Fork In The Road Blog

Events: Technology. Design. Strategy.

Mobile Ning on Steroids? The Latest on Mobile Apps and Social Networking Platforms for Events

This Thursday, March 25 at 9:30 a.m. CDT, I will be moderating a panel at the MTO Summit in Chicago on mobile apps for events. I was initially thinking that the discussion might center primarily around applications that bring the traditional attendee “needs” to life on a Smartphone but recent product releases pairing social networking and other capabilities with mobile phone access might bust this discussion wide open.

The first wave of mobile apps for events focused on bringing the event directory, agenda and floor plan onto the mobile screen and answering the primary questions of the attendee such as: Where am I going? Which exhibitors should I visit? What time is lunch?

In the current round of mobile innovation, social networking platform providers have introduced mobile iterations of their community-building tools. These extensions allow mobile phone users to access private networking platforms and perform other tasks such as agenda-setting, wireless information exchange, schedule sharing, etc.

Today, Zerista rolled out what they call the “World’s First Mobile Community Platform” at the Demo 2010 Conference in Palm Springs. Zerista’s new platform is mobile Ning on steroids as event organizers and other groups can create their own instant communities (like Ning) and incorporate features like Twitter, Foursquare and Eventbrite into one tool. It allows you to:

  • Build your own communities optimized for mobile use with any desktop computer or Smartphone
  • Utilize social networking features and communications through a private community channel, as well as external channels like Twitter
  • Allow users to “check in” from wherever they are, providing instant access to community-specific locations
  • Manage event invitations and issue tickets

Although Zerista is still in beta testing with this product, I can see the advantages for small or informal groups as well as large organizations hoping to appeal to the needs of their various customer segments (with customized communities for each group). Plus, since no one wants to carry his/her laptop around to use the platform, mobile phone access is a huge positive for keeping everyone on the same page especially during an event.

The Takeaway: Mobile accessibility and functionality is the newest and perhaps most exciting extension of social media platforms for events. As event organizers map their event objectives to the apps that are available, they need to look beyond satisfying the attendee’s basic needs and put community management on the list of goals. With the latest round of innovation, event organizers have a wide range of options to consider. How are these new mobile apps meeting your event objectives?

When Bundled Apps and Event Centric Social Networking Platforms Marry Mobile

social networks and mobile appsReviewing event technology options can be both invigorating and exhausting. The good news is that there are many different online and mobile productivity tools available for social networking, bookmarking, scheduling, mapping, messaging, lead retrieval and polling. The bad news is there are so many different tools available. If social networking is hot, mobile apps are hotter. What could be better than a marriage that brings many of the stand-alone apps and a social networking platform together under one roof with mobile access?

Conference and tradeshow organizers are challenged with having to choose among separate platforms and technology that offer consistent branding, user utility, added value and a potential revenue stream. Training users on separate platforms can be arduous. Budgeting for separate applications can be cost prohibitive. Keeping the applications online only can reduce participation and usage.

One way that technology providers are addressing these challenges is by bundling applications into one end-to-end solution and going mobile with it. The Social Collective is one example of a social networking and community platform that has partnered with mobile application developer DubMeNow to offer community access, networking, messaging, mapping, geo-synching, scheduling and lead retrieval from a Smartphone. Their latest version will be rolled out at SXSW this month in Austin, TX.

The Social Collective’s Clinton Bonner is a blogger, tweeter and observer of event industry technology. “2010 is the year to nudge and become more hyper-focused about social media infusion.  We are going well beyond ‘you need to be doing this’ [social media] and evolving to ‘here is a platform solution that allows you to do the following, all under one roof, all branded in your imagery, all metrics and data owned by you, on less spend than building a singular custom iPhone app,’” he says.

The Social Collective’s new bundled mobile app offers the following:

  • Customized branding that “wears” the look and feel of the event and offers options for sponsorship revenue
  • Scheduling and mapping capabilities allow users to build schedules from the conference agenda, share schedules with other users and map the tradeshow floor
  • Functionality across multiple Smartphone platforms including iPhone, Blackberry, Symbian and Android
  • One touch mobile-to-mobile exchange of e-business card information, social web contact info, links to marketing material, video and notes
  • Messaging synched with the customized event social networking platform and Twitter

Allowing access to event-centric social networking platforms from mobile devices helps event organizers grow their communities. With the appropriate community management, most networks function well before and after the event, but unless users are willing to carry their laptops around, the interaction during the event is diminished. With more opportunities to interact, community members will “feed” off of the experience and become more loyal to the community and the event.

The Takeaway: The new bundled mobile solutions are user-driven—users get what they want when they want it. The synchronization of the event social networking platform with mobile helps event organizers grow their communities (more opportunities to engage others using mobile). Apps that function on a broader range of Smartphone platforms will drive adoption. All event apps MUST be easy to learn and use. And, now that bundled apps and event-centric social networking platforms have married mobile, event organizers may be able to reduce the number of technology offerings while increasing the value and usability for participants. Where’s the Kleenex?

Money, Money, Money, Money, MONEY: Social Media Revenue Streams for Trade Shows and Conferences

You may not remember “For the Love of Money” by the O’Jays from listening to your own records, your parent’s or watching Soul Train on TV, but that’s what the quest for social media ROI reminds me of. Once the business model for social media provided event organizers with new revenue streams, it suddenly became more than a “shiny new object.”

For a cool multi-sensory blog experience, try playing the song in the background while you read this post. 

Smartphones

The Follow Me app from Core-Apps is a great example of the types of revenue opportunities available on smartphone platforms. There are two flavors of Follow Me. One is Web-based (an Internet connection is required but the app is free) and includes a show floor map, exhibitor search function, trade show alerts and local merchant/exhibitor advertising capabilities. 

An interactive, full-featured application that does not require an Internet connection costs $1.99 and includes all of the features of the Web-based application plus interactive scheduling, links to friends, interactive mapping and routing and the download of exhibitor brochures.

Follow Me offers revenue opportunities including application sales (downloads), exhibitor banner ads, click-through coupons, enhanced exhibitor information, local merchant advertising. Core-apps charges a one-time overhead fee but allows event organizers to recoup the fee at 50% of the captured revenue until the fee is recouped and 30% of the revenue after the overhead fee threshold is met.

ChirpE from A2Z, Inc., is another Web-based mobile application that offers revenue generation opportunities for exhibition organizers. It replaces the printed exhibitor guide eliminating some or all of the printing costs. 

ChirpE allows attendees to access exhibitor and conference session information, create a personalized itinerary, receive updates on event buzz (text messages posted on a ChirpE channel by a designated Community Reporter) and schedule changes.

ChirpE users can e-mail exhibitors directly and access exhibitor Web sites. Event details and personalized itineraries are synchronized in real-time between Facebook®, ChirpE and the event Web site. It also integrates LinkedIn® and Twitter® as well. 

A2Z, Inc. charges exhibition organizers a fee to access the premium version of the ChirpE platform, however a basic version is offered free to existing clients. Attendees can access both basic and premium services at no charge. Additional revenue can be generated through sponsorship opportunities and banner ads placed on ChirpE screens and notification emails.

Private social networking platforms 

It’s fair to say that most of the event-centric social networking platforms such as Zerista, Pathable, Crowdvine, TheSocialCollective and others offer revenue streams to event organizers. John Kanarowski of Zerista was kind enough to send me some specific information on the revenue options for his platform. “Keep in mind, these are incremental revenue opportunities that are not available to event organizers on general purpose social networks [such as Facebook and LinkedIn and YouTube],” he says. 

The primary revenue sources that Zerista offers event organizers include: 

  • Sponsorship of the entire networking platform for a specific event. Zerista packages custom banners, welcome messages, links within event related emails and data on exhibitor and attendee usage and interest patterns in the sponsorship offering. 
  • Exhibitor upgrades to a “virtual booth” within the event networking platform. The virtual booth is “an online space that provides additional communication and networking features,” Kanarowski says. Organizers can bundle the virtual booth upgrades into premium booth packages.
  • Access to conference content by virtual attendees. Zerista’s platform offers solutions for running a blended event (live and virtual) or virtual only event. Zerista’s platform allows the distribution of streamed and archived content as well as an ecommerce engine to sell and manage online access. 

Virtual Tradeshows and Conferences 

Aside from the usual sponsorship and advertising opportunities such as banners, sponsorship of the various components (speakers, rooms, networking, prizes, etc.) booths and other content that virtual events offer, VConferenceOnline is also offering a turnkey program to independent meeting planners. 

VConferenceOnline’s philosophy is that there are certain tasks that meeting planners have to do whether the conference is live or virtual such as coordinate speakers, manage content and handle registration. The company is developing an online conference called Virtual Event University scheduled for some time in October. The conference will define the role of the meeting planner in online event presentation and outline specific revenue opportunities such as a mark-up on the cost of the event. 

Twitter 

Twitter has infiltrated the minds of the entrepreneurial event marketing types with and without the use of third-party platforms. The Friday Pint blog highlights some of the Twitter-based revenue opportunities. “… at least two new sponsorship opportunities emerge: for starters, invite sponsorship of your tweetup. Forward-thinking trade shows have already benefited from displaying live tweets on a large screen at their event – offer sponsorship of the screen. Plus, a post-show write-up of the key themes emerging on twitter during the event sent to all attendees offers additional branding opportunity.”

The Takeaway:  If part of an event organizer’s social media strategy involves developing new revenue streams, there are seemingly unlimited ways to slice and dice the social media pie of offerings. Most of the opportunity lies with third-party event-centric platforms. Additionally, the limited ability to generate revenue streams from Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and others may make them less attractive even though the initial out-of-pocket costs are lower. Don’t blame me if the O’Jays song is stuck in your head now.

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.

Attendee Perceptions of Private Event Social Networking Platforms: Let’s Get This Party Started!

A posting by David Berkowitz on the Social Media Insider blog caught my attention. It contains some interesting suggestions and observations from a conference attendee and meetings industry outsider. I especially like his suggestions about putting speakers’ twitter handles on the screen while they present and treating bloggers like press (selfish I know). However, I was a little curious about one particular comment. Berkowitz advises conference organizers against creating private social networks just for their attendees. “With rare exceptions, they’re a waste of time, and participants would be better served with groups on existing networks like Facebook and LinkedIn,” he says.

I contacted David Berkowitz for clarification. He elaborated in an email exchange that, “I’ve signed up for a lot of these specialized networks, and most fail because they don’t get enough members using them, and they don’t provide enough value for the members who do. There are occasions where it works, like for SXSW where there’s a large number of attendees, a very complicated schedule, and days of spontaneous networking. Most of the time, however, the people really using the custom event networks for networking purposes (as opposed to just registering to create a schedule) are the obsessive networkers who you try to avoid in the halls as they thrust their business card in your face.”

Having followed the development of these private, event-centric networks like Zerista, Pathable, CrowdVine and EventVue for some time now, I know that they offer far more functionality than the public networks such as Facebook, Linked In, Plaxo and others. According to John Kanarowski of Zerista, some of the main features of his and other platforms include:

1.     Meeting scheduler to enable advance scheduling of 1:1 meetings

2.     Schedule builder to create and then export your own personal schedule of keynotes, sessions, workshops, etc.

3.     Share personal schedule with other attendees

4.     Highlight event-specific interests within your profile

5.     Match attendees with other attendees, exhibitors and sessions

6.     Exhibitor tools like virtual booths and at booth meeting scheduler

7.     Embedded webcasting of keynotes, sessions, and workshops

8.     Aggregated feed of event-related social media from multiple places on the web (twitter, YouTube, flickr, etc.)

9.     Aggregate attendee profiles from other social networks in one place

10. Integrated online registration and payment engine to sell premium online services and content access

11. Ability to charge virtual attendees the same price as in-person attendees for attending the event

12. Interactive maps of the trade show floor, venue and local area

13. Custom privacy settings to enable different access rights for paid attendees, exhibitors, speakers, and visitors

With such robust (cliché marketing term, sorry) tools available, why would apparently seasoned conference goers like David Berkowitz find them ineffective? For one thing, private networking platforms are developed with the needs of the event organizer in mind—understandable since the platforms are generally paid for by the event organizers and are free of charge to users (putting conference registration fees aside). “We’ve found that by focusing on solving the problems of event managers, we can enable them to improve their events in a measurable way. We measure the impact of our software using quantifiable metrics – like the number of 1:1 meetings scheduled in advance, percentage of attendees and exhibitors that use the tools, percentage increase in event networking, percentage increase in event productivity, number of additional leads for exhibitors, and other similar metrics,” says Kanarowksi.

There are other issues to consider. Some attendees don’t take the time to learn how to navigate the networking tools that event organizers provide. Often the tools are too complex for novice social networkers. They don’t know the platforms exist or what they do. Facebook and Twitter are no-brainers and may provide enough functionality for attendees without the bells and whistles offered by customized networking platforms.

It’s true that event-specific platforms separate the wheat from the chaff. They get down to business and allow users to only connect with people that are attending the conference and have access to the same tools, information and mindset that they have. It’s also true, however, that there is value to general networking tools like Facebook and the rest, and in the absence of more evolved platforms (i.e. event organizers can’t afford or don’t understand the potential of private networks), they allow the diligent worker bees and self-organizing social networking aficionados to seek each other out without Big Brother’s help. So, how do we close the gap between what some attendees want or need and what some organizers and solution developers want and offer?

 The Takeaways:

·      Event organizers need to take the user experience into consideration when choosing between platforms.

·      Solution developers need to do everything possible to promote and enhance adoption rates.

·      Attendees need to take responsibility for learning how to harness the power of customized event social networks.

 ·     Let the David Berkowitzs out there be heard!

 

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