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	<title>Trade Show Social Media</title>
	<link>http://tradeshowsocialmedia.com</link>
	<description>digital events and audience engagement</description>
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		<title>6 Reasons to have a Social Event Strategy</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Before jumping right into some of the business reasons for having a social event strategy, I want to address the time frames that digital media bring to the event owners table. The basic scenario of working with an event exists before, during, and after. If the event is a &#8216;one off&#8217; you have a simpler model. If the event is repeating you have a cycle of before, during, and afters that build into a trend. Most events fail at realizing the first basic model and only construct the business processes around before and during.They create attendance, vendor, and sponsor value statements around two of the three cogs. For event owners who produce repeat events, they often fall victim to error #1 as well. The next major group of event owners typically adds a business model around the &#8216;after&#8217; segment because they know that there is on-going conversation to attract attendees, vendors, and sponsors to the next event. In a good number of cases this model has a down time period where nothing is happening (with annual events there is typically 2-3 months of buzz followed by 9 months of silence.) The core problem The above processes simply describe an engine that isn&#8217;t firing on all cylinders. Even though the engine is paid for and the vehicle basically gets the job done, the team behind it is constantly having to push extra effort into starting a stalled car. As event owners we need to realize the inefficiencies of working with partial [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tradeshowsocialmedia.com/5-reasons-event-owners-need-a-social-strategy/</link>
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		<title>Google Maps Indoors, Trade Show Marketing 101</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The problem with events isn&#8217;t a lack of tools, but the consistent issue of having a &#8216;missing ingredient&#8217; that links together fairly straight-forward processes. Today we are going to focus on entirely free tools from Google Maps Indoors Unless you are running a strictly virtual event, there are a lot of opportunities to include local information about your event. I&#8217;ve included several videos that help explain Google Maps Indoors (see below) that talk about some of the useful insights. Keep these ideas in mind as you watch them Your event / show floor plan. The larger the show is, the larger your opportunity is. The simple &#8216;you are here&#8217; type of mall display now gives you the ability to reach into the mobile space to attract, generate, funnel, and deliver leads to your event participants.  By integrating QR codes and mobile friendly websites for your event you also have the power to track, analyze, and improve your hourly, daily, and annual traffic patterns. This enables you to benchmark and improve both online and offline efforts. Your Sponsor Adoption The technology driving the trends behind today&#8217;s biggest opportunities are hidden in layers of change, mis-information, and basic workload. Marketing directors and outreach coordinators usually don&#8217;t have the time to keep track and apply these concepts. Keep in mind who you are dealing with, the business challenges they have &#8216;here and now&#8217;, and the types of frustration they have. Your Audience These tools have a double benefit. Your audience wants simpler and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tradeshowsocialmedia.com/google-maps-indoors-trade-show-marketing/</link>
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		<title>Audience Engagement &amp; Community Management</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Managing an event isn&#8217;t just about handling items on the day of the show, but knowing how to make an amazing experience before, during, and after. This is the key to audience engagement and community management. In many circumstances the &#8216;before and after&#8217; experience is driven by online conversation and community buzz. People want to talk about things that interest them and they also want to discover like-minded people they can network with. The problem is that communities will naturally adopt online conversations based upon areas of shifting importance. This means that a lot of them will personally select how they use online conversation. When trying to identify and engage these conversations online, some people use singular or plural variation. Other people use completely unique style or inconsistently jump through ten different variations. While this is a huge opportunity to engage them with, it is also a huge management challenge to &#8220;herd the cats&#8221; into defined conversation categories. A real world example: You are at an event and want to find the &#8216;perfect conversation&#8217; with a lead decision maker. Unfortunately there are 5,000 other people in the event hall having different conversations. The roar of the crowd is almost deafening. As you spend the next hour moving through the attendees you hear the same conversation five, ten, fifty times. You personally know that there are ten people looking for each other and having the same conversation but that they are having an identical problem locating them amidst the sea of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tradeshowsocialmedia.com/audience-engagement-community-management/</link>
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		<title>Event Hashtags &#8211; a guide to using them</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Hashtags would seem like they aren&#8217;t terribly complex, but what if you don&#8217;t know what a Hashtag is or have never setup a business strategy using one? This guide covers event hashtags and why it makes sense to define a logical structure for your audiences to engage with you on. What is a Hashtag? Hashtags are words that have the hash symbol (&#8220;#&#8221;) attached to them. This highlights the #hashtag as an important part of the message. In a more traditional application you use Hashtags to note #classifications #categories and #similar topics. In many cases this allows you to talk about a brand or product and define what category the conversation should be in. An example: I&#8217;m attending the Northwest Garden Show #RealEstate #Seattle By using #realestate and #seattle as a hashtag, anyone who is also engaged in conversations about real estate or Seattle will find out about the Northwest Garden Show. Why would I use event hashtags? One of the primary reasons is that you need to manage your brand. If you don&#8217;t create an event hashtag for yourself, it is only a matter of time before your attendees create one for you. You run the risk of having a branded event hashtag that works with your overall theme such as #myevent2011 versus a community generated one like #nyc11doctors A second reason is that you will most likely want to promote, monitor, engage, and analyze the people talking about your event online (I&#8217;ll talk about each of these later [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tradeshowsocialmedia.com/event-hashtags-a-guide-to-using-them/</link>
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		<title>Social Media Security &#8211; is your event social and secure?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If you manage or attend events regularly, this is an important topic to educate your community on. One of my professional niches is understanding new types of security and privacy concerns regarding new media. A common type of question people ask me revolves around exposing where people are located: Should I tweet it? Should I check in on FourSquare? Should I comment on the presentation? Should I tag them? This article goes into some of the questions you should strategically consider for your event and ways that you can make it a great experience for everyone involved. Questions you should ask If you ‘protect’ something, does your absence make it vulnerable? There are a lot of things we protect in our personal and professional lives. Give some thought about how location based updates affect your family, friends, and co-workers. Think about your house, your office, and the things you cherish. Think about other people. Are you an executive with high levels of responsibility and/or value? Executives have a responsibility to everyone they oversee and manage. Consider what it means to your employees, vendors, and peers when you reveal location and time based information. In very high profile cases, celebrities and executives may also be high value targets for political issues, hostage scenarios, or straight-forward criminal activity. Does exposing your location also identify your routine? If you consistently use social services, take the effort to use them in a way that doesn&#8217;t identify your daily routine. Even if you like checking [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tradeshowsocialmedia.com/social-media-security-is-your-event-social-and-secure/</link>
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		<title>Trade Show Budget &#8211; where do you fit in?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the biggest questions we receive from executives is &#8216;where do we fit in?&#8221; Depending on your organization, the planning and budget requirements of a trade show could be owned by product managers, marketing directors, or general cross-departmental teams. Unfortunately this means that many decision makers are perplexed by how much they should spend, where they should spend it, and what the expectations should be. MarketingSherpa produced this great graphic detailing how companies think about marketing budget. It helps put things in perspective: An important part of this shows that many decision makers spend almost the same amount on trade shows as they do the entire web site or online business component. For TradeShowSocialMedia: it is important to highlight because we service 8 of the 12 top cost areas through our multi-disciplinary teams. This allows us to maximize areas of opportunities that cross-over web design, trade show, and social media elements: while keeping an eye on marketing automation and lead processes. Two important parts that didn&#8217;t get on the list #1 Technology -  your ROI friend Through-out hundreds of trade shows and all sorts of industries, we&#8217;ve noted a severe lack of investment in technology that has a focused return-on-investment. Many companies invest tens of thousands in trade show displays, yet fail to fill them with functional technology that aids business goals. (a common quote of our team is &#8220;it sure looks pretty, but what does it do?&#8221; ) #2 Training &#8211; the only thing you can&#8217;t forget You [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tradeshowsocialmedia.com/trade-show-budget-where-do-you-fit-in/</link>
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		<title>Trade Show Displays and 3 essentials you need to have</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Having attended several trade shows in the past month covering outdoor gear, military development, and corporate training &#8211; our team is constantly intrigued by common elements being left out of the standard trade show display. Our top three elements for a good trade show display #1 Train Your Team If there is ever a time for having a 30 and 60 second elevator pitch memorized, it is when you are manning your trade show booth. You should have two or three prospect types identified for your business. Examples prospect types could be consumer, wholesale, or industry press. The FIRST thing your trade show display should support is the benefit statements around these core business prospects. Your booth team should be trained to make a friendly greeting and immediately ask &#8220;are you A,B,C, or other?&#8221; Once you&#8217;ve identified what they are, give them the appropriate benefit statement and handle the following questions appropriately. #2 Energy. Charisma. Optimism. No one wants to engage with a boring booth staff. Attendees don&#8217;t usually want to engage with someone and start a conversation. Your booth staff should be polite, inviting, and professionally engaging. This means that your team shouldn&#8217;t be going out for late night parties and show up the next day exhausted. You have a once in a lifetime chance to make a first impression and communicate clearly and accurately. #3 The Follow-up Plan If you don&#8217;t have a follow-up plan in place BEFORE the event, that fancy-dancy trade show display will have a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tradeshowsocialmedia.com/trade-show-displays-and-3-essentials-you-need-to-have/</link>
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		<title>Trade Show Displays: why the audience demands more</title>
		<description><![CDATA[After spending more than a decade of my professional life attending all forms of trade shows and association events, I am perplexed by the consistent lack of evolution in what a trade show display is (or could be.) I believe that a functioning trade show display is not a display, but an experience. It begins with this initial problem: All companies are not brands. Brands are bigger than a company. Brands evoke a feeling, invite a relationship, give a promise. Brands make themselves something different. Something different does not fit within the confines of a 10&#215;10 trade show display. Why am I saying this? As communicators that are responsible for relaying our brand message at the event floor, event teams need to keep in mind that people do not come to trade shows to find out informational bullet points on a glossy brochure&#8230; they come to the event to experience satisfaction, leadership, innovation, and many other &#8216;feelings.&#8217; One of those feelings is collaboration and community: the need to be included within a group of professionals that is doing things the right way. The right way does not include: setting up a generic drop cloth on your pop-up table having employees sit down and look at soda cans having booth staff that can&#8217;t hold a basic conversation alienating your customers before they have the chance to be customers The right way does include: trying new and inventive technology and techniques displaying character (trust, reliability, and reputation) offering guidance and insight (whether [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tradeshowsocialmedia.com/trade-show-displays-why-the-audience-demands-more/</link>
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		<title>10 tips for QR codes at Trade Show Booths + 3 bonus ideas</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If you feel your audience is a tech-friendly group and thus decide to add QR codes to your trade show exhibit graphics, then do these 10 things: Don&#8217;t assume your audience knows what a QR code is. If your audience doesn&#8217;t use QR applications, don&#8217;t focus on QR codes. Always provide a short URL alternative (bit.ly is free) QR codes are not limited to one version. Use different codes to track different pieces of collateral. Use away-from-booth QR tactics. Think about lanyards, brochures, night clubs, hotel rooms. Encourage competition and entertainment. Scavenger hunts. Bingo Cards. Random Winners. Train your staff. If they can&#8217;t explain a QR code in 30 seconds, why have them in your booth strategy? Provide &#8216;click to engage&#8217; functionality (appointment scheduling, info request, phone conversations.) Tell people what to expect when they scan a QR code. Make it enjoyable and fun. BONUS TIP: make it social. When someone scans a QR code you should encourage with them to engage with you in the real world. Face-to-Face interactions are typically leaps and bounds more effective at generating a lead. Use the process of scanning a QR code to educate your event team to better understand who the person is, what they are interested in, and more effectively form a relationship with them. THREE IDEAS TO CONSIDER #1 Don&#8217;t waste that fancy booth space. If you paid thousands of dollars to have a spiffy booth display and have it manned by friendly professionals don&#8217;t waste your time, budget, and energy convincing your live audience to engage using a smartphone. Talk [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tradeshowsocialmedia.com/10-tips-for-qr-codes-at-trade-show-booths-3-mistakes-to-avoid/</link>
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		<title>Trade Show Strategy &#8211; Digital Setup 101</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This article is going to discuss some of the basic benefits and setup strategies preparing for an upcoming event. You Need Critical Mass, Start Early The best communication strategies take weeks and months to properly implement. In order to maximize your online footprint, try to give yourself the most room to naturally grow into the results you want. It is especially important that you give yourself time for exploration and conversation with your audience. The more time you give yourself, the more options you have for testing different ideas and making sure your event maximizes on low-hanging benefits. Setup the Basics For starters you should define your brand on the common sense social networks that are used by your audience. Setting up all your profiles requires a consistent brand message, a short bio, a long bio, a profile image, a handful of &#8216;related images&#8217;, and access to any other content you may have (whitepapers, videos, press releases, etc.) Try to collect 90% of the materials you need and get to work. Don&#8217;t delay your digital campaign while you wait for one or two extra items to be created; the benefits lost to inaction is not worth the wait. Top Recommendations   Search Optimization When setting up the above profiles make sure you keep in mind that these profiles will show up in search results via Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook, and Twitter. As you begin to setup profiles, use the most likely search term for your event as the profile name [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tradeshowsocialmedia.com/trade-show-strategy-digital-setup-101/</link>
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