The Launch.it Blog

  Now that you understand the basics and fundamentals of SEO through my previous post “How To Harness The Power Of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) For Events,” we can now take it to the next level. SEO is a journey and can sometimes be a tricky game as you try and figure out how to write content that not only search engines will like, but readers will find interesting, so lets kick it up a notch.

Make sure to hyperlink words and not “here”

Have you ever Googled the word “here”? One of the first results you will see is Adobe. Why? Because they have so many “click here” hyperlinks on their website to download their software, that they have become the undisputed king of the word “here” for search engines. Hyperlinks carry authority in search engines as a reference to other content, so make certain to hyperlink the words and phrases that you want to try and own. You can continue linking to other content you created or other sites that you may wish to reference. Just be aware, and make sure that you don’t lose out by making people click “here.”

Interlink all of your sites, social networks and content

Links on your site directing readers to your own content is great, but if you only talk and reference yourself, the Internet will think your egotistical and not credible. I like to say that the Internet is like a Web (hence WWW or World Wide Web), so you need to link everything back to itself and all your other hubs online. For instance, on my LinkedIn account, where I can add links to my sites, I did put “My Website” (which is the default), but changed it to “Trace Cohen’s site.” The same for Twitter, instead of the default “My Twitter,” I made it “Trace Cohen’s Twitter.” My reasoning was to make it perfectly clear to both robots and humans, whose sites and twitter account that link is for.

Properly naming the tabs and pages of your site 

In my last post on SEO, I showed you the difference between a good and bad URL. In that analogy you can think of it as a piece of paper being filed away. However, did you name your file properly? Check the URL of your tabs and pages next time you’re on your site and see if they are like /44089=dxj4 or something better like /shownews or /aboutshow. The Internet is basically a giant cabinet or desk, so try to keep it nice and organized so when other people look for you, they can more easily find what they want.

My first company focused solely on online reputation management, so I have a relatively strong digital presence and am generally off put when someone doesn’t “Social Stalk” me before we meet. I put a great deal of time and effort into making certain all the information I want someone to know about me, personally and professionally, is online. In this way, my first true impression is before we ever actually meet.

Have you ever Googled yourself? Probably not, but you should! You might be surprised… Here are my Google results for Trace Cohen – so lets run through different social networks and how you can use them to your advantage: 

Twitter

First, make sure you have a complete profile, so people know your title, company and your interests. If you’re social stalking someone, checkout their recent tweets to see what they’re interested in or doing or were they’ve been. In this way, when you do meet or email them, you can make it more personal! 

LinkedIn

LinkedIn was once thought of as the professional Facebook - it is so much more now. A LinkedIn profile is your digital work history (I always check this out before I meet with someone).It notes your work history, skills, job description and most importantly, connections in common.

Personal/Professional Website

I had a personal website that not only had information on my personal/professional life, but links to all social sites and platforms that I use. This was basically my digital hub online and contained information I wanted people to know about me. If you don’t have one, it is important that your company site has your credentials and background history as it can help generate leads or better inform someone about you when they are making a decision.

It’s not that I don’t like the “getting-to-know-you” small talk when I first meet with someone; however, I am certainly impressed when someone knows some small fact about me, which quickly makes a solid connection. In business, I like to make certain I know as much as possible about the person to whom I am interacting with, especially if it can lead to a business a partnership or at least make them more confident to act as a referral or make additional introductions.

Privacy is definitely a concern, for all of us. Never, place anything online that you don’t want people to know about. When it comes to your work history though, you should be proud of what you’ve accomplished and your career goals. No one likes to be sold but people do business with people they want to do business with.

I write many articles on social media, content marketing and how to engage with your customers, which are all great strategies for shows, exhibitors, and attendees to educate and generate new leads. All of these initiatives are viable and aimed to deliver quicker results. Now, I would like to focus on a more “under-the-hood” or long-term internal workings strategy to keep people coming back well after the show has ended using SEO. Most people are under the impression that search engines deliver answers, when in fact, they deliver search results that you can control, allowing you to come up higher.

Here are a few tips on how to generate leads when people are searching for “something” online using Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines:

Selecting the right “keywords” that people are searching for:

THINK like your potential customer! Focus on words that you feel they will type into a search engine to hopefully find what they want. This can be a single word like “tradeshows” or a phrase like “consumer electronics tradeshows,” which will display completely different results. When you produce content, you want to make certain you use that word/phrase exactly like someone will type it, so that the search engine determines how your content should be displayed. Check out Google’s Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner) to find the popularity of words and phrases.

Keyword density: 

Once you find the word(s) or combination of words and phrases, the next step is to use it multiple times in your article so that the search engines understand that they are the focus of the content. Generally, you want to use the words 5 to 6 times, so it is the most common aspect of your story and will hopefully come up higher in results. 

URLs, Title tags and H1:

This is a lot of the “invisible” content that only the search engines and their spiders can see. The most powerful part of SEO is derived from the URL (links) as it’s basically your address online. Which link below do you think gets better SEO? Should be obvious:

http://launch.it/launch/the-launchit-event-news-and-social-engagement-platform

or

http://new.pr/IEwJWV

Have you noticed when you open a new tab/window in your browser, there are words in that tab at the top. Those are called “title tags” that you can put into the site code that labels the page and tells the search engine what to expect. Next in the hierarchy are H1 tags, which are the title or header (H) of your story. Make sure that all of these are aligned and focus on the keywords that you have chosen.

PDFs and Documents get you almost nothing:

While these are great formats generally used to produce and share content, they are not very good when it comes to SEO. You want to get as much digital content published online as possible. Writing a short blurb, and attaching a document to be downloaded, will hurt you SEO efforts.

Name your photos/images properly:

People don’t just search for text, but for images too, and with the increased popularity of social networks like Pinterest, you need to name everything just right. Simply put, if I add my companies logo to a story, I will name the file “Launch-event-news-platform-logo” and not “screenshot1455&3.” I think you get the point, but it’s the little things that add up.

As the event industry continues to adopt and grow it’s digital presence through various social networks, we always need to zero-base and remember why we are doing it. First off, it allows organizers and everyone at the show to interact with everyone else on multiple levels for lots of different reasons in basically real-time like never before. Below are a few reason why your show needs to go digital:

1. Customer service and feedback

Shows are busy, people are running around and things tend to go wrong sometimes – this is where twitter can be amazing! If you have an active account, attendees can tweet at the show or ask a question with the show # (hashtag) and you can answer them directly (hopefully in a timely manner). This will really make someone’s day.

2. Digital publishing of news

This is a growing trend because once the news is online, there is so much you can do with it. You can send it out via your social networks and newsletters, while also having it on your show site. Most people go to shows to find out what’s new so you want to make sure your news can be easily found and shared, so someone can discover it.

3. You can support all of your exhibitors socially

It’s great that your exhibitors have a physical booth at the show but now you can support them digitally! You can take pictures, send out their booth number, share their news and direct interested attendees to them.

4. You can reach people who couldn’t attend

Your show is awesome and while everyone wishes they could go, sometimes they just can’t. Luckily, you’re show is now digital, so you can share all the speakers, booths, news, and insight from the show. This will help build buzz (FOMO) and make sure they plan ahead so they can definitely attend next year!

5. When you’re digital, the show never ends

While the physical show may be over, if you were active online, you now have a huge backlog of information and news that you can continue to share throughout the year until your next show.

6. Everyone is mobile now

Almost everyone has a smart phone these days that links up to their favorite social networks so they can find out what’s going on in real-time. They also want to take photos and share them as well, so make sure you have the digital infrastructure in place to capture and amplify their engagement. As we transition away from the laptop driven world, there are so many opportunities to take advantage of as people walk the show floor.

7. It's green and environmentally friendly

The more initiatives you make digital, the less paper waste and garbage you have at the end. Digital can scale infinitely while with paper you need to print out more copies, which takes a lot of time and supplies.

8. (BONUS!) It can save money!

We live in a digital age that complements our physical world, expanding our boundaries and allowing us to do things that we never thought would be possible. It’s time that we embrace certain aspects of the new technology at our disposal to enhance our professional careers to help do business more effectively.

Tradeshows, expos and conferences are amazing moments in time that generate so much excitement, energy and of course new things! “New” can be a product, friend or something you learned, but if it’s only something you can experience physically, then you’re missing out on the potential of everyone else who couldn’t be there, who might be interested. More and more shows are starting to go digital, so here are a few reason why they, and everyone should:

Attendees, media and exhibitors can find news about your show to garner interest

It’s always up and can be found/shared, so it can sell and inform while you sleep

Publishing exhibitor news online is a great way to support your partners

You can then send it out to everyone going to the show before it begins so they know who will be there and why

During the show it can be a news guide

After the show ends, it is a great recap of what happened as you may have missed someone or couldn’t remember who you met with.

When an attendee finds information their interested in, they can go meet with that person on site and hopefully give your exhibitor a new lead

If the news is online, it can be shared through social networks to reach people you can’t

You can feed it into your conference app

You can use the data to facilitate introduction between attendees and exhibitors

It’s a lot faster and easy to publish something online than it is to print multiple copies of and hand them out

It costs a lot less to publish online than to print it out

You can track your news online with analytics tools

Your online news can be aggregated and syndicated by other people for greater reach

It’s greener to publish news online because it leads to printing and throwing away less

Generate Search Engine Optimization (SEO) from it for ongoing engagement

You can search through it to find exactly what you want

You can comment on it, to give your feedback, thoughts and ideas

You can combine text, images and video all in one place

You can easily make changes and updates whenever you want

BONUS! You can directly engage, support and assist any member or company instantly if they need help or have a question.

There is no question that conferences, expos and tradeshows are super effective for multiple reasons as they gather various industries together, large and small, in one location, for a number of days. What if you could make those few days even more effective by starting months before the event starts, and never really having it end?

Shows are all about community, and today with social media, it is a great way to keep in touch before, during, and even after the show. Think about the numbers - between the show, exhibitors, attendees and their community networks, and people who cannot attend for whatever reasons, but still very interested in knowing about the event, the numbers of contacts are huge. 

Here are the different social media platforms you can use and why every show, exhibitor and attendee needs to use them in one way or another: 

Twitter - This is by far my favorite social media platform for shows as it is the only one with instantaneous communication to basically anyone:

Tweet that you will be at the show

Tweet at others who will be at the show

Before the show, try to set-up meetings

During the show, try and meet-up on the floor or after the event

Retweet (RT) tweets by the show organizer and influencers to support them and spread the news and share valuable content

Tweet with the conference hashtag (#) to make sure everyone can find your show tweets

Tweet pics of the show

Facebook – Another great platform that people have either a love/hate relationship with, but can still be very effective. Here are some tips for show organizers and companies:

Tip – Don’t post more than three updates in one day unless you really feel it is necessary

Exhibitors

Before the show, publish news that your company will be there and give the name of who from your company will be manning the booth and the booth number

At the show, take pictures of your booth, with your entire team, and product(s)

After the show, create an album of all your pictures so you can share them with clients, friends and all whom are connected with you so they can see what happened at the show

Organizers

It is important to start at least one month before the show begins, posting updates, facts and information that attendees and exhibitors need to know about your event

Publish show and exhibitor news to inform attendees and media. This way, they will know exactly what to expect before they arrive

Take pictures of exhibitor’s setting-up at the show. This will generate excitement!

Pinterest – A new social network that is growing fast for it’s visual appeal and ability to display lots of images.

Create boards where you can pin your images based on your specific industry.

Get the bookmarklet from their site and add it to your navigation bar to make it easier to pin. (http://about.pinterest.com/en/goodies)

Exhibitors

Pin all of your company images from your site to specific boards well before the event starts

During the show, take pictures that you can pin through the app and can still be used after the show ends

Organizers

Create boards based on the different categories or verticals your show covers

Pin the logos of all your exhibiting companies

Pin interesting things you see on the show floor

New products

First time exhibitors

Cool things exhibitors are doing to drive traffic to their booth

Speakers

And here lies the question - should you use social media at the next show? The answer is an undisputed “yes” – use it, enjoy it, and gain its rewards!

To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question! Tweeting, for the sake of tweeting, at a show is fine, but you can add a lot more value if you tweet about relevant things. Most people come to a trade show to find new products, services, and/or ideas, and now that we are in the digital age, people are looking more and more to social networks like Twitter to find news from other people. It is time to step-up and be the one to tweet something that is interesting. If you have something to share, use the conference hashtag (#), so others can find it easily.

Shows have so much news and information to share with their attendees and exhibitors, so I am passing along a few tips on what you can tweet out at a show. Remember, exhibitors like to share their news with everyone, and attendees like to hear about it.

First, start out by tweeting something about you. There is nothing wrong with self-promotion. Tweet that you will be at the show before it begins so that people know to follow you. People who can’t attend will then rely on you for information.

Tweet links to your news, so you can go beyond 140 characters.

Tweet your booth number, so attendees and media can stop by your booth.

Tweet pictures of your product and services so people can see, and share, what you do.

Tweet pictures of yourself at the show with your product, at your booth, or with other people attending or exhibiting at the show.

Tweet facts/questions about your product(s) and or service(s).

Hopefully, you will find some time during the day to leave your to attend some of the keynotes, breakout sessions, and walk around to network.

If you attend a keynote, tweet quotes from the speaker or interesting things you heard. Make sure to find the speaker’s twitter handle and give credit to them.

Tweet interesting facts you heard or read from a presenter’s slides.

Tweet pictures of cool things you saw, for example, a great promotion or booth designs.

Tweet your thoughts on the industry or show – feedback is important!

One of the best parts of Twitter is that you can directly engage with anyone you want, at any time.  Sometimes, you need to listen before you tweet, so you can have a conversation with someone, rather than just promoting yourself.

Why tweet?

There must be many people you want to meet at the show, tweet at them!

Add value to conversations - reply to something they tweeted.

Retweet as a sign of endorsement.

Retweet other exhibiting companies – make sure to support the industry.

You may be thinking, “If I tweet and have no followers, who will care?” That’s a reasonable question. If you are attending a trade show, everyone who could possibly care will be at the sameshow, or interested in knowing about the show, and following the hashtag. If they are not attending or not interested in finding out what’s new at a trade show, no loss.

Events are industry anomalies where lots of interesting people get together and want to meet each other, using social networks to connect and talk with people they know or better yet, haven’t met!

A nice play on words right? See what I did there? 

Every show wants more engagement, but what exactly does that means? It means you must give your attendees, media and exhibitors something to engage with, in order to get a reaction out of them. According to the latest CEIR research, the top reasons people come to shows is to find out what’s new and learn – pretty simple and basic, however, not always that easy to convey. There are three digital tools at your disposal that can help make it easier -- Publishing, Aggregation and Curation (PAC)

Digital Publishing for Shows

While you’re probably thinking, shows aren’t in the publishing business, think again -- they definitely are publishers. The show organizers themselves produce so much content from blog posts, to brochures, to announcing seminars through emails, and then their exhibitors are basically writers for them.

Many shows are run by member driven associations or organizations that need to engage, not only during the show, but also year round, and digital publishing allows them to do just that. You are the content you produce online. The more highly quality content that you can get out there, the better you can engage your community.

Usually, the biggest issue we see when it comes to content is that it is very spread out, and there isn’t a central location to find it all online in a visual, searchable or social friendly format.

Aggregation of Content

There are a few different ways that you can aggregate content digitally - in the form of RSS feeds or through social media. Aggregating, while not generally original content, is a great way to take content from others and brand it as your own, which allows you to bring LOTS of content togetherin one place. There is content out there to take, and when shows truly engage with their community and industry, they windup with too much content, which is certainly a good problem.

Really Simple Syndication, better known as RSS Feeds, is a great way to pull content from other sites into yours. Think of it as a hose of content that you can direct anywhere. The same holds true for social media. I’m sure you’ve seen numerous widgets that display content from Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Content Curation

You can’t curate something if it doesn’t exist! Publishing and aggregation can be very powerful tools by themselves, but when combined and properly layered with curation, you can make headlines (another pun!). Curation is all about taking content and choosing what you want to display, based on what you think your readers will want to see. Instead of just firing the aggregation hose at them or throwing all your published stories together, you can pick and choose the best content, tailoring to specific communities to increase engagement. Newsletters are a very popular way to do this right now, but you can also tweet and post to Facebook selectively, as opposed to just pasting a generic link and letting people find things for themselves.

Content, content, content - it’s all about content! It comes in various forms, from difference places and manifests itself in different ways. No matter how you slice and dice it, you need to make sure it’s what people want to see and read.

Knowledge is power! We all know this phrase; however, many do not know how to utilize it, especially at a trade show where it is important to know all that is going on around you. As a representative of your industry, you must be aware of all new things so you can make intelligent decisions for your company. Sometimes it can be overwhelming, but it just depends on how you present it through your marketing initiatives, such as social media, content marketing, mobile, seminars and booths. Hit all the senses!

So here are five ways you can help support all of your exhibitors while making everyone else smarter in the process:

Make your exhibitor news digital and accessible online

Every exhibitor has news to share, which is why they are at your show. Whether it’s a news release, sell sheet or brochure, find out what it is and get them to send it to you. Better yet, have them publish their news in your branded Digital Media Center. Most exhibitors are generally very busy running their business, which is why you need to start requesting this information at least three months before the show starts. Once your exhibitors publish their news on your website, when prospective attendees come to check out your site, they will find exactly what they are looking for which will increase the likelihood of registration.

PDFs, docs and flash drives are technically digital -- but not quite

Take your marketing initiatives to the next level and stop leaving opportunities on the table. With my background in SEO and social media, it pains me to see so much potential for organic referrals and leads stuck in email limbo, or information that is buried in websites, and the only way for the media to pull this info is by “loading” it in another format. These extra steps increase friction and frustration; thus, media, as well as attendees, will lose interest in the process.

Social media, content marketing and search

To build on the point above, if your information, news and media is stuck in “limbo” then no one can share it with others. I very rarely see someone tweet or post a link to a PDF, or doc to Facebook… It’ just stuff no one wants to share. Searching them is also a hassle, as you can only do one at a time after downloading, and then open it.

Play the professor – educate others!

Education isn’t just about one person’s learning – it is the ability to share and educate others. I always tell my show partners and former PR clients to “play the professor” when talking with people about news and information. People love to quote facts, stories or teach -- “oh I saw this… and the result was xyz.” There is always downtime at a show, so make sure people have things to talk about that involve the show, the exhibitors and the overall industry.

Send them news that they need to know about

All you are online is the content that you produce, so the more news and media (content) you can get from your exhibitors, the more influential you can be. If you start to collect and publish exhibitor and industry news months before your show begins, you can not only support your exhibitors by sending it out to your attendees, but you become a resource they want to come back to over-and-over again. Curation with newsletters is a hot trend right now and shows have a huge opportunity to become an influencer throughout the year and not just for a few days.

BONUS: Matchmaking based on news and interests

This is taking news curation to the next level. While it is specific to a broad demographic of people, it’s not highly targeted. Trade shows have so much information and “big data” on everyone attending their show through registration and news, they can soon play “matchmaker” for specific industries by recommending that certain attendees meet with a specific exhibitors, based on their products and/or services because they think it’s a good fit. It’s like online dating and the show is your first date, however, you can still mingle and hit it off with others.

The best trade shows that I’ve attended and participated in have always found ways to keep all of their exhibitors happy, while making certain their attendees and media knew exactly what was going on at their show. Research has shown that the top two reasons people go to shows is to find out what’s new, as well as, learn something new, which can sometimes be one and the same. There is obviously only so much a show can do, but with innovative digital news technology platforms we are starting to see some of the former physical restrictions removed, especially when it comes to syndicating and digesting information, news and media.

In the spirit of Earth Day, I wanted to touch upon how digital/social media can be an effective way to lower your shows carbon footprint. Printed materials have always been the hallmark of doing business when face-to-face at a show, but more times than not, companies print more than is needed. The result, it will be thrown out at the end of the day. The way to remedy this waste of paper would be to have your company starts to convert some of your physical promotions into digital ones. This change would not only allow you to increase your opportunities to be found, but also help the environment in the process.

Below are some reasons and examples why going digital is good for the environment, your business and your show.

1. Less Materials Made - Less Thrown Away

Most booths at a show generally have some type of handout to give attendees and media when they stop by. They can be news releases, brochures, sell/spec sheets or just a flyer, all of which are helpful, but will eventually find their way to the nearest waste basket. By publishing some of this information online, either by emailing a link out to your customers before the show starts or you can take down information of customers/attendees stopping by your booth and followup with them after the show.

2. Digital is quicker to produce and is infinite and evergreen

Creating digital and social media is generally a quicker process than designing print materials. One of the hardest things to do for a show is estimating how many of flyers/handouts you need so that you don’t run out. Result, you generally end up with extra inventory, which is also a company expense. With digital content, your scale is infinite because creating it once is enough for everyone to be able to share and socialize it with as many people as you want. Also, if you make a mistake, you can easily update it.

3. Print, Pack, Ship -- Unpack, Pack, Ship

We all know this scenario. There are many printed materials that you can now make digital. While you may feel this will decrease your footprint, just think of the financial savings, and “no back pain”, by having less to ship and handout.

4. Tracking your marketing materials

You can add a link or QR code on your printed materials which will allow you to know when someone used it, and when they did that specific action. However, if your materials are digital, you can know how they got to your site, how long they were there, what they clicked on, and what other pages they visited. When your information is digital, you can get a lot more information about a customer/attendee, while allowing them to also get more information about your company.

5. Less to carry for the attendees and media

We are seeing a growing trend with show organizers who want to be able to send everyone attending the show more information before it starts. Some of our show partners have moved away from printed show directories and press kits in favor of mobile apps and using an online newsroom as they are easier to produce, create less waste, provide a better experience and can cost less.

6. BONUS! – It will always be online, so it can be found, discovered and shared

It will always be online and can be easily found, discovered and shared! Most printed materials are great resources of information outside of shows, but unless someone stops by your booth, they can’t get the information. If you publish your news and info online, anyone can find it before, during and even after the show. It is Evergreen!

At the end of the day, you need to do what is best for your show and/or company. Today, most people are expecting some of your information to be online in some capacity whether it’s your website or through a social network. Between Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and many more, there are a lot of free tools you can use out there that will help your marketing initiatives and outreach.

Shows, expos and conferences are great ways to meet people face-to-face and get some real business done. In business though, you want to take advantage of every opportunity hopefully, especially those created by shows that you pay a lot to attend and exhibit at. 

It’s 2014 now and that means people will also be looking for you online and if they can’t find you, they will probably find your competitor who is going digital. Compliment your physical presence at a show with a digital one and have your social presence online sell and market for you while you can’t.

1. Attendees and media can’t find your news unless they meet you in person

If you’re exhibiting at a conference, you probably know months ahead of time and spend that time prepping for it. Well the attendees and media are doing the same thing and looking to see who will be there to see if it’s worthwhile to attend. If you’re news isn’t online, then they won’t know you will be there.

2. You can’t tweet (share) the news!

Twitter is probably the most popular social media platform for shows as it’s an easy way to spread the news! Almost every show tweets now, especially with a hashtag (#) that all the attendees, media and even exhibitors follow to see what’s going on at the show.  You can’t tweet a doc, PDF or email, so everyone else can get found besides you.

3. Your news won’t be in the mobile app

Shows generally have a native app that attendees and media download to find exhibitors that their interested in. It’s usually launched months before the show begins with a list of speakers, exhibitors and seminars. Make sure to publish your news, booth numbers and contact information in it.

4. BONUS – The show can support you!

They want your content so they can share it through social media, print and newsletters. This is a great way to share all your news, rich-media and information.

Conferences and expos generally last a few days and then you have to wait a year for the next one. During that moment in time, thousands of exhibitors, attendees, media and professionals flock to one location to all meet each other to do business and find out what’s new in the industry.  There are generally a few months of ramp up to the show when exhibitors reach out to attendees, pitch the media and set up meetings through the various social networks and apps that are provided by the show.

There is so much news, information and rich-media that exhibitors can publish digitally to send out to the attendees and media when you exhibit at a show. Standing at a booth is great but you need to do everything possible to get people to come over so they can learn more about you. 

Think of it as a pyramid with the show at the top, exhibitors in the middle and attendees at the bottom – your goal is to harness the power at each level. So here are three ways that a show can crowd source content that creates a win/win/win scenario for everyone.

1. The show sharing the exhibitor news/information digitally

Your exhibitors produce a lot of news and information that they want everyone at the show to know about. Make sure to ask them for all of it so that you (the show organizer) can use that content for marketing, social media and PR outreach for the media. By sharing the exhibitor news, you can better inform everyone coming to the show what they can expect, help them find what they want and support your exhibitor to strengthen your relationship.

2. The exhibitor sharing all of their information digitally

Show organizers need to encourage their exhibitors to share their news and information before the show starts to reach a community that they can’t. Every company has some type of following, whether it be big or small, that the show can tap into by having their exhibitors share their news with them. This will not only help educate the exhibitors community but make them more aware of the show and curious about what else is there.

3. Attendees of the show and everyone who can’t be there sharing the news

At this point the show community is saturated when the organizers and exhibitors sharing the news but there is still huge potential for more reach. Virality occurs when everyone not involved directly shares the news because they find it interesting and can reach the masses that would otherwise be impossible.

4. BONUS – The news is online digitally for serendipitous discovery

If all of this news is online before, during and after a show, it can still be found, shared and discovered at all times. You can’t boil the ocean at once but you can definitely do it over time.

Having been to hundreds of shows, conferences, expos and tradeshows, I’m still baffled by the fact that it’s almost impossible to find out what the exhibitors at the show do before it starts. I work mainly on the press/media relation’s side and there is an abundance of press kits with images, press release, overviews and fact sheets that the attendees of the show, your potential buyers, partners, distributors or friends have absolutely no access too. To ensure that people keep coming back year after year, we need to close the gap and better inform everyone who is apart of the show.

Digital content is the means and social media is the medium by which we can do this. We need information to make informed decisions before a show starts as most exhibitors have that readily available months in advance and are just looking for a place to put it. If your show had a Digital Media Center up and running, you could take advantage of the benefits below.

Here are the benefits of your next show having a robust Digital Media Center on your site up and running three months before it starts:

1) A perfect touch-point to connect with your exhibitors

This is another chance to support your exhibitors who are at your show for a reason – they want people to know about their product or service. If you publish their news on your site or allow them too, it makes their involvement more sticky

2) Drives more traffic to your site

The more content you have, the more reason attendees and media have to come visit your site, before, during and after your show

3) Increases social engagement

All we are online is the content we produce, so if you have no content, you can’t share anything. Producing more content creates the opportunity for everyone at the show to share it, not only to people who will be there but for everyone who cant

4) Tweeting your news creates a real-time feed of activity

Twitter has created an amazing news platform that allows anyone listening to find what they want, assuming it was tweeted out. This is especially true if you’re show has a hashtag (#) that everyone is using.

5) Facebook postings

Everyone is always looking for something to post to their Facebook group everyday, so what’s better to post than your show/exhibitor news? If you post exhibitor news and let them know, they will most likely like, share and tell people about it.

6) Putting the news in your app

Floor plans, lists of exhibitor names and schedules are great but you need content to give it context.

7) Smarter attendees

The more information your attendees have at their disposal, the better they can find exhibitors they want and take full advantage of your show.

8) More news and information for the press

Most exhibitors will reach out to the press before the show, but that means they are getting hundreds, if not thousands of emails with text, attachments and unsearchable content. You can help facilitate and own the relationship between the media and exhibitors by sending them one source for all their news. Don’t wait until the day of the show to give them paper press kit, flash drives and CDs.

9) BONUS – You can monetize it!

Charge exhibitors for access to publish their news so that you can better support them. Find sponsors for the news, as it will generate lots of pageviews, before, during and after the show.

Shows are about engagement, so I can’t understand why you wouldn’t want more content to help facilitate that. I’ve spoken with numerous show organizers that for some reason have it as a policy that they don’t publish any of their exhibitor news online… what’s the different between publishing it online or having them exhibit at your show? Online news is just a digital representation of your physical show. 

Events have an unprecedented opportunity as the central location for product and service news, to create not only a lead generating ecosystem but an e-commerce driven one as well. Consumers, professionals and media come to shows to find out news of the new, so if events can harness that energy to create buzz and interest before, during and after the show, then their influence expends beyond just a moment in time.

I believe that the most opportunistic and transformative aspect of the “event” news environment is taking advantage of new forms of direct communications, collaboration, new analytic tools and sources of additional and supportive rich media data, and new ways of communicating what matters to their customers both on premises and long after the event ends!

Events need to adapt to a world where the attendees formerly known as the audience are not just readers and viewers anymore but insightful, time-driven users AND publishers. This means winners in the event management business will not merely need to change some tactics but a large self-conception of their larger role as knowledge facilitators. Simply upgrading or pasting on a few new engagement techniques will not be enough to adapt to the changing event ecosystem; taking advantage of access to the ongoing attendees knowledge and debate needs, listening in on the crowds discussions and new presentation devices will mean changing organizational structure as well.

  What is one of the top reasons people attend shows? To find out what’s new!

There is so much news, information and rich-media that exhibitors can publish digitally to send out to the attendees and media when you exhibit at a show. Standing at a booth is great but you need to do everything possible to get people to come over so they can learn more about you.

Here is a list that will help increase your visibility, ability to share information, track it, follow up and increase your effectiveness.  

1. News release - A formal document that is great to announce new products, announcement or hires. These should only be for the press and never seen by anyone else. 

2. Sell/spec sheet - If you have something to sell (product or service), this is a great document to send to prospective buyers after you get their information as a follow up. Make sure it's clear, outlines the benefits, functionality, has customer testimonials and images if possible. 

3. Brochures - These can be more elaborate than a sell sheet as it's a great follow to a perspective customer to browse through everything you have to offer. Try to stay away from the "digital brochures" that try to emulate what a real one does with pages that flips etc.

4. Company overview - Probably the most important thing you can publish, as I can't tell you how many times I’ve had to lookup a company and can't easily find what they do. Keep it short so someone can understand what you do right away.

5. Thought leadership - If you are passionate about your industry (like I am), publish something interesting, thought provoking or insightful. Customers want to see that you are active, giving back, engaging and not just trying to sell them something. 

Bonus 6. Contact information - This needs to be on everything you publish otherwise this is all a waste if time. Your customer should never have to look for your email or phone number – don’t add friction!

Make sure that you publish this online, on your website or through another publishing platform, so that it doesn't get stuck in email limbo, PDFs or docs that you can’t search, SEO of easily socialize. Use Bit.ly or another URL shortening service so that you have clean and trackable URLs, this way you can see who clicked what, when they clicked it and what type of messaging was most effective.

              I just returned from a major tradeshow last week and while it was amazing, there were a number of things that jumped out and bothered me.

As an exhibitor at a show, you’re paying top dollar for a booth, marketing collateral materials, props and handouts, and travel and hotel accommodations for your staff to attend the show, so WHY are you not making the most of it!

The most glaring email and booth mistakes were the following, along with a few tips I’ve learned over the years:

1. No booth number – marco… polo…

As part of the media, I received hundreds of emails asking me to stop by a booth, and so many of them never put their booth number! That’s like telling me to call you without giving your phone number. 

TIP:  Make sure to add your booth number when communicating your information to be easily found at the show, so I don’t have to search for it.

2. Poorly formatted emails and typos- I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg

I can’t tell you how many emails I received that had broken text, spacing errors, not easy to read, or just poor grammar.

TIP: Just send over a few bulleted sentences highlighting what your company does and your role with the company.

3. Link to news on your site – make sure it can be found

This is just a personal pet peeve, as I want you to get as much SEO as possible and drive traffic to your site. Having your content live in email limbo doesn’t help anyone searching for your news.

 TIP: Publish your company news on your site or better yet, if a show offers a branded digital news platform this would be the best way to be found, discovered and shared with attendees and media.

4. Completely image based emails that Gmail won’t display it right away –would you like to display this image?

This is only a recent problem that Gmail started to implement about a year ago, however, it has caused a number of issues lately. It’s just one more button to push.

TIP: Keep your emails as text and some images or have a link to the news elsewhere.

5. Even after your email, I have no idea what you do – have we met?

I really did read through every email that was sent to me, and while some were great and to the point, others just left me confused.

TIP: Make sure your email is clear, describes who you are, what you do, and what you want from your reader. Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS)

6. Too much writing – TL;DR (Too Long Didn’t Read)

It’s really depressing to open any email and see so much text and paragraphs that you need to scroll down to finish it.

TIP: As I mentioned before, keep it short, sweet and to the point. It will save you, and everyone else time, and possibly a faster response to your email.

7. Make sure someone knowledgeable is at your booth – “so what do you do?”

When I come by your booth, it’s because I’m interested in what product or service your company offers. It is expected that the person at your booth represents your company and knows why they are there.

TIP: Train your team or whom ever you hire to know your company well enough to answer the easy questions so that I don’t have to read your handouts or check out your site later.

8. Dear sir/madam/journalist – really?

I only received a few of these, but they really stand out as just being weird. I understand that you want to be polite and formal, however, it just screams that you just sent out a blast email, which I already assumed.

TIP: Just use my name or a “Hi/Hello” works too.

9. Ugly links vs Bitly – www.iswearthislinkisntspam.com

Generally, people don’t like to click on links for websites they have never heard of before, especially with the recent security breaches.

TIP: Use a bitly link or another shorter link so you can customize it, and track how many people clicked on it.

10. Images so wide it breaks the reading area – size does matter

I received a handful of images that forced me to scroll horizontally in order to read the email or view the image.

TIP: Be certain you have an attractive layout with images and text aligned properly.

11. BONUS: Smile and engage – exhibiting is like speed dating so act like you're interested

I can’t recall how many times I’ve walked by a booth to see someone just sitting there, looking unhappy like they don’t want to be there. This is your opportunity to talk with your customers face-to-face, which is an amazing opportunity to learn about what they like, don’t like and expect.

TIP: Smile, look excited and talk to people that walk by. Most people are not sure what they are looking for, so make sure to engage them. Not everyone will be interested in what you have to offer, so don’t get discouraged and keep trying!

I was exhibiting at a show last week and it finally dawned on me that exhibiting and speed dating have so much in common - you have to ask a lot of generic questions and have those awkward silences and downtime. Besides listing the exhibiting company names on the show’s website, no one has any idea who we are prior to the show unless they did a little research, which most clearly didn’t.

Most of the attendees where walking around the exhibit hall, checking us out, looking us up-and-down, and then deciding if it was worth their time to stop and talk with us. If they liked what they saw, they would come over and ask us what we do, otherwise you get an awkward smile as they continue on their way.

For those who were interested, I gave my quick pitch, demoed the platform, and received the “oohs”; “ahhs”; and “that’s really interesting,” feedback.  In turn, I would ask what they do, in order to see if there were any synergies with our platform. The few who made it to this next level, were directed and instructed by me on how to use our platform. We then exchanged business cards, and at some point will have an email exchange, and hopefully, connect again – just like dating!

If all my company information, news and updates where on the conference’s website prior to the show’s start date, for all the attendees to read and share, this would be a much more efficient process.

Benefits of online dating (2.0) versus speed dating (1.0):

·      I know who you are and what you do before we meet

·      You can see if we have friends or colleagues in common

·      You can see my background, where I’ve worked and what I did/do

·      You will have specific questions that weren’t answered online

·      You can see the names of other clients and/or companies that you may have worked with or presently still working

·      You can then read their testimonials

·      You can read media coverage on you to see what you’ve been up too

·      You can connect with a representative from a specific exhibiting company before the show, to pre-arrange a meeting when you’re free

·      You may see in advance one of your competitors who can possibly take business away from you

·      You can socialize with my friends about your company and recommend they check you out

Online dating is still a relatively new phenomenon, but growing in popularity, as you can meet new people you normally would never have had the opportunity to meet. However, there is still a lot of noise with the process and this is true with major trade shows and events. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of exhibitors trying to be found at a show. So, what if you could be paired up with people and companies, whom you would be interested in, based on a profile you created? With Big Data, it’s possible. This is what we are working on in order to make certain you are matched with the right companies to open the door to new business relationships.

We built the Launch.it platform for exactly this reason – to help facilitate connections online to people at shows who are trying to find you. Our platform gets all the exhibiting companies information online before the show starts so that everyone attending (and not attending) can read about the companies exhibiting, see what they do, and save time by meeting with only the companies that interest them. Our event news and social management platform compliments your physical presence with a digital one to help facilitate leads and drives sales.