Social Media Changed Events forever. Here’s proof. This is a presentation from the upcoming book Social Media for Events. It presents the result of one of the most extensive research about the use of social media at events.

Social media is bringing new needs to events, but social media changed event forever right? So let me bring you one of the most exciting concepts that changed events forever - Continuous Communities - Events have the power to create ad-hoc or instant communities for the time we share together we become a community. This could be awful for sporting events when violence happens but this is also great like in event like concerts, conferences, conventions. The power of continuous communities is that social media extends the span of the community and makes people gather way before the event. Reducing for example issues such as the risk we perceive when attending an event we have never been to. communityCONTINUOUS

So when we need to establish the need for Social Media, most presentation start by saying that there is a billion people on Facebook and that everybody has a mobile. I say, who cares! We are talking about events here. We want to start from the raw need. Is the need to use social media at events high? Let’s look at some real life examples.

let’s look AT SOME #FAILS

This is a classic - Wifi. You can tell that the more the audience is confident with technology AT EVENTS the more their demands become basic needs, almost hygiene. With time and more events using social media, we will become experts and demand more.

What about communicating properly the hashtag? This is an example of having an hashtag but no event communication around it.

Once again, the more the event is inherent with technology or the audience has some sort of expectation of using technology at it, the angrier they will grow on Twtter. This is an example of no hashtag for the event.

This is something the PR office of a company may be interested in, at least in terms of addressing the reply.

As we use social media more as attendees and as event planners we should be ready to cater for questions such as this one. “Where are the slides?” such an innocent and oh so common question on social media it is almost embarrassing not catering for that.

Whatever happened to feedback forms. I’ve had heated conversations online on the value of feedback forms. Look at this example, engage, ask questions - why did they not like it? How can they help make it better? Worth hundreds of Completely Agree or Almost disagree, meaningless answers.

Looking at all these updates we may see some of the usual event and business processes impacted.

S O M E P R O C E S S E S

B Y T H E S E U P D A T E S

Marketing PR

Customer Service Event Feedback

Research

I M P A C T E D

So my question is why do we keep ignoring sucha a basic need? - I am gonna turn into that Naughties ‘Piracy is a Crime Ad’ and ask you: “Would you serve Food that looks like this?”

WOULD YOU SERVE THIS FOOD ?

Or offer your attendees these as toilets?DO YOU LIKE THESE AS TOILETS ?

So Why, oh why are we not understanding that in some cases (understanding when these cases occur is crucial) we are not fulfilling basic needs.

W H Y

Let me show you some interesting data we’ve collected with our research on the topic.some cool dataHERE IS

This is one of the largest independent research about the use of social media in events ever carried.

WE’VE DONE A BIT OF RESEARCH

PARTICIPANTS

1559Q U A L I F I E D

1335

NO VENDORS, STUDENTS OR ACADEMICS HAVE TO PLAN AT LEAST ONE EVENT A YEAR

So going back to the ways we use social at events - these are the most popular uses of social media at events. Marketing being the first one, Feedback being a staggering second.

MOST #EVENTPROFS USE SOCIAL MEDIA AT EVENTS FOR:

When we talk about the serious stuff - why they don’t use it? 33% have no management buy in.

WHY #EVENTPROFS DON’T USE SOCIAL MEDIA:

Let’s talk about that for a moment. I believe management buy in is not always myopia or resistance to change. Sometimes it’s actually a good thing. Specially when there are no business ties.

No Business Ties No ROI model

No Audience Analysis

W H Y M A N A G E R S D O N ’ T B U Y I T

My experience is that if you show the numbers, no wise boss will say no (if they’re wise that is).

TO N U M B E R S

n oA W I S E B O S S

W I L L N E V E R S AY

Let’s talk about another subject: Effectiveness - Eventprofs say they don’t know how to use social media effectively. That quite shocked us.- 80% of eventprofs spent less than $1000 dollars on social media

HOW MUCH DO YOU SPEND ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

Don’t get me wrong I love monkeys but if you spend peanuts - this is what you’ll get. Social media monkeys are not cool.monkeysI LOVE

(Don’t spend Peanuts)

I am not saying Social Should be a budget priority - unless your social media is the subject of your event thus requiring strong investment.

S O C I A L

S H O U L D N O TB E A B U D G E T P R I O R I T Y

But when I look at this stats 52% of our respondents engage on social several times a day

BUT

HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU ENGAGE ON SOCIAL MEDIA ?

An 52% have a dedicated team to social media.

AND

WHO LEADS SOCIAL MEDIA FOR YOUR EVENT?

It’s impossible to reconcile such an absurdly low spending with a whole team dedicated to social or time investment to contantly update channels. W T F ?

But let’s talk about what to do - I can share 120 pages of research we’ve done with you but I will limit myself to the top 5 learnings we had from this experience.

W H A T A R E

T H E TO P 5R E S E A R C H L E A R N I N G S ?

25% of event professionals don’t know if their audience is on social media. Let’s talk about it. Benchmarking is amazing way to see if Social can be an effective way to understand if our audience is on social. I am not talking about mimicking our competitors. If we do what our competitors do, it’s like buying a Ferrari because our neighbour did. Even if we have no way to fit our 3 children in it or pay our house mortgage.

1 . B E N C H M A R K I N G

We should look for signs like the following. Genuine engagement.

LOOK FOR THIS

Don’t look at numbers, those can be easily faked. Look for engagement.

AND THIS

Another top tip we discuss in the research is Process Mapping. If you run events you’d be used to have WBS and rundown sheets that’s awesome. Now take these process and ask yourself, how can I add value via social media? What formats should I use and what networks serve the purpose best?

2 . P R O C E S S M A P P I N G

This process highlights how you can identify key tasks where social media can add value and then select the type of update and social network to use.

Then it’s all a matter of selection.

3 . S E L E C T I O N

Focus on how social networks are used not who uses it. Create personas.

F O C U S O N

S O C I O G R A P H I C S

And also look for signs of recurrence and alignment. Meaning that you should use complementary social networks. Can you optimise some text and a pic on 3 social networks - select those three. Don’t waste your time.your mappingRECURRENCE IN

Then create a plan or a strategy - or whatever you want to call it.

4 . A P L A N

the kingWhich usually means calling the king aka content. Have your content plan ready. Content is everything, a Twitter update, a blog post, a video, an FAQ on your website. As they say in French, you can call the ROI or the R.O.I..

CALL

(content is the ROI)

5 . M E A S U R E M E N T

What to say, if it you don’t measure it it doesn’t exist. 54% of event professionals do not measure their effort.

DO YOU MEASURE YOUR SOCIAL EFFORT?

O H D E A R

One of the coolest tools few use today is what you find in Google Analytics - assisted conversion. That shows you all the sources a customer visits before making a purchase, say of a ticket. Including social - I can’t understand people who talk about non existent ROI.

2 W O R D S :

A S S I S T E D C O N V E R S I O N S

in conclusion

82% of event planners use social on at least 5% of their events. With 32% using it on ALL OF THEIR EVENTS - if you are part of that 17% you have no excuses, unless your audience is not on social, which is a plausible reason not to engage.

ACT NOW

HOW MANY OF THE EVENTS YOU PLAN USE SOCIAL MEDIA?

If you are an expert on the other hand. It’s time to show results and show the money. There are no excuses.

show results!IF YOU’RE AN EXPERT

W A N T T O F I N D O U T THE MOST USED SOCIAL NETWORKS

B Y # E V E N T P R O F S ?

Download Social Media for Events a completely free to download book. No email is required to get it. No tricks, no gates. Out on the 19th of Novemeber on EventManagerBlog.com

s o c i a l m e d i a f o r e v e n t s e b o o k . c o m

G E T T H E B O O K ,