Turn live conferences into digital communities! @iSocialFanz

Who doesn’t love attending industry conferences and events?  Yes we all do and one of the first things you hear from EVERYONE who attends a conference is…

“The conference was great but it’s all about the networking and after conference conversations!”

In 2014 we are living in a digital connected economy and conferences must focus on building a community rather than focusing their attention on the one event and that events attendees only.

As someone who has attended many government, technology, marketing and social media events I believe it’s not only the job of the event organizers but also the presenters and the attendees to make it less about the one event and more about the community of conversations and relationships being made both in person and online!

The Event:

• Hashtag
  • This is the digital foundation of your event.  Make the hashtag easy to remember, short (each one of the 140 characters is valuable) and part of every piece of collateral, swag and event advertising.
    
    

    #ICON14 Social Media team infront of event banner with event hashtag! Via @Infusionsoft

  • It doesn’t matter if you go with one that has the year (#ICON14) or a standard one for every year (#SocialFresh) the key is you as the brand and even must be listening and engaging with this hashtag, before/during/after the event.
    • Social Fresh conference this month had: 2300 hashtag users, 410 at conference using the hashtag 13k+ times over 3 days!
  • Make sure every presenter has a digital footprint and that you display their twitter handle throughout their entire presentation.

• Social Home/Group for attendees prior/during/after the event
  • Everyone is excited about attending and meeting others who are going to events.  You need to have a community home for these people to meet, ask questions, plan supporting meet-ups and even carpool or share rooms.
    • Use a Facebook Group, Linkedin Group or G+ Community depending on where the majority of you attendees engage.
  • Create a place that is exclusive for those who attended your events that will be used as the community home and can grow each year.
  • Create Twitter lists of speakers that attendees and future attendees can subscribe to which increases the likelihood they will see your tweets in their feed during the event.
• Venue
  • WiFi is more important than the type of coffee or quality of chairs.
  • As hotels and conference venues look for new ways to use social and connect with the millennial generation it is essential for events to include the venue in the social engagement.  At Social Fresh conference earlier this month the Omni Orlando not only welcomed and supported the event but Jay Cooney Omni Hotels & Resorts Social Media Strategist presented and sponsored giveaways including a personal note in my check-in gift basket that said.. “Enjoy Social Fresh & Happy Tweeting!”  Omni Hotels not only embraced the social fresh east event but they understand the importance of digital and I will without question be staying at their resorts more in the future because of that!

• Social Influencers on stage and in the crowd
  • Great presenters are important but it is also important to have influential industry leaders in the crowd live tweeting, engaging the crowd and sharing the insights from the great speakers in real time connecting the live audience and online audience.
• Event App:
  • Every event in 2014 has an app but very few of these apps ADD to the experience rather they replace a site map or allow for push notifications or they give you some background on the speaker and attendees.
  • Must support iOS, Android & windows if they really want to have all attendees using the app and if they event really wants to make it easy on the attendees they should have a browser version/ tablet capable solution.
  • Create contests and incentives for attendees to use the app and encourage/require your speakers to use and engage within the app.
• Live Stream the event
  • I see the pro’s and con’s for living streaming events but if you are limiting seats and/or not providing regional options I believe a live stream is a must.  The presenters will thank you as the connect with a larger audience.  If you’re worried about losing attendees or making the attendees feel like they shouldn’t have spent the money to attend in person charge a small fee for the live streaming.

The Presenters:

• Digital Footprint:
  • If you don’t have one you shouldn’t be presenting in 2014…
  • Every presenter wants to connect, engage and inspire the audience and that starts before they take the stage and should continue long after they leave the stage.
  • Every slide should have the presenters twitter handle and the event hashtag on it!
• Slides:
  • There are more options than just powerpoint… use Canva or Haiku or scan the millions of slide decks available on @Slideshare to prevent your slides from looking like bulleted copies of powerpoint 1995.
  • Make them “Tweetable”
    
    

    Ted Rubin presentations are always Tweetable! #RonR

    • Visually appealing when crowd takes pictures of them
    • Share insights and data that fit into 140 character chunks
• Be part of the community before/during/after the event.
  • Let people know when your presenting on your social channels
  • Tweet and share during your fellow speakers presentations.
  • Schedule tweets and posts during your presentation making it easy for the social community to share and amplify your presentation.
  • Thank and engage those who shared and commented on social during and after your event as often times just knowing that you heard them will go a long way and might just lead them to buy your next book.
• Know the Audience:
  • K.I.S.S.- Tailor your slides to your audience, If you use a name or site a source that isn’t familiar to the audience you don’t want them to spend the next 5 minutes of your presentation googling to find out who or what you were talking about.
  • Be human, share a story, inspire but don’t forget that people want to learn and grow and be able to take action from what they’ve heard!

The Attendee’s:

• It’s a team effort and you must remember that “Crap Happens” so don’t freak out when the WiFi goes out because there is a 99% chance it will, and don’t complain because its too cold as every event usually is.. bring a jacket!
• If the event has a mobile app… USE IT.. don’t complain about the features it doesn’t have if you aren’t even using it for the features it does have.  No event is going to stick money into an app unless they know their attendees are using it.
• If you are live tweeting or doing a blog recap or sharing your insights on a G+ hangout.. Give credit to the presenters, use the right hashtag and don’t rehash the same exact phrases
• Be Social on social but also in person!  I encourage everyone to share on social what they’ve heard or learned that might help others but also remember that on breaks and after the event are where the true value of live conferences exist so don’t spend the entire break glued to your phone or trying to catch up on email.

I’ve been lucky to present at or attend events in 2014 with many great speakers including Seth Godin, Simon Sinek, Peter Shankman, Jay Baer, Sarah Evans, Marcus Sheridan, Bryan Kramer, Ted Rubin and many others and I gained amazing insights while for those that follow me on twitter, I live tweeted each presentation so hopefully they also gained amazing insights!