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Social Media for Meeting Planners Carla Pendergraft, CMP Waco Convention & Visitors Bureau Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MySpace YouTube Flickr Other Facebook Fan Page Twitter LinkedIn Group or Profile Wiki MySpace YouTube Flickr None Other? “Social media websites enable people to post, comment, share content, and participate in a community.” It’s about conversations and communities Relationships, not selling It requires a new way of thinking. Push vs. Pull; Telling vs. Asking Allows your audience to connect with you and with each other. ◦ Facebook: 400 million users ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ 700,000 Fan Pages Twitter: 75 million users YouTube: 100 million visitors/month LinkedIn: 50 million users Flickr: 4 billion images Blogs: Over 112 million Wikipedia: 12 million registered users, 20 million pages And new social communities are added every day. Social networking now accounts for 11% of all time spent online in the US. A third of adults post at least once a week to social sites such as Facebook and Twitter. A quarter of adults publish a blog and upload video/audio they created. ~60% maintain a profile on a social networking site. Source: Forrester Research, 1/10 Fear of potential legal issues ◦ Unfamiliarity with best practices for social media policies ◦ Open Records Act ◦ Open Meetings Act Lack of interest by top management Hostility of IT Dept. – fear of viruses, etc. Unsure of return on investment – time drain Unfamiliarity with the tools themselves Fear of mixing personal with business Start your own presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Learn to use the tools on your own, at home. That way, when you’re given access, you will already know how to use them. ◦ FooCamps, unconferences, BarCamps – All sessions are provided by participants ◦ Wikis are potentially the most powerful tool out there for Meeting Planners. ◦ Twitter and Facebook are starting to be used by meeting planners. Well suited when people don’t work in the same office but must collaborate on projects, plans, etc. Email is not efficient for discussing ideas Wikis are web pages anyone can edit Wikispaces.com ◦ Ad-supported: free ◦ No ads: $5/month ◦ No ads plus custom domain name: $20/month Find these convention’s pages on Facebook, and notice what they are posting about. ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Links to main convention website Asking them to apply for scholarships What sessions would you like to see? Things to see and do in the host city Info on room block status What was your favorite part of the convention? Tweets by their web manager YouTube Video Contest Links to convention page on website Use a Tweetdeck to save a search on your organization’s name or other key words. Anytime anyone in the world uses those key words, you’ll see the tweet. You don’t have to be their follower to see it! Learn to use hashtags so twitterers can follow specific conversations about the convention or topic. ◦ #sxsw ◦ #nsbeconvention Set one for your convention. Encourage and publicize its use. Ask your followers to help spread it to their followers. Try using a twitter chat room to segregate the tweets during a live meeting. ◦ Tweetchat.com Some put the chat up on a screen live behind the speaker or within speaker’s view Others have a moderator who monitors the chat and feeds questions or comments to the speaker. Much more controlled. Some planners are setting up a Twitter account specifically for the convention. ◦ @nsbeconvention ◦ @OAR_Convention “OAR's Annual Convention & Expo to keep attendees informed of schedule changes, news, and notification of social events.” ◦ @sxsw Official user of the SXSW Music, Film and Interactive Conferences and Festivals Several other twitter accounts for SXSW parties, etc. backupmytweets.com YouTube – upload some videos and display them on your website and/or Facebook page. Flickr – Create a photo gallery of pictures from the various events you conduct. Blogs – Create one at Wordpress.com or Blogger.com and put a link to it on your website. Blogs: wordpress.com Blog search engine: technorati.com Bookmarks: delicious.com, digg.com Photo albums: flickr.com, photobucket.com Social networks: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter Create your own social network: Ning Create a social website: webs.com Wikis: wikispaces.com, pbworks Videos: YouTube, Podbean.com, fliqz.com User name checks: namechk.com Email newsletters: constantcontact.com Surveys: surveymonkey.com Exchange huge files: http://drop.io Webinars: gotowebinar.com URL shorteners: tinyURL.com Twitter management tool: tweetdeck.com Post to several sites at once: ping.fm Share powerpoints: slideshare.net Online file conversion: zamzar.com E-learning: digitalchalk.com Skype: phone calls via the internet Tubemogul.com: track your video stats