Social media comes in many different forms, from Facebook through to Twitter, and from LinkedIn through to various blogging sites. What many people attending exhibitions don’t realise is that these can be used expertly to leverage huge amounts of interest in their stands and displays – both before and during the exhibition. In this blog post, we are going to concentrate on the big three social media platforms, and examine how each of them can be utilised to their maximum potential…
Facebook is the big one – the social media platform that 99% of the country will have heard of. You probably have your own personal Facebook page, but have you bothered to create one for your company yet? If not, make sure you do as a matter of urgency. Once you have, you can entice people to “like” your page through various means during an exhibition. Some ideas for this are to have links to the Facebook page on business cards and other advertising material, advertise exclusive Facebook competitions at the exhibition and offer small discounts to anyone buying, who also agree to like the page.
Why is it important to get Facebook likes though? It’s simple. Everyone who likes your page has already shown interest in the products or services you have to sell. Therefore, every post you make on the page is being sent to people who are incredibly likely to buy. What’s more, by posting about the exhibition, you’ll entice more people to head over to your pitch and hopefully part with some of their money!
Twitter is also incredibly popular, although much simpler than Facebook. Thanks to the quick posts and ease of use, it is the perfect tool to chronicle your experiences to everyone and let the whole world know exactly why they will benefit from heading to your pitch and speaking to you. Don’t forget, most people at the show will have their smartphones with them, so will be able to receive tweets even when they are on site.
How can tweets be targeted towards potential customers though, and not simply get lost in the “Twitterverse”? Well, the answer to this is hashtags. After every tweet, you should include at least one hashtag. For example, you could say:
“Special offers for all customers today when they visit ABC Flooring #londontradeshow”
By placing #londontradeshow at the end, it means that everyone searching for London Trade Show on Twitter will see your Tweet. Update tweets every hour or so though, so you don’t get pushed down the list by more recent ones from other exhibitors.
LinkedIn is more focused on business, therefore it is incredibly useful for informing other business owners that you’ll be at a certain trade show, at a certain time. This is massive, as other businesses won’t buy one or two items, but often buy in bulk. There’s not much more to say about LinkedIn, other than to make sure you send out those messages early, in order to make sure the recipients are free to come and spend their money with you!
