There are some who believe that integrating social media into your events and experiences is critical to being relevant in today’s connected society. To this I say, Bah! Who needs it?

Here are nine anti-social behaviors that will ensure your events and experiences die cold and alone.

1. Don’t Listen or Observe. Who really cares what others have to say anyway? It’s often uninteresting and usually downright boring. Understanding what your audience has to say is overrated at best. They’re all selfish, and most of them talk about themselves, adding no value to the community at all. What’s that? they’re talking about you or your event? It doesn’t matter what they have to say anyway. What can you learn about the perspective, thoughts, ideas and opinions of others? It’s your event. If they knew any better than you about the subject matter, they’d create their own event. After all, you’re the expert.

2. Participate in Only One Social Network. I’ve been a big fan of my early 90’s bulletin board service since it launched. I’m now the only person left and I love the solitude. You may have heard there are other networks out there like AOL, but that would mean more people reading your posts and trying to interact with you. Once you find a good social network for your event, stick with it. There are some who would tell you to “fish where the fish are” but its not about others. Its about where you want to talk about your event. Who has the time to participate in multiple social channels anyway?

3. Don’t Share. Got some great pictures of the skydivers you hired to promote your event? Did you take a video of an amazing keynote presentation? These are highly-personal things and are not intended to be shared. Go out and purchase a fire-proof vault to lock these assets up in for you to cherish year-after-year. No one is interested in reliving the memories of your experience or seeing what’s happening at your event. Keep them to yourself. If you should come across something that’s relevant or interesting to your audience that may have been authored by someone else, do not share it.

4. Use the Default Picture. There is no reason for anyone to see what you look like, or see a logo for your event. The O_o that comes with Tweeter, or the shaded blue silhouette avatar that’s the default on iSpace or FacePage is perfectly fine. If you absolutely must have a picture, make sure its obscured or misrepresents you in someway. If you don’t have photo-editing software, try contorting your face so you hide your chin with you hands of stretch out your neck by turning to the side. and never, ever look directly at the camera. This will ensure others on social networks will not recognize you at your event or on the street. This is a great strategy for retaining anonimity.

5. Always Talk About Yourself. The best way to alienate others and ensure you don’t get any followers or friends is to talk about yourself. All. The. Time. Again, its not about others. Its about your event. What you have to say is way more important that what others have to say. Be especially careful not to fall into the trap of talking about others at your event, e.g., keynote speakers, exhibitors, discussion leaders or attendees. Also, there may be other events or things going on in your industry that have similar or complementary subject matter. Ignore them. Do not cross-promote. Do not mention them. Do not ask them to mention your event.

6. Try to Be Someone Else. Adopt someone else’s personality whereever possible. Or better yet, make up a personality and change it up every so often to keep your audience guessing. Mixing your tone and voice for each and every touchpoint will confuse your audiences and ensure your brand intent is kept secret. No one will know who you are, what you’re about or what you represent.

7. Keep the Community Closed. “The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.” Treat your event the same way. You may find that others want to talk to each other about your event. They may even want to share thoughts, photos, videos, literature, etc. Do everything possible to discourage this. Do not set up proprietary or participate in third-party social networks. Make sure any materials you create for your events are hard copy only, or better yet, print content on large signs located in uncomfortable locations to make it difficult for attendees to capture and share it with others. If you discover your content being shared on other social networks, do your best to shut it down. Send form letters threatening legal action to anyone posting anything about your event.

8. Do Not Engage. Audiences and communities are sneaky. They will do everything possible to start a conversation with you. Be careful here. They may ask baited questions, comment on your event or even complement the event. Do not under any cicrcumstances fall for these ploys. Its important to ignore all requests for engagement or interaction of any kind. The best way to be a part of the conversation is to not participate at all.

9. Collect all Cameras, Computers and Mobile Devices at the Door. What better way to discourage social interaction than removing the tools used for interaction from attendees? Its also a good idea to simply collect these devices in large bins without any organizational system whatsoever. When audiences arrive at your event. Prohibit any electronic device from entering the exhibit hall or any speaking sessions. If attendees insist on taking notes, distribute small chalkboards with small pieces of chalk. Require all boards to be erased and returned before the event ends.

Sarcasm is often difficult to express in writing. In all seriousness, I recommend you do exactly the opposite of the above. I hope you’ve enjoyed this view of anti-social behaviors. If you have other anti-social behaviors you’d like to add, please comment below!

9 Anti-Social Behaviors: Oscar’s Guide to Social Networking at Events is a post from: Experiential Marketing 2.0

Marketers are increasingly challenged by breaking through the clutter to create brand experiences which solicit appropriate emotional and rational responses from our audiences in order to accomplish our business objectives. Tried and true techniques for engaging our audiences, including interaction and storytelling to drive relationships are still relevant. Engagement and authenticity continue to be key components of a well-engineered brand communications strategy.

Human communication is evolving. What attracts us and motivates us is constantly changing. The way we interact with each other, our communities and the companies we do business with is increasingly complex. Technology is everywhere and can become an insurmountable distraction or a useful tool to help us in driving indelible experiences which last well beyond a single moment in time and spark long-term relationships.

Here are six game-changing technologies that will help experiences and events make more of an impact on audiences and brands alike.

1. MIT’s Sixth Sense Augmented Reality:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUdDhWfpqxg

Augmented reality combines visual, three dimensional environments with virtual information creating a hybrid view of the real world and relevant data. Several companies are running to create augmented reality applications for smartphones that will add information to maps, landmarks, people and the like. The most compelling vision of augmented reality however is not from a mobile device, but a wearable computer from MIT. Imagine interpreting attendee, product, brand, speaker, subject matter information instantaneously through an personal projection onto any surface. Other versions could involve audio cues delivered through headphones, or heads-up displays built into eyeglasses.  Very cool stuff. Pretty soon, we won’t need to remember anything. First the calculator took away our ability to do simple math, then along came the GPS so we can’t find our way out of the driveway, and now this…

2. Samsung PROM Audience Measurement System:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQLtXFlElyk

This system uses a camera and facial recognition software to determine the gender, ethnicity and emotional reaction of audiences to advertisements shown on an interactive screen. Using this data, the system can serve up different advertisements based on the audience standing in front of the monitor. Samsung is just scratching the surface here. Imagine using this technology for product demonstrations at a tradeshow, showcasing the most relevant products, features or benefits based on audience demographics or physical reactions. Imagine an entire experience being customized to a single member of your audience based on the same technology. What about speaking sessions? Or interactive virtual events where participants have their webcams on, giving the virtual event producer the opportunity to customize content based on the same information to each screen. Amazing stuff.

3. Kaon Interactive V-OSK:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQMDZs4vn5I

As an experiential or event marketer, if you haven’t heard of Kaon Interactive or their V-OSK solutions you may be missing out on some pretty amazing technology. Kaon creates high definition, three-dimensional product models and system demonstrations to help sales and marketing teams illustrate product features and benefits. The V-OSK solution is basically an interactive touch screen that allows users to interact with a virtual product, process or solution. Demonstrations can be self-guided or hosted by a staffer. Key features and benefits can be programmed into each layer of the high-definition, three-dimensional image which can be taken apart or otherwise manipulated to obtain just the right view.  This is ideal for use in corporate lobbies, museums, executive briefing centers and tradeshows. I once heard someone define drayage as the best way to move freight the shortest possible distance, at the slowest possible pace for the highest possible cost. A Kaon solution virtually eliminates the need to ship or store products both large and small to events. A game-changer for companies who sell anything from consumer appliances to servers to manufacturing equipment, food processing machinery, medical equipment, or anything else that drives up the cost of floorspace, shipping and drayage. I can see this solution saving some companies millions. Their V-OSK presenter is a great tool for in-depth, interactive presentations for both simple and complex products alike. This can be used for speaking opportunities. Their solution is transferable to the web and e-literature, so once the models are built the ROI on multi-channel distribution is huge. Finally, everything a user does while using a V-OSK is tracked and measurable, helping you to design and develop the most effective demonstrations.

4. Siftables:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP0w9lZoLwU

What?! Toy blocks for events?! Yep. These are interactive blocks or cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display and wireless communication that can be programmed with calculators, dictionaries, music, etc. Kid’s play, right? Well, partially. I can see Siftables being programmed with more complex data. For example, molecular, atomic, genetic, physics, chemistry, pharmaceutical, biological, ecological, geological, astronomical, electronic, or business-process data. Now we have something very interesting for business and events as a result. Imagine using these interactive blocks as a demonstration or learning tool to tell a story to attendees about what happens when different elements of a (gene, pharmacutical drug, business process, etc.) are moved around or reordered. Add a projector and you can address a mass audience in a very compelling and entertaining fashion. Attendees could each carry around their own siftables and engage in collaborative ideation or problem solving. The possibilities are endless. I am watching these guys closely.

5. AllianceTech RFID Solutions:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtXB2j3Rt08

Sure, we’ve all heard of using RFID to track whether or not attendees are sitting in our breakout sessions, but the power of RFID is so much more than that. AllianceTech’s ‘Intelligent’ series of products allows brands to understand attendance, manage leads, create surveys, understand booth and demonstration visits and durations, drive attendee networking and even tie into signage that can be customized for each attendee. What’s more, is I’ve heard AllianceTech is doing some very interesting things tying onsite behavior to pre and post event activities, including social media monitoring for some clients to give a true 360 view of audience behavior. Now that’s powerful. Real-time data which can be used to customize experiences on the fly, and longer-term analytics to create predictive models to drive real, consistent brand performance. I’m looking forward to when RFID is fully integrated into complete event experiences, well beyond intelligent signage. Imagine customized one-to-one signage, demonstrations, sound, video, lighting, temperature, scent, carpet pile, you name it.

6. Hypersonic Sound:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5JsNN-baDg

Ambient noise is a huge problem at events. Booth theater, speakers, product demonstrations, magicians, gameshows, even the attendees themselves add to the noise pollution and detract from the experience for everyone in the audience. Imagine sound being delivered exactly to the ears of the specific attendee you were targeting. The person to their left or right would not hear the demonstration, only them. Pretty amazing stuff. I’m waiting for active noise cancellation technology to be more effective and efficient in three-dimensional spaces (beyond the more traditional noise-cancelling headphone). It will be very cool when we can step off the tradeshow aisle carpet into a booth and experience total silence.

These are just six of some of the most interesting technologies with event applications I’ve come across. Of course, there’s virtual reality, photo or video activation, mobile applications and many others as well.

Please share your favorites!

Six Technologies For Events That Will Rock Your World is a post from: Experiential Marketing 2.0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

Mashable recently published “Google Wave: Better than Twitter for Conference Chatter” by Charlie Osmond at Freshworks. At first pass this article made a lot of sense. Charlie talks about how #hashtags aren’t an ideal way for people to share relevant content, and that the wiki-like interface of Google Wave makes it quite easy for users to share information of all kinds, effortlessly. This creates a more optimized platform for conference back chatter.

After watching the above video and spending some time checking out Google Wave (many thanks to Mike McCurry for the invitation) I quickly realized Google Wave is much more of a game-changer for event marketers than I originally thought. For those of you who have not yet received the coveted invitation, or if you have but just haven’t had the time to explore Google Wave, here’s a brief synopsis.

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A ‘wave’ can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, presentations, drawings, maps, interactive games, and more in real time. Google Wave is an open platform and developers are being encouraged to create extensions, plug-ins and applications to make this offering even more powerful. Jay Lahiro also has a nice description on his blog.

We’ve been talking about social media as a conversation or dialogue for some time now. Google Wave allows us to have true ‘polylogues’, where multiple users can participate in the discussion at the same time.

There’s been a lot of discussion as of late about how to use Facebook, Linkedin, and especially Twitter for events. These discussions tend to segregate communications streams into ‘front channel’ and ‘back channel’. The intent here being that official, planned content around an event, whether face-to-face or virtual, is considered ‘front channel’, with most referring to social media as a ‘back channel’ communication stream. This is not to say that legacy social media tools cannot be used for ‘front channel’ communications, but few event producers have done so effectively. Participation tends to be limited to “We have a Facebook page.” or “Here’s the official Twitter #hashtag.” There tends to be an attitude that if you build it, they will come, instead of truly integrating social media content into an event and actively engaging communities online before, during and after an event.

Google Wave has the potential to change this paradigm. Here, official content (speaking sessions, blogs, photos, videos, exhibitor content -- promotions, product launches, etc.) could be included in a wave along with social media tools (Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Conversations, etc.) This allows for the integration of ‘front channel ‘and ‘back channel’ communications streams, allows users to create their own event experiences and creates a true community around the event.

Virtual event platforms like InXpo, Unisfair, ON24, etc. should take notice. An open platform like Google Wave can disrupt their business model and give brands, event producers and event agencies a free and simple way to connect audiences with brands virtually. For face-to-face events, Google Wave provides a compelling enhancement which can add real value to their experiences for their audiences (think the ultimate hybrid event). The true measure of success however will be for event producers to learn more about how to engage audiences both on and offline, and use the event as a communications hub where brands, subject matter experts and audiences each have an equal share of voice in the community.

It’s challenging to describe Google Wave in words. The above video does a nice job of walking through the basic offering, and there are several other blog posts, etc. which can give you some more insight, but to truly understand it you must experience it. I strongly encourage my fellow marketing, social media and event brethren who haven’t spent time in Google Wave to secure an invitation as soon as possible, and begin to use the tool to better understand how you might use it to engage your audiences. Google Wave is in preview mode, and has not been made publicly available. The faster we can get over the learning curve and more we can influence its development, the greater the value it will have for us as it becomes more widely available.

Already on Google Wave? Please share your thoughts, and be all means, please connect with me at ianmcgonnigal@googlewave.com.

Google Wave: The Future of Event Engagement? is a post from: Experiential Marketing 2.0

I offer that although there are similarities and the two often complement each other, they are fundamentally different.

Simply stated, in this context an event  is a gathering of people at a predetermined place and time for the purpose of exploring and sharing information that is of common interest. There are several different types of events, ranging from large tradeshows and conferences, to panel discussions, networking meetings and intimate proprietary engagements. Each event type has a purpose in the sales and marketing cycle – a topic which I’ll discuss in a future post. But is an event in itself an experience?

A brand experience can be as complex as a visit to Disneyworld, or as simple as a discussion with a customer service representative over the phone. We all have experiences every day. Some are positive, some are negative, but few are designed effectively.

An effective experience engages all senses. It activates the emotional and rational triggers within us and motivates us. A typical event marketing program will employ some experiential tactics, but few completely. Here are seven ideas that will help you integrate powerful brand experiences into your event marketing program.

1.  Start with the audience. In order to design an effective experience or series of experiences, its important to understand your audience first. What are their emotional and rational triggers and inhibitors? What do they need to feel and understand in order to act on your objectives? Make sure your experience puts your audience in a position of power and confidence. After all, its all about them, not about you or your products. Although you are creating an experience for the masses, its important you drive a sense of intimacy with each and ever member of the audience. Make it as personal as possible. This foundation can be used not only in experience design, but in product development, sales process, customer service training and beyond.

2.  Know your objective. Event marketers often get trapped in their own repetitive cycle of events. Year-over-year they build and plan the same events, perhaps swapping out products and messaging from time-to-time. Its important to step back and examine the business, marketing and sales objective of your program, and then the contribution of each event tactic to that program. Establishing appropriate objectives for your event is the easy part. Sticking to these objectives and designing unique experiences which truly deliver against these goals is often the challenge. Focus on as few objectives as possible. This will ensure you invest time, budget and resources appropriately to drive success.

3.  Design the experience to be immersive with all six senses in mind. Yes, I said six. The sixth being rational intuition. If it all comes together, your attendees will feel and think they “belong”.  Its important your experience is as immersive as possible, surrounding attendees from all sides and use external influencers to effect internal responses. Event marketers often focus on the visual, sometimes the audible and seldom any of the other senses. Here are some thoughts on engaging the senses.

• Sight: Make it compelling: exciting video,vivid photography, appropriate colors and graphics all play a part.

• Sound: The volume is often just as important as the audible content itself. Remember to use ambience and silence to your advantage. These can be powerful engagers or distractors.

• Touch: Give your attendees something to touch, and to engage with. Think about texture. Holding something in their hand has been proven to drive value perception and ownership. Also don’t forget about temperature or air quality. At a tradeshow even plush carpet with a thick pad creates a welcome retreat for foot-weary business infantry. In speaking sessions, make seating comfortable, but not too comfortable.

• Smell: Site inspections are important. If a hotel conference room has a mold or mildew problem, this can detract from the experience. The same goes for strong cleaning products. Plan for the aroma of attendees. Ambient smell can be just as distracting as ambient sound.

• Taste: Especially important for hospitality settings. Make sure the food and drink is of the highest quality possible.

4.  Don’t forget about interaction. Interaction with things, as well as people. Arguably, the most important part of any experience is the people present and audience interaction with those people. Human interaction can make or break an attendee’s experience. Be professional, be engaging, be friendly, and most of all, be human. This is what will build real long term brand relationships.

5.  Tell a Story. In my earlier post Storytelling in Social Media and Events, I described some ideas on how to incorporate effective storytelling as a tool to engage and interact with audiences on both an emotional and rational level. You can tell a story at a single event or across several tactics. Success will be determined by your audience, your message and the way in which the story is told.

6.  Stay on brand. Do not sacrifice your brand intent to create an experience. Ensure the type, quality and tonality of your experience reflects well against your brand personality. Anything else will hinder audience engagement and long-term retention of message and brand association with the experience.

7.  Be authentic. Authenticity is critical in driving trust with your audiences. Ensure your experiences are genuine, authentic and true. Consider adopting a case study approach within your experiences driven by customers, partners, etc. to further empower authenticity.

Is your event an experience? These are just some guiding principles to get started. As marketers, we should walk around in the shoes of our audiences as often as possible to build effective and relevant experiences both face-to-face and virtually. As always, if you have other ideas, please share!

Are You Experienced? Seven Ideas for Engaging Your Audience is a post from: Experiential Marketing 2.0

One way to advance the conversation around using Twitter for event and experiential marketing is to leverage third-party applications. There are literally hundreds of Twitter applications available. A case could be made for using any and all of them for your event marketing program. I’ve spent some time reviewing some of the more interesting applications which can complement your events beyond creating buzz. In some cases there are alternate tools which perform the same function as those listed below. Feel free to explore. These are some of my favorites.

Twellow: The Twitter yellow pages. This directory searches the profiles (bios) of Twitter users when you enter a keyword. This application can be used to identify potential attendees, speakers, exhibitors, suppliers, etc. Its very simple to use, and ranks search results by number of followers.

Icerocket Twitter Search: There are several Twitter search tools out there. This is one of my favorites. Its a real time search engine and searches for keywords used within tweets. For events, Icerocket can be used to find trending topics, monitor hashtags, or find people of interest based on what they tweet. Bonus: Icerocket also searches blogs.

Tweet Later: This is one of my favorites for event marketers. If you plan ahead of time, you can schedule some of your tweets to coincide with the event schedule. Great for reminding followers of speaking sessions, or promoting your booth and other activities throughout an event. The perfect tool for press releases of new product launches, etc. I’ve used this tool for tweeting key points of my presentation while I was giving it. With rehearsal and timing it can work out pretty well. Keep in mind, while you can schedule some of your tweets ahead of time, its important to stay connected and be a part of the ongoing conversation live.

Tweetdeck: Monitoring the conversation around your event is critical. Tweetdeck makes this simple by allowing you to monitor several keywords, hastags, and people at once. Consider using Tweetdeck to monitor the conversation around your event in realtime. You can also set up Tweetdeck on large format monitors for attendees to see what content is buzzing in the twitterverse while they’re at an event. Bonus: Tweetdeck also integrates with Facebook and MySpace.

Tweetbeep: A very useful tool that monitors keywords and links and sends activity alerts by email every hour. Imagine having trending topics about your event, sessions, speakers, etc. delivered to you as they happen. Deploy Tweetbeep in addition to Tweetdeck to monitor hot topics.

Twtvite: a free event management tool that helps you organize and promote local Tweetups (informal social gatherings of people with like interests). You can use Twtvite to organize tweetups around your event. If you are using Tweetdeck or Tweetbeep to monitor conversations around your event, Twtvite can be the perfect tool to organize adhoc discussions to complement planned event curriculum based on what topics are trending.

Poll Everywhere: Need an audience response system on the cheap? Poll everywhere allows audiences to submit messages or answer multiple choice questions via tweet, SMS or the web. The best part: their feedback is instantly embedded into your live Powerpoint presentation. This tool has some amazing applications for hybrid events. Here you can get feedback from both face-to-face and virtual audiences during a presentation that is also streamed live via the internet.

Twtpoll: Simple polling application that allows you to submit a question to the twitterverse. You can choose form 17 types of questions and set a time limit for answers. This is great for gathering information for presentations before an event, or getting feedback after an event. Bonus: You can share Twtpolls across any social network.

Twitpic: This tool allows you to share pictures via Twitter – complete with geotagging. Share live pictures of your event with the world! Encourage attendees to share their event pictures as well. You might even incorporate a photo scavenger hunt into your event using Twitpic.

Twitvid: Like Twitpic but for video. Super easy to use. Share videos of speakers, entertainment, demonstrations, etc. via Twitter. Encourage attendees to participate. Bonus: autosharing to Facebook, MySpace and Youtube is integrated.

Twitcam: Create a live twebcast! Broadcast your event via this simple, instant streaming video application. This is great for speaking sessions, demonstrations, etc. Integrates with a twitter window so observers can comment / ask questions during the presentation. Its a good idea to have a moderator and a decent webcam / mic hooked up to your computer.

Tweetchat: Very cool application that allows users to conduct  live chat over twitter via #hashtags. I participate in the #eventprofs tweetchat as often as I can. You can organize tweetchats during your event on trending topics, or schedule these as part of you planned curriculum. Tweetchats can also take place off hours or for virtual participants.

These twelve Twitter tools will help you advance your event program beyond the profile, #hashtag and promotional tweet. If used appropriately these applications can drive community engagement before, during and after each event to create real relationships with your audiences across your event program. Use one, use some, use them all, its your choice. Understand your audience and objectives first, then pick the best tools to meet your needs. I’ve only scratched the surface here. Again, there are hundreds of third-party Twitter applications out there, and they come and go daily. If you find something that’s worked for you please share!

12 Twitter Tools Every Event Marketer Should Know About is a post from: Experiential Marketing 2.0

There are blogs on just about everything. If you spend a few minutes searching blog directories, you can find just about anything you might be interested in reading. There are blogs about marketing, blogs about events, and even blogs about blogging.

Blogs have several benefits for experiential marketers. Blogs can serve as a destination for your communities. Blogs humanize your event by giving it a voice and a personality. Blogs give you an opportunity to participate in conversations ranging from communicating event logistics, to exploring the depth and breadth of content as part of your experience.

Several brands and show producers have been using blogs for some time as part of their event program, but few have done so effectively. Here are some ideas on how you can effectively integrate blogging into your experiential marketing program.

1. If you don’t have a blog, start one. Blogs are simple to set up. Free blogging software is commonplace and theme templates are widely available. If you like, you can create your own template, or integrate a blog into your existing website or social network. The most popular stand-alone software platforms are Wordpress, Typepad, and Blogger. Social network platforms like Ning, KickApps and Crowdvine allow you to create social networks which include blogs as part of their infrastructure. The most difficult part of blogging is ensuring you plan enough time and support for creating content. Assign the right level of resources to ensure your blog is well-managed. Many seasoned bloggers create an editorial calendar to plan content ahead of time and adjust as the environment dictates.

2. Establish the right tone. The way you communicate says a lot about your brand and your experiential marketing program. Determine the brand intent and personality of your blog and event. Remember, its not about selling, but engaging with your community. Set the precedent and your community will follow.

3. Start early. Establish your blog as soon as you’ve decided to create an event experience. The earlier the better. This will allow the blog to carve out a niche in your subject-matter universe. It will also help the blog become a more powerful awareness, thought leadership and audience generation tool.

4. Keep going. Just as the blog should be started as early as possible before your event, it should grow in interest and relevance both during and after the event. This will build a community around the subject matter of your experience, as well as extend the life of your investment by reaching a larger and increasingly higher qualified audience. This is an easy way to contribute to improved ROI.

5. Keep content fresh, vibrant and alive. While event logistics and schedules are interesting and all, nothing will attract and retain an audience more effectively that relevant, interesting content they cannot get anywhere else. Balance logistics with value-added content. Your blog can bring your face-to-face experience alive for attendees and online observers alike. Use photos, videos, sound files as well as text to tell your story. Keep it fresh, mix it up and establish a personality for your blog. What can you provide to your community on a consistent basis that will keep them excited about the subject matter as well as your experience? Identify, prioritize and deliver this to drive long-term success.

6. The blog becomes THE destination. Sure, we want attendees to come to the event, and they will. However a blog will foster community before, during and after the experience to drive long-term relationships. By using the blog as a platform for ongoing face-to-face and digital tactics, you create deeper, richer experiences for your community. This contributes to audience retention, expansion, brand loyalty and advocacy over the long run.

7. Use guest bloggers to generate content and interest. Invite speakers, exhibitors, subject-matter experts, analysts, and even the press and media to participate in your blog. Recognize guest participation and “best” content through a community rating system. Not only will this improve the quantity and quality of content for your experience, but it will also attract more readers, drive participation and build community. Your focus here becomes balanced between facilitation and content development, freeing you up to focus more on the rest of the experience.

8. Bring Your Own Audience (BYOA). If you build it, the might come. Conduct social media searches on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, etc. to identify audiences who may be interested in your content, your blog and your event (in that order). Contact them and invite them to visit the blog. Research, read, comment or ask to be a guest blogger on related blogs. This will attract audiences who are interested in learning more to follow you. Link to relevant content as often as possible. You can also use blog directories, blogrolls (your own as well as listings on other blogs) to help drive audiences as well. The key here is to establish and maintain a presence in the blogosphere.

9. Encourage readership and participation. Throughout your communication plan, make sure you promote the blog, the authors, and the content. Reward the community for participation where possible and appropriate. To drive long-term community relevance, its a good idea to promote the blog as prominently as you promote the event itself. An event is a point in time, a blog lives on well beyond the experience.

BONUS THOUGHTS:

10. Impose a time limit. Sometimes, you don’t want to establish or build a long-term community, and that’s OK. Consider setting up and promoting a blog that has a limited lifespan before, during and after the event. Promote it as such and encourage the community to interact as often as possible during this limited time opportunity.

11. Pull content from other blogs. Similar to linking to outside content in the BYOA section above, consider pulling content from other sources (with permission of course). Speakers, exhibitors, subject matter experts,  analysts, and press and media may have blogs that they would love to share and promote on your site or as part of your experiential marketing program.

Blogs are a powerful tool. They give your experiential marketing program an anchor, and your audiences a long-term destination. With the right focus, content discipline, resource allocation and community integration, event blogs can help turn a single event into a vibrant community around your subject matter.

If you have other ideas on how to use blogs for events or experiential marketing programs, please share!

The Importance of Blogs in Experiential Marketing is a post from: Experiential Marketing 2.0

Often event-producer-provided audience descriptions can be somewhat biased and useless from a marketing perspective. Case in point: Aren’t we all “decision makers”? Because of this, I’ve come to respect third-party audits by companies like BPA Worldwide or Exhibit Surveys. Wherever possible, its a good idea to insist on third-party audits to drive true marketing discipline into your program and the event industry at large. All said, chances are you don’t want to attract and start a conversation with everyone who attends a trade show – You want to engage with the folks that really matter, your suspects and prospects.

I’m always amazed at the size and scope of the spend many companies make at major events to drive awareness and audience. I wonder if anyone ever bought anything because of a 24-story building wrap. I’m not saying awareness vehicles have no value. On the contrary, awareness is critical in driving pipeline. My point is: each and every tactic and investment at every event should be scrutinized and prioritized to ensure it is the best tool to accomplish your business objectives with your targeted audiences. Event marketers don’t have to have the largest budget, the biggest booth or the most impressive sign to win. They just need to be strategic in their approach and apply intelligence to their process. Here are some ideas that can help you own the show without breaking the bank.

BYOA – Bring Your Own Audience: The audience is the most important part of any event. Don’t rely on someone else to provide it. Be sure to link with sales organizations and have them personally invite key customers and prospects to the event. Design experiences just for them when they get there. Leverage business partners to participate in your presence and ask them to do the same. Use search (both standard and social media) to identify and invite suspects. Engage in a direct marketing campaign with key media properties to drive awareness for targeted audiences that meet your demographic and psychographic profile requirements. Its a lot easier to catch the right fish if you stock the pond.

Get The List: Negotiate sponsorships with event producers that include the pre registration, registration and attendee lists. Sort and parse the list to ensure you’ve boiled it down to just your target audiences. Communicate with this audience before, during and after the show. Ensure you build a communication stream well-before the event to determine how you will handle opt-ins, hot, warm and cold leads and ensure this process is followed.

Engage The Press And Media Early And Often: An event is not the first time you should contact the press and media. Its imperative you build relationships with key media properties well-ahead of time. Remember, if you can provide content that is relevant to their audience and is easy to execute you will go far. Just like any business relationship, press and media relationships are predicated upon a mutual exchange of value. Make sure your content is newsworthy and you spend time helping them succeed. Its not always about your company, brand or products. Hold a press conference before the event to drive mindshare and monopolize the media. Remember to invite prominent bloggers in your industry who are respected by your target audience – they often have greater pull than mainstream media.

Be Everywhere That Matters: Fill educational tracks with experts that can provide high-value content in sessions relative to your companies niche in the subject matter of the event. Secure a keynote speaking opportunity. Participate in panel discussions and roundtables. Remember, audiences spend far more time in sessions and attending speaking opportunities than they do on the show floor.

Get The Smallest Booth Possible: That’s right, I said smallest. Your largest investment should be in engaging with your audiences. You don’t need to bring every product in every product line. You don’t need 300 signs scattered throughout the booth. You don’t need every employee in your company to staff your booth. What you do need is enough space to manage flowthrough of your targeted audience over the course of the show. You also need space for the appropriate number of staffers to manage these attendees.  Ensure your experiences and demonstrations have enough room to comfortably be executed. Other things to consider include business theater and meeting space. Take advantage of off floor or off site meeting space. The cost per square foot is often less and you can control the experience more effectively. Above all, make sure your booth is open and inviting, and most importantly, efficient.

Use Time As A Competitive Weapon: Create experiences and engagement activities that monopolize the time that your suspects and prospects spend with you. If you have days filled with demonstrations, booth tours, speaking engagements, meetings, etc., audiences will spend more time immersed in your brand and will have less time to spend with competitors.

Leverage Social Media Or Virtual Technologies: “What happens in Vegas…” or more appropriately, “What happens at the event often stays at the event.” This is unfortunate considering the huge investment made. Use social media to enhance, expand and extend the event experience for attendees and outside participants as well. Videos (YouTube), Photos (Flickr), Blogs, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, private social networks, etc. can all be potent additions to your strategy. Remember an event is a point in time, relationships are long-term. Engage and interact with your communities both on and off line to improve the ROI of the event.

Follow Up Quickly And Consistently: Remember the communication stream? Execute the plan to follow up with and engage opt-ins, hot, warm and cold leads. The reason for investment and participation in the event was most likely to obtain these suspects. Don’t waste the investment by dropping the ball when the event is over. Leads are gold. Covet them. Communicate with them. Build relationships with them. Now.

Creating mindshare and heartshare doesn’t have to be expensive. Recognizing and engaging with a targeted audience is more effective and efficient than betting the farm on broad-based awareness efforts. With the proper alignment of tactics to business objectives, and the discipline to scrutinize and prioritize each and every investment, you’ll be well on your way to building the right share of voice to own the show.

Have other ideas? Please share!

Owning the Show: The Art Of Building Share Of Voice is a post from: Experiential Marketing 2.0

There are many reasons people participate in the world’s largest social network. Some to understand what’s happening amongst their circle of friends, others to play games – the most popular games on Facebook are about farming and the mafia (thought of the day: what does this say about our society?), still others to share links, photos and videos.  As far as events are concerned, there are over 3 million events created each month. Three million events. These of course range from meeting for drinks at the local pub, to birthday parties, concerts and full-scale trade shows.

With so much activity going on, how can event marketers possibly be successful on the Facebook platform? The answers are simple, but implementation and successful engagement can be quite complex. Here are some insights to consider as you build your presence.

1. Its not about the event, its about the community. As event marketers, its imperative we stop thinking about using Facebook for an event, and start trying to understand how we can incorporate our event into the community. Changing our state of mind will help ensure we are focused on the right things and enable long-term success.

2. Create a page for your event. This is really easy to do on Facebook. The hard part is building in relevant, compelling content that will keep your audiences engaged. Make sure your presence is branded appropriately and community centric. With the right discipline and focus, your Facebook presence can become the content hub for the subject matter around your event. Build comprehensive content into the Info section,  post key photos, keep the Wall updated with fresh content and initiate relevant and engaging discussions on the Discussions tab. Take advantage of widgets like:

• Fan Box (where audiences can become fans)
• Live Stream Box (where your community can communicate)
• Page Badge (so fans can promote their affiliation with you as well as promote your event on other sites)

Post photos, videos, stories, links and updates that will keep your audiences interested and engaged. Here’s the hardest pill to swallow: In order to build a true community around your event, its important to have appropriate targeted content that is truly source agnostic. This might mean allowing content from competitive events – granted this content does not need to be as prominent in your presence, but it should be allowed. Otherwise, here are some thoughts on the kind of content you should post regularly.

• News about event content (again, think community interest first) and  event operations
• Links to outside blogs (speakers, exhibitors, industry sites, subject matter experts, etc.)
• Links to other Facebook pages (speakers, exhibitors, industry / subject matter groups, etc.)
• Photos and videos (speakers, experiences, exhibits, demonstrations, previous events, subject matter relevant, audience and fan provided)

Remember, the beauty of social media, is you don’t need to create everything, you can leverage and share what others have done, provided it is on brand, relevant and appropriate for your presence.

3. Leverage appropriate applications. The Events application can be used to promote your event, or other activities both around and within your event. Beyond this there are hundreds of calendaring and other organizational or promotional applications that can be used. Some I’ve found to be valuable include: Polls, Promotions, SlideShare, CitySearch, EventBrite, Social RSS and My Documents. Search or Browse the Application Directory and select a few that are right for you and meet your needs. Another option of course is to hire a developer to create your own Facebook applications.

4. Identify, attract and befriend the right audience. You don’t need to boil the ocean here. Start by searching Facebook for people who you know who are already part of the community and “friending” them. You can also invite people you email or IM via your contact list to join Facebook. The next step is to use Facebook search to conduct searches of People, Pages and Groups to identify folks who might be interested in your content and your event and “friend” them. Finally, you can promote your Facebook presence off site to attract others to become your friend or fan.

5. Engage. If you build it, they might come. In order to be truly successful, you must engage and interact with others. Reach out to other Facebook pages with related content (industry, fan, speaker, exhibitor, etc.) and participate in discussions, post photos, videos, links,  content and comments to their Walls. Think long-term. This is not just about awareness and audience generation for your event, but an engagement strategy that will make your event a vital component of the community and an important accentuation point in the relationship with your audiences, whether they be attendees, speakers, exhibitors, press, analysts or otherwise.

Building a Facebook engagement strategy (or any other community engagement strategy)  is easier said than done. Participating in communities takes time and diligence, but with the right focus, your event can become a prominent fixture both within the Facebook community and beyond. Remember to observe, create, share and engage and long-term success will be yours.

Five Powerful Ideas For Using Facebook For Events is a post from: Experiential Marketing 2.0

The number of people who use social media is estimated at 110 million in the U.S. according to a study by Anderson Analytics. That’s about 37% of the total population (304,059,724 according to US Census data). Of that group, Facebook dominates with 78 million regular users, followed by MySpace with 67 million, Twitter with 17 million, and LinkedIn with 11 million regular users. This also means that roughly two-thirds of people do not use social media.

What’s most interesting to me about this is the conglomeration of behaviors that Social Media has proliferated among users and marketers alike.

A marketing program is like a ship, and right now many marketers are running over to the Social Media side of the boat and its listing. If we are not careful and move toward balanced, sustainable models, our vessel will capsize and it will take us some time to recover.

At the end of the day for marketers, Social Media is a channel. Granted, its a complex channel with multiple communications streams, both synchronous and asynchronous. It can also be used at many stages in the sales and marketing cycle.

Social Media is the next big thing, but we must be disciplined in our approach toward using it as a marketing tool or we will fail, publicly.

Here are some tips that will help you navigate these sometimes murky waters.

1. Set Your Objectives: Determine where you want to be in the next month, quarter, year and three years. What do you want / need to accomplish at every stage in your sales and marketing cycle? How many sales? How much revenue? How many suspects, prospects and customers? Determine business objectives first, then examine marketing objectives and social media objectives that will help you meet the needs of the business.

2. Gather Intelligence: Understanding your audience is critical. Who are they? What do they do? What are their interests? What are their emotional and rational triggers and inhibitors? How do they behave both on and offline? Where are they? What sites do they visit regularly? A good place to start is to look at your existing customers – chances are there are more just like them. It’s also a good idea to subscribe to different demographic and psychographic services to identify similar audiences. Read what the analysts are publishing. Observe your audiences. Listen to what they are saying. Participate in the conversation.

3. Choose Your Weapons: Create marketing tactics and campaigns (both on and offline) that activate your audiences triggers and overcome their inhibitors. Make sure you use the right tools for the job. Understand which tactics will drive awareness, thought leadership, lead acquisition, nurturing, conversion and loyalty. Deploy only the best tactics for each purpose. Again some will be online, some will not. It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Be creative, be selective, be on brand and on strategy at all times.

4. Chart Your Course: Make sure your map (media plan and editorial calendar) addresses your audiences where they live, work and play. In short, hunt where the treasure is. If you are using Myspace and your audience is more of a Facebook crowd, you won’t be very successful.

5. Grab the Booty: As you capture leads and grow sales, remember to exploit advocacy wherever possible. Your customers can be your best sales people, especially on the social web.

6. Log Successes and Failures: Measure program performance. Understand what worked, what didn’t and note what adjustments should be made mid stream and in the future. Which social media sites were the most effective in reaching your audience? What’s the right frequency of communications? Measurement is critical to continuous improvement and long-term success.

7. Hire Mercenaries Carefully: You can’t swing a dead parrot without hitting an unemployed social media consultant. History tells us that the people who make the most money during a treasure hunt are not the pirates, but the people who sell them the treasure maps. Patricio Robles points out “Unfortunately, the rise of social media has created another internet opportunity that is ripe for snake oil salesmen. And boy have they taken advantage of it.” in the blog post, How to spot a social media snake oil salesman. Look for established agencies who have worked with companies like yours and have a proven track record of business success. Just because they have a Facebook page and 1000 Twitter followers, it does not mean they are experts. The bottom line is demonstrable business success for their clients.

8. Keep exploring: Experiment in uncharted waters, but remember where the best treasures are buried. The 80 / 20 rule of proven methods to experimentation applies.

Maintaining a strategic and balanced approach to your marketing program is an important step in helping you find treasure where others have failed. Understanding the relationship between social media with other tactics in your portfolio will help you get there faster, and use fewer resources along the away. Keep your hand on the helm and your eyes on the horizon and you’ll reach your destination safely.

Originally posted on the AMA Boston Blog September 1, 2009

8 Tips for Surviving the Social Media Treasure Hunt is a post from: Experiential Marketing 2.0

1. Think in terms of community, not event. Even the best Twitter strategies would fail unless there was an audience to speak with. Just because you have a Twitter profile it does not mean people will follow you. Building a following takes time and diligence. Remember, an event is a single point in time, but relationships are long-term. Think in terms of building communities around your content using the event as a point of accentuation in the relationship.

2. Determine your niche. What is the subject matter you will Tweet about? Event updates, speaker interviews, etc., are fine, but to add true relevance to your followers, talk about the things that they are interested in – event content – the reason they will attend the event and participate in the face-to-face experience. Good content attracts the right followers.

3. Determine who you want as followers, and who you want to follow. Begin by following (potential) speakers, attendees, exhibitors and sponsors. Services like Twellow or TweepSearch allow you to conduct searches on people’ bios. These are enormously powerful tools. For example, if you want to engage in conversation with radiologists, then you can search for folks who mention this in their profile and then follow them. Secondly, use tools like TwitterSearch or Ice Rocket Twitter Search to identify folks who are tweeting about content relevant to the event. Once you identify each person, follow them. Some folks will follow back, some will not. Its OK either way. If your content is relevant you have a greater chance of getting traction here.

4. Recognize you are not the only authority on content. Understand what original content you will provide as well as what content you will target for retweets. Its important to always add value to the community.

5. Tweet Often. Keep your community engaged by participating in the conversation daily. Again, you don’t need to create original content all the time, but recognizing the contributions of others and retweeting their ideas, thoughts, links, etc. will keep you connected.

6. Follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of what you post should be relevant content that adds value to your community, 20% can be logistical or personal, giving your brand personality.

7. Think like a search engine. Use keywords and phrases that are relevant to your communities. Just as you are using search to identify relevant content and community members, they are too. Its also a good idea to keep your tweets well short of 140 characters so others can retweet your tweets.

8. Create and own a #hashtag. This gives your audiences a communal symbol to rally around as they share relevant event content. It also makes it easy for others to find you, your content and your events.

9. Give your audiences a destination (as well as multiple destinations). Your website is an easy start. What’s often more impactful are blogs about your niche subject matter. If you don’t have a blog, get one, or at the very least, post often to other people’s blogs. Sharing links to other relevant content is also a good idea.

I’ve just scratched the surface here. There are thousands of ways you can use Twitter in your experiential marketing program and hundreds of tools to help you. The first and most important is to build a community. I’ll explore more Twitter topics in future posts. In the meantime, if you’ve discovered some interesting ways to integrate Twitter into your event program, please share!

Who are the People in your Neighborhood? Using Twitter to Build a Community around Your Events is a post from: Experiential Marketing 2.0