Just then, Mark, another exhibitor just a couple of booths away, caught his eye and waved to him as he headed out. “That was the best show ever! See you at the next one!” Mark exclaimed. Bob stared in disbelief as Mark raced off.

There’s a Bob and Mark playing and replaying this scene every week at trade shows around the country.
Question: What did Mark do that caused him to have such success?
The answer is that Mark chose to build his exhibit, his graphics, his pre-show marketing, his in-booth demos and presentations, and EVERYTHING around stories: success stories, customer stories, stories about company history and culture. Smart marketers build experiences around stories to engage interest and compel action.
Think about the story just told – which exhibitor do you want to be? Most likely, Mark – the one who said that it was the best show ever!
Why? Because we all identify with Mark and Bob. We’ve been in their shoes. We all want to be a winner like Mark. A hero for a day. Mark and Bob’s story elicited an emotional response and our emotions drive decisions.
We have all heard that a picture is worth a 1,000 words. A compelling story is the equivalent to a 1,000 pictures and can have a tremendous impact on the emotional level where buying decisions reside. By telling an irresistible story, you are using a model that differentiates you from the competition.
Features, benefits and pricing all factor into the decision making process. But it is our emotions that make the final determination.
The power of storytelling is a topic I’ll explore in the next few blogs. What does it take to craft a stellar story? Stay tuned, and you’ll find the answer here.

What an experience!  Last week I attended HCEA’s annual meeting.  It was a lot of firsts for me…my first time in “NOLA”, my first physical contribution towards the relief effort of post Katrina and my first HCEA annual meeting. 

The people of New Orleans are so rich in soul, pride and ownership of a city that was almost washed from existence.  They are so welcoming and accepting of anyone and everyone open to the experience of the heart and soul of this prevailing city. 

81 Volunteers, 6 Cleared Lots - HCEA/Beacon of Hope Community Service Project

 As for the community service project, I will do one anytime it is offered.  To see all the people ready and willing to work, heightened my faith in humanity.  When I stepped back and looked at the work we had done, I was proud.  When I turned to get back on the bus and saw what still needed to be done, my heart sank.  Then I thought, “Who, in this group of 81 volunteers, doesn’t also participate in at least one other organization, church group, social group, etc?  If each volunteer was able to get one of their groups to participate, that would be 81 additional groups bringing their teams of 81 to help organizations like Beacon of Hope help to restore New Orleans.  The buzz of the community service project lasted the entire conference, leaving those who participated wanting to do more and those who were not able to participate, wishing they had.

Needless to say, one learns from experiences.  I work with brands every day to create personally relevant and impactful live event experiences.   So, I sat back, opened my eyes wide and took in as much as I possibly could. HCEA did not disappoint.  As a “first timer” to the event, I was warmly welcomed by everyone I met. There was always a smiling face and an open seat waiting for me. I look forward to serving on committees and paying forward the welcoming nature of the HCEA in the years to come.  The annual meeting was an experience to remember.

Up-again-down-again stories like this make it difficult to pinpoint just where the economic recovery is headed, but new realities are emerging. Here are five trends that savvy event marketers will want to explore.

• The “AIG Effect” is receding. Investment in meetings and conferences has started to revive. At the same time tenuous market conditions mean that many companies are still approaching live events conservatively. It’s no surprise, then, that some are calling hybrid events the trend of the year. Hybrid events is a broad definition that applies when live and virtual components come together in a single event. Benefits abound for both hosting organizations, and sponsors with increased audience exposure. Making events accessible to participants who aren’t able to attend due to budget or travel restrictions can also result in improved member care and customer loyalty.

• For those in southern and southeastern coastal areas, expect more than your fair share of negative publicity. Recent warnings have predicted slowed economic recovery due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Expect concerns about health and safety near polluted areas. The upshot? If you’ve been working to improve the “green-quotient” of your venue to potential buyers, you may have an ace in the hole. Attention is going to be focused on the Gulf region for years to come and you’ll have a compelling benefit that may outweigh any downside risks.

• Print isn’t dead, though it is evolving. Much like the trade show turnaround, compare the 26.1% drop in Q1 2009 to the limited 2010 6.4% decline in print ad revenue. Naturally, negative numbers are still less than ideal, but there is hope! Last month’s IPEX in Birmingham, England put a spotlight on new print technologies such as variable demand inkjet printing. The potential for this digital print technology extends not only to the publishing world but to advertising and marketing, as well. The good news for events: look for new, cost-effective ways to personally engage prospects and participants. Marketing is about to change…again.

• Thanks to low cost of entry, mobile device marketing and content is hot right now, and expected to get hotter. Few marketing tactics deliver as high a response rate as prudently used SMS messages. As more users adapt to the format of text message marketing (with 27% of Americans reporting clicking on a mobile ad versus 21% just under a year ago,) SMS is a great resource to engage potential audiences and market face to face events.

• Social media is still the darling of most marketers. It’s inexpensive, topical, and cutting edge. all positive aspects in an uncertain market. Yet with the exception of Foursquare, there aren’t many new contenders in the social networking scene. While this could mean that the Next Big Thing is just around the corner, we suggest focusing on the current leaders. Stick with the big four for your meetings and conferences; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Youtube. If you must try new platforms, be wary of development snags.

Keen to any other trends? Have a split opinion on our suggestions? Send us an email at JMNix@GetSynchronicity.com, or reply to us at @GetSynch!

With access to the ads currently limited to a select group of marketers, the debate amounts to little more than speculation. Based on what we do know, here’s a primer on what to expect from the new model. With these simple strategies you can  start promoting your own event with #greatsuccess!

Promoted Tweets

Twitter’s own blog entries and FAQs offer a wealth of information, even if the details are well hidden. Promoted Tweets are regular tweets, paid to appear at the top of results for a search or #hashtag, much like the Sponsored Links on a Google search. Over 3 million searches occur over the span of an average day, any one of which could be interacting with a Promoted Tweet.

The short term model is based around a cost-per-impression system (i.e. $5 per 1,000 views) as Twitter develops the software, but its future is in the much-hyped “resonance”. Through a series of criteria, including click-through rate, popularity of search, and retweets, Twitter will determine an aggregate interest with the tweet. It will also affect which ads appear in hashtags that have multiple Promoted Tweets. In time, Promoted Tweets will also start to appear in users timelines, based around resonance and relevance.

Though the project is limited in participants at the moment, mostly among top-tier clients like Starbucks, it is expected to expand in the coming months, and then enter full availability before the end of the year. With that in mind, here are some tips and pointers so you can spring into action as soon as it becomes available.

Seven Promoted Tweet Strategies for Live Events

1. If you’re hosting a live event, you’ll be using a custom hashtag to group conversations. Plan to acquire promoted tweets around searches for a full name and the event’s hashtag. If you’d like to take it a step further, promote your tweets on topics that are relevant specifically to your event – if it’s a medical conference, use “medical”, an auto show, use a maker’s brand name.

2. Featuring sessions on new, obscure, or cutting edge topics? Use promoted tweets to market that panel or give the speaker a boost. Social media fans are highly motivated and prone to interaction – engaging their network can create interest and drive attendance.

3. Encourage speakers and presenters to use promoted tweets to link their backchannel or custom hashtag to the event website. You’ll make it easy for engaged followers to learn more about the event.

4. Co-brand! Team up with an industry partner and co-promote in a tweet together. 140 characters is more than enough for two links to share the space.

5. Be an opportunist! When you see a hashtag or topic gaining popularity during an event, have some budget on reserve to promote those topics and tweets as they continue to grow.

6. On a limited budget? Don’t try to go toe-to-toe with a competitor that is promoting heavily on a single search. More money means they’ll get more impressions. Instead, use guerilla tactics. Clever alternatives like purposeful misspellings and similarly phrased topics can be used effectively in social media marketing. When all else fails, start a new hashtag entirely!

7. If you’re feeling cheeky, order promoted tweets for a rival event’s hashtag. Piggybacking from a successful event can be a good way of boosting your own attendance, or at the very least, attendee’s interest.

Good tweets are interesting, relevant, concise, and fun, all in 140 characters. As resonance takes off, it’s all the more important that your Promoted Tweets are, too.

Have any ideas of your own? Curious to learn more about resonance? Email us at JMNix@GetSynchronicity.com, or reply to us on Twitter at @GetSynch!

GetSynchronicity: Let’s take ISO. How does it reach some of its decisions about what they will advise? How does an organization reach these voluntary standards?

Sue Tinnish: Well, the structure is, we have a project committee that different countries belong to, and in ISO, every country has one vote. Each country involved in the process has what’s called a technical advisory group and (it’s through them) that we disseminate the ISO standards throughout the industry.

This is brand new information. I just got back from the ISO meeting in April, you aren’t even reading about this yet. This is the first meeting that the United States has attended. There was only one meeting prior to that. This is really a brand new effort. So, how are we going to do it? I think it’s partially because we look to engage a large variety of stakeholders.

Another thing…I should mention about the ISO standards, one of the differences between ISO and APEX, is the ISO standards are usually targeted at a huge variety of events…things like the 2010 Olympics, or music festivals, or country fair…You can understand that they can’t be very prescriptive…you have to do X, Y, and Z. Whereas APEX standards apply a little more to meetings and business events.

We’re getting a wide variety of people involved and if any of your readers are interested in learning more about the ISO process, or becoming involved in the technical advisory group (TAG), we’re really just in the process of organizing membership, so we welcome additional people that want to joint this TAG and have a stake in what’s being done.

GS: Let’s take one particular aspect. Can you give an example of ISO within sustainability right now?

ST: Sure. The standard is actually started on a British standard, it was called BSI 8901. It went through two versions, which is very common in standards, especially in standards related to sustainability. I feel like that’s an important point; when we put these standards out there, I can guarantee you they’re not 100% perfect. But for gosh’s sake, they’re going to be a better than what we have today, which is, really, nothing. So, there’ll be revisions, as the market continues to evolve, as products continue to change, as infrastructure changes, we can change the standards. They’re not the same kind of standards as you might have with electrical plugs, they’re not going to change. But these standards are going to evolve. Again, they’re better than what we’re operating under now.

I think it’s too premature for me to quote anything in the standards, but really, all the people giving their input into the ISO standards are people involved in the ISO TAG. It’s not that we’re not trying to be transparent, it’s that we need more expert opinions before we’re ready to release them to general comment to the industry at large. We’re at the stage where technical advisory groups are giving their input, and that will be put out for public comment before it becomes a standard.

GS: I think what I like the most about this is that it is really a collaborative process, that it is being done with such a measured approach.

ST: Right! And in the standard, oh, what’s an example… Say, it focuses on making sure that your staff is fully trained and able to execute the goals and objectives that you’ve set for the specific event that’s within the scope of the management system. There will be information about involving senior management in reviewing the outcome from the event.

GS: Are there other keen points that you’d like to get across, anything particularly interesting or unusual about how the process works?

ST: No, but I have some interesting stats that might help. Let’s take a meeting of three days, and three hundred people. It produces the waste of 33 small cars. It uses enough water to fill 2.5 Olympic-sized swimming pools, and the greenhouse gases would be enough to fill 100,700,000 basketballs with pollution.

GS: That’s mind boggling.

ST: That helps put it in context of why it’s so important that we do something. There’s a lot of big numbers, and a lot to be done.

GS: So what’s something that our readers can do for their next meeting? Three things that they could do immediately to start making a difference.

ST: I would say, one, start creating some environmental awareness by yourself and within your organization. Secondarily, to the extent you can, try to reduce, reuse, and recycle any of your materials. You can do real simple things like turning off projectors between sessions. And I would say also, make a commitment. The APEX standards are in development now, we expect them to be out in the summer, so make a commitment to follow their efforts and as you create more awareness within your organization and within your staff, be ready to start incorporating those.

Are you interested in getting involved with the American TAG for ISO? Curious about Sue’s efforts to bring us sustainable live events? Email us at JMNix@GetSynchronicity.com, or reply to us on Twitter at @GetSynch!

The green meetings movement has seen lots of action lately, with announcements of new waves of domestic and international standards. To bring us up-to-date on the latest achievements and put the sustainable meetings effort into perspective, Synch-Up brings you an exclusive interview with Sue Tinnish.

Sue is a leader in the green meetings movement, president of Seal, Inc. and a well-known consultant in the meetings industry. In 2009, Sue served as the interim APEX director. She currently works on behalf of the industry with CIC and ISO and also serves as an assistant professor at Kendall College.

GetSynchronicity: What is your official title within the green meetings movement?

Sue Tinnish: My name is Sue Tinnish, and I function as the standards liaison for the Convention Industry Council. I have two responsibilities. One is that I chair a committee through a standards-setting organization called ASPM, and I chair a sustainability committee called D60.O2, and it’s a committee focused on sustainability in the hospitality industry.

GS: For someone who is unfamiliar with Green Meetings, what would be a simple explanation of how they differ versus a standard, non-green meeting?

ST: “Green meetings” usually refer to meetings that are environmentally responsible, and it’s one part of creating sustainable events, and surprisingly, the meeting industry is a big waste producer. It’s the second largest industry besides construction in terms of creation of waste. So, it’s about using resources, especially ‘greening’, using environmental resources, in a more responsible way.

GS: Regarding green meetings, when did the initiatives start getting created to start moving towards environmentally friendly events?

ST: There have been people who have been involved in greening meetings for a decade. My involvement really goes back about two, two and a half years, and that’s when APEX, (Accepted Practices Exchange) started creating voluntary standards around green meetings and events. APEX has a variety of standards in other arenas, like RFP, site selection, and so they started to turn their attention to the greening of meetings and events.

GS: Let’s talk about the voluntary standards. What are the key points to know about the standards?

ST: These are standards that are set by a very wide consensus process, so we’ve had thousands of people involved in creating these standards, and the APEX tagline is “Industry Created, Industry Approved”, and as many people are confused about what you want to do in terms of greening your event, they offer a voluntary way to do that. They really focus on core elements of meetings and events.

It really represents, I think, for the first time this need to have a partnership between planners and suppliers in order to make events more environmentally sustainable. It’s a cooperative effort. There’s a standard of levels, so you can start out with a baseline level, then continue down the path of setting something that’s more environmentally responsible.

GS: There are going to be benefits to greening a meeting besides the environmental impact. Can you give an idea of some of the other benefits?

ST: I would say that there are some benefits. You’re potentially engaging your attendees in a new way, and as we start to involve younger and younger generations in our meetings and events, they have a much higher eco-awareness in general than baby boomers. They want to work for companies that are environmentally responsible, and sustainability is an important value to them. The second reason, and this isn’t always true across every greening practice, but there are potentially ways to save money by greening your meeting.

The assumption is that it’s going to cost more, and there are some practices that are not revenue-neutral, but there are others that are revenue-neutral, or that they represent cost savings. And then the third reason, we just can’t continue down the path that we’re on! It’s just not sustainable long-term. We have to concern ourselves with the planet that we’re leaving behind.

GS: What about some of the efforts that are happening domestically versus internationally. What efforts are happening abroad?

ST: Well, the international effort is being lead by the International Standards Organization (ISO), and ISO has specific efforts in place right now with the aim to create another voluntary standard, one that would be used for the 2012 Olympics in London. This standard is very different than the US standard. The standard is focused on creating a management system that would allow an organization to manage the process of creating a more sustainable events.

The APEX standards are very focused on greening a specific meeting or event, much more prescriptive and normative. The ISO standards are about changing the culture of an organization, and deal with things like goals, objectives, reporting; they tell you how to create a structure where you can create more sustainable events. It’s all about creating a system.

Be sure to check back next week for the second part to our interview, where we discuss the evolution of ISO standards, and delve further into what the 2012 Olympics may have in store. Have any questions for Sue? Send an email to JMNix@getsynchronicity.com, or reply to us on Twitter @GetSynch!

We’ll post the answers later in the week in a separate entry. In the meantime, sharpen your pencils, warm up your browser, and let’s get to it!



1. According to NPD, in the first quarter of 2010, what was the leading operating system for smartphone sales?
a. iPhone OS
b. Android

c. Windows Mobile



2. What is the pricing model for the first phase of Twitter’s new ad model, “Promoted Tweets”?
a. Cost-Per-Impression (CPI)
b. Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

c. Resonance (algorithmically calculated CPC/CPI model)



3. The term “personal branding” was originally conceived in what year? 

a. 1997

b. 2001
c. 2005

d. 2006



4. Users who have an extended rate of exposure (”dwell time”) to online ads have a lower rate of performing related brand-related searches.

a. True
b. False



5. According to a new survey, which demographic group is the most prone to “oversharing” personal information on Facebook?
a. 13-17 year olds, who haven’t learned the importance of guarding their privacy.
b. 18-29 year olds, who don’t take the time or are uninterested in protecting themselves 

c. Older adults, 45+, who don’t understand the privacy settings well enough to use them properly.



6. Which of the following industries demonstrated the greatest total buying plans (the percentage of attendees who plan to buy within 12 months of a trade show or live event) in 2009?

a. Medical

b. Retail

c. Manufacturing/Industrial

d. High Tech



7. Which of the following websites does not currently appear on the Alexa Top 20 Websites ranking?

a. baidu.com, the music search engine

b. wordpress.com, the blogging hub

c. myspace.com, the social networking site

d. live.com, Microsoft’s search portal

8. Open Ended Question: Choose a non-leading social media network (Not Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Myspace, or Google Buzz). In 150 words or less, describe the network, and your reasoning why this site could lead the next wave of social media. Remember, submit your responses to tzagone@getsynchronicity.com, or link us to your answer via Twitter at @GetSynch!

Create Anticipation through Every Channel You Have Available

You have a frequently updated Twitter page, a solid Facebook hub, and a sizable email list. Now start using those channels to promote your conference keynote, session presentation or trade show demo in advance of the event. If you don’t, you’re limiting your audience before you even get started. Connect with every piece of social media relevant to your presentation, and then network with gusto. Mashable’s reminder to use services like MeetUp is smart, too, as is creating a custom hashtag, so that the conversation can keep itself well-organized and so that outside readers can jump in mid-stream.

Play to Your Audience’s Strengths

Sure, Facebook and Twitter are wildly popular. Even so, they don’t hold the key to every audience. To connect with your target audience you have to speak their language. If you’re dealing with an older or decidedly non tech-savvy audience, keep technology simple. Easy text messages might be a big enough stretch for this crowd. What if your audience skews toward sales and marketing business types? Mine the power of LinkedIn relationships for pre- and post-presentation marketing. Whatever platform you choose, use URL shorteners like bit.ly for web addresses. You’ll save your audience time and capture more accurate data on the back end.

Use Interactive Polling to Lead the Discussion

Let your audience co-create the presentation with interactive Audience Response Systems, Twitter @replies and text message response platforms. Let’s say your presentation could branch into three different directions. Let the audience choose the direction and they’ll feel more personally involved. Starting to get bogged down with a lengthy monologue? Enliven the experience with a quick quiz or a poll through SMS messages. If interactivity is new to you, most services offer introductory packages so that you can get comfortable with the basics before moving onto more complex systems.

… But Don’t Bite Off More Than You Can Chew with Backchannel

Developing the backchannel sounds sexy, but displaying a live audience response via Twitter isn’t right for every performance situation. Think about your CEO making a keynote address; not a likely candidate to deal with a screen of distracting, flashing hashtags. Especially if you’re new to social media, get some experience with the fundamentals before handling a crowd via Twitter. There are horror stories of presentations derailed by rowdy audiences. The backchannel is a destination to work towards, not the first stop on your journey.

Engage Your Audience Every Way Possible Post-Presentation

Put yourself in the shoes of an audience member. You’ve been though the lead-in, the hype. You participated in the presentation and left your commentary and candid opinion of the presentation. Then, from the speaker… silence! That kind of treatment doesn’t develop loyalty. Attend to replies, follow-ups, and personal thanks while your performance is still fresh in the mind of your audience members. Traditional presentations may have a beginning and an end, but adding social touch points after the performance extends the experience and helps to build relationships.

Numbers like a 66% adoption rate and a 74% positive growth rate indicate just how vital social networks have become. Marketers choosing to ignore the cutting edge are only delaying the inevitable. It only takes a token Facebook page or an event blog to get .some experience in this brave new world. To learn some lessons from the early adopters who participated in our survey, read on.

Let’s take a look at the results that marketers are reporting from social media campaigns. Lots of brand awareness. Unremarkable ROI. Improved client relationships. Insignificant sales increases. Conceptually, this adds up. Social media is not a replacement for traditional marketing programs. It’s nothing more nor less than one more asset in your marketing arsenal, like a loyalty program or adirect marketing campaign. Too many marketing pundits exhort brands to establish closer relationships with customers through social media. Good advice, but it takes a while for those relationships to translate into payoffs from the the customer wallets.

Developing meaningful social media metrics can be elusive, too. The measures most often cited in our study include blog posts, fans and Twitter feeds, all easy to track and quantify. But clean-cut numbers don’t tell the full story in social media, where implicit results can sometimes deliver more meaningful marketplace insights. Rather than post views, look for reblogs. Instead of Facebook comments, look for write-ups of the event. It’s the access to personal viewpoints that are often the most valuable in social media.

We weren’t surprised to find that marketers find Facebook and Twitter appealing. At 93% and 80%, respectively, they’re clearly among the most popular social media networks. But as they become more and more mainstream, look to new vehicles to make a a unique splash. Take the new social network/game FourSquare. Starbucks recently partnered up to offer exclusive game content and alreadyhas throngs of users eager to “check-in.” Remember, Twitter was only introduced in 2006. The spoils of social media marketing belong to the adventurous, willing to foray into a new network,with gusto and enthusiasm.

What are your thoughts about the results of the survey? Any points particularly intriguing? Worrisome? Let us know in the comments, or reply to us on Twitter at @GetSynch !

We’ll take a look at the data in two installments. In this first part, we’ll discuss some of the key facts and figures from the study – what is being used and who is using it. Part two, posted here next week, will provide an analysis of the data – what the data means and where it goes from here. If you’d like to read along, get your free copy of the Social Media in Event Marketing PDF here.

The biggest numbers come right upfront: two-thirds of respondents, fully 66%, state that they have already used social media tools in their event marketing. Of those, 85% indicate they’ve employed social media to drive brand awareness or event attendance. Considering the relatively short lifespan of popular networks, including Facebook (founded in 2004) and Twitter (2006), these are incredible adoption numbers.

Event marketers using popular, low-cost and easy-to-quantify network platforms report tracking their campaign results with metrics such as blog posts, fans/followers, social media posts and Twitter feeds. Marketers indicate fewer quantifiable results from metrics such as smart badge info, livecast views, SMS messages and data from virtual environments. That, of course, may be a reflection of the more resource intensive and specialized nature of these solutions.

A disappointing discovery concerns the large number of marketers conducting campaigns without first setting clear objectives. Two out of three survey participants reported not set any kind of measurable objective before beginning their social media efforts. As we’ve said in Synch-Up before, the excitement of working with new tools and journeying to new marketing frontiers doesn’t mean that we should abandon best practices or ignore important goal setting.

Perhaps less surprising, marketers are going where the users go. 93% of those surveyed feel that Facebook, the most popular of all social networking sites, has the most potential to become a powerful marketing tool, followed closely by Twitter (80%), then distantly trailed by professional networking site LinkedIn (36%), YouTube (27%), and business blogs (22%). Respondents overwhelmingly expect the value of these tools to grow, with 76% expecting the importance of social media to increase either strongly or somewhat in the next year.

Survey respondents also shared similar views about the usefulness of social media in event marketing. Over 100 respondents reported that improved brand awareness, improved client relationships and increased press coverage resulted from their use of social media. On the flipside, less than fifty participants reported increased ROI or ROO, improved sales or increased event attendance from their use of social media. On the whole, there seems to be a generally positive vibe surrounding social media campaigns – 74% event marketers reported that their campaigns met objectives and 15% said their campaigns exceeded objectives.

Of course, not everyone believes in the power of social marketing. Of the 34% surveyed who do not use social media for their business, 22% of those said they lack the time, 20% say they lack the knowledge, and 11% take issue with the ability to control their branding. One respondent replied “I think social media is a joke, and don’t understand why are people so addicted to it.”

A joke? Perhaps, but a joke that more and more marketers seem to be in on. Check back next week for part two, where we start to break down what these numbers mean, and how to use this knowledge in your own marketing efforts.