- A free business trip to a usually nice city?
- Sore feet from walking around a large building multiple days in a row?
- An overwhelming sea of new products, business pitches and opportunities?
- An open door into the activities of competitors?
The exhibitions allow businesses in a specific industry to congregate, share and promote new products/services to retailers, media and potential partners. More than 2,500+ trade shows across the United States allow for face-to-face interaction with key people associated with your business, but getting their attention before, during and after the experience is competitive.
With social media becoming a larger part of marketing strategy, it provides a unique asset for ensuring a successful trade show experience. If you want your business to attract the right buyers or media attention to your trade show booth, incorporating social media tactics into engagement allows you to easily and in real-time, connect with those people in the online world. They'll be eager to see what's going on and share news related to your business and other trade show activities, even though they couldn't be there in person to check it out.
Today, even trade shows themselves are using social media, with Twitter the second-highest driver of participation at BlogWorld. To get started, here are some tips that can help:
Before a show -
Target attendees. Twitter is a great way to identify people attending a trade
show through hashtags (#) and searchable conversations. Start following them and have a dialogue about what your company will be doing. Send out event invites and tease images or information. You can also easily see if there are people who want to attend, but can't. Consider sponsoring a relevant blogger so they can check out the experience (with full disclosure).
During a show -
Share your day's activities. Every participant can't and won't visit your booth every day, so choose what and when you want to promote. Do giveaways at certain times throughout the day, or feature special promotions. For example, encourage people to visit by offering an incentive - like X dollars off an order, or a gift certificate to a restaurant while in town - to the first ten people that repport to your booth after seeing a tweet. Post photos of the event with attendees and share updates to Twitter or Facebook.
After a show -
Touch base again on Facebook or Twitter. Ask what your new followers or fans enjoyed about your booth/announcements and what they'd like to see next year. Keep them informed throughout the year with interesting news. Re-tweet articles they post, or share them on Facebook. The key post-show is to keep engagement consistent and relevant. In other words, don't forget about the people who showed interest.
What are your tactics for getting attention at a trade show and how could you use social media to enhance visibility and ROI of the experience? Follow me on Twitter (@Jessicah07) and share your recommendations!
