Category Archives: events

HootSuite Presentation View

Posted on June 11, 2011 by ChristinaStallings

I think it is safe the say that the majority of regular Twitter users are divided into two distinct camps when it comes to their Twitter application of choice: HootSuite or Tweetdeck. I started as a Tweetdeck user, but later committed to HootSuite when social media became part of my job and I haven’t looked back since. The program is extremely user friendly, offers time-saving solutions for online community managers and has a proven track record (with me at least) of providing quality customer service and responding promptly to user questions and complaints.

Earlier this week, HootSuite announced a new viewing option available to all users for no charge: HootSuite Presentation View. This new option is designed with Twitter users and hashtag activity associated with conferences and events in mind. According to HootSuite:

During special events – like conferences, speeches, and elections – updates can overwhelm even the quickest of owls. While you can set up a stream to monitor certain keywords, how do you keep an eye on real-time results without refreshing?

The answer: the Presentation View. This view allows users to see updates as they come with a clear and easy interface to show Tweets from all Twitter users – not just those with whom you have a follow/er relationship.

I love a company that understands its users’ interests and anticipates needs.

Being in the association and conference world, my only request for an improvement to Presentation View would be to allow users to customize the theme. Annual meeting signage usually follows a color scheme which is carried throughout the thousands of signs, carpet and drape, bags, printed publications and other telltale components of a conference seen inside and outside of a convention center. What can I say — we like consistency.

Minor kvetch aside, I’m still impressed and pleased with HootSuite for developing this new feature. Well done, owls!

Quick update and some pics!

Posted on January 14, 2011 by ChristinaStallings

I recently traveled to Las Vegas for PCMA – a professional conference for convention planners and related positions in the industry. I had a blast and learned a lot working in the Learning Lounge. I am working on a blog post to share my experience and my takeaways – but just wanted to check in and let you know that it is coming soon!

In the meantime, check out the social media rockstars that I got to brush shoulders with during PCMA!

Chris Brogan, me, Rob Hatch

Co-Founder of LinkedIn, Eric Ly

The beautiful and talented Midori Connolly and Jessica Levin (love these gals!)

My Favorite Tech Tool of the Moment: Google Search Stories for YouTube

Posted on June 26, 2010 by ChristinaStallings

My buddies over at Engage365 recently introduced me to Google Search Stories for YouTube. Search Stories is a simple to use video creator that allows you to enter up to six search queries, select a musical track and upload a pretty professional looking video to YouTube. The possibilities are endless – commercials, product promotions, blog entries, etc.

Until today I had only created one Search Story, a promotional piece to generate excitement for my work’s annual conference. Turns out that my work liked it so much that it is now embedded on our annual conference’s homepage as a featured video!

With Search Stories, you have the ability to set the Search Story to pull the queries from not only the web, but to pull specifically from images, blogs, news, books or products. This combined with the wide range of musical themes to choose from allows you to easily generate the emotion and tone you are going for – whether somber, dramatic, action-packed or silly.

Check out the Search Story I made about the game changing moments I have experienced as a result of social media and the amazing #eventprofs Twitter community. Enjoy!

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Posted in EventCamp10, events, google, social media, tech, twitter and tagged #ec10, #eventprofs, social media. Bookmark the permalink.

One small step for man, one awesome step for this social media nerd.

Posted on March 30, 2010 by ChristinaStallings

Recently, I’ve noticed more talk of social media in my professional life and was thrilled to find myself a part of a meeting last week where social media was not only an agenda item, but one that generated a lively and contemplative conversation. In my opinion and from the perspective of the now-exposed-office-social-media-nerd, these are exciting steps in a really cool direction!

I couldn’t help but get over my usually timid attitude and pipe in at some points during the discussion (in spite of the annoyingly telling shakiness in my voice) and many of my comments were met with interest and surprise.

The Background

You see, while I will gladly talk social media with my #eventprofs peers and the various Twitter mavens I’ve befriended . . . and even bring it up at times to my girlfriends who haven’t yet seen this side of me and look at me like I’m speaking another language . . . and regularly watch my husband’s eyes glaze over as I excitedly fill him in on the latest drama reported by Mashable or Bnet . . . I don’t really bring social media up much at work. Why? My position doesn’t really encompass it and I have maintained it mostly as just that – a personal hobby.

The News

On Monday, this recently changed when I was asked to . . . drum roll, please . . .

Develop a social media proposal !!

It took just about all I had to maintain composure and not jump out of my chair and run around in circles. I am so thrilled, excited and flattered that I have been given the opportunity to look at social media through professional eyes and not just from the personal perspective of someone who simply finds it fascinating.

Drafting the proposal will obviously be a big learning experience for me as I will now have to really, I mean really, think about and evaluate social media on a different level, the level of a professional organization – not just as a personal interest or something I’d like to one day see implemented in my 9 – 5 world. This means thinking about potential challenges and opportunities from many perspectives – because as we all know – social media is a big deal these days, and while it can potentially be a big success for a company . . . there have been many instances where it is a well-intentioned, but dismal and embarrassing failure.

So thank you to the Rich Meyer’s, Scott Woodruff’s, Jeff Hurt’s, Traci Browne’s, Jenise Fryatt’s and Michael McCurry’s of the world for blogging, Tweeting and collaboratively sharing your valuable insights and being great resources. You have not only fueled a personal passion but enable me to translate personal development to professional as well.

(closes laptop, jumps out of chair and runs in circles)

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Posted in events, professional development, social media, twitter and tagged non-profits, social media. Bookmark the permalink.

A brief (but promising) chat about medical societies and social media.

Posted on March 17, 2010 by ChristinaStallings

Earlier this week I had the great opportunity to attend a large medical conference with an ‘exhibits only’ pass. The goal in attending the meeting was to look for innovative tactics utilized to enhance the exhibits experience for meeting attendees and exhibitors and meet with our counterparts at the association who were putting on the meeting to discuss strategy.

It was an awesome opportunity and I had been very excited ever since I found out I was able to go. What I hoped for was to encourage the flow of creative energy, and while that goal was achieved, I also happened to unexpectedly meet a couple of my exhibitor contacts face-to-face for the first time. There is just something about putting a face to the name that takes the relationship to a whole new level. (unrelated to the post, but still a cool and unexpected perk of this opportunity. . . I digress)

Back to the point. I’ll go ahead and admit that I had (unsurprisingly) sought out and followed the association’s social media efforts in the weeks prior to the meeting, mainly by monitoring their various Twitter accounts (and some of the more vocal attendees’ accounts) on a regular basis. I was pleasantly surprised to see a medical society utilizing social media, and on a seemingly regular basis as well as in conjunction with their annual meeting.

While I was in the association’s booth on the exhibit hall floor discussing the evolution of their presence in the exhibit hall, I mentioned that I was interested in meeting whoever was handling their social media initiatives.

A couple of minutes later, I did just that. After introducing myself and admitting my recent stint of stalking her social media efforts, I learned that she had been an employee of the association for some time now, in the advocacy department, and one of her responsibilities was maintaining a blog. The leadership recognized the value and need for a social media presence, as well as her natural talent for communicating via social networks, and eventually transitioned her into a newly created position in the communications and marketing department, handling organization-wide social media initiatives.

As someone who has a pretty strong grasp of social media and a particular interest in how medical societies are (or are not) using it, I’ve been pretty impressed with her efforts. Their membership consists of doctors, which usually tend to not be as active on social media or at least open to it off the bat. (I realize there are significant exceptions, there is no need to point this out to me. In this particular situation though, it applies).

However, over the past seven days, and as of this post’s publication, there have been 1,142 tweets, from 201 contributors, and an average of 163 tweets per day associated with the official conference hashtag. These are not mind blowing statistics. However, based on unique circumstances and in comparison to similar meetings, these statistics are worth mentioning. Based on the association’s seemingly well thought out strategy and implementation, I won’t be surprised to see them grow in the future.

However insignificant the numbers may seem in comparison to more mainstream meetings – being in a similar environment, I was impressed. I was impressed more than anything by the association’s willingness to experiment with what many associations seem to be intimidated by or completely ignore.

She explained to me that they have a few main accounts representing the organization that she and a couple other designated staff work together to maintain, as well as some sub-accounts (like their 2010 annual meeting and their 2010 expo account) that come into play as needed. Because the association offers so many different areas of interest to their members, one account wouldn’t be sufficient to get the right message to the right folks. Simply put, this works for them.

Unfortunately, since she and the rest of her co-workers were mid-annual meeting and likely pulling 14-hour days, we didn’t have long to talk. But, I was motivated by her story and impressed with both her individual efforts and those of the association, and felt the need to share.

Things I wish I had the opportunity to ask her during our brief chat:

Were there struggles along the way to your transition to convince key staff of social media’s potential value and importance?
What social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) have you been the most succcessful in engaging members and attendees?
How do you plan to keep the conversation/buzz going year-round, as opposed to just annual meeting-centric?
What social networks did you put the most effort into and what was the result? Success? Failures? Things to tweak?
If she was aware of or had she considered using online event communities, like the Social Collective? Pro’s/con’s/potential challenges?

Either way, it was definitely a pleasure meeting her. I got her card and plan to reach out to her in the future with these type of questions and more . . . while continuing to (stalk) watch her social media efforts.

We are all in this together, right?

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Posted in events, social media, tradeshows, twitter and tagged #medmtgs, association dynamics, medical societies. Bookmark the permalink.

EventCamp2010 Series – Post V

Posted on February 11, 2010 by ChristinaStallings

The Ultimate Balancing Act: Hybrid Events

Jeff Hurt opened his EventCamp breakout, Meeting the Needs of Face-to-Face & Virtual Audiences, with some tough questions:

How do you keep content relevant for both types of attendees?
How do you keep the connection with both types of attendees in sync?
How do you determine the right balance and pay attention closely enough to ensure you maintain it?
How do you keep from alienating one segment?
Do we understand learning and listening behavior?

And more importantly . . .

What is the profile of the person responsible for your social media initiatives?

Jeff warned against going with a social media silo. You should be aiming for a social media champion. Someone who lives, eats and breathes social media. They are passionate and excited about it and literally perk up anytime they hear social media come up in conversation. They are more than willing to educate co-workers, demonstrate its value, and show people how relevant it can be to your interests and goals.

Jeff advised that you check out your prospective social media champion’s footprint in the social media world. Are they already blogging? Does their blog attract any attention? Are they actively reading and commenting on other relevant blogs? Are they on Twitter, etc?

Some people in the session felt that a social media career is short-lived. I think it depends on the industry you are in. If it doesn’t align with your goals to have an “online community manager” maybe it would be a better fit for you to divide the responsibilities over the marketing department or designated representatives throughout the company.

The latter brings up yet another concern I hear far too often: If I allow representatives from each department, or even the whole company to represent our brand in social media, I’ll lose control!

Jeff’s take?

Wake up. Enter Web 2.0, attendee 2.0, customer 2.0, and well, EVERYTHING 2.0.

Control is history.

Your best bet is to welcome the communication revolution instead of hiding. Listen, learn, set appropriate ground rules and get your feet wet.

Or just pretend it’s not there, and risk being a headline in a social media public relations nightmare like these folks . . .

United Airlines Gets the Viral Video Treatment It Never Wanted

“Motrin moms,” a-Twitter over ad, take on Big Pharma–And win

Local News Commits a Twitter-Induced Billboard FAIL

Paul Salinger was also in this session and explained how companies like Oracle are moving towards a hybrid model – they are developing specific guidelines about what employees can and cannot do, especially when they are representing the brand. These guidelines are not in place to control them, but to ensure that the brand is not unintentionally misrepresented. He agreed with Jeff that control is history – addressing concerns and setting guidelines is the most appropriate course of action.

Clearly, there is a need for social media guidelines in the workplace. Jeff told us that one in five companies currently have social media guidelines in place. He encouraged us to take a look at existing social media policies and adapt as needed.

Jeff said it best: You trust them to represent your brand on the phone and e-mail. Why don’t you trust them online . . . on LinkedIn . . . Facebook?

How does this relate to hybrid events?

He encouraged us to teach the culture of listening.

Listen to your attendees weeks before the event. This will prepare you to be ready to respond right away on-site. Empower your staff to become the concierge and run interference.

Be sure to utilize your laptop to communicate during the event. Even the face-to-face audience will use virtual to communicate with the panel and live attendees.

During several EventCamp sessions, there were assigned moderators with the task of watching the virtual audience via the Tweetstream for questions/comments/complaints/revolts and the speaker would check in with that moderator throughout the session.

Some other great ideas from Jeff on engaging the virtual and face-to-face audience to create successful hybrid events:

Every 20 or 30 minutes, have the presenter assign the live participants an activity to keep them busy/engaged. During that time, turn to the virtual audience exclusively, giving a recap or some other personal line of communication that will take their virtual participation to the next level.
- This was perfectly demonstrated at EventCamp. Being that we had none other than the beautiful and talented tradeshow presenter Emilie Barta in attendance, our quick-thinking EventCamp organizers put her to work. On the fly, she graciously interviewed speakers at the conclusion of their session on the webcast, specifically for the virtual audience.

It doesn’t always have to be live-action for virtual participants. Archive it. That way, remote attendees who were unable to log on during the live talk can access the archive at a time when they are able to tune out distractions.
- (Trust me, as much as I’d love to participate in the many free virtual events out there, 9am – 5pm, Monday through Friday more than likely isn’t going to fly for me, or more importantly my employer, as is probably the case with many of you out there. Make it an option for us to view it outside of those times, when we can give it our full attention.)

Generate interest through bite-sized clips. The virtual audience has a short attention span and high expectations. Short, ten-minute clips with quality content will generate interest.

Recognize that virtual and live are different, with different pro’s and con’s

Train your presenters to open with a question specifically to the virtual audience, like “Who’s out there and where are you joining us from?” You will know because of the technology involved with virtual how many people are watching and often, who is watching. If only three of 15 participants respond, call out some of the others who are not fully engaged with a friendly, “Hey, name, I don’t think I heard from you. Are you there?”

How do you engage late adopters? Teach them – the biggest mistake we can make is assuming they already get it. Nurture your members to be able to use and appreciate the tools.

Have virtual attendees meet up face-to-face regionally (think Superbowl party style) so they can enjoy the benefits of face-to-face while participating with other virtual attendees. Assign a moderator. Be sure to prep the presenter to engage with them.

Several months back over the phone, Mike McCurry described Jeff Hurt as a “change agent”. At the time I don’t think I quite grasped what he really meant.

Little did I know that Mike and Google really hit the nail on the head in this case:

Change agent:

An individual recruited prior to implementation of a change; must be representative of the user population, understand the reasoning behind the change, and help to communicate the excitement, possibilities, and details of the change to others within the organization.

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Posted in EventCamp10, events, social media, tech and tagged #ec10, #eventprofs, hybrid events. Bookmark the permalink.

EventCamp2010 Series – Post IV

Posted on February 10, 2010 by ChristinaStallings

Evolution of Online Networking Platforms and the Events Industry

In a lively breakout panel moderated by Jessica Levin, Clinton Bonner of The Social Collective and Tony Veroeven of Omnipress discussed the tools, potential value and best practices surrounding online conference communities.

Needs Assessment: What should you consider when trying to determine if these online community tools are right for your event?

The panelists agree that we are currently in Event Community 1.0 and people are very quick to turn down new platforms without much of an effort to see what they have to offer.

Ray Hansen really made this point stick with me when he explained later that day it’s important we remind ourselves that this technology is very new. We are a group of tech savvy people in the events industry, so more than anyone else, we are responsible for giving new technology a fair shot. Sometimes, we are all a bit too skeptical too early into trying something new and this is no different for event technology.

Some key takeaways from the panel

Proximity-based alerts encourage participation/engagement (imagine how cool that would be for a mobile tradeshow scavenger hunt!)

Even without the proximity-based alerts, you could easily incorporate an exhibit hall passport program on mobile versions of these platforms

What happens when negative comments from attendees pop-up in the online community? Address it promptly and politely. Offer an alternative or a solution

Attendees will ask “What’s in it for me?” when deciding whether the online community is worth their time. The most important thing is to show a specific win right off the bat. Prove that the online platform is not just a LinkedIn or Facebook mash-up

Need a communications plan to reach out to them – before, during and after the event

People go to events to learn, but also to network. They are hoping to meet the right people. (This is a great example of what these online platforms can offer that other sites like LinkedIn and Facebook do not. However, LinkedIn keeps evolving their events application and may eventually offer this as well. What can the other platforms do to stay ahead?)

Seamless integration, syncing to registration pages, etc. is a must

Some groups just aren’t ready for these platforms . . . yet. (The example given for this was doctors and lawyers. I don’t know about lawyers, but I think that with easily-accessible education/how-to’s from show management, doctors could really see some value in these online community platforms.)

Show management needs to be a cheerleader in promoting awareness of the medium and educate attendees how to use it and the potential value

A sleek interface for a mobile version of the platform is a must. We want the technology on our phones just as much, if not more than on a laptop. (apparently, a mobile version of the EventCamp platform was available, but I didn’t know this at the time)

Some other thoughts . . .

Is there an option for live chat in any of these platforms, besides Twebevent?

Is there a way you can see who else is “viewing now”? That may encourage interaction and participation.

It would be fun and engaging to have a Flicker-type application embedded within the platform. (Does this already exist and I missed it?)

I’d like to have the option to add or vote on specific things I hope the speaker addresses during a session in a public area.

Why not allow sponsors to purchase the ability to (or have complimentary access to, as a sponsor benefit) hold a focus group on these platforms in conjunction with EventCamp 2011? It could be a lunchtime option for a limited number of attendees that fit the appropriate demographic. The general target audience is there already, and the focus groups could potentially offset some of the costs associated with running EventCamp, while giving the sponsor ideas and feedback.

I would like to be able to tag specific conversations, similar to Google Reader, on these platforms. It loses value for me, when I get a digest in my inbox at the end of the day with numerous conversations on topics that may or may not be relevant to me. If there was a way to easily navigate, tag, and filter the conversations (like in Google Reader), I’d be less likely to get overwhelmed and just delete the digest.

This breakout was certainly a hot topic, with tons of questions (some skeptical, some not) from both virtual and live attendees.

I really appreciate the panelists’ willingness to participate in this type of forum. When you’re brave enough to sit on a panel where the pro’s and con’s of your specific product are up for debate, that simply speaks volumes about you and how you run your business.

Thank you, Clinton and Tony for sharing your honest and valuable insight. This breakout definitely opened up my eyes on some things and I learned a lot!

3 Comments

Posted in EventCamp10, events, professional development, social media, tech and tagged #ec10, #eventprofs, online community. Bookmark the permalink.

EventCamp Series – Post III

Posted on February 9, 2010 by ChristinaStallings

Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime.

Leave it to good ol’ Samuel J. Smith to shake things up at EventCamp. One of the most unique, and now talked about, sessions at EventCamp was his breakout, innocently titled “Integrating Social Media On-Site”.

Sam started off his presentation with a short video about the power of social media. Unfortunately, I was sitting towards the back of the room and wasn’t fast enough to catch everything, but here is the gist of what I considered to be the most powerful takeaway from the video:

TELL ME . . . and I’ll forget

SHOW ME . . . and I may remember

INVOLVE ME . . . and I’ll understand

[sidebar: Sam, can you please post the video online? I think we’d all like to see it again and/or share with colleagues]

After the video, Sam had us rearrange the seats fishbowl-style, a circle, with 4 or 5 seats in the middle. The goal of the fishbowl is to have an informal panel, constantly changing, with the goal of garnering dialogue from a variety of viewpoints and keeping things interesting. Sam’s role as moderator/facilitator was to ensure that interested participants got a chance to speak and that the discussion didn’t veer off topic.

To get things started, Sam fed us some “fish food” by asking the group about current usage of social media by attendees? The group agreed that most people are using social media, at least on *some* level. From Flicker, to Facebook, to message boards, to listserves, to Twitter, to YouTube, most people have at least a small amount of experience with at least one social media medium.

The trick is to find what your people are using, how they are using it, and optimize it.

To really get the conversation going, Sam asked us a question that we should constantly consider when delving into social media – How can you create value for your members so they will TRY social media?

Key Takeaways

Announcements

Use it to push out updates to schedule, sessions, events, etc.

Customer Service

Someone gave an example of an exhibitor complaining via Twitter about not being able to set up their booth the same day they arrived. Show management immediately responded via Twitter with an apology and a promise to revise their policies for future events. This response was enough to satisfy the annoyed exhibitor.

(I apologize to whoever gave this example; I didn’t get your name in the notes. Let me know if it was you.)

Creating Experiences Requires a Comfort Level

As the organizer of the event, it is our responsibility to create a social media environment at the event, meaning interactions are safe, available, and interested attendees will join in. It’s not just about the tools, it’s important to nurture the environment.

Help Your Attendees

Remember when you first joined Twitter? It seemed pointless, confusing . . . until you found “your people”. Remember when you found the #eventprofs, #assnchat or #tradeshows hashtags? Finding people with relevant interests in social media is key. Help your attendees along the way – that is the only way they will be truly engaged participants.

Thank you Sam, for introducing us to this neat session format and for providing great fish food!

As always, if I missed anything, or if you have anything to add, please do so in the comments below!

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Posted in EventCamp10, events, professional development, social media and tagged #ec10, #eventprofs, #fishbowl. Bookmark the permalink.

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Category Archives: events

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The Ultimate Balancing Act: Hybrid Events

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Evolution of Online Networking Platforms and the Events Industry

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Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime.

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