Using Social Media to Enhance Your Trade Show Presence

Social media is a cost-effective way for a business of any size to interact with customers. Sites like Facebook and Twitter can also be used to give a firm an edge when exhibiting at a trade show. Here are some tips for using social media to drive traffic to your trade show booth:

• Create a Facebook fan page and encourage attendees to “Like “ your business. You can tie this in with a giveaway or contest to increase participation.
• Use Twitter to give teasers about what to expect from your booth. Include one enticing tidbit per tweet, and include things like giveaways, contests, show specials, any entertainment, etc.  Make sure to vary your teasers to sustain the excitement.
• On Twitter, use the hashtag (#) for your show when posting tweets related to the show. An example of what a hashtag looks like is #tradeshow. By placing the hashtag at the end of your tweets, your tweet can be viewed by attendees of the show, who have filtered tweets by the hashtag.
• Use Facebook and Twitter to post pictures from your booth at the Trade Show.  Posting on Twitter will allow real time images and up to the minute updates. Facebook will create an album, where your photos can be viewed in the future.
• Use Twitter and Facebook to post any “breaking” news from the Trade Show for clients who could not attend
• Use Pinterest to post pictures from your booth. You can link your Pinterest account to both Twitter and Facebook, so you can reach out with photos through three social networks at once!
• Blog about our exhibit both pre-show and post-show. This will create a buzz around your display, but also invite feedback and keep those clients who were unable to attend in the loop with any news.

Using social media as a part of your trade show toolbox with not only get the word out about your booth, but also portray your company is up to date with current trends, as well as innovative. However, like other forms of pre-show and post-show marketing, it is essential to be proactive in advertising your display to get the most out of your social media promotional materials.

Why Isn’t Your Small Business Using Social Media?

While the phrase “social media” easily resonates with business owners these days, it’s surprising how many aren’t actually involved with this ever-growing facet of marketing.

This disconnect became more concrete in the latest Small Business Success Index survey. While the SBSI showed an “almost universal awareness among small business owners of Facebook and Twitter” only 27 percent of the entrepreneurs used Facebook for business purposes, and a mere 7 percent were Twitter users. LinkedIn garnered 18 percent.

Despite the tepid survey results, small businesses that have tried social media often see results: 63 percent say it helped make their customers more loyal. Other say social media has helped them stay engaged with customers, build brand awareness and identify and attract new customers.

So why aren’t more small companies doing it?

Many small business owners worry that social media is too “time-consuming” and that getting started can be very overwhelming. When FB Displays & Designs, Inc. first decided to integrate social networking into their marketing strategy, they had hired a college intern to build all of their profiles and begin initiating relationships. Over a short period of time, solid connections were steadily built across the board and members of the team could naturally maintain and interact with others among the different sites. Today, they use their social media presence as an outlet to interact with others, share important information and retain mutually beneficial relationships with their “friends and followers”.

Creating a successful social media presence boils down to a 2-step process:

1) Listen. Where is your key audience online? Set up Google Alerts for your business. You’ll begin to see where the conversations about your business are taking place. Listening helps you develop your voice.

2) Engage. Be sure you aren’t just blasting out information and news about your business. Interact directly with your followers. Ask them what else they would like to see from you and your business.

It’s important to remember that building a social media presence requires patience. If you’re not sure which site to begin with, find out which one is most popular with your customers. Learn the site to the best of your ability, refine its use and decide whether to move on to another. Social networking is all about building relationships and whether it’s online or off, relationships don’t happen overnight.

SOURCE: Rieva Lesonsky, www.AllBusiness.com Blog

We’d love to hear your thoughts on social media. For those of you currently involved on social networking sites, what strategies do you find work the best for your company?

“Texting” for the Trade Show World

 

In the United States alone, several billion text messages are sent each day. Texting is a form of communication that is here to stay. And with every new form of communication that has evolved, there follows with it a new form of advertising. In this case: SMS (short message service) marketing. Blindly messaging random segments of people may generate negative thoughts about your company, because no one in their right mind enjoys spam. But selectively and creatively incorporating SMS into your trade show marketing campaign can generate interest in your booth, and increase the amount of traffic you see.

Over 80% of consumers own and carry a cell phone on a daily basis. While snail-mail and email marketing can be lost in a pile of junk mail, or the clutter of a full inbox, SMS can target an attendee instantly. Whether trade show visitors are arriving at their hotels, or walking the show floor, they can receive your message. Here are a few ways you can make SMS messages work for you at trade shows:

• Inform attendees of your booth location and schedule of demonstrations at your booth
• Offer a special promotion only available by responding to your message
• Instant follow-up with contacts you have met at your booth to build the first part of a friendly relationship and stay fresh in their minds
• Inform attendees of any changes to your show schedule or booth location

Another alternative SMS messaging offers you at trade shows is a creative way to run a Q&A session of your both presentation or demonstration. While simply asking your audience for questions will generate a few responses, here are some ways SMS messaging can boost interaction:

• Help more timid attendees receive the answers to their questions by removing the public speaking aspect
• Allow visitors to instantly ask questions without interrupting the flow of your presentation
• Grant you the ability to weed out irrelevant questions and only answer the most pressing and important ones

On the more technologically flashy side, you can purchase a SMS display system to accompany your graphical display. From these screens you can instantly broadcast attendees’ feedback about your booth, your company, or the show in general. These displays will be eye catching and draw in curious onlookers to your booth and also provide an incentive for them to stop back and view updates.

In these economically tight times, SMS messaging is a creative, flexible and a more economical alternative to standard trade show marketing procedures. You can target every attendee, or only a select few, right on the show floor and be assured they have your message in hand. Even though  text messaging is most popular among teenagers and tweens, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for it in your marketing strategy. And well, it’s also never too soon to practice and perfect ways to target the next generation of consumers.