Leveraging the Power of Social Media for Trade Shows

Let’s Get Engaged! The MarketingSavant Group
www.marketingsavant.com
888.989.7771
Social Media + Trade Shows dana@marketingsavant.com

hveeser@exhibit-resource.com
speters@exhibit-resource.com
www.exhibit-resource.com

The MarketingSavant Group 888.989.7771

Download the Social Media for Trade
Shows Playbook following the webinar!


The Social Trade Show Works!
• 31% of respondents have incorporated social media into their exhibit marketing
efforts, along with 24 percent of respondents who have used social media as part
of their company’s B2B and/or B2C corporate events.
• 57% have used social media for more general marketing and branding purposes,
excluding exhibits and events.
• One-third of respondents who have used social media as an exhibit-marketing tool
set measurable objectives prior to implementing their social-media campaigns.
• 90% of those respondents indicated their social-media efforts met or exceeded
their preshow objectives.
• 32% of respondents believe social media has “limitless” potential in the context of
exhibit and event marketing. 58% believe it has “moderate” potential.
• 22% percent of companies that have not used social media as part of their
marketing efforts cite “lack of time to dedicate to social media” as the primary
reason.
• 75% of respondents expect the value and importance of social media as a
marketing tool to increase “strongly” or “somewhat” in the coming year.
According to a report by Exhibitor Media Group

What to Expect


What are some unique
ways to drive qualified
booth traffic?


Get a Baseline Measurement

SOCIAL MEDIA IMPACT
Source: Oliver Blanchard
“The Basics of Social Media ROI”


Set Your Show Goals

– Pre-show buzz
– Integrate social media into your show plan
– Sales, current customers
– Lead gathering & nurturing
– New product launches, thought leader interviews
– Sponsored guest speakers
– In-show giveaways & buzz generators
– Post-show – continuing the conversation


Don’t Commit Random Acts of
Social Media Marketing!


Pre-Show At-Show Post-Show

/

Build Your Dream Team


Get Social BEFORE the Show
• Begin releasing some of your social media plans for the show a few weeks before
“It is absolutely crucial to engage in social media before, during
the show. Social is still buzz worth and you want your special efforts to go noticed.
and after the trade show - it's essentially a futile effort if it's not
• Converse regularly with the trade media and registered attendees (by responding
done this way.” -Upasna Gautam, Magic Logix
to tweets and re-tweeting and commenting on blogs).
• Release pre-show videos of product and interviews to encourage attendees to ‘get
to know your show personalities).
• Schedule Facebook and Twitter posts highlighting your new products, prominent
speakers and in-show events such as parties and demos.
• Use social media channels to announce your contests, incentives, special offers
and deals and other promotions that you will be running during the event.
• Tell interesting stories about people, products, history or anything else that gets
you away from selling and into sharing value.
• Introduce your show staff – let attendees know a bit more about who they’re
going to meet at the event and build up a bit of anticipation, especially if you have
a thought leader on your staff or are sponsoring an industry celebrity at the show.
• Integrated seamlessly into your marketing efforts including things like hotel door
hangers, ads, public relations and events.

Get Your Plan Together
Show
Blog Twitter Facebook LinkedIn YouTube
Countdown
4 Weeks to  Social media  1 Tweet /day  Post sneak  Post show  Company
Go announceme about show, peak photos of highlights in thought leader
nt using show upcoming relevant interview
 Guest blog hashtag show industry group introducing
from  Tweet out blog show theme
sponsored posts and
speaker Facebook
posts
3 Weeks to  Post a list of  Listen to the  Photo post on  Answer  Post video of
Go the most show years past questions product teaser
important conversation developments about show,
development and create a  Post question product
s in the list of show- or survey on
industry this related people upcoming
year on twitter show plans
2 Weeks to  Thought  Post updates  Post links to  Sales team  Post a short
Go leader blog about parties social and invites key ‘webinar’ or
post from and show media contacts for at slide deck
product events coverage show meetings screen cast
manager  Post relevant product
 info about the overview
venue city
1 Week to  Blog post  5 – 20x daily  Post links to  Sales and  Live video
Go mention of tweets, relevant venue marketing post leading up to
early industry interacting top on profiles and the show
press with restaurants in groups touching on
attendees, about show the most
media, important
vendors topics


The At-Show Plan
• Launch a promotional Facebook or Twitter giveaway to
grow traffic and fans (iPads?)
• Use Facebook and Twitter as a real-time news feed to reach
out to the show audience by delivering up-to-the-second
content, photos and videos
• Schedule tweets to augment your minute-by-minute
interaction
• Secure back-office support to ensure your ability to keep up
with the pace of the show
• Capture footage, photos, interviews and other media only
available at the show
• Live stream sponsored presentations and keynotes for your
sales force and non-attending customers


Post-Show Deliverables

• Follow up with contest winners – make them
famous!
• Continue the conversation
• Connect sales with social
• Leverage awards, experiences, show photos,
videos and other captured content


What is the best way to
connect with clients in
such a short meeting?

How to Be the Most
Engaging Brand on
the Show Floor!

Incent Social Sharing & Interaction
• ING Cafe in Chicago offered a free cup
of coffee to people who checked in
somewhere nearby their venue.
• This got customers in their door who
may not have known about ING Cafe
or simply hadn’t planned to go there.
• Kraft’s new MiO product, a water
enhancer, gave away free full-sized
samples from their Facebook page.
• Chipotle gave away a free burrito to
people in return for watching a
promotional video.
• Simply put, offering consumer freebies
has been wildly successful in recent
social campaigns.


Social Promotions


Celebrate Your Customers


Use Fan Generating Apps


Tweet With the Tags

• Create or follow the
event hashtag (#CES)
• Tag every post as part
of the conversation
• Interact with the Twitter
community


Take People Behind the Scenes
Ann Handley suggests in her book Content
Rules to use video to show behind the scenes at
your company. “Businesses can show what goes
on in their day-to-day world that people don’t see
but might be interested in. What about showing,
for example, how a popular product goes from
concept to rolling off the assembly line? Something
that seems completely everyday to you could be
exciting and fresh to your fans.”


Turn Your Thinkers Into
Thought Leaders


Have a LinkedIn Action Plan
• Linkedin 250 contacts • Searching in LinkedIn – Who do
– Professional contacts from your you want to find?
address book • Save searches
– Every satisfied customer
• Look at the network connections
– Anyone you meet of the individuals with whom you
– Professional personal brand have a first degree connection.
description
They might know of the ideal
• Personal headline candidate.
• Beef up your profile. (use the • LinkedIn Groups – finding the
checklist) right ones
• Get to 100% complete profile – Subscribing
• Search for prospects – Participating
• Find profiles of 5 competitors • Posting opportunities in
• Seek 5 recommendations from appropriate groups
satisfied clients • Answer questions, ask questions,
• Recommend 5 clients or peers participate


Host a Tweetup for Your:
Company/Customers/Industries/Community/Groupies


Twitter

How (not) To Use It
• Don’t talk down other companies or
individuals
• Don’t share detailed personal information
• Don’t use profanity
• Don’t post a large string of tweets in a short
amount of time


Twitter – Twitter Terminology
• Tweet - When you post or write your 140 characters on twitter and hit send it’s called a
tweet or tweeting
• Handle – that’s your twitter name @danavan – balance short with descriptive and no matter
what your business handle is get your personal name if you can even if you don’t plan to use
it right now.
• Follow – this is simply the act of adding someone to your list of people you are following –
this makes their tweets show up on your homepage.
• Replies – this is what it is called when someone writes a tweet directly at your handle -
@danavan cool post today blah blah – this is often an invite to engage with a follower.
• Retweet – this is a tactic of republishing someone else’s tweet – the original tweet along with
author stays intact – many people find this a great way to add content and acknowledge good
stuff from the folks they follow
• DM – this is a message that is sent directly to another user. They must be following you for
you to DM them
• Hashtag – this is a way people categorize tweets so that others might use the same tag and
effectively create a way for people to view related tweets – it will something like #marketing


Is there a way to target a
specific groups that will
attend the show?

Getting the Most
Mileage From the
Social Trade Show

Listen, Listen, Listen


Create Compelling Content


Publish on Schedule – “60-1-7-30-4-2-1”

• 60 = Hourly
• 1 = Daily
• 7 = Weekly
• 30 = Monthly
• 4 = Quarterly
• 2 = Bi-Annual
• 1 = Annual

Source: FusionSpark Media www.marketingsavant.com
The MarketingSavant Group http://www.fusionspark.com/blog/2009/10/13/content-marketing-secrets-part-iii-easy-as-1-7-30-4-2-1/ 888.989.7771

Map Out the Publishing Process


Integrate Social Media


Develop Business
Through Twitter


Launch New Products on Facebook


Use a Social CRM Tool


How do I engage sales
when their colleagues’
leads are showing up, not
theirs? www.marketingsavant.com

Who’s Getting Great
Results?

Ergotron
• Social media strategy is discussed at launch
meeting for show and fine-tuned through the
planning process (about six months in
advance of show)
• Two weeks prior to the event marketing
sends a social media recap email to events
teams and attendees with appropriate
hashtags, event social media opportunities
(Event social media sites, Tweetups, etc.)
• Team members on Twitter are encouraged to
start tweeting and event is introduced on
Facebook
• Appropriate team members get engaged
with any pre-show discussions on LinkedIn
groups or Event sites
• The team is encouraged to not only tweet
booth # and promotions but also engage
with attendees and colleagues
• Typically we have some kind of blog post
kick-off for major events but most "at the
show/behind the scenes at the show" pics
get shared on Facebook


Ergotron
• At CES, we used a Tweet2Win promotion
that was pretty successful in driving traffic
and engaging attendees. There was a
retweet option for those not attending,
and we used signage in our partner
booths and our own that drew people in.
• We've also done in-booth promotions,
with social media driving traffic and we
used it to help grow our account followers
and presence.
• Overall, we've discovered we are
significantly ahead of our competition in
our social media usage. We are helping
promote our partners as well as our own
presence so that has been great for
channel relationships.
• Overall, social media has helped
personalize our brand to both our
partners, and end users.


McCann’s Guest Blog
• McCann’s blog covering
the Mobile World
Congress
• Maintain thought
leadership position
• Increase followership,
SEO and social
conversations
• Archived content for
customers & team
• Go-to social hub for show
attendees


Wired & AMD – Make a Scene
• Asked for attendees to
‘Make a Scene.’
• Booth, armed with powerful
computers and tech
experts, and its ‘Make a
Scene’ initiatives provided a
plethora of opportunities
for visitors to create content
and easily share it across
their social networks.
• Help attendees create and
share social objects
• Yield peer influence and
impressions


Kodak + Geo + QR Codes

• Offer dedicated
touchdown space for
socialites
• Get them to participate
in a SCVNGR game with
QR codes and social
interactions
• Win prizes based on
participation


Good Advice From Around
the Shows
1. Deals matter most to your online community, and this is what gets shared more
often than anything else. Offer exclusive contests, deals and/or freebies to those
who attend the trade show and stop by your booth.
2. Tag everything. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play.
Using your strongest keywords, tag all of your content with them including blog
posts, photo captions, press releases, directory listings and all company pages on
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
3. “Vlog” your event to reach those who are unable to attend, and broadcast video
updates during the event on your YouTube channel. Next to Google, YouTube is
the second largest search engine. You can even add the YouTube channel to your
Facebook page to syndicate content.
4. Encourage visitors to share content by adding the “Like” button on your event’s
website. Also add this to session descriptions, speaker profiles, blog posts,
videos, pictures, etc.
5. Recruit other exhibitors, sponsors and attendees by adding your event to
LinkedIn Events, and be sure to use keyword-rich content. This will enable your
event to rank high in Google’s search results for your event name and its
keywords.


Good Advice From Around
the Shows
6. Search for and answer industry-related LinkedIn questions that you and/or
members of your company can accurately answer. You can also set up an RSS
feed for specific categories to go to Google Reader. When responding, be sure to
include a link back to your website.
7. Create a unique event hashtag for Twitter. This is an instrumental tool in building
your audience before, during and after the event. Use the hashtag every time
you tweet to help other attendees and exhibitors find you.
8. Keep your tweets short so they can easily be re-tweeted. This will allow followers
to add hashtags and short comments without exceeding the 140-character limit.
For the same reason, be sure to keep your Twitter name short, too.
9. Improve the attendee experience at your show by tweeting unplanned schedule
changes, reminders and notifications.
10. Add QR codes to marketing material (or virtually any material you want). These
can be linked to online information to engage Smartphone users. The sky’s the
limit with the level of creativity you can use with this new medium.


The Next Level

• Inviting Influencers In: Instead of trying to
grab influencers’ attention as they walk by
booths on the trade show floor, brands have
begun inviting influencers to set-up shop
broadcasting within their exhibits.


How do I get more people
to our in-booth events?


Social Media Meets or Exceeds…

• 93.3% of respondents in the Exhibitor Media Group survey
stating that they felt their social media marketing campaigns
are meeting or exceeding their event-related objectives


Results & ROI: Relationships are the ‘Return’!

Getting Started in Social Media

1. Setup your social profiles
2. Tap in to the industry conversation
3. Build your show platform
1. Ideas, contests, tweets, posts, photos, personelle
4. Build pre-show buzz
1. Watch the show #hashtags for activity
5. Converse with your audience, competitors and
the show promoters
6. Establish a ‘during show’ presence


Getting Started in Social Media

7. Keep up the conversation during the show
with multiple forms of media
8. Invite the social media mavens into your
booth/showroom
9. Follow up with attendees as the show ends
10.Keep up on the conversation…until next year!


Smile if you liked it!

The MarketingSavant Group
888.989.7771
dana@marketingsavant.com


Leveraging the Power of Social Media for Trade Shows

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