Ariba Onine Content and Community Coordinator Josh Hedrick had a creative new idea to move attendees to his company’s show booth for the recent Ariba LIVE 2013 users’ conference. He also had goals to enrich attendees’ conference experiences with value-adds, and to encourage attendees to chat about conference happenings online.
To implement his plan, he sought partnership with the conference host, Marriott’s Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, contacting the Gaylord’s director of public relations, Amie Gorrell, about using the resort’s venue on the app Foursquare. Gorrell said it was the first time a client had reached out with such an idea, and she was thrilled to get the call.
“Foursquare is an app for mobile devices that interacts with Twitter or Facebook and works off GPS coordinates,” she explains. “It knows where you are, and lets friends on your network know your location. We’ve used the app for a couple of years to promote special offers like spa treatments within the hotel to guests who check in via the app. It’s another way we can use our outlets to bring benefit to convention customers.”
For the Ariba conference, attendees were encouraged to check into the hotel via Foursquare with their Twitter handles and Facebook pages for exclusive discounts. Once they were near or inside the D.C.-area resort, they could obtain the welcome offer screen on their devices that Gorrell created, advising them to pick up the Gaylord discount coupons at the Ariba show booth. Attendee buzz about the discounts on social media feeds were broadcasted on screens throughout the resort.
About 123 people claimed the discount coupons for the resort’s bars and restaurant outlets--about 5 percent of the conference’s 2,000 attendees--a return that both Hedrick and Gorrell said was a success without a lot of advance publicity.
Hedrick says he intends to repeat the promotion at next year’s conference.
“It’s a way to surprise and delight people with an experience they aren’t expecting,” he says. “The fact that they couldn’t get the coupons electronically, but had to visit our booth to pick up the paper flyers meant we had some great connections there--a good example of new and old media working together to achieve goals.” PageBreak
Everyone Benefits
Ariba’s collaboration with its host site is an example of how proliferating social media tools can help fulfill traditional objectives for networking, exhibitor satisfaction and a range of other meetings goals.
“Meetings were the original social media,” says industry technology expert, consultant and presenter Corbin Ball. “These tools are just one more way to improve the business process--that’s the idea. After all, one good contact at an event can often pay for your whole trip!
“The name badge used to be the primary networking tool,” he continues, “but now the combination of social media and mobile technologies offers a plethora of possibilities to improve the networking process, and many other aspects of an event.”
Tools Ball recommends for improved networking include Bizzabo.com for messaging fellow attendees and event organizers; OleaPark.com for event promotion and attendee behavior analyses; Qriousapp.com for lead sharing; and Shhmooze.com for matching names, interests and expertise to the faces around you at a conference.
Meetings suppliers such as the Gaylord resort benefit from social media engagements as well.
“We created paper coupons for the Ariba team to hand out in their booth to attendees who checked into our FourSquare venue,” Gorrell says. “This was another value-add the resort could bring to convention customers, because we own all the outlets on the property, and that made it easy to reach out to F&B people to arrange the discounts.
Social media lift attendee engagement to a new level for stakeholders, she adds. The traditional way to offer such discounts would mean putting paper flyers in registration bags, a less likely way to snare attendee interest.PageBreak
“The registration bag is still important, but an attendee may look through the bag and may or may not act on it,” Gorrell says. “They usually get bombarded with so many materials on and off the show floor. This is just a great way to break through the clutter, and it’s free.”
Some meeting planners and other event stakeholders are hiring social media experts to enhance the attendee experience and implement objectives.
Caitlin Murphy, a public relations associate with Planit, a full-service Baltimore-based advertising agency, says her team has used social media tools to boost brands, drive attendee engagement and share event news with attendees and people who have interest but may not be on-site. Meeting planners and other clients hire the firm to utilize various media, including websites, print and online ads, and earned media (publicity generated by influencers like journalists via old and new media) to implement objectives.
Though old media such as paper flyers and show programs remain key components of the media mix, Murphy said social media platforms have become significant tools.
“At the recent high profile Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York, our social media team were active behind the scenes taking photos of celebrities that journalists and bloggers could share with the consumer on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We wanted users to enter sweepstakes to win the runway look--clothes and makeup on the models,” Murphy says.
“It was the first time we had done something like this, and we had great engagement, in both creating buzz and one-on-one connections, at the event.”
She said her team also used social media to promote her company’s booth at the recent International Builders’ Show in Vegas. By using a Twitter event hashtag, and tweeting throughout the convention, they encouraged journalists and others to visit their booth at specific times to engage with the team.
