Liz King Events: Social Media Event Planning Specialists

At BusyEvent, we are huge social media fans. It is pretty widely recognized that social media can add a lot opportunity to your events. For example, LinkedIn is great for networking and Facebook and Twitter can be great for promoting. But what about that one that many people consider dead, created by the internet giant Google?

Although Google+ didn’t take off and become the next social media must-have that many expected. It still has some great advantages that many people don’t use– and should.

1. How do clients search for Event Planners? — Google

This is probably hands down the biggest advantage Google+ can give to its users. Google+ pages that are updated more often actually show up higher than websites not connected to Google+. This means that when someone goes to Google and searches “Event Planner” they are first seeing the accounts which rate highest on Google– many of those rating higher because they are posting on their Google+ pages.

Also webpages that have been +1?ed (like being “liked” in Facebook terminology) will also rank higher.

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Return on Action™ that is….

As an event professional you know how important that return on investment is. You also know how hard it is to measure. And you’re aware that many metrics you look at may not even be the best ROI indicators.

That said, ROI is important, but you need to be measuring something that indicates more—like action. In the live event space, action is what yields revenue, so doesn’t it just make sense to measure action?

Here are 9 Reasons why you should be measuring Return on Action™

1. Return on Action™ is measured by what people do before, during and after an event.  Those actions are more powerful than surveys or lists.

2. Knowing which attendees participate in social media discussion regarding the event can be an indicator of interest.

3. Yeah, so you know who stopped by your booth and dropped their card in the fishbowl… but wouldn’t it be better to know who has looked at specific products in your “virtual booth” from anywhere in the show?

4. An attendee connects with others at the event, during and after. Knowing this is an advantage.

5.  Do you think it would be useful to know if an attendee answered a speaker’s questions via mobile during a presentation?

6.  You should find out what your attendees want by sending a survey post-event. These answers can give you extremely powerful information.

7. Add these to the typical ROI indicators, such as:

• Event evaluations/ surveys
• Net revenue
• Attendance size
• Room night count
• Sponsorships
• Budget
• Rate of repeat attendance
• Level of responsiveness to client needs
• Increased service per attendee

…and you have some intense knowledge about your attendees and your event.

8. ROA measures the precursor to a specific ROI so it is not a replacement as much as a component of good measurement.

9. Modern communications allow for the blending of social media and action to create an environment where benefits are measured in terms of new business, new ideas and new contacts.

Please note that this is NOT a political ranting on the recently completed presidential election in the United States.  We’ve all had more than enough of that.  Instead, this is an observation on the lessons we can learn about the Romney campaign’s over reliance on technology and how the failure to have a well communicated Plan B could have, potentially, caused the Republicans the White House.

More importantly, these are some of our thoughts on the lessons event professionals can carry into their own event planning and how the exclusive reliance on technology is an invitation for failure.

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