Finn
Digital's newest staff member, interactive account
executive Kari Dunham, co-wrote her first professional
article for the BizTimes Marketing+PR newsletter, published on
September 9, 2009.
A reprint of the article is below:
Event Experience: Increasing Attendee ROI with Social
Design
By: Kari Dunham, Interactive Account Executive, and Bill Finn,
President, of Finn Digital LLC, www.finndigital.com
As humans we continuously strive to grow our network of
relationships. Events like parties, dinners or reunions are the
original social network, bringing people together to expand
personal and professional relationship, so it's no surprise that we
created conferences to build our professional black book. In the
digital age, we professionals seldom develop a solely "in-person
relationship." Therefore, conference organizers are beginning to
bring what was once a "physical" event to the web.
Successful conference exposure has expanded to include social
technology before, during and after an event. Serving as a hub for
information, online social networks can initiate key relationships
between presenters and attendees prior to the event. Attendees can
utilize conference-specific community platforms to post notes from
presentations, print out agendas or develop list of attendees to
meet while onsite. Further, traffic on these conference social
networks double after these events, specifically because they act
as "online archives" for conversations and event feedback or
attendees use them to follow-up with contacts.
Some popular platforms being utilized for conferences
include:
1. Ning
Ning is as an external social networking site where attendees can
create their own social community and invite others to join.
Similar to social networks like Facebook or MySpace, Ning offers
profiles, comments, and photos, as well as conference-friendly
features like "chat", event pages for attendees to RSVP to
conference sessions with visible attendee lists, and a blog tab to
post notes or comment post-sessions. The premium version can
integrate a live Twitter stream on the home page. Ning is free to
use, with ad-free and customizable premium packages available for
$25 a month*.
2. CrowdVine
CrowdVine is a conference-developed social network offering
in-depth profile, messaging, and search features, establishing
relationships between attendees as "a friend"; "a fan"; or "someone
to meet". Calendar features allow attendees to create their own
agendas and discuss sessions. A feedback feature rates a session's
content or speaker while want-to-meet lists help attendees pinpoint
who they would like to meet and who wants to meet them. Blog, photo
and Twitter streams are aggregated into the dashboard for easy
viewing. CrowdVine has free versions, but customizable, ad-free
versions begin at $399 per event.*
3. Pathable
Pathable is a conference-specific social networking platform with
a "tagging" system. As a member of this network, attendees can
identify and converse with others at the conference with similar
tags. Pathable also works with existing Twitter, LinkedIn and
Facebook accounts, alerting attendees when their connections will
be attending. Perfect for the mobile world, Pathable offers iPhone
and smart phone applications for organizing agendas, contacts and
more. They can also produce name tags/conference badges with basic
attendee information, attendees' tags and a list of people to meet.
Pathable charges, on average, a $1,000 set-up fee for each event
and approximately $3 - $6 per attendee for its services.*
Social networks provide the tools for conference attendees to
"socialize" before, during and after the event. However, these
networks require a marketing strategy to educate attendees on the
features and benefits of each tool. Encourage attendees within the
social platform to blog, tweet, geo-tag and post photos, videos or
comments to discussion boards/forums. This official "social media
team" can receive conference perks/incentives as a bonus during the
event while demonstrating the use of the tools. With a conversation
already started, attendees won't be intimidated to share their
comments and experiences.
See how the Business Marketing Association's National
Conference in Chicago demonstrated this team
effort.
With online social networking platforms, attendees are seeing more
business opportunities out of their conference experience, raising
their ROI in professional events despite the economic
climate.
*These prices are provided as of July 2009 and are dependent on
quote from each company.