7 Smart Social Media Moves to Make After Your Next Trade Show

by MGB2B

If you’re on the marketing team for a manufacturing company, then you are likely smack dab in the middle of trade show season. Coming out of  first quarter shows and looking ahead at spring and summer, this is a busy time of year. Besides keeping the details, materials, and deadlines straight, there’s the ongoing challenge of proving the ROI of these events.  Let’s face it: between travel, fees, and the booths themselves, trades shows add up quickly. While social media is probably already in your strategy, there’s several smart trade show social media tips for manufacturers that can keep the payoffs rolling in.

Take these 7 Trade Show Social Media Tips for Manufacturers for a spin after your next event:

1. Turn your booth visitors into custom audiences. Facebook and Twitter (and soon, LinkedIn) allow social media advertisers to create targeted audiences based on contact information. After your next trade show, don’t just dump your booth visitors into your email database. Use them to build a custom audience. Target your Twitter and Facebook ads at your new contacts. Then, create mirrored audiences made up of users similar to your custom-built audience, and serve social ads to them, too.
2. Don’t go cold turkey on event hashtags. If your Automotive Manufacturing trade show was in January but you’re firing out tweets with #AutoMfg2017 in April, it might be time to say sayonara. But a week or more after your trade show ends is still within the unwritten “half life” of an event’s hashtag. Keep conversation circulating, especially when it comes to the products and literature that you had on display. That way, attendees or people who didn’t make it to the show can still be in the know. Which brings us to Tip #3.
3. Tell your followers where they can find more information. Trade shows are hectic. It’s easy to miss specific products — even entire booths. Remind your social media followers where they can learn more about the products and services you offer in case they missed it in person. Also, be sure to share your relevant content, everything from white papers to product bulletins. Take advantage of a captive audience and use that hashtag!
4. Create Twitter Moments from trade show tweets. Now that Twitter Moments are available to all users (check out more about Moments in this post), why not try your hand at creating one? Find a few tweets from attendees, customers, or other exhibitors, and collect them together in a Moment. This not only can help showcase your company’s unique experience at the show, but also recognize other exhibitors you admired, and act as a summary of interesting sessions.
5. Engage with other exhibitors post-show. Like you, other trade show exhibitors are probably flying high after a (hopefully) successful event. Use this window of time to share what you enjoyed about the event with other exhibitors, what you learned, and what you hope to see next year. Remember to use the event’s hashtag, but only for as long as it’s relevant (see Tip #2).
6. Upload your photos into an album. One of the key trade show social media tips for manufacturers is to post photos throughout the event. But it’s also smart to collect all of those photos, and ones you’ve didn’t get to post, and create an album. Regardless of your social channel, use the show’s hashtag in the album and photo descriptions  as well as your company name wherever possible to boost SEO. An album is a nice way for both your customers and your own employees to see what goes on at trade shows. Believe it or not, showing the personal side of your event or marketing team can go a long way.
7. Connect on social media. Before you fly down to the comments section (though please do, we love to hear from you), this is NOT a typo! You’re probably already doing a good job getting content up before, during, and after each event. But if you’re not following, liking, and connecting with the people and companies you engage with, you’re missing out on lots of future engagement opportunities. Social media is still reciprocal, and a follow will often earn a follow back. Take advantage of the post-trade show fervor to help grow your communities on social and you’ll have new faces to engage with all year long.

If you’re one of the 68% of B2B organizations that consider in-person events to be an important piece of your content marketing strategy, you’re not likely to give up trade shows any time soon. Putting these social media tips for manufacturers to work can help fuel your strategy all year long, not to mention generate more ROI. Need a nudge in the right direction? Drop us a line!

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