Free Reports

Here is an excerpt from our FREE report “Using Social Media to Make Your Event Successful.” You can download the report by filling out the form at the bottom of this webpage.

“Eighty-three percent of associations currently are using one or more digital tools to market and execute their events, although most are not yet using those tools to their full potential,” according to a new survey from Champion Exposition Services, a San Francisco-based event and tradeshow marketing firm.

Adding social media to your marketing mix will assist your organization in turning around the current problems associated with our current economic climate, escalating travel costs, reduced headcount, and businesses cutting back on conference attendance.

This report will assist you with successfully implementing social media tools for your next event.  Successful implementation and utilization of social media strategies can provide your next event with the following:

• More paid attendees at a lower marketing cost.
• Increased opportunities for sponsors to engage your audience.
• Real time data gathering of attendees’ opinions
• Opportunities to extend the branding of your event before and after the event.

According to the Champion Survey, social networks—Facebook (67 percent), Twitter (54 percent) and LinkedIn (48 percent)—are the most common digital tools employed by associations, 69 percent of which cited shifting attendee behavior as the reason they’re incorporating digital tools into their events.

Despite their increasing use of social media, however, associations aren’t using digital tools to their full potential, Champion said, because while 100 percent are using Facebook for pre-show attendee marketing, less than half are using Facebook’s video (33 percent) and discussion forum (48 percent) features. Similarly, 82 percent of associations are using Twitter to create pre-show buzz, but only 36 percent are using it to communicate directly with attendees and only 23 percent to follow attendees’ conversations.

Social Media is a Conversation between actual HUMANS!

Using social media successfully requires that you create two way communications with your attendees.  It’s not enough to just build and implement social media tools to communicate without providing strategies to listen and respond to people.

Why Use Social Media in Your Event Marketing Campaign

People are discussing your brand.  Don’t you want to know what the conversation is about?

Social Media provides the tools for you to interact with people who discuss your brand, introduce your brand to key influencers and have them talk about your brand.

Nielsen released these digital media factoids on the strength of the Internet and Social Media.

Internet:    There are:

• 195M active U.S. internet users and 160.3M people who accessed the internet via a broadband connection: (that’s 82.2% penetration up 16% from 2008)
• 138.4M Unique viewers of video (up 11.4% from 2008)
• 11.2B Total online video streams viewed monthly (up 17% from 2008)
• 200.1 minutes Average time spent viewing online video per viewer monthly (up 12.5% from 2008)

Social Networking

• Facebook reaches 56% of the active U.S. internet universe with an average usage of 6 hrs a month per user
• Facebook is the #3 site visited by users 65 and older
• Twitter grew 500% year-over-year
• Time spent on social networking sites in the U.S. increased 277%
• The average U.S. worker spends 5 hrs/month visiting social networks at the office
• 32% of all mobile web users visited a social network

Top Social Networking Sites Year-over-Year Trend (Unique Audience)
Site                Nov. ’07     Nov. ’08    Nov. ’09
Facebook          21.97m    47.54m     109.7m
MySpace           57.39m     59.12m      50.92m
Twitter                 n/a        3.17m      19.07m
Classmates       11.46m      14.6m       12.13m
LinkedIn             5.44m     11.64m     12.13m
Source: the Nielsen Co., Nov. 2009  
The Cost of Social Media Marketing

The upfront financial cost to use social media for marketing is smaller than the average traditional marketing media cost.  That means that there is a cost to social media. It is not free as touted by several marketers.  The cost to use many of the social media tools are free but there are backend costs to use these tools effectively.

Time is a major cost to using social media effectively for a marketing campaign.

It takes time to learn, setup and maintain and effective social media campaign. The actual time it takes is different for each organization depending on the skillset of those involved.

Some organizations may choose to hire outside consultants to build and maintain their social media campaign. Adding a real cost to your social media campaign.

People is another cost of social media which has to be considered.  How much time can your staff divert to effectively maintain your social media campaign after they have been trained?

Spending too little time and you may not reach your desired goals, spending too much time and other core company work may suffer.

Finding the correct balance is crucial to the success of your social media marketing campaign.  One way to augment your staff is by hiring college interns who already understand the intricasies of social media.

Social media works beyond the computer. Effectively monitoring and responding to social media may require the use of smartphones by your staff. Additionally the IT departement will have to determine how the accesses and bandwith use for staff members to use social media tools will affect the organization’s operations.

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