Don’t just use social media, use social branding for your upcoming exhibition!
Exhibition season is always hot in first three months of the New Year with global conferences happening around the world like Cisco Live, Mobile World Congress, and local ones like Auto Expo. Most exhibitors nowadays make sure to include social media into their pre-show and at-show promotions. Instead of mail or call, they know the importance of creating the buzz through tweets, shares, videos and using specific platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn to their advantage. The reason is simple – statistics show that you are able to attract less than 5% visitors to your booth. So, it’s important to make use of every possible marketing technique and platform available.
While a great booth design and an excellent product demonstration are key to attracting the audience to your booth, what is it that you want visitors to remember about your brand long after they have left your booth? Especially if you are a new brand in the market, think about an activity that gets associated with your brand for years to come. Consider social media as a medium and tradeshow as a platform that can allow you to introduce a ‘social story’ for your brand.
What is a ‘social story’, you may ask?
It refers to a unique social thread that reflects a brand’s commitment to society and people it wants to serve.
The social message can be fun, adventurous or supporting a true cause. If you are in middle of deciding your pre-event and at-event promotions, make use of social branding to kick start an activity that stays and gets associated with your brand for years to come. We were recently invited to plan a digital campaign for a prospect participating in the largest food and hospitality exhibitions in India, AAHAR 2017. The digital marketing team went all hands and planned for promotions using social media and Internet marketing. But there was something still missing. We pushed ourselves to think out-of-box and came up with a social message that would be engaging and at the same time fulfilling for a visitor coming to the booth.
Imagine, as a visitor, if you are asked to ‘make a wish’ and for every wish you make, the brand donates a food can to a local children’s hospital. Not only that, long after you’ve left the exhibition, you continue to receive thank you messages and anecdotes of the activity. The recall value of that brand would be much higher in your mind and would continue to stay with you longer.
Brands are constantly struggling to differentiate themselves. If you are launching a new brand, a unique voice will help you connect and create value among your customers early on. Social Media Marketing can be leveraged effectively to a build a ‘brand voice’, especially on a large stage as an exhibition floor. Rethink your exhibition strategy from being one-off to something that adds to your brand and is continued every year.
Cheers to Building Social Brands.
