S Building Community Around Your Event Monday, January 27, 2014 Presented by Stephanie Selesnick, President, International Trade Information, Inc. [email protected] @StephSelesnick
Building Community Around Your Event, a CAEM Webinar
May 27, 2015
Building community 24/7 around an event held but once a year is hard! This deck was designed for small and medium sized exhibition and conference producers with real time tips on using what they already have to be more successful. This was the deck from a Webinar for the Canadian Association of Exposition Management CAEM).
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S
Building Community Around Your Event
Monday, January 27, 2014Presented by Stephanie Selesnick, President, International Trade Information,
Inc.
[email protected]@StephSelesnick
INTRODUCTION
Community building and engagement is not easy. It takes a plan.
It takes a commitment of resources – not necessarily in terms of money, but in consistency.
Exhibition organizers are bad at year-round community engagement. We build up 2-3 months in advance and maybe pay attention for 2 weeks to a month post-event.
What do we mean by Community?
1. Who is it composed of?
Exhibitors, Visitors, Sponsors, Media
2. What do we mean by consistency?
Year-round engagement. Not ads, but content.
Pull marketing vs. Push marketing
1 in 10 posts may be promotional in nature. 1 in 8 if absolutely necessary.
Community
3. Your organization may say, “Our industry is mature. People don’t engage on social media.”
How many people do you know who don’t engage in any kind of social media?
4. All of your social media efforts should answer the question, “What’s in it for Me?” from your community’s standpoint – NOT YOURS!
Our Agenda Today
LinkedIn Groups
TweetChats
Google Hangouts
Video: Vine, YouTube
Photos: Snap Chat Instagram Pinterest
Blogging
Content Creation
LinkedIn Groups
Engage. Question. Take note of current trending topics.
Always, always, always moderate.
Microsoft excel posts should be taken down asap
Trending topics should become fodder for your education, blogs
Post interesting, informative articles you find from everywhere Humor has its place!
See what your competitors are doing.
TweetChats
Regularly scheduled conversations on Twitter around a specific topic and designated by a #.
Why do it?
Take your most ardent twitter followers and engage them!
Find out what your community REALLY thinks
Get ideas for blogs, educational sessions (webinars and face-to-face)
TweetChats
How:
When do you hold it?
Day and Time most convenient for your audience
What’s your hashtag (#) going to be? (Short is good!)
Double-check and make sure it’s not being used already
Maybe use the show name and “chat” at the end?
TweetChat
Must be held regularly
Once a week on average, you can go to once every 2 weeks or once a month for 6 months between shows, but it’s not recommended
How long? One hour
Tweetchat.com – Free! Automatically adds the hashtag You will have to “authorize” it to access your twitter
account.
TweetChats
TweetChats
Decide on series of topics
What’s relevant? Anything from your LI groups? Controversial is good
Ads are bad – use REAL Content
Get a speaker/keynote to be a guest
Come up with at least 8 questions per Chat
TweetChats
Publicize it regularly at many different hours in different channels
Email – with link to topic questions
LI groups
FB if your audience is there
Use Storify to recap and post on your website
TweetChats
Be patient – they take awhile to build! Some weeks are better than others.
Don’t let others hijack – keep it to the relevant topic
Jokes and laughter are good! Makes it fun!
Follow up if you have questions
Moderating can be scary until you get used to it
Use a couple of different team members to be moderators
Questions so far?
Google+ Hangouts
Can be fun – either everyone may be seen or just your speakers.
It’s Free
It’s relatively easy to use once you get the hang of it Allow extra time for the first one! Easier to invite those with gmail.
You can record & post it later
Some groups use this instead of tweetchats – or both!
Videos: Vine
6 seconds of video can tell a big story May be edited (easily)
Fast growing, post on Twitter & Facebook (owned by Twitter)
How can we use this for our show?
Pre-Show, On Site, Post-Show
https://support.twitter.com/articles/20170317# Or Google “Vine”…
Videos: YouTube
The largest social media platform! More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on
YouTube—that's almost an hour for every person on Earth, and 50% more than last year
100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute 80% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US YouTube is localized in 61 countries and across 61 languages According to Nielsen, YouTube reaches more US adults ages
18-34 than any cable network
You can take content from other places and post it
Have links to your YouTube videos from your website
YouTube
Using it for community building:
Hold contests around themes related to your show! Example: Why people are attending your show? Give cool event-related prizes (hotel rooms,
restaurant coupons, comp educational sessions)
Ask Speakers for videos
Have Board members post content
A photo messaging application developed by Stanford University students. Using the app, users can take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a controlled list of recipients. These sent photographs and videos are known as "Snaps". ...
See it once and it’s gone – it “lives” for 1-10 seconds.
Like many internet apps, started with sex
Free and the latest “big thing”
Play with it and see if it works for your show
Photos: Snap Chat
Photos: Instagram
Statistics:
150 Million: Monthly Actives
60%+: People Outside U.S.
16 Billion: Photos Shared
1.2 Billion: Likes Daily
55 Million: Average Photos Per Day
For the “shoppers” in the group! Founded in 2010 Grown 66.52% from 2012-2013 Drives more referral traffic than Twitter, LI and Reddit
combined
It’s visual. It’s a Search/Discovery Tool. Designed to send traffic out, not bring it in.
Suppliers should be using it.
Boards should be relevant to your audience!
The Rule of Six!
Business.Pinterest.com
Free for businesses! Easy to convert from a personal page
Experiment with what works for you
Follow key exhibitors and suppliers
Add text to pictures! (Use PicMonkey.com for help combining text with graphics.) For example: 5 Reasons to Attend Make images tall rather than wide
Use infograms! (piktochart.com)
You can place boards in order of appearance
Cross promote pinterest and instagram accounts
Should be done by Senior Management - may be ghostwritten – just make sure they suggest content, READ IT and approve it.
Great way to share opinions on your show, industry trends and what else?
Should never be an ad!
Blogging
Use speakers to write guest blogs
Be consistent – every week?
Every day is TOO MUCH
Think one thought per blog. Average between 200-400 words
How long are the blogs you read regularly?
Content Development
Content comes from everywhere.
Recorded sessions may be edited down.
How can you use the same content & multipurpose it across multiple channels?
TwitterLinkedInPinterest
White PapersYour Exhibitors
Your SponsorsIndustry Bloggers
Your Speakers
Summary
Social Media is not the enemy. It’s a fact of life.
Be the connector for your community!
Using a combination of platforms, you can and should engage your community 12 months out of the year – not just before and after your shows.
Community is not a four-letter word. Neither is Engagement.
Content comes from everywhere.
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