Follow our 5 steps to using social media effectively for shows
Step 1 – Stand on the right platform
Before you blast off with your online communications, you must decide on a clear strategy; what are you trying to achieve and who you are trying to reach. Depending on your target group, select a platform as your ‘hub’ to communicate from. This could be
facebook ,
Twitter, a designated Blog, Slideshare, Linkedin,
Pinterest etc – choose one and then use the others to drive traffic to your hub.
Step 2 - Create buzz before the day
Don’t wait until the day before the show to tell people what you are doing. Prepare your audience before the exhibition and get word out about your stand, stunt, seminar or competition to create anticipation. Don’t ignore the use of your regular newsletter or a dedicated Eblast to let everyone know where you are, what you are doing to entertain them there and how they can plan to participate. The key question to ask yourself here is why should they visit you? How are you going to stand apart from the crowd?
Step 3 – Wear your social media high vis jacket
To encourage people to ‘share’ your pictures, stories and promotions you must make sure everyone knows how to. In other words, where can you be found and what are the methods of communicating with you? Have you included your twitter handles and
Linkedin hyperlinks to email signatures, home pages, show collateral, and most importantly are you physically displaying these on your stand? How visible is your social media identity to your audience? Have you created a significant
hashtag or a
QR code especially for the show and are these communicated in everything you do?
Step 4 – Live the moment and stay in tune
Social media is fast paced and many platforms, especially Twitter, work in ‘real time’ which means they are updated practically every millisecond. Your buzz needs to be managed so that feeds can go out frequently throughout the exhibition to keep your groups constantly engaged. Keep those conversations flowing, reply and use a tool such as
TweetDeck to schedule more messages. Send out live updates in the form of pictures or short, sharp and fun videos. What about trying a live stream for a seminar with
Google+ hang out? Later on you can upload this onto
YouTube and share.
Step 5 – Striking new conversations and winning more followers
The show is never over until the fat blue bird tweets!Following up on sales leads when the show is over is a challenge in itself. Gone are the days when business was all a phone call and email away, so don’t be shy to try and communicate over new social media channels. Sending a direct tweet out to a favourite/interested contact after a show is often much more effective. Emails can often feel slightly more personal or convoluted for some people. Do you have something in common to share? Link it back and ignite new conversations even after the show is over!
