Get your meetings and events social media strategy working well and you’ll have engaged attendees, inspired speakers, satiated suppliers and organizational stakeholders primed for participation.
Get it wrong and your meetings story of shame may spread like wildfire on the Internet-a virtual Frankenstein’s monster that will never die.
Case-in-point: The story of the loosely moderated Twitter feed at TWTRCON that resulted in a “hashtag takeover” by PETA to protest NASA’s use of squirrel monkeys for radiation research. While attendees may have expected a presentation on customer service from NASA Public Affairs Specialist Stephanie Schierholz, what they got instead was an army of animal rights activists cyber-blasting the space agency on large projectors that flanked the stage.
And if you don’t believe it, you can read all about it here, http://therealtimereport.com/tag/peta, probably for a long, long time.
While the world of social media and its applications for the meetings and events industry in reality is not that scary if handled with care, meeting planners should still do some basic groundwork before blasting off into cyberspace.
The Basics
It’s important to know where to begin, and why you are heading out on this path in the first place.
“Starting at the very genesis, groups or events should have a certain presence on standard social media outlets, such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn,” says Paul Wehking, vice president of strategic accounts at association content development specialist Omnipress (www.omnipress.com). “Have the big three in place so those areas can serve as social media outlets, so folks that are out there already can engage with each other.”
Wehking believes that a well-rounded social media effort will utilize the standard channels to tap into a potential stream of registrants for a more-specific site that the organizer of the meeting has set up.
“You might want to think about it as casting out a live net,” he says. “Maybe you have one net that is behind the boat that you’re trawling—the online community for the event for registered attendees, speakers and others.”
The event-specific site will provide an online community for registered attendees, speakers, exhibitors and others, and will provide a space for registrants and organizational stakeholders to share ideas before the meeting—speakers can tap into the conversation to fine-tune their presentation, for instance—a forum for interaction as the event is progressing and interactive group sessions, as well as a portal to post-event content such as recorded sessions.
And, in continuing with the fishing metaphor, Wehking recommends keeping all lines in the water. PageBreak
“Keep one fishing poll off the side that’s trolling in LinkedIn, another off the side trolling in other areas,” he says. “The groups we find that are more successful are the ones that already have a presence in other areas, and they can use that as an outpost to drive people to the event community. The beauty of it is that it’s all public-facing, so people can do a search on it and find it, which is more than can be said for every event site.”
Once a planner has the foundation set, the real social media magic begins.
“The creation of a social media environment specific to the event extends the life of the event and creates a level of engagement that was not really possible [before the advent of social media],” says Mike Malinchok, founder and president of S2K Performance Coaching (s2kperformancecoaching.com). “At the event, using social media can actually influence the program, and tailor the agenda to fit that. But the real power comes afterward, when attendees can go back into the social media environment for materials and to engage speakers. It just exponentially increases the power and reach of the event.
Malinchok adds that it also opens up traditional face-to-face meetings to virtual attendees, which has proven in many instances to increase attendance for the face-to-face event the following year.
“There’s a fear that this will take away the face-to-face, but I think it’s just the opposite,” he says. “It enhances it.”
Wehking concurs, and adds that a successful social media effort will make the face-to-face experience more efficient and provide better ROI for participants because they can qualify who they want to meet and set up appointments before the event begins.
“People are saying ‘I can’t just step off a plane and attend this thing, and randomly meet five people,’” he says. “’I want to meet 15 people who are relevant to me. I’m spending x days there, so what am I going to come out of this with?’”
Organization Counts
When it comes to organization, Wehking recommends enlisting members of the entity holding the meeting, as well as other participants, such as speakers and motivated attendees.
“Have guidelines relative to that,” he advises. “You might have a program chair, or track chairs, who will agree that if topics come up they will keep a watchful eye out for them.”
But, as most everyone in this time-addled technology age can attest to, getting a committal and actual having that commitment carried out can be two differing things.
“One thing we find is sometimes that person we have on paper as being engaged to be doing things is not really the person who ends up being engaged in that space, i.e. the president saying he’ll be engaged, and then you have to pull teeth just to have him upload his photo,” he jokes.
Wehking says the best tack is to create an “engagement group” comprised of about 20, and which represents a mix of knowledgeable people that have demonstrated some social media savvy and presence, and who are committed to having some sort of lively discussion in advance involving organizational stakeholders, suppliers and exhibitors, and up-and-coming attendees. PageBreak
Calling in the Cops
According to Malinchok, make sure to set concise rules before going live, so everyone knows what is appropriate and what is not.
“If the rules are clear, what we see is the community will often police its own,” he says, offering the example of an “out of control exhibitor” pestering multiple attendees as an example of when to lay down the law. “There can be policing in that manner, but usually it is done by the community. It’s helpful to have some champions in there—some program people in there, some speakers in there, some staff in there—who are in the community and can contribute by providing logistical information, and with their engagement see what else is going on. It’s not like you need a traffic czar to check on this stuff, because no one really has any time for that.”
Of course, as the example at the beginning of this story proves, you do need some sort of watcher to monitor the social media effort—especially if you have a Twitter wall with continuous posts being published in real-time.
“Regardless of the basic virtual strategy, I think the next step, and where a lot of [planners] are dropping the ball right now, is not having anyone dedicated on-site to moderate the effort,” says Elizabeth Glau, CMP, a social media moderator that owns Building Blocks Social Media (www.basicsocialmediatraining.com). “You need someone full-time to monitor what people are saying, because the logistics team is too busy at the event, so if there are negative things going on they can get in touch with them and fix it, or apologize and tell them they’re making notes for next year’s event.
Glau, who recently served as a social media monitor for PCMA’s virtual effort at Convening Leaders, says having someone with a background in meeting planning, who knows what can and can’t be fixed, and who can make decisions on the fly, is a big plus.
“If you don’t have someone to be there full time and be the face of your organization, you’ve sort of wasted your time,” she says, “because your attendees are going to expect that you’re paying attention if you put up a hashtag on Twitter.”
Otherwise, Houston, you may have a problem…
