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Twitter is a Must for Trade Shows
May 13th, 2009
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by Warren Whitlock · Filed Under: How to Twitter · Making Money with Twitter · Twitter Stories
@joycemckee is looking for success stories for a report on Trade Show Use of Twitter.
Here’s my submission… @ her if you can help.
By searching for the hashtags (unique ID words related to the event, usually starting with # sign) on the event the week before it starts, I am able to see who the real leaders are.
I follow many of the attendees and all of the speakers (Twitter links are on speaker bio pages and/or their blogs). Often I meet several of the speakers before the event starts, and make appointment to meet up with attendees that are active in the community. I also check to see if the is a “Tweet Up” (meeting of those who have connected on Twitter) and add that to my schedule.
I’ve found that the best opportunities at most shows happen in this network. Once these tweeps (Twitter users) decide to RT (”ReTweet: A Twitter post that gets repeated) I know that a large active group will be aware of whatever I’m promoting.
Two more tips to get traffic to your booth:
1) Give aways for Twitter users. I often tweet “I’ve got a copy of Twitter Revolution for the next person who finds me.” It works for @The RealShaq with NBA tickets and it will work for you.
2) Get your staff tweeting. This is not a media to advertise on.. this is a way to network. Get everyone involved. Your customers expect INDIVIDUALS to be availalbe
Joyce,
I am currently using a Twitter hashtag for my upcoming Social Media In Recruitment Conference: #smrec09
The conference is not until the 16th July but I started using the hashtag a couple of weeks ago.
I’d be happy to keep you updated on how it goes.
Thanks
Mike
Okay, you’ve got my attention.
I’ve learned to use hashtags for #healthy #chocolate #tasting but creating a hashtag for an unknown event? How exactly will that help?
I used Twitter grader and sent everyone an invite that was in or near Bellingham to the healthy chocolate tasting event with mixed results. Seems that the people with the least amount of follow/followers got upset; while those who had spent even a little time building their Twitter following were quite pleased to receive and RT the information.
So let’s say I keep everyone happy and create an event number. For lack of better ideas we can call it #choc123. How will people in Bellingham WA come to discover this information simply because a hashtag number has been created?
It’s likely that I’m missing something here, which is exactly why I am hoping you can straighten me out.
For our recent LMA, Legal Marketing Association, conference, the Association began using #LMA well before the conference. Those of us on Twitter began to network and discuss the conference.
Sonny Cohen from Duo Consulting Tweeted during the conference, and invited everyone to come by to use a special key to try to unlock his treasure box of gifts.
My company is Myrland Marketing, Inc. I, as well as a few others, LiveTweeted many of the sessions. Because of the #LMA hashtag, a few of us were able to organize some of the Tweets by session, which we then published to our blogs. For an example, you can find a few of these session Tweets on my blog, which is http://www.myrlandmarketing.com. I haven’t finished compiling these Tweets yet, but intend to do so to share with those who were unable to attend this year, as well as those attendees who were in other sessions. We then Tweeted a link to our blogs, as well as posted to our LMA listserve to let members and others know the TweetStream was available.
Another way I used the #LMA hastag was to remind attendees to make sure they saw me during the conference as I had a custom made tweetup lapel pin made for Twitter users at the conference to encourage tweetups. I packaged the pin with my new business card, so I was able to distribute the pins with my information. There was a fair amount of buzz during and after the conference because of this, so that made it that much more enjoyable as a marketing and communication tool for me.
I fully believe in using hashtags, and ones that people do not have to know about before you start using it. Here’s my example and it may help answer Guy’s question.
Recently in my city there was a conference – Atlantic Internet Marketers Conference or the AIM conference. In the back of my mind I knew about it and honestly thought it was geared more for actual ‘internet marketers’ so I didn’t register or look into it more.
Then about a week and a half before the conference took place, I started seeing the hashtag #aimconference more and more in tweets from people in this area that I am connected to.
When I read the comments it got me thinking that I misjudged the conference and its market for attendees. I took the time to learn more, registered and went; along with a friend who signed up as well because of me talking to him about it.
If it hadn’t been for the hashtag – that I knew nothing about – I wouldn’t have gone to what turned out to be a great conference and one very applicable to my line of work (in a nutshell “I help people manage their social media accounts). I also was part of fabulous learning sessions that have helped me improve many things I do for marketing with my own business. I connected with a fellow virtual assistant from a neighbouring province as well as several people who have inquired about working with me. I met a speaker I have signed to give a presentation for another organization I belong to and also met a person to whom I had emailed a proposal from services from a posting I saw online. I didn’t get the job he had posted, but he now knows my face and it may help if in the future he has similar needs for more work. I also discovered that there is a lot of social media talent coming out of the small provinces on the East Coast of Canada and because much of the focus of the conference was on social media it exactly the type of conference i should have been attending.
I also grew my online connections within Twitter by being able to easily follow people that used that hashtag for the week prior to, and the week or so after, the conference. Following up a click of the follow button on Twitter with a real meeting face-to-face adds so much more value to your connections as well.
The conference itself had so many benefits to me and my business I know I have missed several things, but I guess the point is I would have missed it all if I had not noticed the hashtag being posted by people I was connected to on Twitter. A hashtag I had no idea what it was for nor knew about before I saw it being posted in people’s updates. It just caught my eye and attention and I ‘clicked to lean more’- which in my mind is the crux of social media; posting updates that make people want to click and learn more if they like what they learn/see they may take your call to action.
If you have ever been in a Tweetchat room following a live discussion with a hashtag; you’ll see occasionally tweets from people asking what is this hashtag about and what is going on? You have piqued their interest and they want to know more…and they had no idea what the tag was for in the first place.
I also don’t think it is unique to this situation and my conference as I also attended a PodCamp held here in Halifax in January by learning about it from tweets I saw with a unique hashtag. I know many other people learned of it in the same manner – from posts with the hashtag in it. Same thing happened to them; Interest, Click, Attend.
Not sure if this counts as ‘to your booth at a tradeshow’ but I think it may be close.
Good Luck with your report.
Kathy
aka @timeontaskva on Twitter
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