features: latest magazine features: Nurturing new media (2)
Nurturing new media (2)
NEW MARKETING VEHICLE
From the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre’s Facebook page to EIBTM’s blogs, there are multiple avenues to get the message out there.
One of the advantages of using Twitter is spreading the workload with followers able to retweet to their own network of contacts or post to Facebook pages, for example.
For Parsons, Facebook is a natural ally with consumer-focused events due to the sheer number of users. “Users feel comfortable using platforms such as Facebook which means that their experience in finding the information is a much friendlier one. The use of LinkedIn for event listings can also be effected through setting up a more formal group,” he explains.
Atlantis, The Palm is one example of a supplier adopting a multi-media approach. The hotel uses Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. “The cross-section of the three reaches our key demographics and target markets,” says Euan Mitchell, director of online marketing for Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai.
“For us it is a dynamic way to communicate effectively in real time. With the growth of mobile access and new technology such as the iPhone, it is key to have an element of social media within a communications strategy,” he says.
It’s also not a question of replacement marketing, rather something that is complementary to the more traditional marketing mix.
The strengths of individual platforms can be leveraged in targeting the right communities. Exhibition organiser IIR Middle East, which runs the Cityscape series of global real estate investment and development events, set up its own community – Cityscape Connect – in 2009 to develop year-round industry interaction.
The professional networking platform, which currently has around 2,300 international members, includes video interviews with industry movers and shakers, market research reports, industry news and discussion forums and Q&A posts, as well as updates and ‘early bird’ offers for its global exhibitions. Cityscape also has individual Twitter accounts for each trade show.
MEASURING UP
As with all other forms of marketing activity, ROI is important, but is social media success easily measured? Parsons says: “If a strategy is in place when setting out to utilise social media then you are able to measure the success, especially if clear goals are also set. These goals can be the number of fans/likes (to measure the overall reach) or click-through rates from the social media platforms onto event websites. However, how this translates into accurate ROI is still difficult to measure.”
Ball thinks it’s simpler than that. “These tools can be very trackable. There are lots of ways to measure: increased traffic to site, increased replies to blogs, increase in social media buzz about your company. The list goes on and on,” he says.
Champion Exposition Services’ 2009 survey also revealed that a growing number of companies (18 percent of those surveyed) are hiring specific talent to handle social media development and management.
The need to allocate dedicated resources to this new area is an important consideration, as Ball explains: “My recommendation is to take 10 percent of your existing marketing budget and allocate it to time for someone to lead the social media initiative: to help set the policies and objective, to train and excite staff on the use, to monitor results and to make sure the time is being used efficiently.”
POST PARTUM
Ultimately, the judicious use of social media is all about creating a sense of community. But using the multiple platforms and applications simply to be part of the global trend is a common mistake.
Parsons says: “Strategising the social media activity for an event in three stages is sensible, and often overlooked. The pre-event stage should be about information and awareness utilising platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube for this purpose.
“During the event, live webcasts or webinars using tools such as Twitter can be useful especially when trying to gauge the feedback of those attending. Post-event marketing is regularly ignored, but when platforms such as YouTube combined with Facebook are available, this shouldn’t be the case. Those who didn’t make the event can see what they missed out on, subscribe to information on future events while exposed to the organisers brand.”
The uploading of edited video content from the event onto YouTube or embedded within a blog, brings the marketing strategy to full-term. It’s also a useful resource to retain for the following year when ramping up for the next event, as a visual reminder of a successful outing. And once posted on the conference site or YouTube, attendees can easily share through other sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.
As an ongoing wave of applications and platforms continue to swell the social networking menu, the nurturing of new media needs to be fostered alongside the comfort blanket of traditional mediums. The push to concentrate on social media alone is not a strategy for success, it’s like signing up for boot camp, you have to work hard to reap the benefits.
