HOW TO: Use Social Media to Enhance Your Event

Meaghan Edelstein has gained national media attention through her blog,
I Kicked Cancer’s Ass, which she started to document her battle with end stage cancer. She is an attorney, the founder of the non-profit organization
Spirit Jump, and works for the
Global Strategic Management Institute.

Using social media to enhance events might seem like a no-brainer, but many conferences ? even social media ones ? fail to take full advantage of the low-hanging fruit that social platforms offer, like ways for attendees to communicate with each other, broaden their participation, share information and have fun. If you?re planning a conference, here are some ways to incorporate social networking into your big day.

1. Help Attendees Connect With Each Other

An important part of any conference experience is connecting with other attendees. Whether for the purpose of making business connections, making friends or building brand exposure, conference networking is key.
SXSW, the annual music, film, and interactive conference and festival, recognizes the value of connecting ? so much so that it is launching SXsocial for its upcoming event. SXSW CTO
Scott Wilcox reveals the event’s new platform.

“For 2011, SXSW is embarking on the creation of a new platform called SXsocial to help registrants network with each other by leveraging their social media relationships on networks and sites like
Twitter,
Flickr,
Facebook,
LinkedIn and others,? Wilcox says.

SXsocial will enhance how attendees already use social networking sites at conferences. ?Registrants can build an extended profile including a photo, bio, links to their profiles on other networks, and tags of their interests both professional and personal. Users can search for other registrants based on this criteria and flag their favorites,? Wilcox says.

Helping attendees form relationships benefits both those buying tickets and the event organizers, SXSW has found. ?Overall, SXSW aims to have a simple but smart way for registrants to connect with other registrants one-on-one before, during and after the event in a way that forms lasting relationships,” says Wilcox.

2. Broaden Participation

Social media platforms provide a unique, zero-cost marketing opportunity to expand conference participation beyond the confines of a venue. Twitter spokesperson
Carolyn Penner says Twitter can get people who aren’t even at the event involved.

?When an event happens offline, whether a conference, sporting event or concert, the conversation around the event is happening online in real time on Twitter. This offers a unique opportunity not only for attendees, who can interact with each other and see what other attendees are saying, but also ? and more interestingly ? for people who aren’t there. They can become part of the event without actually being there ?- with hashtags, photos, videos, and other content being shared on Twitter. And, the new version

HOW TO: Use Social Media to Enhance Your Event