Effective social media marketing means taking the proper steps before, during, and after the show. To ensure you cross everything off your social to-do list, refer to the following checklist:
PRE-EVENT PLANNING
1. Create a calendar for event marketing.
2. Work with your designer to conceptualize any infographics, Twitter cards, Pinterest Pins, social display ads or other visuals for your campaign.
Here are few things to stimulate your creative mind. The idea is you want to be perceived to be 'MORE' than who you are....
Talk about your industry
Talk about contextual relevance of your brand related to your industry
Highlight the pressing issues that your customers are facing
NO JOKE: If you cannot think of anything worthy, take refuge in poetry and the power of words. Using the right words could create mystique, evoke passion or fuel trust.
'CONVERGE, CONNECT AND CREATE' - notice the power of words — action oriented and yet 'spiritual' — the words make you visualize, and create a sense of mystique.
MYSTIQUE AT WORK - 'So, what does clean labels have to do with great taste?' — It does not shout out non-GMO, it does not say replace chemical ingredients in food — when you are in the business of catering to a vast portfolio of solutions, you do not go into specifics. You let the imagination do the talking and thinking.
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3. Add your event to your email signature.
4. Create an event page on LinkedIn, Facebook, and/or Eventbrite, as well as on your own website.
5. Submit the event to the relevant directories, so that it shows up ASAP in listings.
6. Create a highlight reel from last year’s event, and upload it to your YouTube channel. This can also be repurposed for Facebook and Instagram, and used a teaser for the next event.
7. Find out what the show’s official hashtag will be, and come up with your own brand offering hashtag.
8. Designate a social media leader to be the primary voice and driver for your messaging.
SOCIAL LISTENING FOR DEVELOPING YOUR THEME
PRE-EVENT MARKETING
1. Commit to doing 'CERTAIN NUMBER' of posts per day/week on each of your social platforms
2. Amplify your updates via promoted posts, tweets, and updates to reach new, lookalike audiences
3. Send a LinkedIn InMail to prospects you’d love to see at the conference and expo, to alert them to your attendance.
Something to ponder on as you are preparing your pre-event marketing.
If you are not a well known brand, that is quite okay. Actually, it might be better. You can put your product in a class of it's own. You do not have to prove that you are better than your competition.
Because, better is fragile. Better is weak. Better categorizes you as only one of the many.
"Attempting to be better, puts companies on a hamster wheel, running faster and faster — and in the same direction as everyone else—to keep up."
Taking some lessons from K-beauty, aka “Korean beauty”. It made made a grand entrance onto the Western beauty scene back in 2015, and took it by storm with its cutesy and colorful skincare and cosmetic products. Now it’s about to become ubiquitous.
Note: How the brand manipulates and redefines cultural context to bring light to it's own products.
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4. Upload any and all email lists to AdWords, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and create Custom Audience campaigns to serve display ads to just these people. Learn more about paid social media ads here for Journey Based Advertising.
5. Participate in any discussion groups on LinkedIn that are relevant to your event.
6. Start following the show hashtag several weeks in advance to stay up to date on what’s trending.
AT THE SHOW
1. Use Facebook live to capture and webcast the most exciting moments as they occur.
2. Use photos of attendees in your social updates. ID the people (with their permission) to encourage social sharing and interaction.
3. Utilize HootSuite or another social scheduler to post on your behalf when you are busy at the show.
4. Use the Twitter @ sign to engage directly with your sponsored speakers or other known social brand champions in attendance.
5. Engage in social listening to see what topics and events attendees are interested in. Respond to other attendee questions, rather than just inviting people to come to your booth.
6. Draw out a roadmap for your serious leads. Help them figure out exactly where they in the customer journey road map. Make the journey of making a purchase decision easy for them
(This means, that you will have pre-designed road map which you may use it as a valuable giveaway.)
Above: Designed by Aruliden for the Museum of Modern Art, the Graphite Towers come precisely carved from blocks of graphite and can be used either by the tip or by the base to sketch on paper.
POST-SHOW FOLLOW-UP
1. Go through any leads you gathered, and connect with those people on LinkedIn, follow them on Twitter, or like their business page on Facebook.
2. Follow up with your leads and connections via email.
3. Post an event summary on your blog, with photos of the show highlights.
4. Create and share a Twitter Moment of the event highlights.
Nurture your social leads and build your network year-round, rather than being a fair-weather user. Effective social media usage means being an active and engaged part of your social community!
We are human beings. Hence, we are social animals. We are meaning-making machines. We co-create meaning through the relationships we have with others. Whether you’re exhibiting at local, national, or international shows, whether you are exhibiting for 10, 100, or 1000s people, the goal is to create a relationship with each one of those individuals.
Happy Socializing!
The original article has been interjected by thought evoking snippets by Sarmistha Tarafder
Indulge in the original article here.
