Seed your crowd with viable content, fertilize it with social media and watch the engagement grow.
In today’s social media-driven environment, organic viral activity surrounding an event can have an impact far beyond what the most carefully orchestrated marketing campaign can achieve. It can give a huge boost to attendance, promote the organization’s brand, extend the meeting’s impact and build excitement for future events. It’s also far less expensive than traditional marketing methods with much of the work done by the attendees themselves.
Unlike traditional marketing, however, viral activity can rarely be manufactured or directed. It can, however, be encouraged. Organizers can create an environment where attendees and presenters will be emboldened to communicate their experiences through a multiplicity of networks and channels.
"If you do your job right, things take on a life of their own," says Shawna Suckow, CMP (MPI Minnesota Chapter), a speaker and founder of SPIN and The Hive Network. "It’s not about controlling it—you can’t tell people, ’Hey, tweet about my meeting.’ It’s about facilitating it and letting it go to become its own conversation."
When the conversation does go viral, the ROI is substantial, according to Liz King, CEO of Liz King Events.
"It’s the cheapest way to market that there is," she says. "You don’t need a huge budget. You don’t need to pay anyone to participate, including your speakers and your sponsors. They have a vested interest in getting the word out, too."
However, King cautions that a viral marketing strategy is not appropriate for every event.
"It’s important to know your audience—not all will be connected socially," she says. "In the financial industry, for example, social media accounts are [often] not allowed. Things can only go viral if you have the audience who will share it."
Even if the audience is connected and the right steps are taken to encourage sharing, planners should not expect social media excitement if the meeting’s content itself is not exciting, cautions Jonah Berger, associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School of Business and author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On.
"The message is more important than the messenger," he says. "Focus on understanding why people share and on designing content and experiences so that all attendees will spread the word."
Enlist the Influencers
Setting the stage for viral activity is all about enlisting participation from those that marketing experts call "influencers."
Speakers, sponsors, local media and attendees with a strong social media presence are all likely partners.
Because speakers are often eager to get the word out about their presentations, bringing them on board is usually easy, according to Suckow. A frequent speaker at conferences herself, she often takes the initiative by posting a video on YouTube about her presentation and by posing questions on Twitter designed to engage attendees in the topic.
"You can contract with your speakers to help you in your social media efforts," she says. "Many are willing to do this and have large social media followings of their own."
When planning recurring events, King mines the attendee list from prior events to identify those who are likely to share their experiences.
"We’ll look at who has the most Twitter followers or who re-tweeted us the most, which is something you can encourage by having a contest," she says. "We reach out to them. It may be worth it to comp their registration."
Once influential attendees are identified, planners can take various steps that encourage them to post on their platforms. Eric Vidal, director of product marketing for Inter-Call, a conferencing service provider, recommends offering them access to exclusive information prior to the event.
"A successful organizer I know makes it a point to feed the top social media users little nuggets of news about the meeting or a session that not everyone else knows about yet," he says. "It gets them started and makes them feel like insiders."
To set the stage for a participatory environment, Suckow posts questions on various social media platforms on topics related to the upcoming meeting.
"The idea is to ask questions that stimulate conversation, not to just blast out details," she says. "You want people to get involved organically and feel they are part of the action."
This happened when Suckow, while planning a trade show for a male audience, posted a question on Facebook asking which beer should be featured at the onsite beer garden.
"They became very passionate about it and took over the conversation—they felt like they owned the beer garden," she says. "At that point, it became my job to just listen."
Communication Channels
Planners can also create a sharing environment by providing convenient channels for attendees to communicate. Among the basics are creating a Twitter hashtag for the event and providing compelling online content that attendees can easily share through their own social media networks. King recommends including strong visual components and language designed to excite the target market.
"People need to become emotionally connected to the event you are hosting—enough so that they click a ’share’ button,’" she says. "And when you provide information they can cut and paste, you know it will be accurate."
When an event is in progress, nothing succeeds in generating social media activity more than strong visual elements that show the activity already in progress, according to Suckow. Among her recommendations is to create a "Twitter Wall" on a big screen that shows the tweets going out over the meeting’s hashtag, either in real-time or after a delay.
"If people see that their tweets will be shown to the entire audience, it generates more participation," she says. "And it’s not just about the 500 people at the meeting, it’s about the 5 million people that they influence."
Also effective is Eventstagram, a tool that aggregates Instagram pictures posted by attendees through the meeting’s hashtag and puts them on a wall of scrolling images.
"People love seeing their faces up on the giant screen and it really generates participation,"
Suckow says. "Plus it enables you to capture a history of the meeting that you can use to market in subsequent years. You get many images you couldn’t get otherwise—one photographer can’t be everywhere."
And, of course, anything organizers do to provide photo ops for attendees is golden.
"Set up experiences, backgrounds or excuses for people to take photos with their peers, and they’ll share them as a way to connect," Berger says.
