Is Your Trade Show Social Media Strategy a Boon or a Burden?
by MGB2B
You can’t attend or exhibit at a trade show today without running into countless social media promotions. From the event’s app to each booth’s unique hashtag, the trend is everywhere. Launching your own trade show social media strategy can be daunting with so much noise already occupying the space, but when organized and executed properly, your efforts can be a boon to your business rather than a burden to your booth staff. Before you get started, here are a few questions to ask your team.
What’s our goal? Like your overall program, your trade show social media strategy should have one or two main goals. Not having any objectives will leave your team struggling to generate content without direction, while too many will clutter your message and run your team ragged. Balancing one tactical objective like signups for your e-newsletter (which can be used later to develop a killer custom audiences campaign) with an awareness campaign like a hashtag for your latest product can work extremely well, particularly for longer shows. For a one or two day event, aim for a single objective.
Who’s in charge? Ideally, all the members of your booth staff will be passionate about representing your company on social media. But as the show floor gets busy, tweeting can take the backseat to customer interaction – and rightfully so. Before heading to the event, nominate one person from your team who will be responsible for posting updates or sending photos and reports to your agency or team back home. This way, you can be confident that your social engagement is being handled without scrambling and stepping on each others’ toes.
Which network should we use? Conducting your trade show social media strategy on the right network is a recipe for success, but how do you know which channel is the best fit? The first step is to research where the majority of engagements about your event are already happening. If the show has an active Twitter feed sharing updates and an event-wide hashtag, then that’s your best bet for tapping into some great social media activity. If you have a highly visual booth, Facebook can be a great option and can enable video sharing, too. It’s also important to understand your own audience; sharing interesting updates won’t pay off if your most valuable fans can’t see them. Give your audience enough notice about your upcoming show so they can tune into your updates and you’ll be on your way to positive engagement.
Bonus Tip: Heading to the flagship event for your industry? This could be a great opportunity to launch a new social media network. Try holding a contest or giveaway on Instagram to boost engagement and draw in a younger B2B audience.
Tags: B2B event marketing, B2B social media strategy, trade show, trade show social media strategy