Getting the most from Twitter at North Kent B2B

Getting the most from Twitter at 

North Kent B2B - 15 October - Brands Hatch Circuit

As you are exhibiting at the Best of Kent Shows, North Kent B2B you are attending one of the main business shows in Kent.  We would like to share with you some tops tips about engaging with the attendees and other exhibitors before meeting them?

You can build and establish a rapport, know-like and trust to accelerate your business relationship with them before attending the event!

This is how……

Pre Event

#Hashtag

#KentB2B1000

Go onto twitter and type this hashtag into the search bar. This will then bring up all the tweets and media for this hashtag.

Have a browse through what has already been tweeted, check out the conversations and pictures being shared. Start to engage back with this audience as these are the people and organisations that will be at the event.

If you are using Tweetdeck, Hootsuite or Sendible you can add this hashtag stream to your dashboard and whenever there is a new post with this hashtag you will be notified and kept up to date with the conversation.

Check the event website for exhibitors and find them on twitter

A great way to get your brand in front of other exhibitors to raise brand awareness is to start following them on twitter and engaging with them.

Visit the event’s website and check out who will be exhibiting. You can either then find their twitter link on their website or via the twitter search by typing in their company name.

Once you have found their twitter account follow them and add them to a twitter list called the event name ie. #KentB2B1000

When you follow someone on twitter they are notified that you have followed them. They will then hopefully reciprocate and follow you back.  Again this is great for building brand awareness but also the start of building a business relationship with someone before attending the event.

Engage

Once you have created your twitter list and added the people tweeting with that particular hashtag to the twitter list too, you can then start engaging with these people before the event.

Check your twitter list on a regular basis as to what the contributors are saying, sharing and posting. Engage with them; comment on their posts, share their content if valuable and contribute to their conversation. This will start to build a rapport with those people.

Please note: Don’t stalk them ;-)

Remember to include the hashtag in your tweets and replies. This then means your tweets and replies are included in the conversation stream too.

Tweet about the event

Put together 8-10 tweets about your presence at the event either as an attendee or an exhibitor. Make other people aware that you will be there and start to build that rapport with them before attending.

Let people know what stand you will be on or alternatively tell people you will be visiting the event and who would like a coffee with you?

At the Event

Schedule

If you are exhibiting it is hard to be able to manage your stand and try to tweet throughout the day too. You don’t want to look rude by being on your phone all day!

My suggestion is that you schedule 4-5 tweets throughout the day to post that mentions you, your company and stand and where people can find you.

Be inviting.

Don’t spam with constant selling messages. Give them a good fun reason to come and meet with you.

Use tools such as Hootsuite, Buffer and Sendible to schedule these messages. Remember though you need to be engaging as well. In your comfort breaks and lunch check out the hashtag stream of conversation on the event and engage with the attendees and other exhibitors. Share pictures of your stand, competitions you are running, pictures of your team! Be engaging.

Check your notifications

Make sure someone is checking your twitter notifications whilst at the event. It could be that someone has noticed your tweet in the conversation stream and is engaging back. It might be that they are wondering what stand you are on, or that they have just met you!

If they have just met you and tweeted mentioning your twitter handle, make sure you re share with all of your followers and with the conversation hashtag stream to show other people. This will increase the reach of your message and brand to the wider audience.

At one of our recent events over 1200 tweets were send with over 1.3 million impressions with 800 unique people seeing the tweets. If your message was sent out with the relevant hashtag for the event this would be great brand awareness and exposure for your business!

Engage

Try to engage with as many people as you can who are engaging on the hashtag stream of conversation.  This will get your brand seen by as many of the people contributing to the conversation and also start to build the rapport with those people and companies too.

Post Event

Continue to Engage

Many people after an event will stop engaging and following the people they have engaged with.

I believe this is the most important time to engage with them.

You have spent the last few weeks online and at the event building a rapport, know-like and trust.

Now maintain that relationship with that company to develop into a great referrer, contact or client.

Happy tweeting and engaging!

Zoe Cairns

16 Ways To Measure The Effectiveness of Your Exhibition Stand

Regardless of the nature or size of your business, events and exhibitions are an excellent opportunity to collect qualified leads, close sales, build new relationships and cement existing ones.

Live event marketing complements other sales and marketing promotion, but unlike most other marketing forms, at an event you get to meet the buyer face to face and isn't that what you want?

While the initial cost may seem daunting, exhibiting at an event is one of the most cost-effective ways for your firm to reach qualified audiences. According to a US study by Exhibit Surveys Inc., the average cost per visitor reached at a trade show is £120, while the average cost of a field sales call is £195.

You can do the sums.

Given the importance and potential cost, it is crucial to measure your return. You won’t be able to measure that in revenue initially, so you can use proxy metrics that indicate how your exhibition stand is going to feed your marketing funnel.

Every exhibition is different for every exhibitor, so no single measurement tool will work for everyone.  The effectiveness of your exhibition is down to the effectiveness of your with pre event planning, preparation and post event follow up.

So the first step is to set some realistic objectives. Here are 16 goals that exhibitions can help you achieve

Marketing Funnel

How many people do you want to speak to?

How many contact details do you want for your database?

How many people do you want to take up your special ‘exhibition’ offer?

How many sales do you expect to get and what will the value be?

Customer Relations

How many of your current customers would you like to meet?

What upsell and cross sell opportunities will this create?

How many customers can you educate on the day?

How many customers’ testimonials can you collect?

How many lapsed customers can you reengage?

Market Research

Can you test or preview a new product or service?

What research will you collect on the day?

How much market testing, perhaps for awareness, can you collect?

Building Your Brand

What are your market awareness objectives?

How will your brand be positioned compared to your peers?

Will you find new investors?

Will the exhibition enable you to develop new markets?

Media relations

How will you build relationships with journalists at the event?

What coverage are you looking for?

Every exhibition is different for every exhibitor. For some they will be launching new products, for others, they will be for selling something that is proven. The clearer you are on what you want to achieve, the more successful you will be.

You may have to attend a number of exhibitions to fine tune your proposition and test what works for you.  So think about your special show offer, be clear about your proposition and my favourite top tip, don’t forget to sell to the other exhibitors.

I hope to see you at one of our events soon.

The Professional Way To Connect With LinkedIn

If you're serious about building your professional network, then you already know the enormous value of LinkedIn.

With virtually every influential contact you could ever want to make, mapped out and with up to date profile information, LinkedIn has become the default connection tool for business professionals.

In my first guest blog for Kent B2B, I’m going to introduce two ways to connect with business contacts using LinkedIn that ensure acceptance and prevent those embarrassing knock backs.

Use LinkedIn Groups to Build Influential Connections

Converting your valuable connected group-only connections to 1st degree connections.

We’re spoilt in Kent with some active LinkedIn groups for taking part in some engaging conversations. KentB2B has its own discussion group. Being part of a group provides opportunities to identify influential people who can connect you to the people you want to do business with. And often, directly with the people you want to do business with.

So while you may be tempted to simply connect directly with a Group member, don’t.

We've all done it: You see someone that will be a valuable member of your network and click "Connect." You tell LinkedIn how you know them and fire off the invitation, without changing the default boilerplate, “I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”

You wouldn’t do it like that in a face to face situation.

Being part of a Group affords you a special privilege, the ability to InMail someone you aren’t connected with. If you’re unfamiliar with InMail, it is the LinkedIn email system for users to communicate with each other. This is normally reserved for your 1^st degree connections unless you use the premium service. Being part of a group enables you to InMail other group members.

Before going straight for the invitation, send a personalised message using InMail. Your contact wants to know why they should connect with you on a personal level. Send them an InMail to explain why you think it is in their interest to connect with you. Then follow up with the connection request.

Now, you may already be well versed with connections and know that you can put this personalised message in the connection request. By all means add another message there too. But in my experience, few people know how to read the connection request. It’s something LinkedIn seems to have neglected to make easy to access.

Sign post your connection request and you’ll avoid being ignored.

Use LinkedIn To Maintain Your Valuable Connections

Converting your new contacts into 1^st degree connections.

We have a vibrant business networking scene in Kent. The Invicta Chamber have some great events to make new contacts. Not least the Kent B2B events themselves.

I primarily think of networking events as an opportunity to meet people who can refer me. I don’t expect to leave with leads, but I do anticipate having a handful of new contacts that can generate introductions to people who will value my services.

Don’t get me wrong; I never say no to a lead.

Networking usually generates a pocketful of business cards for me. Business cards don’t have the richness of data that a LinkedIn profile holds. So converting a business card into a LinkedIn contact is a profitable use of time. No matter how busy I may be.

We can learn more about the new contact from LinkedIn and most importantly, to see their connections. So as in our Group scenario, don’t reach for the connect button just yet.

Send an email to your new contact. Thank them for taking the time to speak with you and share their card. Refer to something in your conversation that will aid their memory of you and then say ever so politely, “I noticed on LinkedIn that we have some contacts in common. It would be great to connect there to ensure we don’t lose touch.”

Then when you receive their reply, send a LinkedIn connection.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool to maintain our contacts and get introduced to new ones. It doesn’t do the job for us. Making connections is personal activity and not to be left to boilerplate messages.

Follow these steps and you’ll increase the effectiveness and the richness of your LinkedIn experience.

Simon Ryan is the Managing Director of the multi-award winning digital marketing firm, Social Advisors. He is a Kent Digital Envoy and a regular speaker on social media.

You can follow him on Twitter @simonjryan

Getting the most from Twitter at LIVE events - with Zoe Cairns from ZC Media

This guest blog comes from social media expert, presenter and trainer Zoe Cairns from ZC Media

• Are you exhibiting this year? 
• Are you attending one of the main business shows in your region? 
• Would you like to engage with the attendees and other exhibitors before meeting them?

You can build and establish a rapport, know-like and trust to accelerate your business relationship with them before attending the event!

This is how……

Pre Event

#Hashtag

Find out what the event hashtag is. The event organiser should display this on their website.

Once discovered you can then go onto twitter and type this hashtag into the search bar. This will then bring up all the tweets and media for this hashtag.

Have a browse through what has already been tweeted, check out the conversation and pictures being shared. Start to engage back with this audience as these are the people and organisations that will be at the event.

If you are using Tweetdeck, Hootsuite or Sendible you can add this hashtag stream to your dashboard and whenever there is a new post with this hashtag you will be notified and kept up to date with the conversation.

Check the event website for exhibitors and find them on twitter

A great way to get your brand in front of other exhibitors to raise brand awareness is to start following them on twitter and engaging with them.

Visit the event’s website and check out who will be exhibiting. You can either then find their twitter link on their website or via the twitter search by typing in their company name.

Once you have found their twitter account follow them and add them to a twitter list called the event name i.e.: KentB2B.

When you follow someone on twitter they are notified that you have followed them. They will then hopefully reciprocate and follow you back.  Again this is great for building brand awareness but also the start of building a business relationship with someone before attending the event.

Engage

Once you have created your twitter list and added the people tweeting with that particular hashtag to the twitter list too, you can then start engaging with these people before the event.

Check your twitter list on a regular basis as to what the contributors are saying, sharing and posting. Engage with them; comment on their posts, share their content if valuable and contribute to their conversation. This will start to build a rapport with those people.

Please note: Don’t stalk them ;-)

Remember to include the hashtag in your tweets and replies. This then means your tweets and replies are included in the conversation stream too.

Tweet about the event

Put together 8-10 tweets about your presence at the event either as an attendee or an exhibitor. Make other people aware that you will be there and start to build that rapport with them before attending.

Let people know what stand you will be on or alternatively tell people you will be visiting the event and who would like a coffee with you?

At the Event

Schedule

If you are exhibiting it is hard to be able to manage your stand and try to tweet throughout the day too. You don’t want to look rude by being on your phone all day!

My suggestion is that you schedule 4-5 tweets throughout the day to post that mentions you, your company and stand and where people can find you.

Be inviting.

Don’t spam with constant selling messages. Give them a good fun reason to come and meet with you.

Use tools such as Hootsuite, Buffer and Sendible to schedule these messages. Remember though you need to be engaging as well. In your comfort breaks and lunch check out the hashtag stream of conversation on the event and engage with the attendees and other exhibitors. Share pictures of your stand, competitions you are running, pictures of your team! Be engaging.

Check your notifications

Make sure someone is checking your twitter notifications whilst at the event. It could be that someone has noticed

your tweet in the conversation stream and is engaging back. It might be that they are wondering what stand you are on, or that they have just met you!

If they have just met you and tweeted mentioning your twitter handle, make sure you re share with all of your followers and with the conversation hashtag stream to show other people. This will increase the reach of your message and brand to the wider audience.

At the Ashford Kent B2B over 1200 tweets were send with over 1.3 million impressions with 800 unique people seeing the tweets. If your message was sent out with the relevant hashtag for the event this would be great brand awareness and exposure for your business!

Engage

Try to engage with as many people as you can who are engaging on the hashtag stream of conversation.  This will get your brand seen by as many of the people contributing to the conversation and also start to build the rapport with those people and companies too.

Post Event

Continue to Engage

Many people after an event will stop engaging and following the people they have engaged with.

I believe this is the most important time to engage with them.

You have spent the last few weeks online and at the event building a rapport, know-like and trust.

Now maintain that relationship with that company to develop into a great referrer, contact or client.

Happy tweeting and engaging!

Zoe