Meeting planners agree that social media buzz at an event contributes to the attendee experience, draws attention to the content, and elevates the reputation of the presenting organization. Yet all of us have at some point, put posting off to address the urgent need for a different Mac dongle or missing moderator.
To fuel the buzz at your meeting, you need to assign social media activity the same weight of importance as other items in the meeting production schedule. Here’s how:
- Make a plan. Schedule posts to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram etc. into your tactical marketing plan, coordinated with your overall messaging strategy.
- Establish a hashtag. The jury is out on whether you should do a new one each year; it’s your preference. Using the year helps people zero in on new posts. Keeping the same one year over year will make it easier to remember.
- Identify influencers. Anyone with a large audience of followers is an influencer. This could be event presenters, volunteer committee members, or anyone actively engaged in blogging and tweeting to your community. Make it easy for them to get to your event in exchange for live social media coverage.
- Promote your platforms. Do this everywhere before, during, and after your meeting. Incorporate links in your email template, website and apps. Post your hashtag and handle all over your event: Put them on the cover of your show guide, on the walk-in slide, in the PowerPoint template and signage- the consistent reminder should be part of your branding.
- Dedicate a staffer to messaging. It should be someone’s job to monitor your social media for questions or issues and post updates so your posts don’t get lost in the myriad of other on-site to-dos.
- Get on deck. Platforms such as Hootsuite and SproutSocial allow you to schedule messages for delivery and monitor activity using your handle and hashtag. This is the perfect tool for getting all of the “must have” messages in place- whether specific to events at the show or sponsor deliverables. If these are scheduled, your onsite social media maven can focus on capturing the unique moments instead of meeting sponsorship deliverables.
- Recruit a Twarmy. If your staff and volunteers are active on social media, request that they post a certain amount of times a day from sessions and events using your hashtag and URLs. The more sources for content-rich messaging the better!
- Post photos. Characters may be limited but a picture paints 1000 words. Images communicate the fun and help people feel like they are part of the action. Give your recruits themes to identify photo-worthy moments: fun, intensity, compelling, doing a deal, networking, crowds, multi-generational groups, etc.
- Hire a consultant. You can hire a social media expert who will work with you to monitor inbound messaging and produce timely outbound messaging. It’s well worth the marketing expense, especially if you have limited staff resources and many messaging opportunities.
- Have fun with it! Pepper your posts with repeatable sound bites to increase the chances of sharing. Utilize your app to send messages like “Keynote session starts in 15 minutes in the Grand Ballroom.” Use social media to say (or show a photo) Joe Keynoter just handed out plastic rain ponchos to the folks in the front row #whathappensnext #youreventhashtag.
Once you’ve detailed your plan, it will be easier to capture organic moments that humanize your message. Comments heard in the halls, groups of people working together or laughing at an anecdote, the reception space in the quiet moments right before the attendees crowd in, emotional moments at awards events- all of these put a “face” on your meeting, especially for the folks who can’t join you in person.
Read next: How to Create a Winning Social Media Strategy for Your Next Conference
