January 22, 2013

7 Surefire Ways to Energize Social Media at Tradeshows #4 – Build Relationships

See previous posts in this series: Basics, Look at What Others are Doing, Don’t Publish Selfish Content and Don’t Just Push Stuff Out.

What? Social media ain’t for building relationships! Those so-called conversations are just a tweet or two or maybe three and then nothing! How can you build a relationship on that?

First, let’s define relationship in terms of what it means in social media. Here’s what it is NOT: a date, a lover, your mother, your best friend or a co-worked. Those are all relationships that are done face-to-face. And they’re all different.

Creating a relationship with someone online is different. It’s about finding someone that is like-minded in at least a few ways and supporting them in their endeavors. Beyond that, your online social media relationships can be spread far and wide. You may be able to connect with the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or your favorite rock star. Okay, that’s not a real relationship, but consider that you may be able to make a valuable connection with some one that’s higher up in a company that can open doors for you.

So, to keep these online relationships on the positive side, here are the things to remember.

Honesty is still the best policy. You may not be a 75-year old guy in a trailer impersonating a 22-year old model, but there are levels of deception that some people still feel are okay. I disagree. There’s no level that’s acceptable. If you represent yourself as someone you’re not, it will eventually catch up to you.

Be authentic. Slightly different than honesty, authenticity has to do with sharing thoughts online that you truly believe and support. Are you being true to your vision with your postings, or are you just being irreverent, short-sighted and snarky at times?

Be real to create trust. Now that you’ve committed to being honest and authentic, this ‘real-ness’ leads to building trust. The acts that build trust over time contribute to your overall online reputation, which helps you build your business.

Advocates are an incredible asset, so pay attention and nurture them. In the social media world, an advocate is someone who will stand up and defend your company and your products, and go to great lengths to stand in on your behalf in situations where you would otherwise have to go on the offensive to clear up misinformation or deal with a situation that could create negative press. When you identify a true advocate, do a little research and find out who they are (easy to do if they’re on Facebook or Twitter), and if appropriate, gift ‘em now and then, so they’ll continue to be an asset.

Really connect. When you find someone online that resonates with you in some noticeable way, reach out to him or her. Look up their business. Pick up the phone. Send a personal email. I’ve made terrific friends a few times by just picking up the phone. It helps put a personality to the online presence, and next time you’re in their city, make a point of trying to schedule a lunch or coffee. You’ll be glad you did.

Recapping:

Honesty is the best policy
Be authentic
Be real to create trust
Advocates are an incredible asset
Really connect!

photo credit: Josh Jensen

January 14, 2013

7 Surefire Ways to Energize Social Media at Tradeshows – #3: Don’t Just Push Stuff Out

See previous posts in this series: Basics, Look at What Others are Doing, and Don’t Publish Selfish Content

I recently was invited by an unnamed exhibit company to ‘like’ them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter. So I went to check out their social media sites and see what kinds of things they were up to.

Hate to say it, but I was pretty disappointed. The Facebook page was just self-promotional regurgitations and the Twitter account echoed the Facebook page. The posts were simply ‘New Catalog!’ or ‘Special Promotion’ or ‘ Which sign is right for you?’

The first rule of social media engagement is ‘don’t just push stuff out.’ Take time to do the following, in an intentional manner:

Listen: know what’s going on in your industry. Follow other companies and bloggers that are active and knowledgeable. See how they interact with their audience. Read what kinds of topics they’re posting about and what the reaction is from their readers. Track keywords using Google Alerts, so you’re getting notified in real time about what’s going on. Even if you did nothing else, the simple act of listening to your industry using social media will undoubtedly be quite an education.

Engage: once you have listened for a while, you’ll see what types of questions are being asked and what topics are important to your industry. Jump in and make comments and ask questions of your own.

Respond: when your followers make comments, don’t just let them sit there. Ignoring comments, especially negative comments, is bad form and bad practice. Take some time to respond with a thoughtful comment or question of your own. Make it a conversation. Yes, some online conversations are very short – in fact, most are – but they’re still valuable because you’re showing the other person that you care enough to respond.

Measure: as your engagement builds over time, take some time on a regular basis to measure a few things. Facebook is great for measurement. On your company page, you can look at your page insights and get revealing demographic information about who is responding, listening and who’s talking about those various topics. Twitter does not offer nearly as much information, but you do have the ability to count re-tweets, which is a great measure of the value of that particular post. You can also track Twitter followers and trends. By using Google Analytics, you can see how much traffic Twitter drives to your blog or website.

Help! Yes, you can offer help to those in your industry. Whenever the opportunity comes up, offer suggestions, answer questions, and be a resource. If you do this with the mindset that you’re not trying to just create a sale, but to position yourself as a knowledgeable leader, it will help you in the long run and lead to good things.

Be intentional and consistent: when it comes to intention, a lot of us have good intentions. But unfortunately good intentions don’t always mean good outcomes. So when you think about intention when it comes to social media, start with the idea that you’re going to focus on just a few things: don’t get distracted by pet photos, goofy videos or hot links. Instead, be there with the intent to uncover what people in your industry are talking about, what’s bugging them, and how you might help. Consistency is important, too, as it puts you in the mix on a regular basis. Consistency is NOT spending an hour today and an hour next Monday and another hour on your company’s social media because no one else is doing it. No, consistency is making sure that you, or someone in your company is tasked to show up and listen, learn, engage and respond on a regular basis, hopefully at least once or twice day, even if only for ten minutes at a time. Regularity, consistency and focused intention will put you in front of 90% of your competitors.

Collaborate: so you want more content for your blog? Or you want something to chat about on Twitter? Or you need photos for Facebook or video for YouTube? Contact one of your social media followers that pique your interest and work out a mini-deal: you’ll help them out if they help you out. Interview someone. Exchange blog posts. Working together not only helps create more content more quickly, it fosters relationship-building, which spreads your name and your company’s name throughout cyberspace in a positive way.

To recap:

Don’t just push stuff out
Listen
Engage
Respond
Measure
Help
Be Intentional and Consistent
Collaborate

photo credit: ▓▒░ TORLEY ░▒▓

January 8, 2013

7 Surefire Ways to Energize Social Media at Tradeshows – #2 – Don’t Publish Selfish Content

See previous posts in this series: The Basics and Look at What Others Are Doing.

The most common trap bloggers and social media content publishers fall into is the old ‘tell everybody everything’ trap. This misleading line of thinking leads them to publish blog posts that are self-centered and of little use to their intended audience. The kind of content I’m referring to could be press releases about company awards, self-congratulatory ‘look how cool we are’ posts and items that have no intent behind them to assist their readership in any way, shape or form.

At this point your blog or Facebook page becomes nearly unreadable and useless, except as an example of what NOT to do.

If your company is not blogging yet, here’s a roundup of ideas that may inspire you to start blogging soon.

So what do you do on your blog or Facebook pages?

Easy: identify and solve problems. If you haven’t already identified several issues that your product or service helps alleviate, use your Facebook page to ask questions, take surveys and keep your ear to the ground for those problems.

By solving problems – even if those problems don’t directly relate to your product or service – you’re positioning your company in a leadership role in the minds of those readers.

Beyond solving problems, move out in front of the pack by offering lead-edge thoughts on what’s going on in your industry. Anything that you can think of that’s worth sharing is worth publishing somewhere. Create videos, write blog posts, engage your readership online in as many ways as possible. Even short one-thought bursts such as those that Seth Godin comes up with may be useful to your readership.

To re-cap:

Don’t publish selfish content
Stay away from press releases
Solve problems
Be a thought-leader

photo credit: wonderferret

January 3, 2013

7 Surefire Ways to Energize Social Media at Tradeshows – #1: Look at What Others Are Doing

(See the first post in this series: The Basics)

When I first sat down to a computer back in, oh, the early 90s, I had no idea what I was doing. But my friend Rich did know and he loved figuring stuff out on his computer. Over the next few years whenever I wanted to find a shortcut to learning something new on my PC, I just went to his house and looked over his shoulder. Believe me, watching others do something is the best way to pick up a skill or at least some valuable tips and tidbits on how things work. In large part due to his willingness to try new things and let me look over his shoulder, I got pretty good at working with those old clunky computers, back when they were brand new and needed some focused attention to get things to work properly.

Same thing when I was in college when I took a tennis class. I wasn’t that good at tennis, although I was a decent athlete. I found that when I played tennis with someone better than me my skill level would rise significantly. When I played with someone worse than me, I played worse. That was an eye-opener to me.

As a kid learning to ski, I never took lessons. But that didn’t stop me from lurking 50 feet away from a class and trying to pick up some pointers, which helped me find more shortcuts to learning. Hey, I guess I’ve been hacking education in some shape or form since I was just a sprite!

In other words, you should never discount the value of watching someone that’s better than you. Or worse. Because you’ll likely learn something along the way.

So first, look at what others are doing in their social media/tradeshow engagement efforts. Examine to find out what works, and copy or adapt ideas.

It may take a little effort to find out what works. Just because someone is tweeting out promotions for a tradeshow booth doesn’t mean it’s working well for them. If you can do a little digging, though, you should be able to find out how things worked out. You can see if they posted photos, videos or blog posts about the tradeshow. Then do what you can to uncover how successful it was. Often a quick phone call to someone is the easiest way. Just ask how their promotion went and what they’d do differently next time!

To re-cap:

Watch what others do
Learn what works
Avoid what doesn’t work
Copy or adapt ideas
Learn from their success and failure

photo credit: Alan Light

December 28, 2012

7 Surefire Ways to Re-Energize Your Social Media Engagement at Tradeshows: The Basics

I’ll be serving up a 45-minute presentation January 25^th at the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City on “7 Surefire Ways to Re-Energize Your Social Media Engagement at Tradeshows” so I thought I’d blog a bit in the next month leading up to the presentation. Not only does it let you see a bit of what I’ll be speaking about (and may get you to attend if you’re going to the show), but it also helps me to crystalize my thoughts for the presentation!

As the title of the presentation suggests, there are perhaps at least 7 Surefire Ways to Re-Energize Your Social Media Engagement at Tradeshows. However, before getting to all of those seven ways, let’s start with the basics:

First, your company should do a…

Social Media Audit

A social media audit can be an informal look at your social media engagement, which will take only a few hours and no money. Or it can be an in-depth report from A-Z on what your company is doing on social media, so that even the most casual observer can see everything that’s going on.

Here are the main three things you want your social media audit to do:

Come out with a clear understanding of your goals: what do you hope to accomplish with your use of social media (be specific)
Itemize inventory current efforts: where are you now? Blog, FB, etc and are they all interconnected.
Identify resources for expansion: Do you have the wherewithal to take what you’re doing now, expand upon it to reach your goals (digital natives, blog, content creators, identification of those that have the time and expertise to follow up on your plan and to meet your target deadlines and how much time)

Download your free social media audit template here (PDF; no opt-in required)

Social Media Policy

A good workable Social Media Company Policy should be more than just what your employees are doing on the job. That’s important, but you should also consider a policy for when they’re allowed to engage in social media, time involved, who can do it, etc; IN most cases, personal interaction should be confined to breaks and lunch. But your policy should also apply to what they can do privately. How can they use your name? When do they represent you and when do they not? Social media is always on and your company’s reputation is a 24-hour consideration. The way that your associates talk about their employment and about your products is out there in cyberspace forever. Your policy should look at how you deal with that discussion. You can’t trample on peoples first amendment rights, but you can control your company brand.

Finally, the policy should be two-pronged: 1) what Can they do and what are they expected to do as employees? And 2) it should make an effort to control what’s important with your brand when they’re away from the office.

Learn to Listen

One of the most important things people can do with social media, and one that I think they do the least often, is to ‘take the temperature’ of their clientele and potential market. Most people seem to believe that social media is a place to go and beat their chests and show how great they are. But that’s only half of what you can do with social media. The other half is the research you can do to uncover facts and tidbits and other information about your market. Social media gives you an invaluable tool for determining where your market is, what its pain points are and which of those pain points have needs that are not being met with existing products. Then you can determine how your products can alleviate that pain, or even give you an idea for a new product.

Up next in this series: #1: Look at what others are doing.

photo credit: keela84

November 7, 2012

Bringing Home the Bacon

In the swirl of the tradeshow marketing soup, you’re working to create a potent mix of trained staff, an awesome-looking and appropriately-functional booth, interactivity, social media engagement. When all is said and done, the ONLY important thing at most shows is: bringing home the bacon.

When you get back to the office, the big question that determines the success or failure of your tradeshow marketing effort is this: did you get enough warm and hot leads to justify the expense of going to the tradeshow and planning to go again next year? Because if you haven’t, there’s something missing. But what?

When you examine the various and disparate elements that go into a successful tradeshow marketing experience, you may be reminded of the famous question attributed to Henry Ford: “I know that half of my advertising dollars are wasted, but which half?”

Make no mistake, if you can’t identify the wasted parts of your tradeshow marketing efforts, you’ll continue to leak dollars and leads and return from shows with half-empty cups of leads.

It behooves you to examine all of the elements of your tradeshow marketing to determine where the inefficiencies lie:

Tradeshow booth ‘look and feel’ and function: does your booth draw the right people and once they get there, is it set up to handle them properly?
Booth graphics: do your graphics qualify and disqualify visitors as they arrive?
Tradeshow staff training: what’s the level of knowledge of staffers on your products and services and are they properly trained in how to interact with visitors in the chaotic environment of a tradeshow?
Are you attending shows that offer the best market for your products and services?
Social media marketing: do your SM marketing staffers understand social media and the art of engagement?

By hitting all cylinders properly, you’re actually doing two things: one, you’re putting a much more effective tradeshow marketing machine on the tradeshow floor, and two, you’re positioning your company at a much higher level than most of your competitors.

Given the stakes at risk and the amount of money you’re investing in your tradeshow marketing, I have one question for you:

Why wouldn’t you want to do all of these things properly and with excellence to significantly increase the odds of bringing home the bacon?

If you’re not willing to do that, perhaps you are not yet ready for tradeshow marketing.

Oh, and if you want to know where the inspiration for the title for this post came from…

October 30, 2012

10 Things Zombies Can Teach Us about Tradeshow Marketing

Thanks to a recent post on tradeshow-exhibiting Zombies published here on the Tradeshow Guy Blog, Mel White, VP of Business Development for Classic Exhibits, was suitably inspired to come up with a Top Ten List on what we can all learn from zombies. Thanks for sharing, Mel!

Single-minded Focus. You may not appreciate their all-consuming desire to eat your flesh, but they are committed to the task. They let nothing get in their way, except an ax to the brain. Your next trade show will be wildly successful, if you make it a priority, not an afterthought.
Teamwork. Zombies travel in packs, like ravenous hyenas. That teamwork ensures them a much higher percentage of kills. There’s a reason “We killed it” signifies success. By working together, those poor doe-eyed attendees don’t stand a chance.
Appearance Matters. You never forget your first impression of a zombie: filthy clothing, rotting flesh, vacuous stare, and rancid halitosis (that alone is enough to make you hurl). It’s sad but true. We judge people by their appearance. Your company spent considerable money to participate so shine your shoes, press your shirt, and dry clean that blazer.
Lights, Motion, and Noise. The undead and the living are both attracted to lights, motion, and noise. As much as we try . . . we can’t resist it. When planning your booth, ask yourself this, “Will my exhibit attract 200% more zombies than my competitors?” If the answer is “No!” then you need to get creative (or consider a ceremonious human sacrifice ever day).
Intelligence. Zombies love brains and so should you. Being smart about your trade show marketing means you understand that trade shows are not the same as print ads, videos, brochures, or traditional sales calls. Trade shows are opportunities to attract new customers and strengthen existing relationships.
Fresh Meat. Ever notice that zombies won’t eat other zombies. They like their meals fresh. Fresh ideas and innovation, particularly during a weak economy, propel one company forward while leaving another one struggling to survive. Trade show attendees go for two reasons: to find solutions to existing problems and/or discover innovations that will strengthen their operations or bottom line.
Know Your Customer. In zombie-speak, we are customers. Good customers freak-out and get eaten. Bad customers ram a metal rod through a zombie’s skull. You want good customers, just without the “getting eaten” part. Good customers become good customers because we understand them and tailor our product or service to meet their needs.
Preparation Matters. Zombies don’t need a trade show toolkit or an exhibitors handbook or an exhibit designer, they are 100% prepared the moment they go from living to undead. You’re not so lucky. You won’t succeed without thorough pre-show, show, and post-show preparation.
Without Customers, What’s the Point? Wandering aimlessly is pointless, even to a mindless zombie. Zombies crave excitement. When a living, breathing human enters its proximity, it switches from listless to high alert. Serious exhibitors react similarly, albeit without the growling and moaning. We’ve all seen exhibitors who appear annoyed or resentful when an attendee enters their booth, interrupting their game of Angry Birds. What’s the point if it’s not about customers?
There’s No Cure. Once a zombie always a zombie. If you love trade shows and are serious about trade show marketing, there’s no antidote. It’s in your blood. No matter how hard you fight it, once bitten, it’s incurable.

Photo by Bob Jagendorf from Flickr.

October 15, 2012

4 Ways to Avoid Tradeshow Exhibiting Zombies

As a tradeshow manager, one of the worst things you will ever face is a booth staff that has become, well, zombies part way through the tradeshow. If you leave the booth and come back to find your staff spending time discussing politics or gossiping about business (disengagement), or if you see things disappear (employee theft), ignoring visitors (wtf? – visitors are why they’re there!), you’ve got a Zombie Apocalypse!

Zombies in your tradeshow booth don’t actually walk around chewing on your tradeshow booth or looking to dismember visitors, but with active disengagement your booth staff might as well be zombies for all the good they’re doing your company.

So, here are 4 ways to avoid Tradeshow Exhibiting Zombies.

Make sure your staff is trained. Nothing’s worse than untrained staff, expect perhaps an uninformed staff. If your staff doesn’t have the skills to interact positively with visitors or know how to answer questions, they might as well be the walking dead.

Marketing goal buy-in. If your booth staff has only the bare information on why they’re there (pick up a paycheck!), you’re doing your company a disfavor. Your booth staff, from the lowliest temp employee to the highest ranked engineer or member of management, should know exactly WHY you’re at the show, WHAT the goals are, and HOW to attain those goals. If they SEE the goal and BELIEVE in what you’re doing, chances are very good they’ll have BUY-IN and will participate with energy and enthusiasm. If so, they’re emotionally engaged. In not, they might as well be…you get the point.

Communication. Your Zombie Apocalypse is only a motion or two away if you aren’t able to communicate effectively and in a timely manner. If that means you’re tweeting about a prize giveaway or posting great deals on Facebook that will spur visitors to rush to your booth, but don’t tell all of the staff, those promotions may fall flat on its face.

Show them you appreciate them. Yup, sometimes the hardest thing for some folks is to say THANK YOU for a job well done. If your tradeshow succeeds and your staff did a stellar job, be sure to recognize them for it. Often the recognition can be nothing more than a pat on the back in front of the staff, but it can also mean that you’re buying them a nice dinner on the last night of the show and telling them as a group that you couldn’t do it without them. Whatever form of recognition you choose, you must be sincere and believable.

Follow these guidelines and the Zombie Apocalypse will likely bypass your company and instead devour your competition!

photo credit: possan

September 18, 2012

Making Real Connections Using Social Media

When you’re tweeting and posting Facebook updates and adding photos to your Instagram or Snapchatting like a 13-year-old, do you ever get the feeling that those updates are all…er…wasted and you’re not making real connections using social media? Do you find that very few people actually respond or read them?

Do you feel that they are not really connecting to your intended recipients – those online followers of your company and products?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Making that connection with your audience (customers, potential clients) is probably the toughest thing you’re tasked to do.

And I’m here to tell you that it’s not an easy thing to do. Even if I gave you a shortlist of things to do on a daily basis, it’s quite possible that you may get nothing out of that list. Or it may mean the difference between making the connection and being totally ignored by your followers.

But still, if you’re on social media, you’ll have to try to find what it takes to make those connections or your time will be wasted.

So let me offer some ideas on what it might take. For every person involved in social media for their company, the approach to these ideas will be different, some slightly and some extremely different, but your approach should fall under the same umbrella. To me there are just two main elements you need to provide.

CONTENT. By providing good content, you’re telling your audience that you care. Show your knowledge; share your expertise. Give things away that are worth something and are not just rehashed. Speak knowledgeably about how your products or services can actually help someone. Answer questions; offer insights based on your experience. And don’t worry about giving away secrets – there really are very few secrets left anyway.

CONNECTION. Yeah, it’s a cliché: connect with someone! The larger your audience, the harder it will be to find anything more than superficial connections based on your online back-and-forth. But…I think there’s something to be said for making the attempt. It could mean cultivating and focusing on a handful of those people in your tribe that are engaged and responsive. You can’t connect with everyone, but for those that you do make a solid connection with, it’s worth it. Often those people will then become surrogates for you and your company, singing your praises without urging from you. BTW, the way to connect online is to get off subject: use humor; comment on photographs, share experiences that are non-business related. Connections are made on an emotional level much easier than on a business level.

And when it comes to connection, quality is better then quantity. In fact, there isn’t enough time to connect with everyone in your circle. Connect with those you are able to and have some sort of attraction to. Business happens with people you like and trust.

In your social media interactions (as in everywhere), be likeble and trustworthy.

photo credit: Bo Valentin

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What they're saying about Tradeshow Success...

"It's a great book, Tim. I've been doing trade shows for years and yet I never knew much about how to go buy or select an exhibit until I read your book. I highly recommend this to small to medium sized businesses looking to take their trade show marketing to the next level." - Anders Boulanger, CEO and Founder of the Infotainers

"Your book is really wonderful. Amanda in our Marketing Department saw it and said, “Oh, that’s really smart! It could be like a textbook for marketing students and professionals.” She’s right. It’s a really smart move for your brand. The content is great. I’m still trying to figure out if QR codes really do kill kittens : )" - Matt Cox, Vice President of Marketing, Bob's Red Mill

"When Tim asked me to read Tradeshow Success, I thought, “Oh crap! Does the world really need another prescriptive manual about tradeshow marketing?” Boy was I wrong. You are in for a treat. Tim takes the dark arts of tradeshow marketing and makes them accessible to anyone – whether you’re a novice to a tradeshow warrior. You’ll meet characters like Katie from Gotcha! Cookies ‘n’ Treats and Wally from Pharaoh, with engaging and entertaining stories about their tradeshow challenges. Social Media? Tim immerses you in the “whys and hows” of using LinkedIn, Twitter, Emails, etc. to drive attendees to your booth and boost your ROI. And that’s just one chapter! Design ideas, staff training tips, lead management, and more. It’s all there for you to enjoy, implement, and share." - Mel White, Classic Exhibits

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