Twitter and event marketing

I've seen Twitter walls and event-specific hastags being used at events. They seem to be popular and certainly add a sense of importance to the proceedings... do they have longer term marketing relevance after the event has finished though??

Agreed Maxine....there have been some social media events that have taken place over the last year were you couldn't help but laugh. A perfect opportunity to see what fellow marketers are up to, learn from each other and put faces to names - and most people had their heads buried in their smartphones!

Referring to the original question, yes marketers should tweet at events. It’s a bit like asking if they should carry business cards or wear a name badge. It’s rapidly becoming the best way to connect pre, during or post show; obviously by following the hashtag, to see what everybody else is up to, what's the trend, and to share updates. A recent case in point for my company: we tweeted pre TFM&A event (automatically updating our LinkedIn profiles) resulting in 2 meetings. We tweeted during the event using #tfma, resulting in several people coming by the stand; we announced our new Marketing Hub over Twitter which lead to several partner discussions from as far afield as the US. And down to the most personal level; I tweeted during an event seminar and was immediately followed by my neighbour, whose acquaintance I then made far more easily than I would had we been sat as two strangers with no obvious opening line. Obviously it's also an opp to gain relevant followers, and whilst it’s not about numbers, events are the best places to connect with other industry people, be it customers, partners, fellow marketers, competitors or recruits. Twitter is simply a massive bonus and facilitator in terms of outreach and engagement.

Twitter is designed for “broadcast” communication with people remote from each other but working at events should be about face to face contact. If you can combine these two “competing” motivations, as some of the people above have done it works wonders, but if you don’t it can come across as rude and waste increasingly rare opportunities for "face time". To paraphrase the great philosopher Matt Cardle’s plagiarism “When they collide, they work really well together, if they don’t they'll always make people depart”. I guess the “perfect” solution is to pair up and take it in turns to do share shifts of one tweeting while the other does the face to face interaction.

Trade events are designed to encourage face-to-face interaction between industry peers, which is invaluable to any organisation. Twitter, as part of a strategic marketing plan, can add an extra element to how marketers share knowledge and generate ideas before, during and after the event. When using Twitter during an event, much like any corporate communications, it is pivotal that the content is relevant and you are prepared to engage in conversations with your followers. This can help drive news, attract stand presence and create interest in presentations you may be giving. Also, be aware of the pitfalls, nothing looks worse than someone who is late to the party, or someone who is tweeting unaware of the general sentiment around a topic! But, if used correctly, and as part of an integrated approach, and by utilising a listening tool to analyse across all social platforms including Twitter, marketers could see a number of benefits, including: The ability to reach a targeted audience, who will in turn share this information and generate conversations in wider circles; By using hash tags and creating groups Twitter can act as an effective measuring tool, as conversations can be monitored and analysed; Marketers can use it to ‘test the water’ on new thoughts or ideas that they might learn from events; Marketers get a great snapshot of what their peers are saying about stands and presentations during the event, in valuable for changing your approach both on the fly and at future events; It is an effective way of maintaining communication with those that you normally would not have the time to speak with and to share opinions on key topics from the event. While not a standalone solution, and never a replacement for face-to-face interaction, Twitter has many benefits to marketers that can certainly add to their presence at an industry event.

Without question, Twitter has an important role to play in the delivery of live events. As a technology marketing event organiser I’d be worried if I didn’t see a lot of back-and-forth Twitter engagement taking place. However, there are times when Twitter is appropriate and times when it isn’t. Displaying a huge Twitter feed behind the podium for example can be an easy distraction for the audience who begin to pay more attention to any “inappropriate tweets” coming through, rather than concentrating on the speaker’s presentation. It can also be very off-putting for a speaker to see a roomful of people looking down and tapping madly at their smart phones. On the other hand, there are some events/speakers/presentations which can be enhanced by intellectual twitter engagement using the links and background information that is mentioned. And sharing this via live blogging or tweeting with other participants creates connections and conversations that might not otherwise happen. In addition, placing Twitter walls in refreshment areas can be great conversation-starters to stimulate peer-to-peer networking, to broadcast last moment agenda changes, or give feedback to delegate Q&A sessions. Employing a small number of quality “live bloggers” is also a clever way to ensure constructive real-time content is posted out to wider community who couldn’t attend. It’s important to remember that live tweeting and blogging may not provide immediate value for you, but it may provide value for others - your community. Events are all about real-life interaction, and if Twitter makes those interactions easier and broader, it should be considered as a vital part of any marketer’s event toolkit.

I think the trend for an increasing variety of marketing techniques like Twitter to reach your audience offers the forward thinking innovative B2B marketer incredible opportunities. Some approaches will work and help you reach your audience and others will fail. The key will be finding the ones that work for you - the only certain way to do this is unsurprisingly a test and measure approach. Find those rich veins of opportunity that work for you and unlock new opportunities which will propel you ahead of your peers. The key for me is the mindset to innovative, try new things and have a ruthless process and measurement approach. “If you follow this approach, you can quickly engage new marketing approaches and see what works for you.

Marketing attendees should participate through attending, listening, networking and tweeting in the proportions which work for them. Event organisers who want to reap the benefits of organic promotion should not discourage live-tweeting. As long as they set up a good, clear hashtag for their event the conversation can be monitored for feedback on the event and also followed by others – many of whom are not present. This kind of direct feedback may be uncomfortable for some presenters but is more likely to have positive benefits in raising awareness of the event and the subject matter which many event organisers, impacted by the tightening of marketing budgets in a variety of different ways, will welcome. Live tweeting can also enable networking. Twitter can also act as a great reference tool; delegates can look back through people’s Tweets to get a good flavour of what people had to say- even for sessions they were not able to attend. Events are fantastic arenas to meet people face-to-face, Twitter can enrich the real-time experience and create a longer-lasting record of value to the marketing attendees and the event organisers.

Far from demonstrating a failure to engage an audience, looking out into an auditorium to see hundreds of faces illuminated by the glow of their mobile phones should be a welcome sight to the modern speaker. It means that in all likelihood delegates are live-tweeting his words of wisdom to their followers – creating buzz beyond the venue for both himself and the event itself. Ultimately Twitter enables interaction and encourages people to take discussions and debates further. You also have the chance to involve people who might not be at the same event and broaden the discussion, amplifying your own knowledge and building valuable connections on a medium many now use every day. It is also the perfect opportunity to see what fellow marketers are up to and build followers by finding like-minded tweeters using the event hashtag. There is a balance to strike and spending the duration of a presentation glued to your phone is still fairly rude. That said, digitally-aware speakers will not be asking delegates to spit out their gum and turn their phones off anytime soon, as they know that they are only a couple of strategic ReTweets away from stardom.

Please consider the poor person at the end of the tweets. Let's say you follow a famous an analyst who attends the latest presentation by Steve from IBM Software. The analyst tweets every second sentence in rapt worship. I guarantee that the twitter follower is going to get very upset by receiving dozens of tweets in series - it blocks up the twitter feed and closely approaches spam. See my blog from last year .. http://blogs.forrester.com/peter_oneill/10-03-22-why_i_have_problem_how_...

Please consider the poor person at the end of the tweets. Let's say you follow a famous an analyst who attends the latest presentation by Steve from IBM Software. The analyst tweets every second sentence in rapt worship. I guarantee that the twitter follower is going to get very upset by receiving dozens of tweets in series - it blocks up the twitter feed and closely approaches spam. See my blog from last year .. http://blogs.forrester.com/peter_oneill/10-03-22-why_i_have_problem_how_...

Marketing works by increasing the likelihood that someone will recall your brand at the moment they decide they want to buy a service that intersects with the one you're selling. If you're lucky, you will have spoken with the decision maker a minute beforehand, and you'll be front of mind. Normally though, there will be a significant time lapse. So marketing is done in such a way that it increases the chances of recall by creating associations between you and the brand in as many ways as possible. For example, in B2C, a brand would use TV, radio, posters, PoS, SP, DM, email, eCRM, websites, SEO, competitions and so on. For B2B, an event like TFM&A presents marketers with an opportunity to meet decision makers and influencers face to face, adding a face to a name perhaps only otherwise known from advertising, white papers, PR and CRM activities. While you're there, taking opportunities to reinforce this multi-media attack would seem eminently sensible. If I meet you on your stand, and a few minutes later look you up on Twitter and see a tweet about how you've just met an extremely interesting person you'd like to do business with, the impression, and likelihood of recall, is great. On the flipside, if I come to your stand and have to wait while you fiddle with your phone, it will probably give me a negative brand impression. I'd tweet in off-time, but I would still tweet!

To tweet or not to tweet at live events, that is the question... and the answer from this quarter is a resounding no!  Leaving aside the rudeness that such a division of attention incurs, tweeting at an event leaves one open to missing key elements of what's being said and, often as significantly, how its being said.  B2B marketing is a complex business (no pun intended!) and marketers should grab the opportunity to gain peer and expert insight with both hands, not have one pounding out a 140 character commentary.  Twitter's multiplicity of diverting eddies that are your following streams means that the interest of even the most focused will soon ebb away... There are of course those who'll argue that tweeting the contents of an event provides a useful service to your followers.  A fair point, up to a point.  Trouble is that the insight you give will be, at best, fragmented and at worst an incoherent stream of snippets that will undoubtedly lose something germane.  If marketing philanthropy is your bag and you wish to provide an overview of an event then surely it'd be better to take notes, and so focus your mind on the here and now, and write the whole thing up later as a blog post into which you can weave considered observations. Twitter is a useful B2B tool.  However live events - no matter how topical - don't demand tweeted commentaries, commentaries which diminish the attendee's experience and give followers only patchy insight.