Liz King Events is the leading social media meeting and event planning firm. Use social media and technology to better brand your organization, engage your attendees and increase efficiency.
Yesterday, I was catching up with a friend who plans international events and she asked me, “What are you excited about right now? What do you think the big trends will be?”
Lucky for her, I am in the midst of cool-hunting for our 2013 PYM Annual, so I’ve been ruminating about those very things since August.
There’s a million things I could have told her (and you). But for this column, I’ll boil all of of my thoughts on the topic down to two big ideas.
Running a successful event business is not easy. You are in the industry where you meet contacts all the time – the super hot leads that land into new customers/clients and the lukewarm contacts – the ones that you know you SHOULD follow up with but often forget after the first meeting. Not that I would be telling on myself! Lol. The luke warm contacts though are often very powerful in your long term strategy. Keep them engaged and connected and they could turn into powerful allies or clients down the road. The challenge is juggling the day to day demands of your business while balancing this long term relationship building.
For the advanced networker, I recommend going straight to an email newsletter or blog. Start sharing information on a bi-monthly or weekly basis to keep your friends, family and networks in the know about your events, your successes, challenges and news you want to share. But when you are first starting, keep it simple. Here is one tip to get you started.
Email a LinkedIn contact
I’m sure most of you have a LinkedIn network. But how many people have you emailed/messaged your network in the past month? Especially someone that you haven’t spoken to in the past six-nine months. I started doing this recently. I made a commitment of contacting two people each month. People that I haven’t heard from in the past year. During this past month, one friend shared with me news about a new contract that she won. We celebrated. Another friend told me that her business had fallen on hard times and she was looking for work. We started brainstorming employment options, I reached out to someone in my network, and we both said some prayers to keep her positive. After doing this for a few months, I’ve moved up to reaching out to four or five contacts. I keep the bones of your email for most of the people that I reach out to and customize only a few lines. Keeps it personal yet also is not overwhelming for me. And yes, while I’m only staying connected with four people at a time in my network, I am taking the time to reach out to them individually. That’s what networking is really all about.
Traveling around and speaking at a number of Universities I am often struck by the number of students that leave the actual business of finding a job right to the last minute, as secondary to all things academic. Whilst I understand this, there is a danger that you (the student) leave with your qualification but then you have to scramble very quickly to find that job. But I know that you can already handle a number of different tasks simultaneously. After all, life at University isn’t one project and then another, but more a series of projects all at the same time. With that in mind you can add in another project whilst studying which is namely, building your contact database.
You will find that the connections you make and the relationships that can come from those contacts will be invaluable to you as you go through your career. Many employers will want to know if you are connected or not. Being connected will show that you are ‘moving and shaking’ in the industry and that will be good for you. Having people with different levels of expertise in your network will also be useful and will certainly add to your depth of knowledge of the industry.
I love, love, love all things events and technology. If you can’t tell by my tweets, Facebook posts and all my other social media interactions, I love to talk about events and the tools that help us do what we do better. In June 2011, I partnered with an organization called imbookin to bring you PlannerTech – an event technology showcase. This weekly blog series is going to help continue to expose you to new tools you need to be aware of as an event planner. Also, in case you missed it, PlannerTech could be coming soon to your area!
Your name: Anna Sergeeva, Co-Founder & Co-CEO
Company/Tool Name: Planana
Website: http://planana.com
Twitter: @goplanana
Facebook: http://facebook.com/
What is the “problem” that your tool seeks to solve?
We’ve found that most event organizers struggle to sell out their events. This problem occurs largely because traditional marketing strategies like paid advertisements and email blasts are no longer effective. People hear about events through their friends; people attend events with their friends. That’s why we build Planana – to help event organizers leverage social media to promote and sell out their events.
I love, love, love all things events and technology. If you can’t tell by my tweets, Facebook posts and all my other social media interactions, I love to talk about events and the tools that help us do what we do better. In June 2011, I partnered with an organization called imbookin to bring you PlannerTech – an event technology showcase. This weekly blog series is going to help continue to expose you to new tools you need to be aware of as an event planner. Also, in case you missed it, PlannerTech could be coming soon to your area!
Your name: Jordan Smith
Company/Tool Name: OneLobby
Website: OneLobby.ca
Twitter: @onelobby
Facebook: www.facebook.com/onelobby
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Change doesn’t happen all at once.
Ten years ago, if someone told you that you’d share private elements of your life in public with strangers, you’d call them crazy. Today, you probably get annoyed at the friends who haven’t joined Facebook yet. But you didn’t just one day start a Twitter account and start posting pictures of your breakfast.
Whether it was because a band you liked was on MySpace, or you had to create a business profile on LinkedIn for work, or you were seeking advice on a chat room from your peers, or you fell in love with Wikipedia and discovered you had things to contribute, eventually you got used to the idea that your information was valuable, that people cared what you thought and, slowly, the concerns you had about privacy or security started to recede. Now you “pin” pictures of places you’d like to go, “like” stories you read, tell everyone on Twitter when you check into a place on Foursquare and share what kind of music you’re listening to on Spotify.
I love, love, love all things events and technology. If you can’t tell by my tweets, Facebook posts and all my other social media interactions, I love to talk about events and the tools that help us do what we do better. In June 2011, I partnered with an organization called imbookin to bring you PlannerTech – an event technology showcase. This weekly blog series is going to help continue to expose you to new tools you need to be aware of as an event planner. Also, in case you missed it, PlannerTech could be coming soon to your area!
Your name: John Federico
Company/Tool Name: Qrious
Website: http://qriousapp.com
Twitter: @qriousapp
What is the “problem” that your tool seeks to solve?
More often than not, the top reason that people attend professional events and conferences is to meet others. Yet the time and money spent at these events is often gambled on serendipity instead of thoughtfully-targeted, pre-confirmed meetings.
