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If you’re using social media in your business, don’t overlook the power of incorporating it into event planning and management.
Using a structured social backchannel allows for real-time participation and engagement, not to mention encouraging activity by attendees. More compelling is the fact that many who are not attending but remain interested now have a path to staying in touch with the event, serving as de facto brand ambassadors as they extend the backchannel through their own networks.
Your backchannel should be an extension of your overall social media strategy. Just as you have coordinated the team, topics and tools for managing social media, this same discussion should occur for each event, live or virtual, where you seek to foster an active social conversation.
It starts with a Twitter hashtag. The hashtag itself is quite simple — as in #hashtag. That simple pound sign prior to those characters makes it a clickable link on Twitter (and the many apps used to interact with Twitter outside the official site). Likewise, it can be discovered when searching on Twitter.
This backchannel occurs in several key areas of an event.
• The human element: As peers, friends, competitors and influencers gather in person, this conversation spills onto Twitter and gives a “slice of life” look at the event.
