Getting the most out of attending trade shows and conferences

Everyone gets to an industry event sooner or later. We spend time and money getting there, being there and listening. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out how we could get more bang for all that time and cash. Enter: metrics. Huh?

First up, I want to note off the bat that I’m wholesale adapting this article about getting extreme value from trade shows. Leave it to the metric-heads at e-metrics to come up with this sort of thing. So go read the source if you want more. Alright, down to business.

Before you get to the conference

You need to be absolutely certain you know why you are going to the conference or trade show. Just going to hang out or because you think you’ll hear something good. The more vague you are about your objectives, the more vague will be your results. Maybe you’re going to the show in order to learn something critical to your business success, maybe you’re going to pitch prospective clients, maybe you’re going to raise your profile in the industry. All of those would require some planning ahead. Let’s do some simple planning ahead:

1. Identify 3 outcomes you want from the conference. These outcomes should be clear, specific and measurable. The more detail the better (who, what, when, where). Bonus points if you use S.M.A.R.T. goals.
2. Write down your goals. You should write them in the past tense, as if they have already happened. You write them down this way so that you will know when you’ve achieved your outcome: when the statement is true, you have accomplished your goal.
3. Determine a method to measure progress. This is a nice place to put numbers, but it’s also a good place to break down your larger goal into specific phases.
4. Put copies of your 3 outcomes in the pockets of all the clothing you will wear at the event.

At the trade show or conference

Alright, you’re there listening to awesome speakers, excellent panelists and hanging out in the hallways. Your three outcomes are burning a hole in your pocket. Time for some action:

• Identify which speakers and sessions are most likely to attract people who can help your achieve your goals. Let that help you determine which sessions you attend.
• Early in any conversation, ask the other person what they’re most hoping to get out of the conference. If you can help them achieve what they’re after then do so.
• Chances are good they’ll ask you what you’re hoping to get out of the conference or what you’re enjoying most. This is a good time to let them know about some of your goals. Maybe they can help you out.

Bonus Round: Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell, does a great Q&A with herself about how to network. This includes some great tactics on when/how to approach speakers after a presentation. Chris Brogan provides a list of links to articles about making your conference experience great (scroll down).

After the show

Remember all that measurability you put in your outcomes? Start using it. Did you meet enough people? Initiate enough sales conversations? Help enough people? Did you let enough people help you?

I hope this is helpful and not too basic. How do you get the most out of a conference?

Want a Free Ticket to Inman Connect ‘08?

Daniel Rothamel, newly-minted Community Manager for Inman News, is giving away a free ticket to Inman Connect ‘08.

It involves using Twitter. But luckily you can find all the great Twitter resources you can handle over in the sideabar.

Twitter for Communication

Twitter is all about communication. Nice, short digestible chunks that you can consume quickly and get on with your day. But you don’t have to just talk about your cat or tell us about the bus you’re waiting for.

Enhancing offline communication: Twitter at Conferences

One of the most common and useful ways of using Twitter for business communication is for conferences. Often, a conference will have a hashtag and then those present will be “micro reporting” the events. This means that if you aren’t at the event but know the hashtag, you can get some of the insights of being there. Very handy if you can’t get the boss to fund your travel to a good conference. Also, Twitter is used between participants who are present at a conference to help co-ordinate lunches/parties/after-parties/after-after-parties etc. Here are a few items on using Twitter to communicate at conferences:

• Chris Brogan talks about an insight he got from Radian6’s David Alston about how many conferences now have two simultaneous audiences: those present and those following via Twitter (and sometimes one person can be in both audiences).
• Using Twitter to Stay in Touch at Connect gives a nice little rundown plus one use for the technology: keeping in touch during conferences.
• Transparent Real Estate has more Twitter for Conferences information.

If you’re interested in conference use of Twitter specifically you might also enjoy reading an early post on this blog about getting the most out of conferences.

Amplifying your message: Twitter for Broadcasting

Then there’s Twitter for communicating between people in general. Both as a broadcast medium (“hey check out my new blog post”) and as a conversational medium (“Great to hear about your new gig! How’d you get it?”). Below are a few links about using Twitter for broadcast-style communication.

• One of the powerful social customs of the twitter community is the “retweet.” When you say something others find useful they will repeat it–increasing the reach of your message. Here are four tips to send links out via Twitter that help with retweeting.
• Once you get a group of people following your Twitter feed, perhaps Information Week’s suggestion for using it as a broadcast medium will be useful.
• Transparent RE puts forth a good summary of Twitter use for mainstream media as well as responding to some frequent complaints about Twitter.
• There are a variety of ways to automate your Twitter feed to broadcast blog posts etc. Brad Carol from Dakno provides a real world example of a point discussed by Jeff Turner at Blogger Connect NYC 2009: automation may not be so good for increasing your relevance with your audience.

If you think you might want to use Twitter primarily as a tool for communicating, try out the Twitter Tools for Communicating page. If you want to try something else, head to the Twitter for Trendwatching page or go to the main Twitter for Business page.

Feel free to use the comments to let me know about other good articles about communicating with Twitter.

Better branding: Keeping people in their homes.

As mentioned previously, I was very impressed with Inman’s suggestion at NYC Connect 07 that real estate professionals do what they can to help their customers in trouble. Here’s a pretty decent post that outlines some resources to help keep your clients in their homes (skip to the bottom). File under: long term brand building through customer service excellence.

Branding through customer service

During the Connect keynote Inman stood in front of a room  packed with  real estate professionals and advised them to call all of their past clients and ask if they need help with foreclosures. I thought that advice was bold, honest and probably difficult to do. But completely worth it from a branding perspective.

If you’re a realtor and are interested in building a strong brand through excellent customer service read John Keith’s Boston Real Estate Blog: “Survey: Most consumers don’t understand foreclosure”.

Another Great Connect

The Union Street Media crew returned home from Inman Real Estate Connect in New York this weekend. We had a great experience there, as we did last summer in San Francisco. A group of five of us attended and focused on social networking, blogging, internet marketing, MLS issues, and much more. The panels were great, including an appearance by the ever-popular Craig Newmark of Craigslist.

One resulting inspiration was the Real Estate Internet Marketing Map that I sketched at the conference, and then gussied up once home.
After all was said and done, among the trends this year were video, of course, as well as “instant” response to customer inquiries. We added a plugoo chat widget on our site last night – if you come by, say hello. I do think we will see many more agents and offices implementing some kind of basic IM/live chat into their sites, and it’s something that we are beginning to recommend to our clients as something to strongly consider.

Also, we were intrigued by the inexpensive Flip video camera and will probably pick a couple up to start playing with.

It will be interesting to see how realtors and others use the social networking space in the coming year. Like blogging, this can be a good passive channel for attracting customers. However, we are seeing more and more active types of marketing on Facebook, like groups, fan pages, and of course, ads. At the San Francisco Connect in August you couldn’t go through a whole panel without someone saying ActiveRain at least once. By contrast you didn’t hear this as much at the NY Connect. Nevertheless, the ActiveRain community is still a great place to spend some time online.

Real Estate Connect SF07

I just returned from San Francisco from the Real Estate Connect conference. It was an excellent experience and I was really impressed with Brad Inman’s ability to get at the core issues in a really thoughtful and provocative way.

Some of the great content can be found in the videos on InmanTV.

Real Estate Video by – Real Estate Blogger

Presentation material from several of the keynotes are available online. Jamie Glenn of Trulia gave a really interesting survey of 50 online marketing tools for real estate – from blogs and social networking to search. Check it out yourself at http://post.inman.com/t/72308/3721853/6051/0/.

Also check out the NY Connect in January of 2008.

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