Best tradeshow marketing tips and case studies. Call 800-654-6946.
Best tradeshow marketing tips and case studies. Call 800-654-6946.

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Social Media is NEW! (No, it’s not…)

You’ve probably heard it a lot, and maybe even agree: Social media is NEW! It’s something that’s so brand-spanking new that it’s going to take you a lot of time and effort to figure it out! There are new tools, new toys, new ways of connecting. And since it’s NEW it’s gotta be confusing and confounding.

Nope, that’s not true. Social media has been around for quite awhile. Yes, some of the tools and toys are relatively new, but think about it: if you’ve been online for at least a decade you should be used to this stuff. I’ve been connecting with people online since before the Internet. You may remember a brief period of time in the early 90s – before the ‘net – when there were online community bulletin board systems (actually around from 1979 – 1995). These BBS’s would allow people to dial in to a central computer, share notes and programs. I remember having a conversation with a guy who introduced me to one of his BBS’s where he shared software. It would take two or three days to transfer a small software program from one computer to another via a dial-up connection.

But we were connected.

In fact, ‘instant chat’ was available as early as 1988, which was when IRC (internet relay chat) made its debut. It became a PC desktop feature with ICQ in 1996. Yes, we were sharing instant messages with smiley faces by the mid-90s.

Then came CompuServe, Prodigy and AOL (remember all those millions of CD’s you get in the mail hoping to get you to get on board with AOL?). And the web and email. Being from a radio background, my interest in those days was figuring out to share audio online. It wasn’t too tough, and shortly thereafter I was hosting (albeit briefly) a short comedy show online through a website I had figured out how to set up.

Yes, it was all pretty rudimentary in those days. But around 2004 podcasting came along and I jumped in with both feet.

Then around 2006 we all read about the new Web 2.0 where we’d all be interconnected. Except that we already were connected in so many ways.

Early in the decade lots of people were connecting using Friendster (founded 2002) and MySpace (2003).

Today with Facebook (2004), Twitter (2006), YouTube (2005) and LinkedIn (2003) generally regarded as the ‘big four’ of social networking, it’s not hard to realize that this stuff has been around for several years. And with our online connectivity reaching back a couple of decades, don’t believe anyone who says social media is “new” – it’s not.

What’s new is that the tentacles of social media are reaching further into small businesses, who are then trying to figure out how to implement these platforms into their marketing mix.

It takes some adjustment, admittedly. Often new people need to be brought on board, or current employees need to be re-purposed for some of their work day to ‘figure out’ how to use social media to reach their target market.

The good news is that there are unlimited resources available to help. If you’re the self-help type, you search blogs about social media marketing. If you’d rather hire consultants to teach you how to tie it all together, that’s appropriate as well. No matter how you approach it, there are myriad ways you can implement social media in your tradeshow or event marketing efforts.

But again – none of this is really new. If you think it is, you literally haven’t been paying attention. And you’re living in the past….around 1979.

If you still haven’t started using this “new” social media to reach your market, when do you plan to?

(image courtesy of Mentionablehonor and is used through Creative Commons)

Tradeshow QR Code Usage – A Few Brief Tips

At the Natural Products Expo West show earlier this month in Anaheim, I had the opportunity to scan several QR Codes that were displayed in booths, posters and banners. Some were prominently displayed in large form – maybe a foot square – and others as small as less than one inch on business cards. All in all, I saw perhaps twenty QR Codes. Since I became aware of QR Codes a year ago ago, and have blogged about them a couple of times, I was curious to see how business incorporated the goofy-looking symbol into their marketing efforts.

Here are a few thoughts on what worked and what didn’t:

First, it’s easy to generate a code and stick it on a banner or poster and invite people to scan it. However, the very act of scanning a QR Code should be extremely easy. I found a few codes that were not easy to scan because they were placed in odd locations. One was placed close to the floor, making it difficult to get the camera phone at a good enough angle to capture the QR Code.

Another code was so displayed so small that it was difficult to capture it on the phone. Yet another one was put up high – it was large, but behind a counter which was a barrier to getting a good shot of the code. Finally, one code looked incomplete, as if it was missing a part of it. I scanned it twice and my iPhone app said ‘no code scanned’ even though the guy in the booth insisted it was a good working QR Code. Um, sorry, no.

  • Best practice: put the QR Code in an easily accessible location, about 12″ x 12″ in size, with an invitation to “Scan Me!” right above the code. Put it at about head height with no barriers; print it in black ink on a white background. Smartphones need to be able to recognize the code so they can interpret it and take you to whatever information is contained within the QR Code. Include a Call To Action, such as “Scan me to Win!” (I just attended a webinar where the presenter suggested putting QR Codes in odd locations to make it more interesting to scan, such as temporary tattoos…not sure I agree with how practical or effective that would work in the real world!)
Make sure your QR Code URL landing page is optimized for the smartphone!

Once the code is scanned, the information is processed. Most often the code is a URL (although I’ve seen simple contact information), which spawns the phone’s web browser. Here’s where the marketing thought process tends to break down. Question: what device is used to scan the QR Code? Answer: a smartphone. Since that’s the case, wouldn’t you think it wise to have the web URL optimized for viewing on a smartphone? Of course.

But that’s not the case. Not a single QR Code that I scanned was optimized for a smartphone. Instead, the links all led to a typical HTML page that looks crappy and hard to read on a smartphone.

  • Best practice: make sure your web landing page is optimized for viewing on a smartphone. If you have a WordPress blog (like this), it’s easy to install a plug-in that displays the page optimized for a smartphone.

Finally, I scanned one QR Code that was prominently displayed at the entrance to the tradeshow hall. The link was BROKEN! Hard to say why: server could have been down; link not confirmed; entered wrong when the QR Code was set up. I did scan the link the next day and it was working correctly.

  • Best practice: TEST everything BEFORE the show. Double and triple-check that everything works as it should and looks right as it will be most likely be seen by your end user – the person who’s scanning the QR Code.

 

Have a Plan Even if it Changes Mid-Stream

No matter what your goals are at a tradeshow, whether you’re walking the floor or exhibiting, you probably won’t get far unless you have a plan (obviously that’s a given) – and are flexible enough to let the plan adapt and evolve as necessary.

This past week at Natural Products Expo West 2011 in Anaheim, my plan – as it originally stood – was to meet people, find out their problems and issues with their exhibits or marketing approach, and have a brief conversation that left me an opening to follow up later with a specific reason. This is the ninth time I’ve been to the show (we have eight client booths there), so my plan is based on what’s generally worked in the past.

As someone just walking the floor, I’m prohibited from offering my services or trying to sell something at the show. That’s the way it should be. After all, I’m NOT an exhibitor. Only exhibitors who have paid those high space rental fees have the right to blatantly sell their products.

Earth Mama Angel Baby at Expo West 2011

But I can certainly engage people in conversations and see where they lead. More often than not the best way to leave the door open for someone to hear from me is to invite them to subscribe to my monthly tradeshow marketing newsletter. Easy enough to do – I simply ask as I’m ready to leave if they mind if I put them on the list. Only once did someone say no – and that was because they weren’t the right person in the company, so the newsletter would have been of no use to them.

And I value not only my time, but the exhibitor’s time, too. I want to be in and out of a booth in about 90-180 seconds, which means that I strive to be precise with the encounter. It’s the same for an exhibitor, by the way: you should try and keep your engagement time with attendees at a bare minimum. Enough to qualify or disqualify them and to gather pertinent information should they be potential clients.

I started the show with a list of exhibitors and booth numbers that had promoted themselves on Twitter – some 75 at least, along with their Twitter handles. Knowing that it would take fully two days to cover the show and talk to that many booths (along with several others that I randomly stopped at for one reason or another), I figured I had would my hands full.

Turns out the ‘Twitter’ greeting was very engaging to almost everyone I met:

“Hi, I’m curious who your company Twitterer is? Or would that be ‘Tweeter’? I’m Tradeshowguy, I saw your booth number on Twitter and someone tweeted out an invitation to come by!”

It was a bit of a goofy intro that created smiles and broke down barriers. Often I was quickly subjected to what is commonly referred to in sales as an “information dump” where a bunch of product information is dumped on you before the speaker has even bothered to qualify you. I’d just smile and let them go on. Sometimes it turned out to be pretty interesting stuff. Other times…not so much.

(By the way, I found it interesting that over half a dozen people I met throughout the show had heard of me; they were looking for tradeshow marketing tips before heading to Expo West and found this blog. Definitely a nice ego stroke…)

Then we’d chat about Twitter and social media and how they used it to promote their company at the show. If the opportunity arose and they showed interest, I’d mention that I regularly speak about, consult and teach social media. By then, I’m about ready to wrap it up. If they’re active on Facebook or Twitter, often I’d offer to take their picture and post it on Facebook immediately (always a big hit – who doesn’t like having their picture posted on Facebook?…apparently, no one). Finally, I’d suggest they subscribe to the email newsletter. Again – almost everyone took me up on it…which means they’ll be hearing from me once a month. The key: stay on someone’s radar regularly and you increase your chances for a future sale.

The real evolution of my approach happened when I discovered that not only did people love to get their photos on Facebook, but they loved to talk about Twitter – even those that didn’t use or understand what it could do for them. The natural curiosity of the social media phenomenon was a conversation starter every time – much more than I originally thought it would. So I made a point of beginning almost all conversations with that.

How do you approach your tradeshow marketing? What’s your plan? Are you able to adapt and evolve the plan as necessary? Do you need several people to implement the plan, or are you just walking the floor of a show trying to make connections that could turn into future business?

Whatever your situation, make a plan, follow it, and let it evolve as necessary.

 

 

What’s the Use of Foursquare?

Last summer just a few weeks after I got iPhone I was on a road trip with a buddy. Every time we ate at a restaurant or teed up a golf ball at a golf club I’d whip out the iPhone and check in via Foursquare.

“What are you doing that?” he’d ask. And of course I’d show him the app, explain how it works, how I could become the mayor, etc.

“Yeah, but why? What’s the point?”

Uh..it’s fun! Right?

It’s something a lot of people struggle with. Foursquare, to their credit, is trying to find ways to make it more of an engaging platform than just a ‘check-in’ tool that leaves you asking questions about what to do next.

One complaint I’ve seen is that when you check in with Foursquare and have that information posted to your Facebook and Twitter feeds, all you’re really doing is cluttering the stream. And people don’t want to see the clutter.

Well, if you look at it that way, virtually ALL posts are clutter to one degree or another. I tend to check in, have the info post, and then watch the reaction – and I often get it. And isn’t reaction the whole point of sharing via social media?

If you search online it’s easy to find hundreds of blog posts that are foretelling the end of Foursquare because they can’t figure out what the hell they’re doing.

But you can also find a lot of great ways to use Foursquare (as well as some nice tips on how NOT to use the app). Check out this post from Lifehacker. One very useful idea is to create a separate account for checking into any location where you spend money and use Foursquare to track expenses.

Here’s another post from Geeksugar.com which shows you a handful of ways to use Foursquare.

They also have a fun slideshow on where NOT so check-in.

While Foursquare is not perfect – here’s Peter Shankman’s blog post on his trouble with Foursquare overseas –  it still has a lot of interesting uses. Maybe not as much of a game as SVCNGR, but as LBS (location based services) go, it’s still the leader. And I expect it to remain the leader for the foreseeable future. Which in social media years, could be as long as six months or more!

 

Find me at Natural Products Expo West

If you’re attending the Natural Products Expo West 2011 at the Anaheim Convention Center March 10 – 13, try and catch up with me! I’ll be roaming the aisles, meeting exhibitors, looking for Tweetups and monitoring my Twitter feed, Facebook and blog for any connection opportunities.

Our company, Interpretive Exhibits, also will be well represented with eight custom-designed and fabricated exhibits. Come see our work – check out the following booths:

  • Hyland’s: 1320
  • Mountain Rose Herbs:  2820
  • Bob’s Red Mill: 2660
  • Nancy’s Yogurt: 2481
  • gDiapers: 3276
  • Natracare: 3316
  • Bi-O-Kleen: 3856
  • Earth Mama Angel Baby: 4120

Here are a few suggestions for you IF you happen to be at the show:

  1. Tweet your booth number (if you’re exhibiting) to @tradeshowguy and include the #expowest hashtag. I’ll come by and say hi!
  2. Download a PDF with the booth listings and my contact information here.
  3. If you hear of a great tweetup, send out a tweet with the time/locale and be sure to include #tweetup #expowest hashtags.
  4. Download the ExpoWest app from iTunes to check schedules, look up exhibitors, plan your event, get local info and more
  5. If catch me wearing my QR Code t-shirt, fire up your QR Code smartphone app, scan it and see what goodies you get!

And…have fun!

How to Build Your Brand Online Versus Offline

The News' Story

 

guest article by Jean Watson

When your company is trying to launch and establish its brand, it’s crucial to take advantage of both online and offline brand building methods for maximum brand exposure, visibility, and effectiveness. There are benefits to each vehicle of brand building, but maintaining the popularity of your brand at the forefront is an essential daily task, especially online.

Fundamental Online Benefits

With a Plesk hosting platform incorporated into your brand building marketing strategy, you can utilize the expansive and substantive benefits of the entire Internet for a fraction of the cost of traditional hosting systems. One benefit of online brand building is the enormous exposure your brand can attain at a very cost effective outlay. It’s important to also realize that online brand building can be much more personalized than offline building can be because you have the freedom to highly individualize the psychology of your brand by utilizing distinct links, superior textual content, eye catching graphics, and much more interactive social media tools.

Additional Online Benefits

Brand building online is supremely effective especially with a user interface involving colocation hosting. To be able to differentiate the hardware and software of your choice for the most successful integration of brand building resources is especially effective for most every company, whether new or fully established. It allows much more control and consistency in effectively demonstrating the brand’s value, availability, variety, and versatility to an enormous market of potential consumers. This performance consistency is essential for success.

Principle Offline Advantages

Offline brand building can consist of marketing and advertising elements such as TV commercials, radio advertisements, print and even billboard display ads to start for the most obvious and impressive impact possible. But direct mailing is also highly useful, and short of email direct marketing, offline direct mail marketing can be especially useful for a smaller, more localized brand or company just starting out, if the mammoth financial resources are simply not there yet. Offline branding is also beneficial because companies can reach smaller markets at a more reasonable cost with traditional brand building techniques of publicity and promotion.

Associated Offline Advantages

The effectiveness of offline branding can be due to the fact that it’s normally narrower in scope than the universality of online branding. More specific market niches can be reached with the offline approach. Costs can be controlled better. The target market can have its demographics and socioeconomics studied and approached in very hands on manner. There’s the tangibility factor of having sales staffs being able to physically interact with consumers face-to-face as well, and this can substantively help build genuine brand loyalty at a much faster rate than online brand building attempts.

Creative Commons License

photo credit: acnatta

Jean Watson is an advertising writer for Webhostgear.com and can be reached at jean.watson@webhostgear.com. Jean writes about technologies, gadgets and social media.

Should you Outsource Your Social Media Marketing?

Doing social media right takes time and expertise, so should you outsource it?

Here are the basic arguments: by outsourcing social media you’re bringing in an expert that knows there way around the social media landscape and can get you up and running quickly. So from that aspect, it’s a good idea.

On the other hand, you should NOT outsource your social media marketing because nobody from outside your company knows the culture of your company like your own employees – and social media is a perfect platform to share your company’s culture with clients and prospects. So it’s worth it to take the time to have your own employees learn social media and do it all internally.

Both are valid viewpoints and both deserve consideration.

My viewpoint: in the short term, by hiring a professional you’re getting a lot of information quickly and putting your company’s brand into the social media marketplace in a short time. Beyond that, you’ll want an internal team to learn the ropes and eventually take over.

So how do you find a social media consultant that knows what they’re doing? Well, it makes sense that they’d have a strong social media presence. Check their blog (is it current? what to do they blog about?); follow them on Twitter and Facebook; see if they’re active on YouTube and have any of their key people listed on LinkedIn. Connect with them on some of these outposts and watch what they do. It won’t be long before you’re going to have a pretty good feel for how well they understand social media and engage their community.

Once you decide to get involved in social media, whether you do it in-house or bring in a pro, there are some basics that you must handle:

  • Make your company easy to find by including links on your website to your social network outposts
  • Put links in embedded e-mail signatures
  • Put links in all marketing materials and collateral
  • Put links on all press releases

According to Social Media Today, you should look to outsource a number of things and keep other things internal. For instance, a good consultant can assist in writing pre-scheduled content such as blog, Twitter and Facebook posts. She can also find and follow relevant friends and followers on Twitter and Facebook. Creating a branded landing page on Facebook and a branded Twitter background would also go to your agency.

But you should plan to schedule a few moments each day to interact with your Twitter and Facebook followers.

A social media consulting team should, if they do their job correctly, become obselete before too long.

Even though you may have an agency working with you to engage in social media, you still must make time to engage yourself. If you rarely visit your social media networks you may miss opportunities that only you would recognize. You might see a question on your Facebook or Twitter page that you are able to answer quickly that no one else in your company is equipped to handle.

You are the expert in your business. No one knows your job quite like you do.

Other considerations: budget, personnel, time. This all comes down to the old ‘time, money and energy’ equation. Every situation is different and only you know best.

 

The 75-Year Old Ski Bums

What can we learn from 75-year old ski bums? Well, personally, that’s exactly what I’ll be in a couple of decades, so I thought this video was really fun from that angle.

Next? These folks are HAVING FUN! Naturally, since they’re skiing. But given that I’ve been a ski bum since I was about 7 years old (knee-high to a grasshopper), I’ve always tried to incorporate skiing into my daily job. Or vice versa.

What else? They do their best at their skill level. And still take chances, even at 75+. I like that. We should all know our limits and know when to push them.

That’s enough lesson-learning from this. Watch this and have fun! And…it’s only 4 minutes!

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