Hashtags Make Twitter Work Harder

Sure, it’s interesting to following friends and colleagues on Twitter just to see what they’re up to. But many of us are vexed about the actual usefulness of the tool. Still others have shied away from incorporating Twitter into marketing plans because it can’t be easily controlled. Yet, that’s the real beauty of the tool: microblogging is a grassroots tool that allows you to collect attendee feedback and capture emerging trends in their infancy.

To get the most out of twitter for your next meeting or event, make the application work harder for you in just two steps.

Step 1: Create a hashtag. A hashtag is a shortened version of a few related keywords that allows people to categorize their posts. A sample hashtag for the XYZ Annual Conference might be #XYZ2010. Twitter’s functionality allows clickable searching by hashtag, and allows you to sort out only posts related to your event. To be useful, keep your hashtag short and descriptive – remember, these are people who have to communicate their entire thought in 140 characters or less!

Step 2: Publicize your hashtag in all conference materials. Ask some of your energetic supporters, volunteers, speakers, or staff to blog about your event regularly (once per week or more) and include your hashtag. The more interesting their tweets, the more likely they’ll be retweeted (forwarded to others) and the more publicity you’ll get.

Onsite, publicize your hashtag in all materials: in the program, on the conference bag, on the back of staff shirts, on slides during the plenary session …. well, you get the picture. Encourage attendees to tweet about the sessions they’re in and their experience overall. The feedback you collect will be piecemeal, but honest and timely.

Data mining of attendee and member tweets can show you entirely new dimensions of their needs and expectations – and allow you to provide products and services that meet those needs and expectations before anyone else. Regularly monitored, Twitter is like an ongoing virtual focus group. Get tweeting!

The Myth of Facebook Marketing

We are often asked whether clients should try to incorporate social networking into their meeting marketing. Facebook, in particular, comes up frequently -- it seems that the application has received so much press in the past three years that for some people it’s synonymous with social networking.

Facebook should not automatically be part of the conference marketing strategy for an association or professional association, except in select cases where the value proposition is clear. Most 30+ professionals use Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family, sharing photos and stories about their personal lives. We hesitate to join professional groups or fan pages because we like to keep our personal lives private.

As the age of your demographic increases, putting one’s personal life out on the internet for all to see becomes even less appealing. If you’re doubtful, consider the fact that ASAE has over 22,000 real-life members but just 338 Facebook fans. The Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) has over 6,000 members but just over 400 Facebook fans. These organizations are spending precious resources managing an outreach platform that is reaching just a tiny percentage of their members.

Unless your meeting is geared towards twentysomethings -- or it’s in a market segment where Facebook is common currency -– creating a professional group on Facebook is likely to be disappointing. Though social networking and viral marketing can be successful for many conventions, Facebook is not the right fit for most groups. Stay tuned to the blog for ideas about effective social networking tools that are successful for event marketing.