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Building your Tradeshow Community Online
Lindy Dreyer and Maddie Grant
www. .org
Agenda
1. What does it mean to have an event community?•the ecosystem
2. The work of building community
What does it mean to have an event community?
Open Community (noun)A diverse group of people, bonded by a common interest in an industry and an organization, who care enough to contribute and cooperate online for the good of the group.
What does it mean to have an event community?
Slide courtesy of Peter Hutchins, ASAE
EVENT MICROSITE
YOUTUBE
BLOG
FLICKR
MEMBER DIRECTORY
YOUR ORG SITE
The Ecosystem
Homebase vs outposts
• community vs. community platforms• setting up outposts (start by listening)• tags and hashtags
the where
• site for selling versus site for feeding the community
• traits of a good homebase• clarity over control
•value over promotion
the how
Takeaway:
• Creating safe spaces for your event community means embracing the ecosystem.
Question break
• can people find you easily online?• do they know how to participate?• do they feel connected?• do they feel invested?
Barriers to participation
The work of building community
Remove the barriers
• listening• content curation• conversation• social etiquette• facilitating and mediating
New skill sets
Build staff and volunteer skill sets
The work of building community
• how do you find them?• what about lurkers? • what about detractors?• careful with disclosure of freebies!
Your champions
Recruit your champions
The work of building community
Takeaway:
• Connecting with your online champions is critical to scaling your community.
Dunbar’s number
A theoretical cognitive limit to the number of peoplewith whom one can maintain stable social relationships.
The number lies between 100 and 230, but a commonly used value is 150.
Takeaway:
• All community happens in small groups.
Question break
What one thing is holding your event community back?
• Too many barriers?• Lacking the skill
sets/resources?• Too few champions to scale?• Something else?
Build skill sets for engaging with your open community.
Find and connect your attendees, exhibitors, and stakeholders in social spaces online.
Set up official outposts with clear branding and regular postings about the event.
Document how participants use social media around the event.
Identify your rock stars and influencers.
Start a list of small groups and unofficial outposts for monitoring and outreach.
Three year plan- Year 1
Make sure participants know where to find you in social spaces.
Educate stakeholders on how to use the tools, and proper etiquette.
Test different calls-to-action to see what sells, what engages, what fails.
Streamline the processes around monitoring and posting.
Experiment with using social media to make your homebase site more engaging.
Feed content to your rock stars and influencers to build buzz.
Empower someone to do outreach to small groups.
Three year plan- Year 2
Integrate marketing campaigns with social spaces.
Focus on driving specific business outcomes.
Create more efficiencies in processes around monitoring and posting.
Capture and repurpose user-generated content in more ways and more places.
Three year plan- Year 3
• Further reading:• Open Community• www.opencommunitybook.com
• http://bit.ly/buy-OC (paperback)• http://amzn.to/opencommunity (Kindle)
