Social Media at Exhibitions
By Sandra Desouza
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Integrating social media into your exhibition and event marketing is a great way to enhance your company’s presence at an exhibition. Being active on social media during an event can help you with business branding, expanding your network and helping to get more out of the entire exhibition experience.
With the rise of platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, it has become easier for event managers to promote events online. Here are some ideas on how to effectively use social media at exhibitions:
Communicate
Follow the official hashtags for the exhibition prior to the event to connect with companies and join conversations. Use a specific hashtag for your company/event to promote your presence at the event.
Schedule and Share
Provide your followers with content they will want to share. Schedule your tweets via apps. A photo of the opening of the exhibition with the #hashtag and a friendly welcoming message can be very effective.
Respond
Active monitoring of Twitter, Instagram feeds and other social media channels is important for effective engagement. The best engagement can come from simple answers to questions or requests. Calls to action ‘visit our stand’, a helpful online conversation, or generally being aware of comments so you can respond quickly and effectively.
Promote
Competitions showcasing skills, knowledge or raising awareness are generally well received. Hashtag competitions and selfie opportunities are a great way of driving traffic to your stand and transporting the event to those who cannot attend.
Acknowledge
A rule of online communication is to acknowledge and credit your sources. Thanking participants for engaging or sharing content. A simple “thanks for sharing”, photo credit or re-tweet can go a long way. Once the show has ended say ‘Thank you’ using the show hashtag to maximise awareness.
Be Positive
Be respectful, ensure your tweets are filled with words of encouragement and positivity. You never know who will be reading your comments on social media.
Interact
Network with others on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram who are working at the exhibition, send them a LinkedIn request. Keep updated with their live social streams, click the hashtag, comment, favourite, and re-tweet to show your support.
Post
The key to finding a happy medium is posting enough so that it is informative, but not too much, scheduling tweets are a great way of balancing content throughout the week.
Enjoy
Social media is fun, so have a good time posting about the event, include, graphics, team photos, selfies, quotes, impressive stands, and support innovation at the event.
Events and exhibitions can provide you with plenty of engaging content for your social media activity. From event count down reminders, to uplifting smiling team shots, product demonstrations, stand presence or a simple thank you for sharing. If used properly social media can be an effective marketing tool to help drive visitors to your stand, boost engagement and build your social media audience.
