The Skyline Exhibitor Exchange was jam-packed with ideas on how social media tools can integrate into a trade show exhibition strategy. The goal is to extend the live event experience to the online space.
My co-presenters, Will Burrus, Tiffany Odutoye and Eric Leslie, all brought some serious material to share. It was literally a “drink from the firehose” type of event. As promised, I wanted to produce a list of some of the tools I had mentioned so that attendees could check back and explore the options. You’re obviously welcome to check out anything as well, even if you couldn’t make it.
First, my slides from the presentation:
And here is the list with links to all of the cool tools:
FlowTown.com
I learned about this killer new application from blogger and social media strategist Jason Baer. It’s one of the first in a big movement towards the convergence of email and social media technology. A user can upload or manually enter email addresses and pull back a variety of social media profiles registered to those email addresses. It’s a killer time-saving application that you, as an exhibitor, can use to connect with attendees, once the trade show has provided the list.
Highrise CRM and BatchBook
Socially integrated CRM’s are growing in availability. You may not have the liberty to choose what database you use within your company, but each of these tools are delivered as SaaS and at low enough price points that one could justify using a separate database for your exhibiting efforts. Both of these tools will allow you to link to specific social media profiles and pull dynamic content (like recent tweets, blog posts and LinkedIn updates) right to the attendees page in the database, giving you one centralized access point for a ton of information you can use to build relationships before, during and after the show. I’ve used both and currently use BatchBook.
Twitter Lists
I love that Twitter has made the move to create the sense of niche communities via lists. You can build a Twitter list for each show you attend and add attendees as you find them. Then, watch the list, listen and engage when the time is right. You can also use Hootsuite, Seesmic Desktop and even TweetDeck to manage lists.
Profile Based Networks
Communication is fast and sporadic on things like Twitter. It’s always a good idea to transition a virtual relationship to one of your profile-based networks like LinkedIn, Facebook or even niche-networks for a more permanent connection and increased data flow from your target attendees.
Collecta
I heart Collecta. It’s a real time-saving search engine that allows to search for keywords related to the name of your trade show, event or even the show hash tag, delivering updates as they come in. Collecta kicks Twitter Search’s butt because it also pulls back blog posts, blog comments, videos, images and more. It’s just an all-around great tool with so many uses at a trade show.
Branded Hash Tags
Not really anything to link to on this. I say branded because it’s important to keep your company’s name out there when you are exhibiting. Use a hash tag to make your booth stand out and remember to tweet often.
The Side Arms
Make sure to equip your booth staff with the best sidearms for the job. Since their attention needs to be on the people coming to your booth, a good and easy-to-use smart phone is the best device. Also, remember to include some type of pocket video device. My current favorite for noisy events is the Kodak Zi8 because of it’s external mic capabilities.
Skype Recorder
You may have seen my Skype Sessions. Skype and Skype Recorder are the tools I use to make these interviews-at-a-distance happen. Rather than following up with your prospects to try and schedule a capabilities demonstration for your products or services, why not give them some social capital by featuring them on your company blog. By doing this, you might just build a relationship that leads to a sale when your prospect is ready to buy.
TripIt
This application has been around for a while, but it’s a great tool. Use TripIt to enter in your travel information. It integrates with LinkedIn, and will allow you to see your connections who live within a certain radius of your destination, providing potential opportunities for more live meetings. To make it work for trade show follow-ups, you’ll need to connect with your booth visitors on LinkedIn first.
And finally, my takeaway I wish for you from the Skyline event, produced by the amazing Eric Leslie…
What’s your take? Is this helpful?
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