Liz King Events: Social Media Event Planning Specialists

Are you tired of downloading awful apps to your phone? I’ll admit – I am very stingy with my hard drive space. I don’t keep any files on my laptop at all. In fact, I back up everything. From my laptop to my smart phone, I like to keep things very light. My coworkers used to make fun of me because it looked like I didn’t work in the office. My desk was always completely cleaned off. I guess its just something about that clean, organized feeling that I love. So when I started to get really annoyed by downloading apps for events, I thought it was just me. But, as I talked to more and more people, I realized that I’m not the only one.

Creating a single use app for your event used to be a really cool concept and I can still see some room for it to be successful. But, I think it’s been totally overused.

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There are so many event planners in the industry and, quite frankly, they are not all good. Moreover, they are not all the right fit for you. If you are looking for an event planner, doing a simple Google search is probably not going to make you feel better about the process. Rifling through 10,000 event planner websites doesn’t do much to determine if you’ve found a good one. So – here are a few tips that you can employ to make sure that the planner you choose knows their stuff and can help you through the planning process.

SEE IF THEY WILL HELP YOU
My guess is that you are hiring an event planner because you aren’t sure about the planning process. Licenses, fees, vendors – all a bit overwhelming? Make sure that the planner you work with helps you feel at ease about this process by knowing what they are talking about. They should chime in with examples of formats that might work best or venues they think will be great. Of course – this is largely the role of the planner once you hire them, but they should know some of this information to help you off the cuff as you are going through your consultation.

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As many of you know, we are nearing the end of the latest period of Mercury Retrograde. If you’re like me and you study Astrology, you know this is a period of just over three weeks that occurs several times a year. It’s typically a time when communications can be strained, technology is likely to go haywire, and in general, it’s a bad idea to initiate new projects or sign contracts.

Now perhaps you think that Astrology is akin to card tricks or superstition, and that’s OK. I’m still going to share the things I’ve learned about these regular cycles, because I think they apply no matter what you believe.

We can’t keep pushing forward forever without a break.
It’s true. Every once in awhile it’s a good idea to ease up and have a look around.If you’ve been on a successful run, then now’s a good time to evaluate your progress and see what needs tweaking. If things have been stagnant, now may be a good time to do a little re-envisioning and imagining. Give yourself permission to dream up something new, and take some time to map out the steps towards getting it started.

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Last year, Peggy Sweeney, founder of The Sweeney Alliance, an organization dedicated to helping people deal with grief, decided that she wanted to better spread the word about the nonprofit’s workshops and programs.

For most of 2011, she had been sending print newsletters entitled “Journeys Through Grief” and maintaining a blog. Beyond that, she hadn’t considered any other kinds of outreach until a colleague recommended that she try Constant Contact.

Peggy’s internet marketing efforts snowballed from there – today, she has over 750 contacts in her email list and just under 400 Facebook fans.

Read more on EventSpot…

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.

When Brian Coyle, the founder of internet marketing firm e-Zone, started working with image consulting company House of Colour, the goal was to get all of the franchise’s internet marketing up to speed.

“Our consultants were using simple, text-based email campaigns and seminars, and benefiting from the cheerleading of our loyal client base,” Director of Business Development Alison Riches says.

By working with Brian, House of Colour consultants started creating newsletters through Constant Contact.

Clients loved the new look and feel of the emails, and it was easy to tell. In an industry where the average open rate is about 15%, House of Colour emails consistently saw 50% open rates or higher. Not only that, a number of consultants saw some impressive revenue from their efforts.

Read more on EventSpot…

Wow, 2012 is almost over, can you believe that? Seems like things get harder everyday to keep up with.

Time for some New Year’s resolutions! And my theme in 2013 will be ‘Lean and Mean’!
A giant step for me as a notorious tech lover was to face the fact that sometimes tech makes things more complicated.
Because there are so much possibilities it’s easy to lose yourself in the fancy apps and features.

Time to bring in the vacuum cleaner and delete a lot of apps. For me that’s is in the field of ToDo lists, GTD systems and Feed readers.
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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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