May 2008 Blogging the Show As real-time media changes show coverage dynamics, organizers are pressed to understand, court and credential the blogging community. By Tom Zind
An attentive, engaged audience at a general session is every organizer’s dream scenario. Lively give-and-take can be an accurate barometer of the event’s success. But in this era of instant communications, be careful what you wish for.
At the recent South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference (www.sxsw.com) in Austin, TX, many attending a one-on-one interview featuring Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg didn’t like what they were hearing and took their complaints to cyberspace — in real time.
Flooding the instant messaging-based “micro-blog” site Twitter (www.twitter.com) with posts ridiculing the interviewer, business/tech journalist Sarah Lacy, for lobbing softball questions, frustrated posters were quickly delivering their verdict: The questions were lame; the audience was squirming; and the session was close to bombing.
It didn’t take long for some in the audience to chime in. Emboldened by the volume of Twitter complaints and handed an opening by visible and escalating tension between Zuckerberg and Lacy, calls for audience participation and more substantive questioning followed. When a surprised Lacy at one point asked the audience, “What’s wrong?,” one audience member reportedly replied, “Check Twitter.”
Welcome to the world of real-time mass communications and Web-based social networking, where anyone with an Internet connection or instant messaging capabilities can tell the world what they’re experiencing as it happens and as they see it.
As the SXSW case illustrates — in the extreme, perhaps — the rise of real-time information exchange and unfiltered commentary poses potential challenges for show producers. While it hardly suggests a rash of cyberspace chat-fed audience revolts is at hand, attendees’ increasing ability to share show impressions, observations and information with Webbased communities is a new dynamic for shows accustomed to a top-down, command-and-control approach.
The rapid emergence and growing influence of blogging on opinion formation is forcing more show organizers to get a handle on understanding what’s being said about their events in the back channels of cyberspace, who’s saying it and why. In turn, it’s forcing more shows to revisit press credentialing, with an eye toward accommodating and, in some cases excluding, those who ply their trade in the blogosphere.
Gaining Access Aware of the mounting number and influence of blogs following its industry, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA, www.ce.org), Arlington, VA, continues to ratchet up its understanding of blogs and bloggers wielding the most influence. Whether they’re blogs associated with trade or consumer publications that cover the industry, or those that have emerged to cater to a cyberspace audience, CEA is working to encourage those that are relevant, influential and responsible to attend its annual International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
“There are many reputable technology-oriented bloggers whose needs we want to meet and for whom we want to make CES as great an experience as possible,” says CEA Communications Director, Tara Dunion. “An increasing number of them are doing a great job of covering the industry online, and they’re getting more integral all the time to the coverage we want the world’s largest technology show to get.”
For its January 2008 show, CEA issued full press credentials to more bloggers than ever. A total of 280 bloggers were given full access to the exhibit floor, educational sessions and related events, as well as a first-ever blogger’s lounge outfitted with relevant services such as wireless Internet connectivity, Dunion says. Still, some 100 bloggers were turned down because they didn’t meet CEA’s criteria related to the frequency, nature and tone of industry-related coverage, as well as influence, which is measured by blog traffic.
“We ask for examples of blog postings to get some sense of what they’ve covered in the past six months,” Dunion says. “If they meet a certain threshold as to the number of eyeballs on their sites and we determine they’re covering the industry regularly and the right way, they’ll get credentials.”
Some shows don’t allow bloggers at all, while others grant limited access to specific events but not full press credentials. Still others limit the number of bloggers to a certain percentage of total press.
Indeed, the sheer number of blogs that might claim legitimacy is just one part of the blogging recognition dilemma facing show organizers. Serving up everything from sober, balanced news coverage and biting commentary to agendabased activism and frivolous gossip, the blogosphere is a Wild West version of traditional journalism, a place still largely devoid of rules.
Combine that with a medium whose lifeblood is immediacy and the conditions are in place for a roving community of laptop and digital-camera wielding bloggers and podcasters to influence how even the most elaborately choreographed exposition is perceived, marketed and even managed.
While that’s a source of mounting frustration and worry, a growing number of show producers and observers of blogging and Web-based social networking trends say it’s something trade shows must learn to deal with constructively. With proper understanding and management of the blogging community, they say, the net effect can be positive for show producers.
Reaching Out Few in the trade show community would agree more than Rick Calvert, Sales Director for the annual exhibition for the Association of Woodworking and Furnishing Suppliers (AWFS, www.awfs.org), City of Commerce, CA. A longtime blogger and organizer of the new BlogWorld & New Media Expo, Calvert says blogging is only going to get more pervasive. And trade shows — the ultimate gathering place for the people, products and buzz that bloggers feed on — are a big part of their ecosystem.
“Bloggers are out there, it’s already out of the bag,” he says. “You can pretend that you have control, but the fact is your brand doesn’t belong to just you anymore, it also belongs to the public. So shows need to accept and embrace that fact.”
That increasingly applies to shows of all kinds, Calvert says, not just technology-oriented events that generally draw more attention from the blogosphere. With his encouragement, AWFS leadership has started to understand the value of plugging into the blogging phenomenon. Through his BlogWorld expo, attended by more than 1,000 bloggers, Calvert met a blogger who, unbeknownst to AWFS, blogged and live streamed eight episodes of Webcast from the floor of the recent AWFS show.
“Shows must make an attempt to understand what bloggers are doing, who they are and which ones should be reached out to and welcomed,” Calvert says. “The AWFS is 100 years old and the show is 52 years old, and some of the organization’s more senior gentlemen are even starting to understand the impact of blogging and social media and how it may benefit the show.”
While they operate differently than traditional media on several planes, bloggers offer many of the same benefits to shows: coverage, exposure and legitimacy — to name just a few. What’s different is that bloggers can offer fresh perspective in the form of not only “as-it-happens” coverage, but also pre- and post-event insight and commentary. Moreover, their audiences are usually loyal and highly engaged in the subject matter, and increasingly seek information online, sometimes to the exclusion of that offered in print publications.
The Indianapolis-based Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association (CEDIA, www.cedia.net), has begun to credential more bloggers for its annual show, which targets the residential electronic systems and installation industry. Aware that much of the blogging coverage is exhibitor product- based, even as it’s occasionally more opinion-oriented, CEDIA views bloggers as an increasingly important conduit for the show.
“We think blogging is good for show marketing in the sense that any information is usually beneficial,” says Jamie Antcliff, Director of Marketing and Public Relations. “Blogging helps exhibitors market their products and can reach out especially well to those who may not be able to attend the show. We find that bloggers are hot-and-heavy posting during the show, and they offer continued commentary after the show.”
While freewheeling opinion comes with the blogging territory, a fact that may send shivers down some show producers’ spines, understanding key blogs and regularly monitoring posts, especially during events, can translate to greater control. Some say they make it a practice to routinely follow blogs during events just to stay in the loop.
“If we see erroneous information being posted about the show, for instance, we’ll go into the comment area of the blog and try to respond with accurate information as quickly as possible,” says CEA’s Dunion. “If there’s some interesting commentary, we’ll even post excerpts on our own show blog.”
Courting Influencers Indeed, the presence of more show-sponsored blogs is evidence that more shows are appreciating the growing power and influence of blogging. Organizations that not only accept the reality of blogging and other forms of nontraditional media at their shows, but also actively seek to engage it, can position themselves to reap the advantages.
“The people you want at your show are influencers, and it really doesn’t matter what they’re called or what their title is,” says David Berlind, Executive Conference Director of Interop (www.interop.com), an annual business technology show owned by TechWeb, formerly CMP Business Technology Group, the San Francisco-based business unit of United Business Media, LLC, Manhasset, NY. “They can be journalists for The New York Times or a trade publication, or a blogger that’s seriously plugged into other influencers. It should be someone’s job in every show to get to know who these people are and develop relationships.”
That’s a message that may resonate more with CEA today. At its last CES show, some bloggers with technology Web site Gizmodo, reportedly upset with having to register as bloggers and not full press, used TV-B-Gone remotes to turn off displays in some exhibitors’ booths. The prank got one Gizmodo blogger — but not the organization — banned from the 2009 show.
“It was an isolated incident — the vast majority of bloggers covered the show well and acted professionally,” says Dunion.
Still, that episode and the SXSW audience revolt provides just a bit of a glimpse into the new reality that show producers face. In a world where shows are an open book and the source of endless fodder for technology-wielding citizen journalists playing by a new set of rules, shows would do well to adhere to the saying, “knowledge is power.”
Tom Zind is a freelance business writer based in Lee's Summit, MO. He can be reached at tomzind@att.net. Bloggers are here — deal with it. Here’s how. Bloggers and trade shows. A marriage made in heaven?
Bloggers might say so. Few venues provide so much raw material. Not all show organizers, though, might be ready to make the leap.
But like it or not, bloggers are probably here to stay. With that in mind, here are a few things organizers can do to improve the courtship.
1. Learn who’s out there. Visit sites like Technorati.com, Googlealerts and Bloglines, get RSS keyword feeds and do simple searches to reveal who’s blogging about your industry, association or show. Read the blog postings and try to uncover the voices that appear dominant, wellinformed and interesting.
2. Extend a hand. Reach out to bloggers you’ve identified as influential. Send them information about your show, offer them leads on topics of interest to their audience and even suggest face-to-face meetings.
3. Treat them as full press. Establish some basic benchmarks that define the type of blogger you want to cover your show. Offer full press credentials to those who meet your standards, giving them access to the show floor, educational sessions and other events. Set up areas with wireless, broadband Web access where bloggers can file stories, interview sources and relax. Help them do their job effectively.
4. Monitor coverage. During the show, assign someone to keep tabs on what key bloggers are posting. Be prepared to engage in discussions on blogger sites that offer controversial commentary. Consider linking some blogger sites/postings to an official show blog.
5. Keep exhibitors in the loop. Make it clear to exhibitors and attendees that bloggers will be at the show, and that some may be originating streaming audio and video.
6. Incorporate real-time chat into sessions. Consider meshing running blog/ chatroom content into sessions, like panel discussions. Displaying a reputable blog on a screen can add another dimension to session give-and-take.
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