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When used properly, high-tech networking can increase the quantity and quality of professional connections. But to accomplish this, you’ll need an ‘Extreme Networking’ technology strategy — which starts weeks before and culminates in the face-to-face event.
Helping grow a participant’s professional network is a sure-fire way to increase loyalty. Last month, we explored how to do this with low-tech networking strategies. Here, we look at a tech-based “Extreme Networking” strategy. Note that this will necessarily vary from group to group, depending on where your members live their online lives.
Rather than try to do everything, it’s best to choose a few of the following 11 high-tech options and spend the bulk of your time building adoption and engagement – if you do, pretty soon you’ll attain the enlightened state of Extreme Networking.
1. Collect IDs
Use optional fields in event-registration and membership-renewal forms to ask attendees for their blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter URLs. Explain the benefits of providing this information, and share your privacy policy.
2. Create event pages
Encourage attendees to RSVP via LinkedIn and Facebook event pages; updates and posts to these then will display in each person’s network stream. Provide fresh content that will encourage people to participate.
3. Use crowdsourcing
Online polling is a great way to engage your audience before the meeting. It also establishes a conduit for valuable input and a forum for attendees to meet one another.
4. Compare to connect
Some event-specific solutions allow attendees to compare their existing social networks against your registration list – and reaching out in advance to people you already know is an Extreme Networking best practice. Solutions that allow you to send a LinkedIn message, write on a person’s Facebook wall, or Direct Message Twitter followers are also very powerful.
5. Host Webinars and interviews
Schedule Webinars by conference speakers or locals from the event city who can give tips on restaurants and attractions. A pre-event Blogtalkradio series for speakers and Disney-lovers was a big hit for one association, whose attendees connected via Internet radio and text-messaging during the show.
6. Play matchmaker
Some solutions allow attendees to complete professional profiles and personal itineraries. Participants then use keywords and demographics to search for those with similar interests and schedule a time to meet. Some systems take this further and provide customized recommendations of people, sessions, or products.
7. Deploy PURLs
Powerful new solutions on the high-tech scene are personal Web pages (or PURLs) that aggregate links to session handouts, archives, exhibits visited, and attendees connected with. Oftentimes a proprietary device is used, although lead-retrieval and mobile-based solutions are quickly being adopted.
8. Monitor the hashtag
Some of the best connections come from watching others ask intelligent questions or provide insight on Twitter. Pick a unique hashtag (say, #pcma10), and ask attendees to use this when tweeting about the meeting.
9. Organize a “Tweetup” for Twitter-using attendees.
10. Game on!
Location-based apps with gaming components, such as Foursquare and Gowalla, help increase networking and connections. Encourage your hotels and local attractions to play along, and consider giving out awards to top connectors.
11. Share photos
Sites like Flickr allow attendees to deepen their relationships by sharing digital snapshots – and memories. For real-time memory-making, create a “Twitterfountain” that displays tweets and pics from the event as it’s happening.
Adoption Is Key
Too often, new technology isn’t utilized by enough participants to deliver desired results. Communication, education, and community management are the three pillars of success of encouraging adoption. As such, consider hosting a networking best practices Webinar before your meeting to teach attendees how to maximize their use of Twitter and take advantage of the power of the second degree on LinkedIn.
Reprinted with permission of Convene, the magazine of the Professional Convention Management Association. © 2009 pcma.org
Typical conferences, events and seminars can all too easily become a distribution center, a place where attendees can come and get stuff and the conference organizers can dump stuff.
The attendees receive education, information, new contacts, and swag. The conference organizers secure speakers to dump their presentations, vendors and exhibitors to dump their marketing messages, and sponsors to dump their tchotchkes.
Often everyone leaves satisfied. The attendee feels as if they gained a lot of new knowledge, business cards and free stuff. The exhibitors feel as if they’ve added new prospects to the funnel and advanced some existing relationships. The sponsors feel as if they have gained a lot of new eyeballs and increased mindshare. The conference organizers feel good about the “smile factor” evaluations they’ve collected.
The Tough Questions
Yet, did anyone leave the conference transformed? Was a new radical community formed? Was the existing community nurtured, developed and challenged to change?
The conference experience has been boiled down to a sterile, predictable, transactional encounter, similar to a factory assembly line. Everybody enters into a room, inputs received, everybody exit, outputs expected. And, it’s condensed into short-time frame, often at hyper-speed. The more we can cram into our minds and time, the better we are…or so the belief goes.
Little time is given to people building relationships, to stop, chat and look one another in the eye and listen to each other. Little thought is given to individual’s uniqueness, their preferences, their expectations or their insights. All attendee’s don’t want the same cookie cutter conference experience.
The Consumer’s Expectation Shift
Today, businesses and organizations have seen a shift in society’s expectations of them. People crave social interactions and community. They want to connect on a basic level, hand to hand, shoulder to shoulder, mind to mind, heart to heart, soul to soul. People yearn and hunger for engagement with others.
They don’t want to talk with a nameless person at a company. They don’t want to call a contact center and speak to a person in another country. They don’t want broadcast, push messages from human-less brands. People want and need radically relational connections. People also want radically relational conferences.
The Radically Relational Conference
A goal of the social conference is not just to set up a new program but to create and develop community where attendees, exhibitors, sponsors and vendors come together in relationships. And these relationships grow and flourish whether new or well-formed.
And this new sense of community spreads like a disease–through touch, breath, proximity, connections and life. It is spread by conference attendees infected with the passion of a radically relational social conference with a renewed vision and outlook. One where meetings and events really can change the world.
What I’ve been thinking about is that when we divorce our conference attendees from building and maintaining relationships, by scheduling too many presenter monologues, too many panel dialogues, too few peer-to-peer discussions, and too few peer collaborative sessions, the natural transformative power of lives connecting has been stripped away. It’s time to start thinking about everything we do when planning, preparing, staging and implementing an event in the context of relationships. All of our logistic and strategic planning must serve as a catalyst for attendees to build transformative radical relationships and social connections.
Whatever else we may do in our conference environment, let it first lead to radically relational social conferences.
What do you think? How could you implement Radically Relational Social Conferences? Share your thoughts with us.
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Read more about the Social Conference.
Traditional conferences versus social conferences. Which will you plan this year?
Not sure about the “Social Conference?” Read this post on “Screw Your Event Resolutions. Do You Conference Social?”
Here are six things to consider when planning the Social Conference so you don’t get caught with your social pants down.
1. In this new information landscape, your conference is not for a passive audience but an engaged community.
No conference attendees in history have been more thoroughly prepared for the industrial revolution than today’s participants. This is a major fail whale. They need to be prepared for the service and creative revolution. (Read more about the creative and service sectors.)
2. Your conference community is hyper-connected.
Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, Mobile Applications. Your conference attendees are going to talk about your event in person and online whether you want them to or not. Be social and engage with them before, during and after the event. Don’t control them, join them.
3. Each of your conference attendees has a voice, a platform to amplify that voice and followers that listen.
They can find each other, share, collaborate and connect. They will write a review of how your group rates are higher than what they found online, your sessions, your AV, your food, your content, your venue, your parties, your speakers, your registration process. Good or bad, expect it. And they will be brutally honest with their reviews. Encourage it. Use it to improve the future event. Incentivize it. Be transparent and respond to it. Make real-time changes because of it. Don’t ignore it.
4. The conference interaction has moved from a monologue to dialogue to polylogue (many voices speaking at the same time.)
Stop trying to control the conversation. You can’t. But you can help steer it and ask invaluable questions to guide it. As Samuel J. Smith says, “The gap between the experts on stage and the attendees in the audience has never been smaller.” Include questions and opportunities for experienced attendees to share what they know as well.
5. Potential and registered conference attendees expect conference organizers to find them, in the social media platforms they use.
It used to be that conference organizers expected attendees to find the conference on the Web. That’s shifted. Potential and registered attendees want to connect with you on their terms in the social media platform of their choice. Let your attendees self-identify their own favorites by giving them all the choices. Consider customizing the message for each platform. Don’t just duplicate the same message and post in multiple places. (Don’t think this is for you? Think again. See how younger people expect news to come to them (not on CNN or daily papers) and how they are conduits for info-sharing.)
6. Create an atmosphere of belonging and acceptance while encouraging attendees to share their experiences with others.
Think about your recent gathering of family or friends. You had a great time. Lots of pictures were taken and you woke up to realize you hade been tagged in Facebook. Your whole network knows about it. Capture that type of experience and encourage it at your meetings and events.
Final Thoughts
This is sneaking up on most association, event and conference professionals. Don’t be caught with your social pants down, high jacked by your conference audience. Plan now for the new social conference revolution.
What tips do you have to help plan for and embrace this revolution?
Online conference eCommunities were the rage in 2009
Did you offer one for your annual meeting attendees? I did.
So what are they? Online eCommunities are virtual communities of people that primarily interact via the Internet for social, professional, educational or other purposes.
Online Conference eCommunities have become a supplemental form of communication between people who are attending the same conference. The registrants of the face-to-face event use special online social software to connect with each other.
Online Conference eCommunity users can:
- Create profiles
- Connect with others attending the conference before, during and after the conference online
- IM
- Participate in text-based chat rooms and forums
- Schedule itineraries
- Setup times to meet with exhibitors or vendors
- View live or archived presentations
- Share photos from the face-to-face event
- View venue and tradeshow floor plans
- Setup appointments with exhibitors and vendors
- And a host of other features
Many online conference eCommunities integrate with social networking platforms like blogs, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
From free to low-cost eCommunities like MeetUp and Ning, to customized features of Social Collective and Zerista, there are ample opportunities for you to provide conference attendee engagement experiences through an online conference eCommunity. If you are thinking about adding one to your 2010 Annual Meeting or Conference attendee offerings, here are 14 online conference eCommunity providers for you to consider.
Offers Facebook and Twitter integration, attendee communication interface, conference scheduler, detailed session and speaker information, mobile interface, video and audio integration and more. Not as robust as other eCommunities but includes some unique conference organizer features. Clients include BizBash Expo & Awards, BlogWorld 2009 and Exploit Labour Conference.
Offers Facebook and Twitter integration, blog aggregation, customizable conference eCommunity website, attendee itinerary planner, attendee profiles, IM, speaker and session rating system, attendee communication interface, mobile interface, third-party registration support of EventBrite, RegOnline and Laser Registration, and more. Clients include PCMA 2010, Web 2.0 and IA Summit.
Offers conference attendee registration package through partnership with Acteva, Eventbrite and RegOnline, social media integration with blogs, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube, customizable conference micro-website (full conference website), attendee profiles, IM, embedded video and audio, mobile interface, and more. Clients include Defrag, Mashable’s US Summer Tour 2008, and Mass Technology Leadership Conference.
An often over-looked platform that is well known in eLearning circles but lesser known in the events industry. Provides opportunity for a full, exclusive, online virtual conference complete with attendee registration, eCommerce, attendee profiles, IM, live audio, video and Webinar integration, virtual vendor showrooms, blog feature and more. Limited customization for look and feel as compared to other eCommunities. [We currently use iCohere at my work for our exclusive walled industry eCommunity for our nonprofit members.] Clients include ASAE, National Defense University, US Forest Service and WorldVision.
Offers a turnkey event attendee registration package, eCommerce, social media network integration, customizable border for micro-website, attendee profiles, IM, message board, and more. Mostly used by local self-organized groups.
Used more for member eCommunities than conference communities but can be customized for conferences. Integrates with Association Management Systems like Avectra, offers RSS integration, customizable eCommunity website, user profiles, IM, attendee communication interface, resource library, and more. Clients include MPI CLC, NMC09 and OmniPress Conference 2.0.
Offers full integration with social media networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, customizable eCommunity website, user profiles, IM, surveys and pools, user communication interface, mobile accessibility, and third-party event and registration support through widgets.
Built on the Pathable platform, Offers Facebook , LinkedIn and Twitter integration, customizable conference eCommunity website, attendee itinerary planner, session handouts and slides, attendee profiles, IM, surveys and polls, attendee communication interface, mobile interface, third-party registration support of EventBrite, RegOnline, eTouches, Certain or Cvent, and more. Clients include American Public Health Association, DAC and IEEE.
Offers Facebook , LinkedIn and Twitter integration, customizable conference eCommunity website, session handouts and slides, attendee profiles, IM, surveys and polls, attendee communication interface, mobile interface, third-party registration support of EventBrite, RegOnline, eTouches, Certain or Cvent, and more. Clients include MPI WEC09, NMC09 and OmniPress Conference 2.0.
Offers a turnkey conference attendee registration package, eCommerce, Facebook and Twitter integration, customizable conference micro-website (full conference website), attendee itinerary planner, attendee profiles, IM, exhibitor and sponsor fan pages, crowdsourcing application, speaker rating system, detailed session and speaker information, embedded video and audio, mobile interface, eMarketing capabilities and more. (Yes, this is the conference platform that I used in 2009 and plan to use again in 2010.) Clients include IAEE, SxSW 2009 and SxSW 2010.
Integrated with Facebook, Flickr and Twitter, operates as a conference aggregator for several social network streams, attendee profiles. customizable site, live event audio and presentation streaming, and ability to use moderate Twitter hashtag tweet for chats, questions and image magnification. Clients include International Foodservice Distributors Association, Microsoft Tech-Ed LA, and TEDTalks.
Free community platform that includes user profiles, chat, photo galleries, polls, community calendars, in-line video embedding, blogs, RSS feeds, customizable skins, and more. Similar to message boards.
Offers a turnkey conference attendee registration package, eCommerce, Facebook and Twitter integration, customizable conference micro-website (full conference website), Digg-like rating feature, online fundraising, membership management, attendee profiles, IM, detailed session and speaker information, and more. Clients include GMIC, SITE Chicago and Healthy Start, Healthy Future’s Life With A Baby.
Offers customizable conference micro-website (full conference website), detailed session and speaker information, attendee itinerary planner, attendee profiles, IM, exhibitor and attendee scheduler, exhibitor virtual booth, embedded video and audio for virtual attendance, integrated webcasts, virtual tradeshow, interactive venue maps, interactive tradeshow floor, integrated Google maps, and more. Clients include Democratic National Convention 2008, SxSW 2009 and SxSW 2010.
I am sure there are other eCommunity platforms as well. Which have you used?
Today, StoryCorps, an independent nonprofit whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening, is celebrating the National Day Of Listening.
In honor of the National Day Of Listening, consider how you listen to your conference attendees onsite, during the conference?
How do you listen to your customers, members and conference attendees?
We’ve all experienced it. The hallways of the conference are buzzing with chatter about the event. Attendees are discussing what’s working, what isn’t, why the organizers planned it this way, what they are happy about and what’s discouraging them.
As meeting and event planners, we often wish we could be a fly on the wall listening to everyone’s discussions all at once. With today’s social media tools, we can engage in discussions with our registrants before, during and after the big event. Now, we can capture those hallway conversations and respond in real time. So, where do you start?
1. Create and encourage a culture of listening.
Listening is something that every staff member can and should do, and the organization’s principals should lead by example. Staff should listen in the hallways, invite feedback on evaluations and encourage attendees to provide comments and concerns to any staff member both face to face and through the social media tools available. The event is all about attendee, not you the meeting professional.
2. Develop a system for capturing feedback and ways to respond.
a. Setup an event presence in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and other social media tools.
In today’s web world, people go to several different sites to find information about an event. They no longer turn only to your organization or event website. They turn to their friends, colleagues and compadres. They also turn to the social media tools they use and you can help them by setting up “listening and chatting posts” within each social property. Twitter Tip: When using Twitter, identify one person to manage each event account and encourage them to list their name in the profile. For example Jeff4CVG09 meaning Jeff for CONVERGE 2009.
b. Decide who will be the champion for each account, keep the information updated and communicate to people within that network about the event.
Encourage the champions to provide outstanding customer service and do the right thing for the attendees when challenges arise. Let your team members know that you will back them with their decisions to provide outstanding customer service to the attendee.
Read the remander of my post, The Art Of Listening And The Science Of Responding on Event Manager blog.
Happy Listening!
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