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EVENTCHANNELER ARTICLE: 'THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND EVENTCASTING FOR EVENTS' [OMTAC EVENT SERVICES]

FULL ARTICLE: WHY ARE SOCIAL MEDIA, MICRO-BLOGGING & WEBCASTING IMPORTANT FOR EVENTS?

'Social Media' describes new ways for individuals to communicate digitally with products, services, brands, organisations, friends and colleagues.

These new forms of communication are becoming very popular with all demographics and the type and depth of communications activity social media stimulates around an event is startling and exciting.

The integration of social media into events offers a range of potential benefits which are compelling, such as:

• Revenue generation through the creation of new services and products, especially an 'Eventcasting' subscription option for those unable to attend;
• Greater promotion and marketing of the event at low cost through word-of-mouth, shared information, endorsements, closer relationships with the Media etc;
• The improved relevance of the event and its content through the direct involvement and participation of prospective and confirmed Delegates/Attendees, Speakers, Sponsors and/or Exhibitors in the pre-event planning;
• 'Added value' for Sponsors and Exhibitors, bringing them closer to delegates/attendees and increasing their return on investment;
• Richer participation in the event by those attending and those unable to attend who online, with the greater sharing of information and improved networking;
• Wider, deeper and more timely evaluation and analysis of the event;
• The collection of impressive multi-media material during the event which enhances the post-event experience and supports the marketing of future events;
• Idea generation and innovation for existing and new events, through the active participation of all parties.

Event professionals must therefore understand, embrace and exploit these new technologies effectively to achieve competitive advantage and enhance the event experience for all those participating, from Speakers to Sponsors, from Delegates to Exhibitors.

The Internet, and particularly Social Media, is facilitating collaboration and community online in the same way meetings do offline and often the two reflect similar values and objectives.

Numerous Social Media ‘conversations’ around events are taking place regardless of the involvement (or otherwise) of the organisers. Inevitably individuals (professionals, members, stakeholders) are talking about you, your event, its sponsors and exhibitors, and their industry... with or without you.

So the positive and negative implications of Social Media (networking and blogging) and Webcasting/Video streaming for any event large or small, not least the potential for content enrichment and improved productivity as well as the life-extension of events, cannot be ignored by Event professionals.

A survey by Omnipress in July 2009 asked 325 associations how they were using Social Media and Web 2.0, demonstrating the exponential growth in usage of online communications by events organisers:

• 80% of respondents now use some type of free social network;
• 35% now have a custom-built social network system;
• 19% now have a social-network site for their conferences.

The conclusions drawn from the survey were that a Conference-based social network:

• Creates pre-event interest and enthusiasm;
• Facilitates interaction among conference participants;
• Increases attendance.

With millions of people participating in Social Media daily in the UK, and hundreds of millions doing so around the world, any Event & Meeting Planners dismissing or ignoring Social Media as a “short term fad” are at best short-sighted and at worst uncompetitive, failing to recognise the 'future event experience'.

Social Media is already having a considerable impact on many events and will undoubtedly play a central role in all events in the future. The future event experience will fully utilise digital media through computers and mobile/handheld devices and applications, using the Internet and other digital/electronic channels etc, and the sooner this is implemented the more certain the future of any event and the longer its 'shelf-life'.

Although these technologies are most used by ‘Generation Y’ (an important target market in their own right) they have quickly become mainstream and the current level of take-up by all generations is impressive.

All generations are now embracing Web 2.0 and “User Generated Content”, which offers such a high level of interactivity and involvement for those actively participating in the communications revolution underway online, enabling everyone to share queries and problems, disseminate information, opinions and criticisms, devise solutions and give advice and commentary.

Certainly Social Media networks, applications and micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Hi5, LinkedIn, XING, YouTube and Flickr enable dramatically faster, more cost-effective and more interactive communications between Event Professionals and potentially enormous audiences, in a way that traditional marketing does not.

Event & Meeting Organisers therefore need to understand the appropriateness of each social media channel to their particular target audience(s), with Facebook being more social, LinkedIn more professional etc.

It is estimated that 42 million people are online in the UK and this number continues to rise, and incredibly there are over 22 million UK profiles on Facebook.

More than 35 million users are on Twitter around the world with over 7 million UK Twitter accounts with an average age of 35 to 49 years old.

It is not surprising therefore that 53% of respondents to a Meetpie.com 2009 user survey of 400 Event professionals answered “Yes” to the question “Do you use Social Media in a business capacity?”.

As well as Twitter other 'in-event' technologies that support backchannel communications and enable non-attendees to watch the event online (Webcasting/video streaming) have an important role to play in the development of the event experience and growing revenues.

Not listening to Social Media and not recognising the impact Social Media is having on how individuals communicate, their attitudes and behaviour, sets up Events Professionals for failure in a new “listen, listen, listen” world where traditional marketing and communications methodology is being turned on its head.

The new world is all about relationship building and in the future we can expect products and services to find us through Social Media not the other way round.

Webinars and Teleconferencing are not event-killers. They undoubtedly have their place, with reduced travel and associated costs, however the optimum audience size and the level of interaction is inevitably restricted.

Social Media and Webcasting are not event-killers either, far from it. These communications channels are complementary to the live experience with each having a distinct role in the overall marketing mix and its own dynamic.

The power of face-to-face meetings still far outweighs a broadcasted message, direct mail or online virtual meeting.

Social Media and Webcasting are about enhancement, moving the event experience from facilitated conversations and brand engagement to shared experiences and brand ambassadors.

Social Media and Webcasting offer new ways to considerably extend the potential lifecycle of an event and it’s influence and reach.

They create opportunities for informal and peer-to-peer communications which add value to an event and attract new participants to it, when they see how their colleagues are benefiting from their involvement.

The drive to embrace these new technologies and communication channels is not about encouraging people to use them but about engaging the millions of people already using them, learning from them and then in turn funnelling them to event websites where they can be converted into paying participants.

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SPOTLIGHT ON TWITTER - "ABSOLUTELY PART OF THE FUTURE"

Since its launch in 2006, the micro-blogging platform Twitter has enjoyed a phenomenal take-up around the world, particularly in North America and the United Kingdom.

As a free, open access communications channel available online and through mobile phones, it is a popular communications system enabling one-to-one and one-to-many conversations.

Twitter has particular relevance to the Events Industry and both the front and back channels at any event because of it's popularity amongst delegates/attendees and its suitability for communication and collaboration.

Inevitably a percentage of the audience/attendees at any event will be tweeting minute by minute, hour by hour but surprisingly many events are still not overtly or effectively exploiting Twitter for the benefit of the event and the various parties participating in it.

Twitter enables individual users to share information, thoughts and ideas, comments and criticisms with other Twitter users by sending a message to individuals and/or to groups of ‘followers’, while in turn ‘following’ other Twitter users, receiving the messages they send out to their groups of ‘followers’. Each message is restricted to 140 characters long and may include web addresses.

Importantly, Twitter users receiving a message (known as a “Tweet”) are able to easily forward it to their followers if they think it might be of interest. This is known as “Re-tweeting”.

In this way messages can spread virally through the Twitter network (known as the “Twittersphere” or “Twitter stream”) as they are repeatedly forwarded through groups of followers. This can have a considerable impact if popular messages are re-tweeted quickly through the Twittersphere.

Also of relevance to Event & Meeting Organisers, Twitter allows anyone to see and search the millions of messages that are being sent out through the Twittersphere each day and it is possible to ‘Tag’ tweets with identifiers (known as “Hashtags”, ie “#event”) so that Tweets about a particular subject can be followed and collated by anyone interested.

With over $100 million of investment capital to spend on new developments, we can expect Twitter to develop their micro-blogging platform considerably over the next few years.

One recent development of interest to Event Professionals is the introduction of the Lists API, enabling Twitter users to categorise and organise the people they follow into groups, and in turn share their preferred Tweeters. This filtering system offers various benefits for any Event Professional organising an event.

Undoubtedly Twitter presents challenges as well as opportunities for any Event professional but it should not be ignored.

If ignored or poorly utilised, Twitter can become a very negative and destructive forum for aggrieved delegates sharing their frustration, with their criticisms amplified many times through group following and re-tweeting etc.

There are a growing number of examples of poor practice where Event & Meeting Planners have failed to embrace Twitter and as a result of delegates tweeting:

• their speakers have been “roasted”,
• their programmes have been heavily criticised during and after the event,
• a negative impression has been given of their event both to those participating and those following the event from afar,
• Etc etc.

However if well-managed and integrated into an event strategy, Twitter can be a very positive communications channel, powerfully enhancing an event in many ways as underlined by the Heads of Events for international companies Swift and Dell who recently declared that “Twitter has proven to be a whole new world for our events” and “Twitter is absolutely part of the future”.

Twitter (and similar technologies/platforms) has a role to play in all aspects of an event. For example if we just consider the pre-Event benefits alone these include:

• Enabling Event & Meeting Planners to engage willing ambassadors and advocates in the pre-event build-up, promotion and preparations.
• Helping Speakers to check content relevancy and gather information and options while preparing their presentations.
• Serving as an inexpensive, highly effective promotion tool with followers of those planning to attend learning from them about the event and choosing to attend themselves.
• Providing an additional advertising channel for Sponsors and Exhibitors.
• Serving as a fast and efficient communications channel for updating registered delegates/attendees and prospective delegates/attendees about all aspects of an event, from the programme to the Sponsors and Exhibitors, from the venue to the travel arrangements and local attractions, from networking and community building to analysis and evaluation.

(The potential applications for Twitter during and after an event are too numerous to go into here without doubling the length of this article, but we would be delighted to discuss them with you.)

Those who are not using Twitter or who have yet to fully understand its range of applications may choose to dismiss it as being pointless and full of trivia. However it is self-evident that Twitter and related technologies are having a direct impact on events and should be embraced not ignored by Event professionals.

The failure to recognise the potential for Twitter (and related technologies) and the failure to utilise it in any Meeting, Conference, Trade Show, Exhibition, Expo/Exposition or other event will undoubtedly result in a loss of competitive advantage.

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