Best Tactics for Analyzing Your Event's Social Media Activity

Tracking is important. You need to know whether your attendees are using your hashtag, sharing it, commenting on your event and whether they are creating their own hashtags to help continue the conversation. Every post will help generate data that you can use to better understand your event's reach and attendee experience. Analyzing your event's social media activity is one of the many ways you can measure ROI. Here's how to go one step further than just tallying "likes" and "follows." 

Timeline

Pay attention to the timing of all the posts. If you make sure to look at posts throughout the entire lifecycle of the event you will be able to get a big picture understanding of what your attendees did, where they went, and what their thoughts were about each element. 

Content

Are your attendees sharing content from your event? Are they excited about a particular feature? Analysis of what is being shared and at what time will help future programming and production. For example, are there many posts centered around one particular speaker? If so, are they positive, are they starting conversations and deep dives into the content that was shared?

Author

Look into your attendees and who is posting. Are they influencers? How many followers do they have and what is their reach? Knowing the author of the info will help define your actual reach. 

Location

If you are able to add GeoTags to your social media channels you will be able to see where the info is coming from. This works well for large events like festivals or conferences/events that take place over multiple locations. This doubles as a great way to add value to sponsorships. If you are able to provide data referencing your attendee's location during the event and the frequency of visitation when it comes to booths, speaker rooms or experiential exhibits that will help provide a quality ROI measurement for you and your sponsors.

Longevity

Take a look at the length of time each attendee spends sharing info on social media. Are there consistent messages, posts etc. that span the entire lifecycle of the event or are there bursts of energetic posts followed by radio silence? If you can create a big picture of what, when and how the posts and shares are taking place you will be able to tell a more detailed story about the success of your event. 

People Are More Connected to Brands in Social Media More Than Ever

I wanted to share this recent report from The Curve, produced by NBCUniversal Integrated Media. It shows how people are more connected to brands in Social Media, but that brands are ineffective.

The results of this survey were collected among 2,50018-49 year olds in May, 2012. The group consisted of 2000 nationally represented correspondents and 500 digital trend setters (early adopters and highly active on their social networks). 

Don’t Underestimate the Brainstorm

Brainstorming is an integral part of most creative businesses, and the event industry is absolutely no exception.  In fact, we at BENG! love the brainstorm session portion of our projects that we offer "Free 'Storms"for our clients.  It's a great way to get our team to relax and in the right state of mind, and our clients follow quite quickly. We keep our brainstorms open, free and easy - as they should be. Of course we have creative objectives to reach, but sometimes you need to break the ice before you can move forward on a project. We believe the brainstorm does both: 1 - it takes you right to the heart of your project. 2 - It gets you in creative line with your client, team and sets you on the right track for your project. 

How do we do it?

There are so many articles out there that negate the positive elements of brainstorming. We agree the traditional brainstorm where everyone gets a pencil and a notepad and goes around the room taking turns on ideas isn't the most effective way to get to your creative objectives. So, how do we do it? How should you do it? Here are some helpful tips:

1. There Is A Time and Place For Everything

Know your audience, know what you are trying to brainstorm about and feed into it. You need to find the right time and the right location to create an environment that fosters creativity. It's not about sitting in a room and not coming out until you're done.

2. Understand your objective

Know before you begin what you are going to discuss, plan your meeting attendance accordingly and have a plan. You cannot expect that everyone sits in a room and shouts out ideas until the perfect one arises, you need to nurture the environment and the relationships. You foster the ideas, and 

3. Be prepared
Get some research done. Think about what your goals are and how you want your team to achieve them. Come to the meeting prepared with "thinking" points so that you can share and provide input to the conversation. Everything is a work in progress during a brainstorm...so no one should feel under prepared, but you should at least have had a moment to think about the topic.

4. Guidance is Key 
Define a clear leader in the brainstorm. The person should be in charge of the open flow of conversation, ideas, and positivity. Sometimes the best work is found when going off topic, but you have to know when enough is enough. Also, having a leader will help your team feel safe and comfortable, knowing that negativity wont have a place in the room. 

5. Don't Force It, Sometimes 2 Times is A Charm

Sometimes we have to do more than one brainstorm. The questions and ideas that come up in the first one lead to more roads to explore and that can take time. Don't worry if you don't leave the room with a concrete idea or direction...brainstorms can help you in the right direction and sometimes you need more than one.

Tips on how you or your agency brainstorm? Any unusual places? Let me know nicolen at bengny dot com

How Social Media Users Feel About Brands on Facebook

Here is an infographic produced by Lab 42 on What Social Media Users Feel About Liking Brands on Facebook. They polled 1000 users to get the results they show in the infographic below.

Key Take Aways:

75% of users feel more connected to a brand on Facebook
69% liked a brand on Facebook because a friend did
46% liked a brand, but had no intention to buy from them - Why? They wanted a free item, like but can't afford the products, or liked a brand to help out a friend

There are some great pieces to this infographic. Definitely take a look at it and think about it in relation to your social media mix.

Digital Marketing in 2012

Thank you to Webmarketing for publishing the 2012 State of Digital Marketing Report. It lists the top objectives for digital marketing programs, the biggest impact on lead generation, and social media engagement's impact on your bottom line. Check out the infographic below:

                              

A Mind Reader, A Toy Train & The iPhone 5 - Viral Video Friday

Happy Friday all. It's pouring in NYC today so, for all you NYC BENG!Buzzers grab a coffee and enjoy your Viral Videos.


1. Mind Reader Reveals His Gift


2. A Toy Train in Space


3. iPhone 5 Superglued To The Ground


For more videos check out Viral Video Friday at www.bengny.com

StartUp Watch: 3 Startups For Events

1. Planana
Planana is a ticketing and promotion dashboard for your event.There are so many ticketing sites out there, and this is not one that stands out for that. It is their promotion service that peaked my interest. Planana helps you set up your own event dashboard, and a reward system for your attendees. The system doles out discounts, VIP Access etc. in exchange for social sharing. An attendee shares the event on twitter or facebook, and they are guaranteed 40% off their ticket. All the rules are set by you, and you not only get additional publicity, but an easy ticketing platform.


2. Instagram Booth
BYO Booth is a photo booth platform based on Instagram. All you need to do is set up an Instagram hashtag for your event and the software will look for attendees pictures. You can then decide to stream them on a slideshow, create your own living wall at your event, post them to Facebook or print them. Pretty simple, yet extremely interactive and helpful for picture collection at events.

3. Refynr
The Refynr platform provides the technology for event producers to display live tweets on large screens during events. Producers can also create an interface for attendees to check or send tweets directly via a Twitter login. Great for conferences that require live tweet walls as well as other events where you want to capture the buzz. Just remember, live tweet walls means un-curated discussion...you can't control what is being said about your event, product etc.

Sources: eventmanager blog

2 Must See Brand Marketing Infographics

So, I always love sharing information and tidbits I pick up along my daily journey of reading blogs, tweets, posts and sites. I found these two infographics really interesting - thanks for sharing Fresh Peel!

Market Research Gets Social
All about how marketers use research and data to discover how to drive sales. Not a new concept, but it's always great to see the numbers come alive. Forexample:

• 60% of people learn about a brand through social media when researching a product via 3+ digital means.
•  1 out of every 5 minutes: time online spent on social networks and blogs
•  90% of consumers trust peer recommendations

 Believable Branding
Following on the notion that 90% of people surveyed for the first infographic trust peer recommendations, this graphic is all about believable branding and how much consumers really trust the marketing that is going on around them. Another interesting read:

Have any great infographics to share?? Let me know at nicolen at bengny dot com

Dashboards for Dummies! 3 Event Marketing Dashboards To Help Event Professionals

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome back everyone! After a summer hiatus, BENG!Buzz is back up and running. After a busy summer event schedule, we are super excited to enter the Fall. In all of our travels and productions this summer we have compiled a list of 3 Event Marketing Dashboards that help event professionals save time, energy and reel in those ticket sales.

Why A Dashboard?

All event lovers know that the task of planning the event must go hand in hand with publishing and ultimately selling the event. The best place to start is finding a tool that can help you do both and publish what you need in the ease of one click. Think HootSuite but for Events. You get to choose your message, and then to who, where and when you push it out.

A structured platform will help you as an event professional platform your copy and send it out to all of your major networks. It's hard to keep up with Social Media, it's hard to find the time to open up all the channels and to differentiate your message for each audience. So many of us decide on only a couple of outlets, because it's easy...instead of because it's a right fit. Think about it. We have: Google +, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Message Boards, Apps, Websites and so much more to control. So why not find a dashboard that works for you and that can help you get your message out. You put your message in one place and blast it out. Tweaking the copy and message slightly if necessary.

 

Here are some new and less new dashboards for you to try out.

 

 

1. Evently

 

This UK based platform company helps you create online event pages, promote your events, engage with your audience, and most importantly analyze so that you can understand your event marketing success.

 

2. GetPromotd

This platform publishes your event to online listings and social networks. Get your event local coverage thought event calendars, national event sites and channels which can not only help you put the word out but give you an increase in attendance.

 

3. Event Chocolate

This site prides itself on providing you with: the right message, to the right people, at the right places. You get to market your message specifically where your audience is, and they allow for attendee recommendations. Have loyal attendees spread the word for you. They are not yet fully launched, but will be soon.

 

 

 

Special Check Out: One Lobby

 

This platform is in private beta right now, but once it's fully up and running it will be a conference and network discovery platform. As a user you will be able to connect with potential attendees, inform current attendees, and create a networking platform for attendees to connect prior to the conference.

 

 

Do you have any other plaforms or dashboards that you would like to put forward? Let us know: nicolen at bengny dot com

 

 

Emotion and Audience Engagement

I am about to get started on The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty and Lead Effectively by Helio Fred Garcia. So looking forward to hearing more about the ways in which I can present myself in a way that is inspiring, firm and trustworthy. Something I feel every business owner needs. If you have the time…you should probably pick the book up too!

In researching the book, yes odd to research a book that you want to read, but with such little time I need to really figure out what is worth my spare time and what isn’t, I came across this Fast Company article. I wanted to share the highlights with you, so if you don’t have time to read the book in its entirety, you can at least get the gist.

The article starts off with: The default to emotion is part of the human condition. Yes indeed it is. It is rare to find anyone in a room who is listening to an inspiring speaker who doesn’t feel something emotionally either toward the speaker or the topic. Even if you dislike the speaker or the topic, you most likely do so in an emotional way. The primitive brain explained below, is what is important for leaders, business owners and for anyone who is looking for success.

The primitive brain and the limbic brain collectively make up the limbic system, which governs emotion. Within the limbic system, there is a structure called the amygdala, which leaders need to understand.

When faced with a stimulus, the amygdala turns our emotions on. It does so instantaneously, without our having to think about it. We find ourselves responding to a threat even before we’re consciously aware of it. Think of jumping back when we see a sudden movement in front of us, or being startled by the sound of a loud bang. We also respond instantaneously to positive stimulus without thinking about it: Note how we tend to smile back when someone smiles at us; how we are immediately distracted when something we consider beautiful enters our line of sight  

So, with this information, we need to understand that attention is emotionally driven. If you want to grab attention and keep it, you have to find a way to trigger the Amygdala in your audience. Whether it is in person, during a meeting, a social media campaign, marketing campaigns or a piece of advertising, it all comes back to something as simple as emotion. Frills, bells and whistles won’t work unless you trigger the right emotion.

As mentioned in the audience, here are five strategies for audience engagement:

1. Establish a Connection. You have to actually connect with your audience before saying anything important. “Techniques to connect include asking for the audience’s attention, if only with a powerful and warm greeting, followed by silence and eye contact.”
2. Say Your Killer Piece First. So you have established your connection? Directly after that, you need to say your most important piece of information. It should be a main framing piece that will help guide all that follows, and stay in your audience’s memory.
3. Never Finish Without a Recap. Always close with a re-brief of what your main most powerful framing statement was about.
4. Make it Memorable. We all have to keep in mind how much we are bombarded with information at every point of our day. Whether it’s TV, Social Media, Phones, Emails, and Meetings etc. Make sure what you are trying to say is simple, and easy to remember. Repeat your most important points.
5. The Rule of Three. The most important take away of the whole article for me was the rule of three. Have three main points, topics or examples…but never more than three. People just won’t be able to focus on more. Make it short and sweet, but keep it to three.

I am so looking forward to the book. Look out for a review on the book and it’s main principles…as soon as I get through it!

Customer Experience Rules

In my research for this past week's posts I came across two great blogs: Stage Two and 3rdIdea. Both of them had postings based on Dustin Curtis and the Twitter storm he started with a letter and a site re-design of AA.com. If you aren't familiar with the Dustin Curtis AA.com story here is a short synopsis:

Dustin Curtis (interface designer by trade) became so infuriated with the poorly designed and confusing AA.com site that he not only decided never to fly with them again, but also to write them a letter describing his experience on the site.  His Dear American Airlines Letter can be read here. He also took the time to give them a quick re-design. After David posted his letter, an American Airlines employee (one of the site architects) contacted him and stated: "You are right. Our site is a mess." Of course Dustin posted this, and low and behold, AA.com fired the employee - even though Dustin never mentioned him by name, AA figured out who it was and fired them. The story ended up going viral, picked up by mass media. American Airlines didn't do a great job at reaching out to customers, or handling the press firestorm. Eventually it blew over.

The major piece to take from this story? Customer experience/engagement is key. In the world we live in, one voice can make a difference, because one voice can become thousands depending on who is listening. Dustin Curtis said it best:

Customer experience is the new brand.
I’m not referring to a brand as a logo and a typeface. I’m referring to the new kind of brand, the one is formed by the entire experience of a customer’s interaction. That experience gets branded into his or her memory and leaks into the buzz of modern culture. If you can’t make a good customer experience from start to finish, you’ve failed to generate brand value that will attract customers to come back for repeat business and tell their friends to come back, too. That’s how good customer experience directly affects the bottom line.

This rings true for customer service, customer experience and experience marketing. Everything needs to fit properly. Everything needs to be brand appropriate, fall in line with target audience and customer behavior, engage and ultimately work in order to make sense. You can build a beautiful marketing campaign, fill it with  quirky gimmicks, buffer it with stellar PR and advertising, but if at the core the customer experience isn't up to par, it won't work. And in the case of Dustin's customer experience example, you lose the customer.  As I said in my FLAWSOME post last week; you have to engage your customer correctly. You have to be authentic. You have to be transparent. You have to be willing to receive bad reviews and even publish them and then own up to them and show how you are changing - or why you made the decision to stay the course. Dustin is right. Customer Experience is the new brand, and Customers can make or break your brand in as little as 140 characters.


[image via 3rd idea & sylvainpaillard.com]

Four Fun Interactive Campaigns

A little fun to help get you through this blistery Wednesday! After yesterday's post about FLAWSOME behavior, I thought today we would look at some genuinely awesome and out of the box customer engagement behavior.

T-Mobile Angry Birds
A promotion by T-Mobile in Barcelona 2011. T-Mobile actually built an Angry Birds set. People place their smart phones in the main hub, and play the game. The game is projected on the big screen on the left and the game is played real time. Not only do people have fun, it builds a nice community feel all associated with Angry Birds AND T-Mobile. Check out the video....it's genius!

Kauko Cafe
A cafe in Helsinki was built as part of World Design Helsinki 2012. You can remotely control the furniture, music, lights and even the height of the chairs people sit on via an app or the Kauko Cafe website. The aim of the project was to get people thinking about how bad design can impact your life...and this video shows that it really does!

The Friskies Playhouse
What cat wouldn't want a playground! Friskies Playhouse is a playhouse for rescued cats. The playhouse is created by facebook fans and streamed online live via the page. Fans are able to remotely control the toys and play with the cats. I love that you never lose the idea that this is presented by Friskies, and it's a great way to engage with their cat loving customers.

KLM Surprise!

I tweeted about this last week. KLM has done some great customer engagement programs recently and this one doesn't fall short either. KLM Passengers who Tweeted or used other social media methods to announce their KLM trip were targeted - and with a brainstorm on the best individual gift to give them - are met at the gate with their personal gift from duty free. So great to be met at the gate before a long flight with something personal. I guarantee people will appreciate it!

[Simply Zesty.  Image from http://www.peopleinsight.co.uk/ ]

Happy #Viral Friday!

It's President's Day Weekend and it pretty much feels like spring out there. Hope you all enjoy your weekend....and to help get you started check out this week's hottest videos on the web. My personal favorite? #5 Inside every good dog is a Great dog!

Click here for the fun to begin.


See you all next week!

App Wakes You Up Based on Weather Forecast

A fun post to help get you through your Wednesday afternoon! Belgian Agency, Boondoggle, has created an app that wakes people up dependant on the weather forecast. Perfect for those surprisingly frosty mornings. Being late because you have to defrost your car is no longer an excuse to be late to work!

Inspiration for the app came from the unusually cold weather last year and many of their employees being late for work. The app works in the same way as a normal alarm clock, however it collects weather forecasts during the night and if the forecast worsens it will change the alarm to wake you up earlier. Leaving you plenty of time to shovel and defrost your car, or leave early enough to catch public transport.

Interesting idea, although I am not sure how many people would opt to use this app. I don't know many people who would trust an app to wake them up earlier than scheduled.  And, with the unusually warm winter we are having, there isn't much need. But cute all the same.

[Simply Zesty]

Happy #Viral Friday!

Happy Friday everyone! Looks like we finally have some snow coming. So get your shopping done and hunker down in your apartment before it gets here! Oh, and definitely check out our Viral Videos of the week. Fun Friday begins now!

Check out our site for the top viral videos of the week. While you are there you might as well check out the funniest stuff on the net in the More Fun section.  Get ready for a laugh!

Scandinavian Airlines Creates Smart Campaign

Knowing your customer profile is incredibly important. All too many companies just rely on general sales without thinking about who is actually buying their product, why and capturing the data they find. Scandinavian Airlines recently launched a really smart 2 for 1 campaign based on research they conducted about their customers.

The airline's research showed that their best customers were affluent couples who booked holidays to spend time together. In order to entice a higher number of sales the airline launched an app that required two people (a couple) to put their phones together at the same time and unlock a discount code. Scandinavian Airlines sent out over 100,000 emails to their existing customers as well as launched an advertising and social media campaign to highlight the promotion. Customers scanned a QR code each and were promoted to follow the promotion and buy tickets using the provided discount codes. 

Couple Up to Buckle Up from Tobias Carlson on Vimeo.



Cute promotion AND they sold out every ticket available to the promotion. 



[Scandinavian Airlines & Simply Zesty]

#Viral Friday!

Happy #Viral Friday! Here are the top viral videos on the web this week. Have a great MLK weekend everyone!

#Viral Friday!

Happy Friday everyone! I can't wait for the weekend to start. So many last minute gifts still to buy, plus those wonderful Holiday windows to check out on 5th Avenue. Tonight I will be at Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas Spectacular - a NYC staple during the holiday season. Can't wait!

So, let's get this weekend started! Here are the top viral videos on the web this week. Enjoy!

 Want more fun? Check us out on Facebook and on Twitter @BENGNY

25 Social Media Articles You Must Read

Simply Zesty - my new favorite weekly read - has compiled 25 Unmissable Social Media Articles from the last week. Might be a great idea to save them and read them over the holidays when you are nice and comfy on the couch preparing yourself for the new year!

The TechCrunch blogger talks about becoming a venture capitalist at the CrunchFund

Is the Internet the “Paris” of the new millennium?

Answers to 31 Social Media Questions You’re Too Shy to Ask

How Ideas Spread With Social Media

Tweets cause US death row conviction to be overturned

Sean Parker: There are Too Many Startups and VCs

The New Twitter (R.I.P. Tweetie)

A Twitter for My Sister

The new, new Twitter: 10 big takeaways

Sarah Lacy And Mike Arrington Are Starting TechCrunch 2.0

Flipboard launches sleek iPhone app with new ‘Cover Stories’ section

Spotify Radio gets a big makeover, goes truly unlimited

Mark It Down: June 6, 2012

Sorry, Folks, Bill Gates Is Not Coming Back to Microsoft

Exclusive: Facebook Does A Major Reorg Around Key Products

Marissa Mayer at LeWeb: Google+ Was a Pleasant Surprise

Teaching Ventures Catch the Programming Wave

Apple job openings hinting at Siri API, prettier interface and additional languages

Sean Parker Invests In Music Startup StageIt

It’s a start: Facebook begins Timeline rollout in New Zealand

Library of Congress says Twitter archive will build “unique record of our time”

Gowalla Founders v. Gowalla Investors

Yahoo News is seeing huge returns from Facebook’s Open Graph, is this the future of Flickr?

Why business execs shouldn’t read the Steve Jobs biography

Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt, speaks at Le Web:

inShar

Starbucks Cup Magic for the Holidays!

Have you seen any Starbucks Holiday Characters on their signature holiday red cups recently? Use your iPhone or Android smart phone to scan all five characters that are found on the chain's cups, blend bags, and in-store signage and watch them come to life on your phone.  You can watch teh winter fox come frolic in the snow, some carolers and much more. You can also use the app to find special offers,  send gift cards to others and share your Starbucks experience socially. A little simple, but still a nice campaign to continue the sharing aspect of Starbucks' social media projects.