10 Easy Social Media Tactics for Meetings & Events:
- Know your audience’s social media habits, so you can communicate most effectively. Use tools such as Twitter Search or Technorati to do research, or simply conduct a member survey.
- Use Facebook or Eventbrite to promote and register people at your event. These tools allow people to easily spread the word to their friends and let people see who else is attending the event.
- Promote your social media activities through traditional channels to encourage participation, including websites, signage, welcome remarks, hotel room drop offs and programs.
- Set up an event-specific Wiki or social network. This will help break down barriers between people and facilitate the exchange of ideas during the conference.
- Start and promote an event blog with news and updates. If an entire blog is intimidating, simply start with Facebook updates.
- Create an “upload atmosphere” at your event to encourage blogging and Tweeting. Provide powerstrips and make sure Wifi is available to your attendees.
- Create and promote one consistent Twitter hashtag for your event. Twitter hashtags help aggregate individual Tweets into one area. By using a hashtag (or Twitter search term) into their posts, attendees can easily find all the posts relevant to your event.
- Live blog and Tweet from the event to provide “official” messaging and generate excitement.
- Interview speakers using a flip cam and post the content to your event site. This provides visibility for the speakers and also gives bloggers something to share.
- Create a group on Slideshare so that all presentations can be shared electronically with attendees. Reducing the number of presentation handouts also is a nice “green” element that can be promoted to attendees.
The above tips are adapted from a seminar sponsored by the Hilton Washington, for meeting and event planners on how to leverage the vast world of social media specifically for their needs – helping them attract, engage and respond to their attendees. To develop and conduct the complimentary seminar, Hilton Washington engaged its communications partner Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide and Ogilvy Washington Digital Influence Specialist Sarah Marchetti. The full presentation can be accessed on Slideshare.
