Build Conference Buzz With Social Media

ASSOCIATIONS NOW, October 2009 , Intelligence

Summary: A meeting or conference is a perfect opportunity to use social media in a way that both develops community engagement and builds excitement for the event.	Rating: Rate This Item 4 Comments

At the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA), our philosophy for using social media before, during, and after our conference is simple: Recognize the need, try the tool, and see if it works. For our IMPACT 2009 conference, we experimented with a number of platforms and ideas. Here's what worked for us, what didn't, and what we're planning to do differently next year.

Text Messaging

We used a service called Tatango to inform attendees of room changes, session cancellations, and promotions via text message. These immediate updates proved valuable to attendees, but we noticed that if we used it for anything other than informational texts we lost members of the group. We realized that there is a difference between real value and promotional value.

Why it worked:

• Easy to use; multiple ways to sign up
• Efficient way to distribute information

Where to fine tune:

• Better integration into our website
• No "promo" texts

Blogging

We launched our conference blog, The PAnel, a month before the conference along with our newly designed website. It was authored by nine physician assistants and PA students, along with an exhibitor (who happens to be married to a PA). They had complete control over the content; the pictures, ideas, and thoughts all belonged to them.

Why it worked:

• Created engaging content
• Participants and readers felt personally involved in the
  conference
• Member driven

Where to fine tune:

• Blog is buried in the site navigation
• Find ways to extend the conversation beyond conference

Twitter

AAPA employees have been on Twitter since November 2008. For this year's conference, we utilized the hashtag #aapa09 to aggregate everything and started having key employees use it as much as humanly possible (as long as it made sense).

Why it worked:

• AAPA volunteer leadership latched on to the hashtag, using it during board and House of Delegates meetings
• Focused on information relevant to attendees
• Engaged with people onsite and those who could not attend

Where to fine tune:

• Utilize wthashtag.com to pull metrics on the conversation
• Be conscious of the fact that Twitter search only archives two to three weeks worth of tweets now

Facebook

The conference Facebook group was started after the 2008 conference to promote interest in IMPACT 2009. It has been fairly popular (about 1,300 members for a conference that has attendance of approximately 7,000) and somewhat useful, but it lacks a way to distribute dynamic content.

Why it worked:

• People were able to find it and wanted to join
• Ability to message the entire group (though you lose this when you hit 5,000 members)

Where to fine tune:

• Switch over to a public profile
• Schedule regular (but not too frequent) updates

YouTube

We used YouTube to archive footage from the conference so that individuals who where there can relive it and those who were not can get a taste of what they missed.

Why it worked:

• Long shelf life for video; reusable and embeddable
• Wide variety of content, from educational to promotional
• Allows people to participate from afar

Where to fine tune:

• Become a YouTube Partner so we can upload videos over 10 minutes in length
• Determine a more efficient turnaround schedule that relates to available staff
• Organize using newly available playlists

Flickr

Previously we've had a photo-sharing kiosk where attendees could upload their photos to the AAPA Flickr photostream. This year, we empowered individuals to upload photos directly to a Flickr group. This allowed photos to be attributed to individual photographers, and we usually secured more information about the pictures.

Why it worked:

• Photos had a lot of diversity in look and feel
• Empowered individuals to share their visual experience
• Individuals were more likely to tag their photos with relevant information

Where to fine tune:

• Participation is limited; do we need better awareness or is there little interest?
• Eliminate the photo-sharing kiosk, as it saw no participation this year

Live Streaming

Since this was the first time AAPA had done any sort of live streaming, we decided to do only one event: our first ever Town Hall, a discussion between the audience and our CEO, president, and president-elect. It also featured questions submitted through Twitter using the #aapa09 hashtag.

Why it worked:

• Live streaming was free via Ustream (there was cost associated with capturing the video footage, which we would have incurred in any event)
• Allowed nonattendees to participate in a discussion that affected their profession
• Allowed attendees to submit questions via Twitter rather than at the microphone

Where to fine tune:

• Evaluate whether the date and time was most conducive to individuals sitting in front of their computers
• Archiving proved difficult because of YouTube's 10-minute limit
• Possibly increase frequency of live-streamed events to give more opportunities to participate

Now Online Extra

Social Media Cafe

A lounge space where attendees had access to free WiFi and a chance to ask questions about social media during established office hours.

Why it worked:

• People loved the WiFi, and it saved them an added expense in their hotel rooms
• Allowed us to engage and interact with individuals on a one-to-one basis, while providing great customer service

Where to fine-tune:

• Establish a schedule of demos that complement the education agenda
• More seating (the room almost overflowed between education sessions)

Tips for Building Your Own Buzz

• Promote all conference social media offerings online, via email, in print, and onsite.
• Find which channels work best for you, and throw away the ones that don't work. Test, test, test!
• Allow attendees to connect and engage with each other, not just the association.
• Be organized. This takes forethought and preplanning, so encourage all departments to participate.
• Internal collaboration is essential to success!

Lynn Morton is the manager, marketing technologies, at the American Academy of Physician Assistants, Alexandria, Virginia, as well as the founder of Social Networking for Association Professionals, a free online network that teaches association professionals about social networking and media. You can read Morton's blog at http://snapblogger.wordpress.com. Email: lmorton@aapa.org