Author: Tim Patterson

The art of prognositcation is alive and well! There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, or bloggers, writers, authors, experts and consultants who bravely try and predict the future.

I’ve tried that a few times, and I’m usually so far off base that I’ve pretty much given up!

However, it’s eye-opening to see what others are predicting as far as trends in social media for the new year.

David Armano at the Harvard Business Review looks at number of areas, including the convergence of how social media will further integrate into ‘real life,’ showing how companies are using social media in almost automatic fashion to help participants post to their social media accounts to share what they’re doing. He elaborates on the Cult of Influence, Social TV, Social Sharing and much more.

Consultant, coach and speaker Jeff Bullas is bullish on the mobility of social media, search socialization, geo-targeting, social commerce and social gaming. Yeah, I know, I’m not into gaming on Facebook (or anywhere else for that matter), but it’s big business – and getting bigger.

Warren Knight agrees that social TV is trending bigger. He believes that social commerce will finally get serious, with reviews and recommendations carrying more weight and significance than ever.

Forbes Magazine’s Haydn Shaughnessy looks at social media from a more international perspective, touching on the growth of the ‘transmitter ecosystem,’ which has broken down barriers to creating online content:

“But another part of the story is that more channels create a larger need for content. Many millions of those people now active online are not, however, content producers. They are sharers and curators.”

Cheryl Burgess looks at 2012 trends and sees that 2/3 of all adult internet users now are using social media. As a result, businesses will increase their migration from social media to social business, trying to figure out along the way how it all works.

And finally, check out this info graphic from Social Commerce Today that looks at the timeline of social media and social commerce, along with some brief predictions for what’s coming in 2012.

Today marks the opening of a new website that I’ve been working on for over four months, and one that took about a year of thinking, planning, research and (self) convincing before finally starting.

SocialMediaEventMarketingU.com is welcoming visitors today, and is offering some freebies to interested folks to make it worth their while to see what’s inside and under the hood.

But let’s go back a few years.

I started TradeshowGuyBlog.com almost three years ago. And before this blog launched, I spent a good half-year thinking about the pros and cons of starting a blog about tradeshow marketing. About a year after the first post, I noticed that the most viewed and most-commented-on posts had to do with the social media aspects of tradeshow marketing. So I focused on that aspect, although it wasn’t until the beginning of 2011 that I officially changed the focus to using social media for tradeshow marketing.

During the past three years, this blog has opened a lot of doors. I’ve done numerous speaking gigs, including two high-profile engagements in the tradeshow marketing world – the Exhibit Designers and Producers Association annual conference in December 2010 in Jacksonville, FL and the Event Marketing Summit in Chicago this past May. I also did a series of webinars for Classic Exhibits’ array of dealers and representatives through the summer and fall of 2010. For a while I did monthly article submissions for NWMeetings.com. And yes, I got some actual business out of the blog from people who called and asked me to get involved in helping them out. I also saw my email tradeshow marketing newsletter list grow and the circle of people I know in the industry continue to grow.

In a word, the blog has been good to me.

And through the last two years, during the speaking engagements, webinars, emails, phone calls and more, it became pretty obvious to me that there is a big missing piece in the tradeshow world. Or probably more accurately, in the small to medium-business world in general – most companies are still struggling to get their hands on and their brains around the concept of social media and how it relates to their company.

I talk to businesses frequently who are still wondering if they should get on Facebook. Still trying to figure out what a tweet is, and if they should even bother with trying to come up with a tweet.

For every company on Facebook with 50,000+ followers, there are dozens of companies still hoping to bring their list of followers up to 100. Or to just get started on Facebook.

About a year ago I hatched the idea of a membership-only training site that would be dedicated to helping people through the most basic steps of social media, and then once they grasp that, showing them the next intermediate steps to valuable engagement.

So I researched membership sites, how people learn best, what they want to learn. I examined membership software, marketing methods, web platforms and more. And the result is SocialMediaEventMarketingU.com, which starts its ‘soft’ launch today. ‘Soft’ in the sense that it’s not completely done. Well, in all honesty, it’ll never be completely done, but right now the only part that’s open is the ‘basic’ free site. The premium site is still under development, and the current timeline for the release of that section of the site (fingers crossed) is sometime in mid-to-late February.

The basic site features dozens of short training videos on how to get started in social media, using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube, along with a handful of social media event marketing case studies, and a free series of videos on how to start doing video for your company in relation to your tradeshow and event marketing.

The premium site will expand on all of those themes, getting into more intermediate and advanced training for those that are past the basics. It will also feature regular in-depth interviews with consultants, experts and other companies who are doing great things with their social media engagement.

Finally, one of the significant findings during my internal research is that one of the most attractive elements of a membership site is the chance to save money on the actual exhibit hardware that companies need to put up a good exhibit. So, each free ‘Silver’ membership comes with a 5% discount off of the suggested retail price of all exhibit items from the following four companies that I’ve been associated with for several years: Classic Exhibits, Nimlok, Orbus and Expand Media. Now admittedly, 5% may not be all that great, because no doubt there are companies out there that discount more on their exhibits. But we feel it’s worth it as a part of the membership.

As we open up the premium memberships in another 6 – 8 weeks, the discounts will increase. For instance, the model we’re looking at now is to offer a 10% discount for monthly memberships and 15-20% discount for a yearly membership commitment. Yes, details are still being worked out, but the concept has been very well received among the small group of clients and former clients who have had a chance to review the early beta site and offer comments and feedback.

So feel free to take a look – with no obligation! The site is open now at SocialMediaEventMarketingU.com and once you go there, you’ll be asked to opt-in to view a series of short, content-packed training videos. These training videos will lift the hood a bit on site and let you know a little bit about what’s inside. Once you’ve been through the short series of videos, which will take a few days, you’ll have a chance to grab a free Silver-level membership.

And by all means, let me know what you think – if you like the idea, and offer your feedback, it can only get better!