedIn with your WordPress blog.
And then here’s a discussion on LinkedIn about what social media tools are best used to draw people to events. Lots of different answers as you might expect.
There are a lot of ways you can use LinkedIn to promote your business or event, as seen in this post from the Social Media Examiner, one of my favorite blogs on using social media.
You can sync your Twitter account with LinkedIn so any tweet lands on LinkedIn, or make it so that only those with the #LI hashtag are posted on LinkedIn. Messages don’t get lost as much on LinkedIn as they can on Twitter, which is important especially when you’re out promoting your event appearance. By syncing Twitter with LinkedIn, you’re getting more coverage for the same effort.
The LinkedIn Events App is seen as a powerful event promotions tool, allowing people to find your event and RSVP, too.
LinkedIn allows you to see if your connections are attending specific events (if you pay attention). Just by visiting the event RSVP page you can find people who might be worthwhile to connect with. Reach out to them, mention that you’ll be at the event and try to find a way to connect in person. If you have a first-level connection or are in the same group, you can reach out through LinkedIn email. If you’re a2nd or 3rd degree connection and have no group connection, use InMailTM.
Another great way to use LinkedIn for events is to find new connections and strengthen current connections. Again, here’s a terrific tutorial from the Social Media Examiner.
Making connections is what it’s all about: finding areas to connect on, reaching out, offering help, asking advice, be a resource – it’s all there on LinkedIn. If you’re not there, get there. If you’re already there, I suspect that you can really ramp up your connectivity efforts via LinkedIn if you just spend a little time on it.
Or maybe it’s a two-way freeway with traffic going a hundred miles an hour, depending on the size of your community.
If you’re promoting an event through social media, the most important thing to realize is that all communication is now two-way. The second most important thing is that when promoting an event make sure you have an actual event that is worth of that conversation.
That means bringing interesting, compelling and valuable content to the table. Are your speakers engaging? Do they have a good reputation in your community? Do they have good content that your audience is hungry for?
Often, the best way to find out what topics are at the top-of-mind for your audience is to ask them directly. Which is where social media comes in. Using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn you can follow the topics of conversation to find out what pushes buttons, and ask questions to clarify and uncover more topics. By creating quick surveys you can narrow down the interest to more finite topics.
And of course, ask for feedback. People are more than happy to give honest feedback. As much as we connect on social media, there is a barrier between one person and another which allows them to offer feedback that is often more honest than if they were sitting across the lunch table from you (of course, that depends on the individual). When comments come, be prepared to respond quickly – there’s nothing worse in social media than waiting too long to respond. Social media is ‘real-time’ and if you’re not engaging in real-time, you can be assured that your community IS communicating in real-time. If someone posts a negative comment on your Facebook page, don’t respond negatively or defensively back to them. And never delete a negative comment unless it contains profanity or is entirely inappropriate. Deleting comments makes people think you have something to hide or that you have a thin skin – neither of which will endear you to your community.
The best thing about social media is that you have access to current thinking on all of the topics that are important to you and your company. And sometimes that’s the worst thing, too! But take those negative comments with a grain of salt and realize that in a sense you’re getting free research that will help you correct deficiencies in your products or services.
Lead411 recently released its list of fastest-growing tech companies in the US – the Technology 200 – which is based not on total sales, but on sales growth between 2008 and 2010.
The list itself is a peek inside the growing technology sector, with companies involved in everything from search engine optimization, software, hardware, internet, media, advertising, e-commerce and much more included.
But what struck me was how important tradeshow marketing still is to the 200 companies on the list. Yup, in the new and improved faster-and-faster world of social media and technology, these tech companies are still working hard to market their companies the old-fashioned way: face-to-face at a tradeshow or conference.
Twenty-five percent of those surveyed spent over half their marketing budget on tradeshow marketing, and 71 percent of the companies surveyed spent at least some of their budget on tradeshow marketing.
Yes, they’re still using social media (63% of those surveyed), but face-to-face is obviously considered to be a very valuable tool in their marketing efforts.
Tom Blue, the founder and owner of Lead411, made mention of the fact that many of the companies on the list are not household names – companies such as Zillow, Crowdflower, SEO Slingshot, Motion Soft, Yodel and others. But they’re still moving ahead strongly and growing quickly.
If you’ve been on Twitter a bit but still are confused about how hashtags are, and can, be used, hopefully we can take a bit of the mystery out of hashtags and give you some good ways to use them in conjunction with your event and tradeshow marketing.
First, what exactly is a hashtag?
Simply put, it’s the ‘pound’ or ‘number’ sign with a word or phrase after it: #jumpstart. This makes it easily trackable and searchable on Twitter or other platforms such as Hootsuite.com. You can use it with a two or three word phrase, but make sure there is no space between the words, like this: #tweetmetoday
Tweeting at Tradeshows
Use it when you tweet about a specific or general topic, such as #eventprofs when your tweet is related to the event profession. If you are tweeting about a specific event, use a hashtag that would commonly be used for that event, such as #expowest for the Natural Products Expo West show, held every March in Anaheim.
So if you’re tweeting out about your booth, just make sure to include that particular hashtag: “Hey, join us at booth 3029 at #expowest and check out the new eco-friendly shoes!”
That way, anyone who is tracking the show hashtag will be able to find it (Twitter will show search results starting with the most recent).
If you’re tweeting about something you or your company is doing at the show after hours, such as a client dinner, you might consider using the hashtag so that anyone following along can see how you’re involved: “Having a great dinner with the cool people from Bagga Riddim here at Joe’s Pizza! #expowest”
Whether you want to tell the world that you’re meeting a client is up to you, but in my mind in most cases there is nothing wrong with it. In fact it could be seen as good branding. Not only are you getting your name out there again, you’re getting it out there in connection with a client and a location. If you use Foursquare to check in, the location will be mentioned, so all you have to do it include the hashtag in the tweet.
Getting Twitter Involvement on Webinars
Let’s say the show is still a couple of months away, and you’re planning a webinar to promote your appearance (see this week’s earlier post about using webinars to promote tradeshows). You’ve got a new product to promote; you have one of the company management or marketing people on board to be a guest on the webinar. At the beginning of the webinar, include a slide that invites people to offer their comments on twitter. My suggestion is to use two hashtags: one that references the show and one that references your company:
This invites people to watch the webinar and relay their comments to their Twitter followers. Anyone who happens to be searching for that particular hashtag at that time will likely run across your webinar, which exposes you to even more people. Before the webinar you can promote it through your normal channels, but be sure to let your Facebook and Twitter followers know about it, too, and include links to the registration page.
Of course this same tactic can be used during your live presentation at the tradeshow or conference if you’re a speaker or presenter. The upside is that it can really help engage people, learn new things from them, take questions and promote interactivity. The downside is that if the presentation is going badly, you have no control over the conversation and may see some negative or snarky comments show up.
Twitter Chats
Another way to use Twitter is to hold a chat about a specific topic or subject. There are popular Twitter chats held regularly that discuss everything from marketing to industrial metal production. All you have to do is promote it through your normal channels, and through your Twitter account:
Join us for a chat about how to use drums to heal your soul: Thursday at noon ET; follow hashtag #baggariddim
If you have a guest on the chat, set up a handful of questions before hand that she’s familiar with. When the time arrives, welcome everyone to the chat and include the hashtag. People will follow along on the chat by simply searching for the hashtag in the Twitter search box. Invite anyone to submit questions and comments as the chat goes on. Schedule the chat with specific start and stop times (noon – 1pm, for instance), and stick to it. After the chat is over, archive the posts so that you can reference then in the future if need be.
Twitter is an extremely useful and flexible tool for instant communication anywhere, anytime. From the show floor, from your office, from the subway. It doesn’t matter, all a person needs is internet access and they’re on board.
What ideas can you come up with to use Twitter to effectively promote your tradeshow appearance or new product?
You’re finished with this year’s big show. You had a great time, your employees did great, your sales people knocked down some big sales. Your lead generation tactics brought in more leads than the last time.
So you’re celebrating. Great! Awesome!
Now what? Do you wait until next year to ramp up for the big show again? If so, doesn’t that mean you’re really starting from scratch with a lot of people? Or you have to reintroduce yourself to the people that you met at this year’s show, and there’s a bit of awkwardness while you try and remember who they are and hope they remember you.
There’s an easier way.
It’s called social media. You know: Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Google+. When you are engaged in social media, you are involved in the right thing to stay in touch with all of those people year-round. So let’s take a stab at a handful of things you can do on social media to stay in touch.
It can start anywhere. Of course you’ll need to actually have outposts set up on the main social media outlets. At the next show make sure that your visitors can connect with you on your most-valued social media outposts. Could be Facebook, maybe it’s Twitter or YouTube – just have something available that you can either hand out or show them that makes it easy to connect. Perhaps that’s a post-card sized handout with your social media URL’s, or perhaps even a QR Code that takes them to a landing page that links to those places.
Also at the show: create as much content you can that you will share later. For instance, shoot videos of demonstrations, interviews, testimonials and other fun stuff. During the next 10-11 months, release a short video every 4 – 6 weeks. If you shoot a couple of hours of video during the show, it should be fairly easy to find 8 – 10 short 3 – 5 minute videos to post regularly. Shoot a few hundred photos – you can use them for future blog or social media posts. Take notes on questions that are asked. Use them to create an FAQ post for your blog.
As you continue to keep connected to your social media community, let them know what’s going on in your business. Share new products, introduce new people in your company; engage with your followers by asking and answering questions. As your company is involved in various events throughout the year, do the same things as that last big show. Even if it’s just putting up a table at a marathon or tabling at a retail outlet. Post photos and comments from those events.
Then when your next big annual show gets closer, start mentioning what you’re doing at the show: new products, new people, new services, in-booth guests. Whatever you have going, make sure that your community knows about it.
When the show finally opens, you’ll have visitors that have stayed in touch with you all year long – because you took the time to stay in touch with them! They’ll already know what new products you have and will make an effort to stop by to make sure then don’t miss them. They’ll remember you because you have been a part of their life – however small – over the past year.
It’s one of the toughest things for a tradeshow exhibitor to face: once the show is over, how do you stay in touch until the next time you meet those visitors who loved your company and your products?
Social media is the easy and most obvious answer.
Are you engaged in social media? Are you staying in touch year-round?
