Warning! This post is not for the average exhibitor. It for the select group of marketers who have an avid blogger(s) on their team. On the blog, Expo Rep from Map-Dynamics, they wrote a post titled Live Blogging From Your Trade Show Booth To Increase Traffic & Exposure. There are several points I would like to share with you from that post, and then add a couple of my recommendations.
First of all, the concept will scare some marketers who struggle to produce frequent posts for their blog. However, a few brave marketers will seize this opportunity and leverage it with amazing results. It has been proven that fresh content via blogs can influence your search rankings. Google smiles on sites that provide quality content on a regular basis.
Live blogging plus social media from a show allows an exhibitor to feed content, not only on their website, but permeate the Internet. Exposure for an exhibitor’s product/service can be heighten with this unique marketing effort.
The Map-Dynamics post starts with this question:
Have you ever considered live blogging from your booth at your next trade show?
The art, or technique, of live blogging is something that can be leveraged at trade shows. If live blogging is done right, it can become a huge factor at driving traffic and awareness to your booth, and ultimately bring in leads for your business.
After all, aren’t leads one of the primary objectives for setting up a booth at a trade show?
The post continues with this information:
So assuming that there’s sufficient WiFi coverage at the trade show, in order to start live blogging from your booth you need your laptop and a company blog.
You can share images, text updates, and even video. All of this content is super easy to build and even easier to share on your company blog.
Take this ‘live blogging’ concept one step further, and you can also syndicate your live blogging updates about your trade show to other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Better yet, in the midst of all of this live blogging from the trade show, you can start having contests and free give away’s to anyone who comes to your booth to check in via Facebook or Foursquare.
Simply start with the live blogging, continually updating your blog with new updates, events, pictures, and videos and then start sharing that content throughout other social media platforms.
The one catch here is that in order to successfully live blog from your trade show, you’ll need someone dedicated and committed to updating content throughout the duration of the trade show.
This live blogging concept should be consider by marketers who have a robust blog currently and a large readership. Typically, readers are interested in the “happenings” of the company who posts content. If this company is an exhibitor and they have newsworthy information, they will want to join the conversation.
Other content generation ideas for the live blogging event could be:
- Interviews with speakers, industry thought leaders, or your senior management.
- Video tape conversations with the attendees on what conference sessions they thought were impressive and why. Another conversation topic could be their business problem and the solution they looking to find on the show floor.
- Highlight other bloggers who are covering the trade show either via pictures, audio interviews or video.
The media reach that can be accomplished via this effort can pay off handsomely with extended coverage of your company, product/service and staff. Your reach will travel well beyond the show floor to the audience who could not make it to the event.
Have any of you participated in a live trade show blogging effort? We would appreciate your thoughts or the advice you would give a fellow exhibitor attempting this marketing feat.