How to encourage your attendees to “social sharing at events” is a theme we have touched on a few times this year so I thought it was about time that I dedicated a blog to the topic. To stop me from droning on I’ve made a few assumptions: that you have a hashtag, have encouraged people to get engaged on line and have good wifi; you know the basics. So here are my top 11 tips on how to ensure that your attendees social sharing at events or put more dynamically! share the content and the excitement at your event.

1. Display the rich theme during your event

At your event you can now display the “twitter wall on steroids!” There are many ways to display the rich content at your event. A rich event feed can show videos, pictures and text based social media updates. Simply display this in a prominent place and it will increase the chance of your attendees engaging in Social Media. We used Conferize for this at Tech Fest last year and it was very popular. 

2. Use some funky RFID enabled badges

These snazzy little badges can be linked to attendees social media accounts. When they touch a reader it automatically updates their social media channel of choice. So they can update and post things like:

– “I loved this session at #techfestevent and YOU can follow on line”

– “I’ve just arrived #whostolemyaudience”

– “I just visited the etouches stand and was well impressed” and how about

– “I am leaving the most amazing event #techfestevent: they still have tickets available for tomorrow” all manor of things.

In my experience people can get quite addicted to the tapping of the badge on every available reader and this really works. I think this was one of the most successful ways we’ve found to increase social sharing at events. We used Noodle Live for this at a big conference and exhibition last year and they were fantastic.

3. Photo booths are still pretty good

These have been around for a few years now but if the organiser creates the right environment – a fun and relaxing atmosphere – these are very popular. They don’t need to just appear at dinners they have a place at awards and at conferences as well. You just have to remember that they are supposed to be fun. Something someone should have told @williamevents

“It’s not a mug shot” someone behind me shouted out in Dutch.

4. Have professional photographs and videos

People love sharing great pictures and the better the picture the more likely it is to be shared. And no one takes better pictures than a pro. If you do use a photographer make sure that they are uploading their pictures using your hashtag during the event. Asking them to do this every hour or so shouldn’t be too much work for them. It feeds beautifully in to your rich feed at the event. And of course you have great content post event. Video is exceptionally useful post event. We always use Paul Clarke or one of his talented team for pictures and Laurence and his guys at Presenta for quality video work. 

5. Have a Social Side Kick creating content

You really hope that you have engaged your attendees and they are busy snapping away, taking Vines and sharing content but just in case it is a great idea to have one of the team – your Social Side Kick doing this for the event. They can be your dedicated feed provider ensuring that the feed is indeed rich!

6. Our be a good delegate

We created a template to encourage delegates to “be good” at your event. Many of the tips included what they should do on social media to increase social sharing at events. It would be a great idea to do something similar and sent this to all your attendees before the event. Click on the picture to see the short slide deck:

7. Have a “Social Media Minute”

We had one at our Who Stole My Audience conference. Every hour we had a minute when our chairman asked participants to share something from the event that they thought would be useful for their networks, something that they have picked up in the preceding hour. It led to some quality sharing.

8. Brief your speakers to think about easy quotable facts

This backs up number 7. If you are running a conference the content will be the thing that people will want to share. So help your speakers. People love sharing quotes, facts and stats so why not brief all of your speakers to ensure they have at least three easily sharable bits of info in their presentations. It’s so simple that it might just work!

9. Gamify your Social Sharing

Offer prizes for sharing. Think about having something for the most prolific updater, the best picture, the most retweeted tweet this is sure to get people involved. Adding a leaderboard that everyone can see will add another element to this.

10. Open up delegate feedback on speakers for all to see

Attendees are used to being able to see the feedback via twitter on every speaker so why not take it one step further. How about displaying the actual speaker scores on a big screen? Last year at Tech Fest we displayed live ratings for speakers throughout the event. You need brave speakers but boy does this make for interesting content that people engage with and share! Check out Speakerscore it is a fantastic way to give great feedback to your speakers (and should you be as bold) to the whole audience as well!

11. Create moments to share

Creating great moments is much simpler than you think. Just take a step back and think is there a couple of moments that I can create that will make people want to share? It could be some of your staff dressed up in costumes, it could be your conference chairman wearing a judges outfit for a session or two………the possibilities are endless Here’s one of my favourite shared moments from EIBTM in 2012:

Thinking Inside The Box at EIBTM

Published On: March 10th, 2014 / Categories: Latest News, Social Media, Technology / Tags: , , , , /