SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING – Using Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs to Promote Your Meetings

1. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING –Using Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs to Promote Your Meetings Carla Pendergraft Associates Web Design www.carlapendergraft.com

2. What We’ll Cover • Overview of social media tools • How Facebook can help publicize events • Twitter for meeting attendees • Wikis as a planning tool • Blogs for conference content • Slideshare, YouTube, and Viddler

3. Social Media Characteristics It’s about conversations and communities It requires a new way of thinking. Push vs. Pull; Telling vs. Asking Allows your audience to connect with you and with each other.

4. U.S. Social Media Communities Facebook – 200 million users, top 10 website MySpace – 110 million users LinkedIn – about 30 million users Twitter – 54 million visits per month YouTube – 70 million videos Flickr – hosts over 2 billion images Blogs – over 200 million And new social communities are added every day.

5. Meeting Planners on Facebook • On Facebook, I searched for “meeting planner” and “event planner” and got some groups, but few Pages. • A few SGMP chapters are on Facebook as groups. • Not many state agencies are on Facebook. • Some SGMP members are on Facebook! • National Guard Association of Texas • TCEQ has a page on Texas Recycles Computers • Who else?

6. Use of Social Media Only 26 percent of companies use social media such as Twitter and Facebook for corporate purposes, although 70 percent plan to jump in* *2009 survey by Minneapolis-based communications firm Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law.

7. Meeting Planning and Web 2.0 • Face-to-face meetings are NOT going away. • Look at the tech world; they meet in person regularly. • FooCamps, BarCamps – started in 2005 • Play on the programming term “foobar” • Also called “Unconferences” • From Wikipedia: BarCamps are open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants. The first BarCamps focused on early-stage web applications, especially open source. The format has also been used for a variety of other topics, including public transit, health care, and political organizing.

8. BarCamps • All attendees are encouraged to present or facilitate a session. • Everyone is also asked to share information and experiences of the event, both live and after the fact, via public web channels including blogging, photo sharing, Facebook, wikis, and Twitter. • This open encouragement to share everything about the event is in deliberate contrast to the "no recordings" rules at many private conferences.

9. BarCamp examples http://www.barcamp.org/Government20Camp http://dallas.wordcamp.org

10. Who’s on Facebook? • Search on “texas department” • 30 Pages • 476 Groups • Pages include TXDOT, TX Dept. of Agriculture, American Legion, TX Dept. of Criminal Justice • Groups include TX Police Assn, TX Young Lawyers Assn, and repeats of those on Pages

11. Facebook Groups vs. Pages Groups are for groups of people sharing an interest, like a club. Often private. Pages are for brands and businesses. Always public.

12. Facebook Events • Urge your business/agency to start a Facebook Page • Push to get as many “Friends” as possible. Publicize in Newsletter, website. • Publicize events/conventions using the “Events” tab. • Also announce events on the Wall.

13. Meeting Planners - Twitter • On Twellow.com, I searched “texas meeting planner” and found: • Chaseinaustin, independent planner – 60 followers • Paula Rigling, “paularigling” – 39 followers • Kim Reynolds, “meetingsgal” – 145 followers • Janice Scales, “chesspie250) – 6 followers

14. Twitter for Planners Create a profile for yourself at twitter.com Build your following – include in sig line Publicize your events to your followers

15. Tweeting and Hashtags Hashtags are simply shorthand ways to organize tweets. Examples: #txdot09, #sbotconf, #wordcampdallas Set meeting hashtags in advance, encourage speakers to use Encourage tweeting during and after your meetings Have someone monitoring twitter and responding during the meeting

16. Wikis - a perfect planning tool for committees Allow far-flung members to communicate on a single unique webpage No coding Free, easy to use Wetpaint.com Tabs: Educational programs by day, spouse activities, social activities

17. Blogs • More in-depth info on speakers, presenters, activities • Set up a free one at wordpress.com • Could be your own blog, or blog just for the conference. • Use feedburner.com to allow people to subscribe to updates via email

18. Blogs • Blogs are yet another way to speak to your audience. • If your website is your ad, blogs are a more personal account of your journey as a photographer • It takes a great level of commitment to keep it up • Google loves blogs • wordpress.com - 5 minute setup • Bobsmyhost.com – comes with WordPress pre-installed

19. Slideshare A free service for PowerPoint presentations Request your speakers upload their presentations to slideshare Publicize link; people can decide in advance if they are interested in it Eliminate/reduce handouts?

20. YouTube/Viddler If you video your speakers, put on YouTube and/or Viddler Speakers get publicity as well Viddler allows sharing with iTunes, RSS; accepts most formats. Both are free.

21. Recommendations • Create a personal Facebook page if you don’t have one • This will help you learn the Facebook lingo • Help build your business Facebook page’s friends • Build your events on Facebook • Start a personal Twitter feed • Use “Texas meeting planner” in description • Just update as you have time and something to say! • Consider starting a blog after you do FB & TW • As time permits, work with YouTube, Slideshare, etc • Don’t neglect your core website

22. Further Reading Cluetrain Manifesto by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger (1999) The Long Tail by Chris Anderson (2004) Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin (2007) Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe (2008)