Social media provides a real-time outlet for customers to interact with your company, and trade shows or conferences are great times to utilize social media to enhance your presence at these events.

In addition to allowing attendees to interact with your brand online, social media event promotion encourages interaction among event attendees and extends your message far beyond those who actually attend your event. This means your marketing messages will have a greater impact than just to event attendees alone.

Here are 5 social media platforms with key ways to use them to boost your next event.

1. Twitter

Twitter’s strength is the real-time nature of the platform. Create an event hashtag for attendees to use (and let them know what it is by promoting it heavily in your conference marketing materials). This way, it is easier to track conversations that may be taking place. These tweets also provide you with great content for your corporate Twitter account.

2. Foursquare

Foursquare’s location-based technology offers companies an opportunity to further interact with those who are at the same trade show or conference. Creating a check-in spot at your booth can spread the word about your presence, as each check-in will be shown to that person’s network. Also, Foursquare recently introduced a new update that allows business owners to post updates that are shown to users who are connected to the company on Foursquare. This can be utilized at events to update booth visitors on your company’s activities at the trade show or any special promotions you might be having.

3. Instagram

Instagram’s visually engaging platform and integration with other social media networks make it an ideal place for companies to share trade show/conference photos. Encourage attendees to use the same hashtag they use for Twitter when they upload photos to Instagram. That way you can utilize them as content for other marketing materials. Consider these examples of creating a “Top 10 Instagram Photo” blog post or a gallery of the best Instagram photos that are posted using the hashtag.

4. SlideShare

SlideShare offers brands the ability to upload presentations or other documents. It is a great platform to share keynote or breakout session presentations after the conference is over. You may consider offering tidbits of the presentations to the public while keeping the full presentations exclusively for attendees. Read our blog post for more tips on using SlideShare for B2B marketing.

5. YouTube

Much like SlideShare, YouTube can be a great place to share presentations that occurred during the event, except in video form. Besides the presentations, consider creating videos of other things that occur during the event such as awards presentations or fun outings. Showcasing these other aspects of the event besides the presentations gives your event a personality and serves as another enticing aspect to attract attendees for your next event.

Parting Words

As you can see, social media can play a key role in your brand’s strategy for a trade show or conference presence. By integrating various social media outlets, you have an opportunity to portray your brand’s personality and extend the reach of your message beyond the walls of the conference center.

Need help with the social meeting strategy for your next event? Contact Launch today! Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to stay up-to-date with B2B marketing tips and trends.

It’s no secret that lead generation is one of the primary reasons most exhibitors attend trade shows. In addition, trade shows often receive the greatest percentage of the marketing budget allocation. Marketing activities centered on trade shows can be extensive, and planning for one can (and should) take several months. That being said, it really is critically important to get the most bang for your buck.

I recently attended the Trade Show during SXSW. While there, I was struck by how the majority of the booth attendants handled lead generation. I didn’t have a SXSW badge as I was a “single-day” conference attendee, so many companies were unsure about how to gather my information. Most of them [9 out of 10] did not attempt to get my information through other means.

Without contact information for a potential lead, there is no way to follow up with them. A simple way to deal with this problem would be to collect business cards or to use a simple method of pen and paper and import the information into the CRM system later.

Here are a few additional tips to help ensure trade show success:

• Promote yourself before, during, and after the show: Pre- and post-show marketing can be as important as what happens when you’re actually at the show. Prior to the show, let prospects or current customers know that you will be attending and offer them incentives for visiting your booth. After the show, the sales and marketing teams should meet to discuss the results, as well as a plan on how to move forward.
• Get contact information from everyone: Make sure that booth visitors don’t slip through the cracks and have back-up methods available in case your primary lead information gathering method doesn’t work. Send a “thank you” message to all those who attended your booth, and follow up with potential customers in the appropriate manner.
• Train Your Booth Staff: Only utilize people who are educated about your company. Conduct training sessions prior to the event to ensure that booth attendants know what to say and how to conduct themselves. Have senior-level employees supervising the staff and ready to respond quickly to any missteps.
• Offer people something: Whether it’s a free highlighter or the chance to win an iPad, people like to get something tangible out of attending trade shows. To better align this tactic with your overall campaign, offer a unique item that is related to your brand or company.

Depending on the type of product or service you offer, you may consider providing a free trial of one of your products to booth visitors.