October 2007
The Wizardry of Web 2.0
Social media mavens and mavericks create interactive and engaged communities that build customer relationships. You can too.

By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor

Face it. You could have the most loyal customers on the planet, but if you send too many marketing messages, they won’t get read. Inundated with e-mail and overloaded with information, people are surfing the channels that let them accomplish business goals quickly and efficiently. Your show won’t be on their radar if you don’t establish a year-round presence in their space. Event producers are using Web 2.0 tools to cut through the channel noise and engage people at a personal level, form real relationships and build branded communities that become a 24/7, 365 resource. We’re not talking geek speak here. Internet applications with genuine interactivity — where people can both download and upload information — are called Web 2.0 tools. Web 2.0 tools that enable people to interact by sharing information in various formats (text, images, audio, video) are called social media. Social media applications being deployed by show management are as simple as photo sharing and text messaging.

Take blogging, for example. NSS Girls (www.nationalstationeryshow.blogspot.com) debuted in August 2007 to connect the National Stationery Show (NSS) with its customers. “People view management as corporate, starchy, out of touch or singularly focused on the business of running the show and not the business of putting people together with people,” says Show Manager Patti Stracher. “We hope that NSS Girls will make us more accessible.”

Stracher decided to launch a blog when she realized how many attendees and exhibitors were blogging before, during and after the event. “We thought, of all the things we could do  in the immediate term, blogging is one we should jump on,” she says. Though it was a marketing initiative, the blog is not a marketing tool.

“Blogging should be much less about strategic marketing and more about building community,” says Stracher, who is one of the four NSS Girls who blog. “It can’t feel official. It should be like inviting friends over to chat.”

The potential of blogging to build relationships becomes clear when you define social media literally as “human” + “means of communication.” People respond to a medium with a human touch. Social media personalize the interaction, so people not only get your message but also truly engage in the experience. Using these tools, participants in the show community can share ideas, network, collaborate, and form long-term relationships.

Other social media deployed by tech-savvy show producers demonstrate similar potential. To be successful, they’re not only interactive and engaging, they also give users ownership in the community and have viral appeal. Here’s how five innovators are strengthening relationships by building Web 2.0 communities.

Social Networking 
Definition: Expanding the number of business and/or social contacts by making connections through individuals with shared interests. Example: LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com)

Maven: Mary Dolaher, CEO of IDG World Expo and producer of the Entertainment for All Expo (E for All, www.eforallexpo.com), a consumer show for video game and electronic entertainment enthusiasts debuting Oct. 18-20, 2007, at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Why: “Year-round contact is critical,” Dolaher says. “You need to build a loyal following. Gaming events have 90 percent retention of attendees, but not everyone has that kind of relationship with their audience.”

Interactivity: Hosted on the show Web site, social networking tools allow attendees to create profiles describing their interests, products they want to see, people they want to meet and personal itineraries. Users search for connections and control who can access their profiles and make contact. Profiles reveal who and/or how many people they are connected to in the network. On the E for All site, gamers also create their own blogs to post thoughts, and upload images and videos. “It’s like their own Facebook site,” Dolaher says.

On site, text messaging reminds attendees when and where to be to see product demonstrations and other events on their itineraries. Reminders may cross-reference itineraries, so people who want to meet arrive at the same place. Users send text messages to vote on favorite products or comment on the show, then monitor real-time displays to see what others think.

Engagement:  Inviting the right participants is key. Targeted mailings, advertising and publicity get the message out before the show. E for All promoted its debut with bus wraps and subway signs in Los Angeles and a 28-city media tour, and it opened participation in the online community to all gamers, not just registered attendees.

Once users sign in, the social network notifies them when other users post new content, syndicates the blog feeds, posts surveys and announces results. E for All also provides chat rooms where members gather for real-time conversation.

Troubleshooting: Participants do not always behave in a civil manner. Because E for All invites gamers of all ages, blog feeds are monitored for content that is inappropriate for children. “I’ve instructed the Web developer to look at the feeds through a Disney filter,” Dolaher says. The Web site host provides filtering software, but Dolaher also assigns staff to screen feeds flagged as suspect. On site, mobile phone text messages are also filtered through software when displayed for all to see. 

Costs: Dolaher built the E for All social network from scratch with Norwood, MA-based Cramer Digital Marketing & Event Solutions (www.crameronline.com). The six-figure investment will be amortized over three years and nine shows. A significant ongoing cost is Web hosting, which is charged per hit. (Other providers have different revenue models.)

Metrics: One measure of success for social networking is the number of connections each participant makes. E for All’s primary metric, though, is the number of users who convert from free community participation to paid event attendance. Generating buzz in the network convinces users to attend the expo and, hopefully, become loyal followers.

Vertical Portal
Definition:  A Web site that serves as a gateway to information about a specific industry and often provides access to a search engine. Example: GameSpot (www.gamespot.com)
Maverick: Dean Russo, Group Vice President, Reed Exhibitions North America, producer of the ISC Events for the security
industry, including ISC West (www.iscwest.com), April 2-4, 2008, in Las Vegas, and creator of ISC365 (www.isc365.com), a year-round resource for security professionals.

Why: “We wanted to expand and improve the overall brand experience for the existing customers, and extend the live ISC experience to 12 months,” Russo says. “While doing this, we also saw the online medium as an opportunity to engage new customers who we aren’t at the live shows.”

Interactivity: As a branded, stand-alone Web site, a vertical portal attracts users with features and functionality that are unavailable on a show site. For ISC365, it was a bold, if not controversial, move to maintain separate identities for the portal and shows. “We resisted the temptation to merge the show sites into ISC365,” Russo says. “While ISC365 covers the events, and ISC365 is promoted on the show sites, it’s important to maintain separate show sites that provide the functionality and content exhibitors and attendees need to participate in the shows.”

The portal builds community and fills unmet needs in that community. Launched at ISC West in April 2007 with 12,000 registered users, ISC365 provides four new services: a searchable product database, online education and training, a vertical industry search engine and news aggregation from seven
content providers. At ISC East in September, ISC365 introduced e-groups that enable various industry segments to interact.

Engagement: Bi-weekly e-newsletters to the house list (up to 120,000 unique records, in this case) invite professionals to join the community, read the latest news, view educational sessions, participate in special interest groups and register for events. A major draw is quality educational content, repurposed from live event presentations as well as developed for the portal by strategic partners. A job board, under development for ISC365, provides added incentive to revisit the site often.

Volunteers who moderate the e-groups engage members by proposing thread topics, and raising and responding to questions. This gives group members ownership in the community and makes them active participants.

Troubleshooting: Managing a vertical portal is not the core competency of most trade show organizers. Once team members ramp up their knowledge of this Web 2.0 space, it takes critical staff resources to plan, develop and maintain a portal. Time and resource management are major challenges.

Costs: Reed’s eSolutions department joined with members of the ISC Events management team and outside consultants to develop ISC365 over 15 months. Without revealing costs, Russo says he expects the portal to be profitable by 2008, based on revenue generated through sponsorships and other sources.

Metrics: Unique visitor traffic and how long each visitor spends on the site reveal whether a portal is engaging the community. For ISC365, the ultimate measure of success is the number of participants who pay for access to premium content — about 1,500 to date.

Business Blogging
Definition: Writing entries in a Weblog that represents the personality of the author(s) and reflects the mission of the business that hosts the blog. Example: Engadget (www.engadget.com)

Maven: Patti Stracher, Show Manager, National Stationery Show (www.nationalstationeryshow.com), May 18–21, 2008, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York, and one of the four bloggers on NSS Girls (www.nationalstationeryshow.blogspot.com).  

Why: “There’s a lot of competition out there for consumer goods trade shows and new ways of sourcing and buying product,” Stracher says. “We have to do everything we can to build loyalty among current buyers and create excitement among new buyers. We’re a relationship business. If we don’t reach out in personal ways, often and consistently, it’s easy for them to lose sight of the value of their investment.”

Interactivity: Blogs enable readers to respond to entries with comments, which beget more comments from other readers and the author. Ideally, the thread becomes an idea incubator and fodder for posts on related industry blogs. GLM launched the NSS Girls blog to appeal to the Gen Y demographic — the under-30 “Millennials” characterized as “young, smart and brash” by USA Today. “We serve an industry made up of a lot of young startup companies,” Stracher says. “The newcomers are younger, Gen Y innovators.”

Engagement: Blogs appeal to a plugged-in crowd accustomed to communicating electronically. Quirky personalities and provocative entries posted as frequently as several times a week build a loyal following. The NSS Girls, four women spanning age and cultures, update every two weeks because, Stracher says, “we wanted to have something to say and have the content be meaningful, something related to the business but not an official communication.” Stracher also plugs the blog in her bi-monthly e-newsletter, which switches to bi-weekly in the six weeks before the show.

Troubleshooting: An annual show can have trouble generating content year-round. Keeping it fresh without becoming frivolous is a challenge. NSS Girls draw on personal experiences that are relevant to their business, such as buying greeting cards or shopping for gifts. They also screen comments for inappropriate or impolitic remarks.

Costs: Blog publishing and hosting can be free for a low-end blog with no customization. Monthly fees for a customized blog vary and may be based on traffic volume. The NSS creative department designed NSS Girls’ template using Blogger.com. The blog takes about three hours a week to maintain.

Metrics: The number of unique visitors is important, but the proportion of those who engage by leaving comments is even more meaningful. In just the first 10 days, NSS Girls generated about 50 comments. Stracher also tracks click paths for registrations that originate with the blog.

User-generated Content
Definition: Web-site content that is produced and uploaded by the site’s users; a.k.a. consumer-generated media. Example: YouTube (www.youtube.com)

Maverick: Bill Sell, Vice President and General Manager, VON Events/Pulvermedia (www.pulvermedia.com), including the premier IP (Internet Protocol) communications conference, Fall 2007 VON Conference & Expo, in Boston Oct. 29-Nov. 1.

Why: “In the tech sector, customers have come to expect a broader relationship. They don’t want to leave and see you in 12 months,” says Sell. “Attendees are looking for research, opinions, guidance and direction from us. We get that from the bloggers who provide updates on a regular basis.”

Interactivity: User-generated content can include photos, video clips, audio recordings, blog posts and comments, white papers and profiles. Enabling participants to post their own content invites their interaction with the site and, ultimately, with each other. Pulvermedia invites “friends of the show” to join the “blogroll” by submitting their blogs for syndication on the show site. These, in turn, contain blogger-produced podcasts and videocasts.

Engagement: Asking attendees to contribute content before, during and after the show extends the relationship and gives them more time to communicate what they want. “The relationships we used to have were focused on two to three days of the event itself,” Sell says. “You’ll never get a true 24/7, 365 relationship, but you have a longer term of engagement to learn about what’s going on ahead of time. Bloggers give you those insights.”

During the show, Pulvermedia has also broadcast keynotes in Second Life, where virtual attendees chat with each other about the presentation. This engages the global IP community.

Troubleshooting: Content created by those who are not professional writers, photographers, videographers or broadcasters can be uneven at best. Pulvermedia does not screen content or pull inappropriate contributions. “The ability to offer it outweighs the risks,” Sell says.

Costs: These vary, depending on the Internet application for contributing content. Pulvermedia tests new technologies, such as video over the Internet that allows viewers to chat while watching, and writes off these expenses as R&D for the IP Community.

Metrics: The number of contributions from unique visitors is one indicator of success. How many other industry Web sites link to this content is another. And Pulvermedia counts comments from the blogroll.

Personal Portal
Definition:  A Web page tailored to individual users' profiles and preferences, enabling more personalized relationships with users. Example: My Yahoo! (my.yahoo.com)

Maven: Susan Littleton, Vice President of Marketing for the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), producer of 2008 International CES (www.cesweb.org), January 7-10, Las Vegas, and host of the MyCES Personal Planner.

Why: “There are so many outlets for our attendees to reach out to customers, the show is just one,” Littleton says. “We want to make sure that when they do come, they can accomplish their business goals, meet who they want to meet and talk to who they want to talk to. We’re providing a tool that makes the show easier for them.”

Interactivity: A personalized home page greets registered users by name when they log in and serves up content they’ve requested. When attendees register for International CES, they receive instructions on how to customize their portals. “MyCES personalizes the show for individuals,” Littleton says. “It allows them to take control of their destiny and chart their course through the more than 1.7 million net square feet of exhibit space.”

Setting up a watch list for what they’re interested in, for example, allows users to receive automatic e-mail notifications about related news, such as product announcements or educational sessions.

Engagement: A personal portal enables users to search for people, products and sessions that meet the criteria they’ve defined in their personal profiles. It takes social networking a step further by recommending a customized plan for what to see and do on site, including a personalized exhibit hall map highlighting the selected booths and the best route to take to see them all.

On site, users access their portals through kiosks located throughout the venue, allowing them to connect with others in their network. After the show, for the first time in 2008, the CES community can stay engaged through MyCES365. “We’re building a community,” Littleton says, “And we don’t want to shut it down when there is still business going on.”

Troubleshooting: Though using a personal portal is fairly intuitive, the value in doing so is not readily apparent to first-timers. “You need to educate them about how it benefits them,” Littleton says. “Our first year [2006 International CES], the drawback was launching the portal in November 2005, which was too close to the show to fully educate people.” Marketing the portal now begins six months in advance.

Costs: CEA contracts with Baltimore, MD-based BDMetrics (www.bdmetrics.com) to adapt its personalization technology for International CES. The revenue-sharing model reportedly guarantees almost immediate payback of licensing fees.

Metrics: The more people use the portal, the more effective it is at personalizing the show experience. In its second year (2007), MyCES generated a 67 percent usage rate among attendees and exhibitors, who conducted 167,198 total searches for people, products and sessions that matched their interests.