Proven Tips and Tricks to Enhance Your Next Event
It doesn’t matter if you are watching TV or flipping through the pages of a magazine, hashtags and social media icons are everywhere! One of my favorite ways to integrate social media is to add a little social flair to an off-line event. Not only do you get the benefits of documenting participation and interaction among attendees during the event, but you are also able to increase the excitement before the event as well as continuing the enthusiasm long after the event is over. Plus, you can share the fun with non-event goers.
However, here is the problem: Events and especially large conferences take a lot of planning and generate a ton of stress. That is why I always recommend doing as much pre-work as possible. The integration is in real-time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t set it up beforehand!
Here is an example of how Metaverse worked with Body Training Systems (BTS), a company that develops branded group fitness systems to improve health clubs’ profitability. The BTS 2011 Summit was in Atlanta, August 24th – 27th. They attracted hundreds of club owners, managers and fitness instructors who came together to share, bond, learn and grow. We worked with BTS to help pump up this event using social media.
Here are some of the social elements we added to the event!
Body Training Systems Summit 2011
A viral picture-tagging promotion for Let’s Move! to the BTS Summit in Atlanta
A week before the event we encouraged people to upload their versions of fun poses ie: the “plank” to the BTS Facebook Page and tag themselves. Out of these photos, we’ll pick our favorites, post them to the Facebook Wall daily, and encourage people to comment on and Like new pictures.
Added Polls to Facebook
Poll questions were posted on the BTS Facebook page to increase excitement before the event.
Example poll question posted on Friday, August 19th– 5 days prior to the event:
- Road to the Summit! How far will you be traveling this year?
- Possible Answers: 50 miles – 150 miles or less – More than 150 miles
- Over 100 members participated. Not only did this increase excitement before the event began, each vote was also added to the participant’s news feed increasing product awareness.
Checking-into the conference
BTS encouraged users to check-in to the Body Training Systems Summit conference. Before the event, each activity was added to Facebook using Events, this lets people easily comment on and check-in to each session. Additionally, we added Facebook posts saying, “If you’re joining us at the Summit, make sure you check out the events tab and click off the events you are going to.”
Before each session at the Summit, the speaker would suggest to the audience to Like BTS on Facebook, follow BTS on Twitter @Lets_Move, and mention that everyone should be using and watching the hashtag #BTSs2011 where they can be following the event. At the end of each event, the speaker encouraged the members to use a session-specific hashtag such as #BTSRetention to easily find the golden rule lists that were described in detail at the sessions. BTS even rewarded some of the event attendees who were retweeting the tips with some cool swag. This was easier to do than it may seem because we received all the presentations before the event and pre-wrote all the presentation Tweets summarizing the lectures and had them pre-approved by BTS beforehand and scheduled to be Tweeted.
Group photo sessions
At the end of each session, BTS announced there would be pictures uploaded to Facebook. They suggested that attendees find themselves and tag the photos for a chance to win even more swag.
The BTS Summit 2011 was a huge success and almost a month later fans are still using social media to upload, tag and Tweet about it. With just a little prep work, you too can easily add social media to your next event!
Jennifer Lowe
Vice President, Digital Media