Fork In The Road Blog

Events: Technology. Design. Strategy.

Should They Stay or Should They Grow? Pushing a Show Community’s Collective Buttons

The 2012 Summer Outdoor Retailer Show concluded on Sunday, but the decisions about where to go next remain. Show managers are using an online platform called The Collective Voice to take the pulse of the outdoor community about where to move the show (it has outgrown Salt Lake City) and how to grow the show, or not.

The Collective Voice is an online forum that exists as part of the Outdoor Retailer website although it’s accessible by invitation only. To avoid influence from regional interests or the media, show organizers invited 20,000 attendees, exhibitors, non-profit advocacy groups, outdoor athletes and other stakeholders to talk freely about the show they love.

The issues that Outdoor Retailer is looking for input on, besides where to move the show include whether they should grow the show and, most importantly, “what does ‘outdoor’ really mean? “If we include fishing, stand-up paddle boarding, yoga and travel [for example], that changes the conversation about how we should grow. If we don’t want them, maybe we can fit in Salt Lake City,” says Kenji Haroutunian, VP of Nielsen Exposition’s Outdoor Group.

Outdoor Retailer has surveyed the community on these issues before, but Haroutunian says that surveys aren’t enough. “What [The Collective Voice] will do is fill in the gaps—the reasoning behind why people will check a box on the survey. The success in Salt Lake City is because of the culture and intangibles that you can’t get from a survey.”

So far, The Collective Voice has logged several thousand registrants and about 300 or so comment threads. “We already have people happy, ecstatic and upset,” Haroutunian says. The majority of comments suggest that stakeholders would like to stay in Salt Lake City and make it work. Haroutunian notes that companies with great locations on the show floor and those with 40+ shows under their belts are in the “stay” crowd. They are asking whether the show really needs to go. It’s the exhibitors crammed into tents and in meeting rooms that are feeling the need to move on.

From the beginning, The Collective Voice wasn’t designed as a forum. It is a variation of the GoExpo tradeshow management and matchmaking platform that already exists for the show. The majority of users access the Collective Voice forum using the same login information they use as attendees and exhibitors. “We wanted it to be efficient and to encourage people to use the same tool they are already familiar with,” Haroutunian explains.

Show organizers spent a lot of time providing the community with information to make informed decisions on the platform. They have listed the other destinations that could handle Outdoor Retailer complete with the housing and city service requirements. The site contains a comparison chart with metrics on how each destination stacks up to one another. The issues around the future vision of Outdoor Retailer are addressed at length in the FAQ section.

The Collective Voice platform is a departure from the traditional way that trade show organizers make decisions and Haroutunian wanted it that way. Most organizations fall back on a leadership group or volunteer strategic planning committee. “Coming into this industry, I was a bit surprised at the secretive decision making. I thought it was something that needed to be changed. One of my roles here is to change that model so that the trade show is not seen as necessary evil,” he says.

The open commenting period may be coming to an end soon now that Outdoor Retailer 2012 has concluded. The summer show—Outdoor Retailer has both summer and winter installments in Salt Lake City—is causing the most pain. “By fall,” Haroutunian says, “we should have a really good idea from the initial survey, the post-show survey and The Collective Voice platform about where to go from here.” Depending on the decisions, the final reveal could be dramatic.

The Collective Voice is only the beginning for Nielsen. “You will see more of this coming out of Outdoor Retailer especially for tapping into the collective intelligence and diversity of thought to create products and events. Our evolution is at stake. We want to use these tools to crack open the secretive approach to running the show. The broader the reach, the better the show,” Haroutunian explains.

Tapping into the voice of the community isn’t particularly new. Surveys have been around forever. Many organizations use calls for presentations to tap into the collective knowledge of their members come annual meeting time. But, the genuine desire to meet the needs of customers (especially for a for-profit company like Nielsen) by digging deep into the culture and psyche of a community is a sign of things to come—a sign that the community matters most of all. The Collective Voice platform just made it easier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blogging for Booths: One Association’s Bid for Customer Loyalty

One spin around the blogosphere will show you that trade show organizers use blogs to attract new readers and draw attention from search engines. But IAAPA—the association for amusements and attractions—turned to its blog to solidify the association’s relationship with exhibitors/members by using it as the central communication channel for the IAAPA Attractions Expo 2011 Space Allocation.

Exhibitors in the IAAPA show do not select their own booth locations. A committee of 15 people—each dedicated to a specific market segment—assigns space from a “war room” of computer screens projecting the interactive floorplan on screen in real-time via the Internet. The committee makes selections based on seniority rankings and exhibitor requests, but the ultimate goal is to “design the best show possible” for exhibitors and attendees, says Jeremy Schoolfield, senior editor of the association’s magazine and the chief blogger.

The space allocation takes a day and a half. Schoolfield gives regular updates “either every half hour or so,” he says, or “when nice, round numbers are hit, whichever comes first.” Exhibitors follow along knowing their place in line from a pre-published list. Those that want to make a change can email the sales team after their initial assignment is made. This year was the fourth year that the space selection was live blogged. By the end of the second day, the committee had allocated 669 booths on the floor covering 357,000 net square feet—more than 60 exhibitors and 55,000 square feet than the year before.

Live blogging the space draw process came about out of necessity. Before that, exhibitors watching the space assignments online would email the sales team asking when their assignments were coming up. With the running blog account, they can follow along more easily and even get a little excited about an otherwise dull process. “[Space Allocation] has a live auction feel,” Schoolfield says.

Beside the obvious posts like “10 a.m.: Showtime Pictures LLC was just assigned, which means we now have 550 booths on the floor. Getting close now! A little more than a hundred to go,” Schoolfield inserts pictures of the war room, references to other blog posts, discussion about articles in the association magazine, and ad hoc comments from the committee members into his posts. These “extras” give him an opportunity to break up the monotony and get new information to a captive audience.

There are other advantages to blogging the space allocation. Besides keeping the process transparent and drawing more attention to the association’s other offerings, it helps members know that the blog exists.  “Our industry is not a ‘behind the computer industry.’ They are more apt to look at a mobile phone than sit down and look at something on the computer, yet we have set a record every year for blog readership,” Schoolfield says.

The Takeaway: By live blogging the booth selection process, IAAPA kept the proceedings accessible, transparent, and orderly. They created a value-added member benefit and placed the control over a process that could be perceived as uncontrollable back into the hands of exhibitors. For some like Kees Albers of Unlimited Snow-Tape My Day from the Netherlands, it was worth staying up all night for. Loyalty like that doesn’t come easy.

Benchmarking Event-Driven Non-Profit Social Media Campaigns

As the lead blogger for the Donate Life Utah campaign that ended on October 24, 2009 (National Make a Difference Day), I had the opportunity to participate in, as well as observe, how social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WordPress (blog) can be utilized to build an event-driven community.

Donate Life Utah was a campaign across Utah college campuses to generate the most organ donor registrations prior to the October 24 deadline. On the final day, campaign organizers held a 9K Race and .9K Walk to raise awareness and attempt a Guinness Book world record for the most organ donors to register in one day. The schools were each given $1,000 by the Quest for the Gift of Life Foundation to fund recruitment efforts. The winning school received $9,000 in scholarship money.

Our campaign kicked off on September 9. Our first blog was posted September 11. We posted daily (using a team of 4 individuals) and every post was tweeted via Twitter. A master tweeter tweeted several times daily. We also created a Facebook fan page.

In a campaign that lasted six weeks and started from 0 (0 blog readers, 0 Twitter followers, 0 Facebook fans), the final stats were as follows:

  • Twitter account reached almost 200 followers
  • Facebook page reached almost 600 fans
  • The blog had more than 50 posts, almost 1,000 unique visits, with over 350 of those in the final week alone.

The campaign steadily built momentum, reaching a crescendo during the final week. The deadline date, race and Guinness Book world record attempt helped to drive social media buy-in as volunteers and potential donors “tuned in” to social media platforms to get event details, check their school standings and obtain donor registration information.

The Takeaway: As event-based social media campaigns emerge, benchmarking among organizations and campaigns will be critical to gauging average vs. exceptional results. While all results are relative to the organization’s goals and incentives, the numbers of followers, fans and subscribers generated are less relevant than the rates of conversion (from Twitter followers to organ donors, Facebook fans to attendees, etc.). Live events and social media campaigns work well in combination. The sense of urgency created by a live event drives participation in social media platforms and is a critical component for community building.

Why National Speakers Association Chose Facebook Over Private Social Networking Platform for 2009 Convention

When the National Speakers Association (NSA) considered social networking platforms to enhance their 2009 Convention, they compared private and public options. Platform features, cost and attendee preferences were among the top considerations.

The main goal for NSA was to build community. “Community is a huge part of our organization. We look for ways to learn from each other and connect. [A social network] was a way for our attendees to learn who was coming to the conference in advance and get to know people ahead of time,” says Cara Tracy, director of professional development for the Tempe, AZ-based organization.

The private platform that NSA reviewed was full-featured but relatively expensive (fees were based on the number of anticipated users). Because the organization had never used a social networking platform for a meeting before, it was difficult to predict usage.

The NSA compared the features and costs of the private platform under consideration to Facebook, a public platform with fewer event-centric features but free to use for the association, its members and conference attendees.

Facebook carried with it the added advantage that many NSA members and conference attendees were already on Facebook and would likely continue to use the platform long after the conference concluded (unlike the private platform that would eventually expire).

NSA’s IT department set up a Facebook group called “National Speakers Association 2009 Convention Attendees” several months in advance of the convention. 387 people joined the group. The convention was held in Phoenix from July 18-21. The most recent post on Facebook was August 22, 2009.

“People were using the Facebook group for things we hadn’t anticipated like calling for volunteers or searching for room mates,” Tracy says. Although NSA didn’t establish any goals for usage in advance, they were pleased with the outcome and plan to establish a group for the 2010 convention as well.

NSA also set up an “event” in LinkedIn asking attendees to RSVP for the convention even though formal registration was still required. “We used LinkedIn to get an idea of how many people were planning to attend the conference. It also gave us a way to communicate with those that responded on LinkedIn but didn’t actually attend. We think our members sometimes tune out email. This is another way to reach them,” Tracy explains.

For more immediate communication with attendees, NSA set up a Twitter hash tag as a way to communicate updates and reminders before, during and after the conference (for example, “the early bird registration deadline is coming up,” book your hotel rooms now,” “wear your name tags to the opening reception,” “the bus is leaving from the ballroom foyer” and “don’t forget to complete your evaluations”).

The Takeaway: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other public platforms are ways for associations and other non-profit groups to become acquainted with social networking at low cost (the manpower for setting up and monitoring the groups should be considered as a cost) and relatively low risk. Although private platforms provide many more benefits, for some associations such as NSA, the value proposition isn’t as solid as private platform providers would like it to be. It may be that once sponsorship opportunities proliferate on private social networking platforms and become low cost revenue streams for event organizers, that the return on investment of private platforms will become obvious and the adoption rate for more budget-conscious associations will accelerate.

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