Category — Meetings 2.0

As promoted on this blog previously, I’ve been given the opportunity to present the impact of social media on meetings & events at this year’s Incentive Works conference - Canada’s largest meeting & event show.

I really enjoyed pulling together this presentation as it builds on last year’s topic of “meetings 2.0” and really shows how far we’ve come in one year in terms of leveraging and incorporating technology in our lives - and in our work place.

Here is an outline of what is being presented over 90 minutes on August 19th:

1. Creative opening (thanks to Michael Ofarrell for some of the visuals!)
2. Introduction to Social Media
3. Defining & introducing the tools
4. Impact on meetings & event planning
   • Before the event
   • During the event
   • After the event
5. Measuring Social Media’s impact
6. Pitfalls of Social Media
7. Top 6 things to remember
8. Questions and Answers
9. Obligatory self-promotion of the company I work for, my blog, and the other blogs I contribute to (onedegree.ca & canadianmarketingblog.com)

Specials thanks to Craig Ritchie for providing some of the foundational content and context.

I’ll post a link to the presentation on slide share sometime next week. PDF version also available upon request.

Join me on August 19th as I present “marketing through social networks” - or the impact social media is having on event planning and communications at IncentiveWorks - Canada’s biggest meetings & promotions show.

You can learn more about the show & register here. Ironically, much of their content is served up as PDFs. How web 1.0

Terri Hardin has published an article in Successful Meetings Magazine this week on using web 2.0 or social networking sites to promote meetings, events, and conferences. The articles covers a lot of ground and aligns with what I presented at the Canadian IncentiveWorks show in August.

From my perspective, leveraging web 2.0 / social media sites are not just a new way to promote your meeting, event, or conference - it’s a shift in philosophy. Meetings as monologues are dead.

Although it’s true that social media is affording us new ways to reach our potential audience for promoting our events… the true power is in creating community - not just advertising within them. By creating your own social networking experience for your meeting (or leveraging somebody else’s), you can create meaningful interactions and value exchanges before, during, and after your event.

With traditional meetings, events, and conferences, the networking part begins once you show up & register. By creating your own community, you can facilitate meaningful interactions before people even show up. The social networking continues during your event and well beyond the conclusion of the event. Your community can now propagate, grow, and build momentum for your next event. A great example of this concept put to use is the social networking site launched as part of the Motivation Show in Chicago. Like most social networks, when you register you provide some profile information. For a meeting, event, or conference you may ask people to self-select issues that are important to them. You can then leverage this data to “match” like-minded people together who may have an interest in connecting at your meeting, event , or conference.

The Motivation Show is doing exactly this - some colleagues who have registered for this event have received emails highlighting the 10 people they need to meet at the conference.  The email is personalized, dynamic, and based on the criteria selected in the registration process. The email also includes links back into the social network to initiate a conversation or to do further investigation (or creeping as we call it on facebook).  

I’ve evaluated / piloted / implemented several white label social networking platforms and all the best ones also come with great community tools built-in - like RSS feeds, personal blogs, group forums, chat areas, user polls, and your own media bin where you can upload images, links, documents - or whatever.

Not everybody is going to participate in your community - but the early adopters will drive content and word of mouth will mean constant growth and continued engagement. You’re not likely going to reach 100% engagement, but it’s not unusual for events that leverage this type of software to see 30% or more of their audience engaged. In a world where we deem a good marketer as somebody who gets 3% return on traditional response mediums and great marketers as those who get 5% - don’t you agree that this is an area worth your attention and further investigation?

Social networks and text messaging have changed the way people interact with each other… and now it’s changed the way bars and clubs promote their events.  Gone are the days of the promotional flyer as your principle communication device. 

A long time friend living in Ottawa reports that his promotional printing business has dropped to almost nothing over the last 7 months. Having been in the business for over 10 years, he’s seen his share of ups and downs…but nothing like this before. The reason? He reports that promoters have moved to social networking platforms (primarily facebook) and text messaging for all their outreach work.  By now we are all aware of the popularity of facebook (Toronto is currently the second largest network within facebook in the world), but did you know that we are on pace to send over 8 billion text messages this year in Canada? Last year Canadians sent 4.3 billion messages - which was three times more then the previous year!  

Besides the continued adoption of SMS and the creation of niche social networking sites or micro-sites within existing platforms, what’s next? One candidate is the eventual adoption of MMS or multimedia messaging service. Going from SMS (or text messaging) to MMS is like going from radio to TV. SMS is still the killer application for mobile marketing, but MMS is coming and could change the way we promote our events, brands, or services. Again.

Instead of sending a message with a link to a site where you can register for an event… imagine sending a VIP ticket via MMS that can be used as entry into your event, meeting, or conference? Or imagine sending coupons to mobile devices that are redeemable at your favorite retailer?

The technological barriers in sending MMS betwen carriers has been resolved. As soon as carriers introduce pricing that makes MMS affordable (much like they did a few years ago with all you can eat SMS plans), we will see another paradigm shift in how people and marketers interact with each other. This should be interesting.

Canada’s annual meetings & promotions show is coming August 21st & 22nd. Join me and colleague Dean Dacko as we present technological integration in meeting planning. In this interactive session you’ll learn how Mobile and Web 2.0 can be used to facilitate meeting and event planning and how it can be used to enrich the onsite experience.

Session objectives focus on an overview of the mobile channel with specific relevant tactics. There will be examples and demonstrations of real-life applications for event planners.

I attended the developer’s “unconference” dubbed facebookcamptoronto to get a better idea on how marketers can leverage the facebook platform as an interactive channel. For a full play-by-play recap, check out the summary on tucows.

 citytv also ran a short video piece as well.

In addition to learning more about the platform, i was excited to experience my first camp or unconference. Unlike traditional meetings, events, and conferences, i’ve read all about how these events are open and reliant on participation from everybody. Content is often provided by the participants and the content is often pretty geeked out in nature.

Outside of registering through their facebookcamptoronto wiki site, this was a pretty standard meeting. There were rows of seats setup stadium style with a pre-set agenda…and very little opportunity to create an interactive connection among the audience or between the presenters and the audience. There was time allowed for questions - but it’s sure a lot more intimating asking your dumb question in front of 400+ people vs 100 at a more casual event. I asked my dumb question near the end - “is anybody developing applications for facebook mobile?”. With only one hand raised in the entire room, my guess is that this an area worth further discussion.

Was my experience a typical one for today’s camp or unconference…or did the event default into a traditional meeting due to its popularity and attendance?